|
|
| # ? Apr 29, 2024 15:53 |
|
|
Updated as of Ep. 26, mild spoilers are tagged Important Characters We've Met So Far (click for pictures) Nora tribe Tribe that occupies the eastern portion of the map, known as the Sacred Lands. A matriarchal society that worships the All-Mother, symbolized by a mountain. The tribe is ruled by High Matriarchs. All or most crimes seem to be punished by shunning. Dealt a heavy blow by the events of Zero Dawn Aloy Our main character, now with better hair Varl One of Aloy's friends, now with facial hair he shaved it off nooooo Carja tribe Tribe that lives in the lands west of the Nora. Worships the sun and is ruled by the Sun King. They were at war with the Nora and other neighboring tribes for about 10 years, which ended 2 years prior to the events of the main game. After the end of a civil war, they now seem to be on the path of peace and mending relations with the neighbors. Their capital, Meridian, is still recovering from the battle with Eclipse/Hades. Avad The current Sun King, still carrying a torch for Aloy Nasadi and Itamen Avad's stepmother and half-brother respectively. Seem much happier after being rescued Uthid and Vanasha A former Carja soldier and a spy respectively, both helped Aloy in the battle against Eclipse/Hades Javad Magistrate of Chainscrape, seems to be doing his best to run the place but something's not working Studious Vuadis Guy that got sent to represent the Carja at the Embassy, kind of an a-hole, loves scrolls Fashav Avad's cousin, who got taken prisoner by the Tenakth and became a Marshal dies about 5 minutes after we meet him during the attack on the Embassy Oseram tribe Tribe that occupies The Claim (location in relation to the Nora Sacred Lands unknown). Known for their drinking, tinkering, delving and arguing. Basically post-apocalyptic dwarves. ErendFriend of Aloy's, still in the Vanguard and assigned to help with the Embassy at Barren Light, fortunately for us Petra Former leader of Free Heap, now trying to help at Chainscrape. Always up for a cold beer Ulvund The de facto head of Chainscrape. A huge dick that no one likes Delah and Boomer Sisters who run a weapon stall, like to invent new things that may or may not work Tenakth tribe tribe that occupies large parts of the Forbidden West, split into 3 clans (Desert, Sky, and Lowland). Currently undergoing a civil war Regalla Leader of the rebels Hekarro Current Chief, originally from the Lowland clan Dekka Chaplain of the Memorial Grove, originally from the Lowland clan, AKA Battle Grandma Kotallo One of Hekarro's Marshals, our new best friend Drakka Member of the Desert clan, has beef with Commander Yarra Yarra Commander of the Desert clan, has beef with Drakka Meat Pet vulture of the Desert clan Masked Rider AKA Machine Stig Mysterious guy who hangs out with the gang running the Gauntlet Runs Tekotteh Commander of the Sky clan, arrogant poo poo Utaru tribe vegetarian farmers who live just east of the Tenakth, noted for worshipping machines as Land Gods and having their villages all named after something to do with music Zo Utaru Gravesinger who Aloy meets in Stone's Echo, has a thing going on with Varl The Old World Inhabitants of the world prior to the apocolypse Ted Faro (not pictured) The one responsible for the end of the world, gently caress this guy Elizabet Sobeck Aloy's genetic progenitor/"mom" and the scientist behind GAIA and Project Zero Dawn Travis Tate Project Lead/Alpha of the HADES subfunction. The most entertaining of the bunch, therefore gets the most screentime Other Sylens Magnificent bastard, no one's really sure what this guy is up to or where he came from, but he's still one of the best characters Rainbow Shield People A group encountered at the Hades Proving Lab, have rainbow/holographic impervious shields and are generally dicks Female Stranger Seems to be the most reasonable of the group Male Stranger Seems to be the leader of the group Male Stranger 2/Erik rear end in a top hat we fight an unwinnable boss fight against Beta Another clone of Elizabet Sobeck, motives and reasons for being with these assholes not yet clear Machines We've Encountered So Far (click for pictures) Burrower Trash mobs of the west, annoying but makes up for it by being adorable Scrounger I have no idea how these are different from Scrappers but they can kick your rear end at low levels Fanghorn Deer that can shoot fire, that's about all there is to them Bristleback Warthogs that like to cannonball on top of you ChargerReturnee from Zero Dawn, a ram that likes to go fast Skydrifter Flying machines that have spiky tails that you'll need to collect Scrapper Another returnee from Zero Dawn, now with plasma attacks Leaplasher Kangaroo assholes that build upon the annoyance of Glinthawks in Zero Dawn, I tend to call them Leapslashers and still think that's a better name  Shell Walker Returning from Zero Dawn, much harder now that you don't have as many weapons with tearblast (now tear precision) arrows Clawstrider Velociraptors with spiky tails to collect, can and will kick your rear end Lancehorn Another old friend from Zero Dawn, not much changed Glinthawk Back again for more punishment, not as annoying this time around Longleg Returning from Zero Dawn, still has a concussion sac to blow up Thunderjaw Back again, they're not just going to leave out the one on the front of the last game's box, right? Shellsnapper Armored turtles with rockets on their backs, some of the most annoying things to fight in the game Widemaw Giant hippos that have vacuum attacks. Annoying since you need their tusks for upgrades Ravager Another returnee from Zero Dawn, still has a laser cannon you can shoot off Grazer Back from Zero Dawn and essentially the same Bellowback Also returning from Zero Dawn, don't pop the sacks this time since you need them to upgrade stuff Plowhorn Triceratops! Acts as the land-gods for the Utaru Spikesnout Anteaters that spray berserk juice and acid Tremortusk Murder mammoths with rocket launchers Soundtrack Spotlight Whatever Comes Plays in the story trailer Aloy's Theme-Forbidden West Main menu music In The Flood Plays during the opening credits The World On Her Shoulders Plays when Aloy's climbing very high places Savior of Meridian Plays during the interlude that follows the tutorial, remix of "City on the Mesa" Storm On The Rise Plays during combat sometimes Steel The Mind Another combat track Off the Trail General running around track The Chorus Plays when we approach Plainsong the first time Solace Beneath the Stars Nighttime running around track Shoulders of Giants Plays when fighting Thunderjaws and Stormbirds coop52 fucked around with this message at 00:45 on Apr 1, 2024 |
#
?
Jan 2, 2024 00:57
|
|
|
UPDATE Ep. 1 Hair Goals Ep. 1a Hair Goals (no commentary over cutscenes) Hello again internet, time to head out west! I really like Forbidden West's tutorial. It's a bit of a jolt coming from being overpowered in Zero Dawn to getting my rear end kicked in the tutorial area. To be fair, according to Guerilla they made the machine AI better, which makes combat harder. Burrowers are really cute but overused considering just how many machine types we have in this game. Scroungers seem just like Scrappers in the niche they're supposed to fill, but they hit like a truck and can be fatal at lower levels. Also, forever lol. 
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2024 01:05
|
|
|
Does Aloy start with a bunch of endgame HZD gear/skills or is there an offscrean power drain and she's back to square one?
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2024 02:07
|
|
|
Back to square one equipment, handwaved as "lost my gear". The only thing that we get is the starter outfit which is a broken Shield Weaver that does jack poo poo at protecting you. There are a handful of early game skills from HZD that you have by default.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2024 12:18
|
|
|
UPDATE Ep. 2 A Musical Interlude Ep. 2a A Musical Interlude(no commentary over cutscenes) First boss fight! Slitherfangs are pretty annoying to fight, but the one in the tutorial is fortunately toned down. I saw on Reddit where someone tracked Aloy's path in the Zero Dawn map for the opening credit sequence; I'll post it when I find it. She goes all over creation, but I guess at least it's scenic. Edit: Found it!  We'll be in the game proper in the next episode, yay! I like the tutorial but it's a little bit on the long side. coop52 fucked around with this message at 00:42 on Jan 4, 2024 |
|
#
?
Jan 4, 2024 00:39
|
|
|
The peach fuzz had some people complaining she had a beard, I suddenly learned I could parse Spanish just fine when someone made fun of them "Gamepass does not include contact with a woman." This game does suffer from being too pretty at times, especially when you're busy, there's so much to see that important things get lost in visual noise, they do try to highlight things to counter that but it's not quite as effective as it would need to be.
|
|
#
?
Jan 4, 2024 02:16
|
|
|
UPDATE Ep. 3 What's new Bristleback? (whoa whoa whoa) Ep. 3a What's new Bristleback? (whoa whoa whoa) (no commentary over cutscenes) More reunions this episode! I'm glad they brought back Petra. The scene in the bar was a nice way to deliver some exposition without making it too boring. This quest is still kind of an extension of the tutorial since there aren't really any side quests or other activities available until you complete it, can't even go shopping.
|
|
#
?
Jan 7, 2024 21:32
|
|
|
Good job so far on update titles. I was laughing my head off at “What’s new, Bristleback?” 
|
|
#
?
Jan 7, 2024 22:05
|
|
|
UPDATE Ep. 4 The Ulvund Haters Club Sidequest time, this time with kind of a theme. Most of the Daunt sidequests involve something having to with Ulvund and just how bad a mayor/leader/whatever he is. Forbidden West is full of great NPCs, and Delah and Boomer are a couple of my favorites. The reward from their quest is pretty good too.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2024 02:27
|
|
|
UPDATE Ep. 5 Let's Play Board Games Forbidden West added a ton more side activities you can do; we won't get access to all of them until much later. They vary in quality greatly, imo. Melee Pits are pretty low on my list, Vistas are kind of disappointing compared with the Vantages from Zero Dawn, and Machine Strike is kind of meh. I do generally enjoy the Ruins though.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2024 22:43
|
|
|
UPDATE Ep. 6 Hunting Grounds of Shame Our friend the Hunting Grounds is back. This particular one is pretty similar to Zero Dawn's first hunting grounds in that it's themed around environmental hazards/traps, with some of the same annoyances. That third trial is where I gave up on Hunting Grounds entirely on my first playthrough. I will come back at some point to complete it. We also get a minor collectable in the Daunt with the Signal Lenses. The rewards for completing are only really good at the beginning; don't hold off on doing this one if you're playing along at home.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2024 00:31
|
|
|
UPDATE Ep. 7 Someone Help, My Cult Is Dying Revisiting the melee pits: they're officially awful. I'm not sure why they thought it'd be a good idea to introduce fighting game mechanics into an action RPG, but what do I know. The Twilight Path is a nice little sidequest that also kills two birds by being a location for one of our signal lens towers.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2024 02:29
|
|
|
The melee pits suck because of the proscribed combos. You can’t get a lot of them right no matter what you do. I somehow got them all on my second playthrough but it was tough and I don’t think I could do it again. Machine Strike was mostly fun at least.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2024 08:30
|
|
|
UPDATE Ep. 8 I hope this Embassy thing goes well Ep.8a I hope this Embassy thing goes well (no commentary over cutscenes) Continuing on with the story; after this video we finally get to see more of the map. The Embassy is almost a repeat of the Proving in Zero Dawn as far as plot beats in the grand scheme of the story go, but the gameplay is more challenging imo. It's pretty easy to die here if you don't know what's coming.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2024 02:10
|
|
|
UPDATE Ep. 9 Show me your tail; give me your horn Lots of activities and side quest stuff is now open to us, including our first Tallneck! Salvage contracts are basically hunts, where you are assigned to get parts from a specific machine. You can get some decent rewards from doing them. There are a few contractors scattered throughout the map, and each one has 4-5 contracts to fulfill. Bandit camps are now Rebel camps and come in two flavors: outpost and camp. They usually have pretty good loot. If you're stealthy, you can sneak in and complete them without clearing out the rebels. As mentioned in the video, the human enemies now have face masks making it much harder to headshot them, at least at this point in the game. Using stealth and Silent Strike is a great way to take them out. I'm not that patient though.
|
|
#
?
Jan 28, 2024 15:44
|
|
|
UPDATE Ep. 10 This one time at rebel camp... More side activities today. I really like the final salvage contract for this area; mounted combat is fun. This is our first Rebel Camp, which as you can see is a little more involved than the Rebel Outposts.
|
|
#
?
Feb 1, 2024 01:25
|
|
|
UPDATE Ep. 11 Woooo We're coming to the end of the side stuff available to us for this section of the map. Survey Drones are the  est collectable imo. Blackboxes are pretty neat.
|
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2024 14:22
|
|
|
I've just caught up with ep 4 and wow, I want to find whichever dev had the idea to let you just flat-out buy animal parts and shake them by the hand. As well as the QoL improvement it just makes so much sense in-world!
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2024 22:35
|
|
|
UPDATE Ep. 12-1 The Worst Main Quest in the Game Part 1 Ep. 12-1a The Worst Main Quest in the Game Part 1 (no commentary over cutscenes) Ep. 12-2 The Worst Main Quest in the Game Part 2 Ep. 12-2a The Worst Main Quest in the Game Part 2 (no commentary over cutscenes) Continuing on with the story. The good parts of this quest are the formal introduction to the Utaru and Zo as well as more Travis stuff. The main part of the quest combines some of my least favorite things: platforming areas where you're punished by lengthy backtracking, boss fights where you can't win, and swimming where you can't see where you're going. With the Igniter, you can backtrack to get some goodies such as Greenshine. You also need it to complete some ruins and side quests, as demonstrated in the video. I really like these ruins; the battery puzzle is pretty clever. inflatablefish posted:I've just caught up with ep 4 and wow, I want to find whichever dev had the idea to let you just flat-out buy animal parts and shake them by the hand. As well as the QoL improvement it just makes so much sense in-world! Agreed, it's really one of the best features in the game.
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2024 01:28
|
|
|
UPDATE Ep. 13 Teenage Mutant Armored Turtles Back to sidequesting for a few episodes. We have the return of another old friend from Zero Dawn! Also the ending of the Eclipse questline.
|
|
#
?
Feb 12, 2024 01:42
|
|
|
UPDATE Ep.14 The kitty cat says (Cauldron) Mu Yay, first Cauldron of the game! It comes a bit later in the game than the first one in Zero Dawn did. Forbidden West introduces a new bullshit mechanic here in the form of partially unlocked overrides. As mentioned in the video, we'll have to wait a bit to do anything about those, and it'll involve grinding for parts to get completely unlocked overrides for those machines. Each Cauldron has a few machines like this.
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2024 01:11
|
|
|
The ziplines always make me laugh, going at angles that'll make Aloy reach reentry speeds and somehow land safely, of all the climbing and parkour things they are the one thing that breaks face.
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2024 17:30
|
|
|
Don’t forget when she jumps from one zip line to another going a different direction. That always makes me shake my head in wonder at her acrobatics.
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2024 17:51
|
|
|
She's actually a psychic unconsciously channeling her powers and that explains her amazing damage resistance and ability to do those impossible stunts consistently, pulling 20 G turns without batting an eye.
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2024 19:48
|
|
|
UPDATE Ep. 15 Sleight of Crate all over again Another day, another Hunting Grounds. This time is Forbidden West's version of the stealth grounds. It feels cheap that two out of the three challenges were basically identical to the ones in Zero Dawn. The gliding challenge is neat. In hindsight, I should have gotten a stealth outfit to make life a bit easier. The ruins in this area are pretty fun. They feature another great, physics defining ability: pushing around rusty train cars.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2024 01:17
|
|
|
coop52 posted:Revisiting the melee pits: they're officially awful. I'm not sure why they thought it'd be a good idea to introduce fighting game mechanics into an action RPG, but what do I know. I'm currently 20 minutes into this one, kind of mystified. On the one hand, the tutorial design is bad by not giving a clearer indication as to what is wrong ... on the other hand one would expect that when a move is titled Block Breaker, that someone would intuit that you wait until the thing you are fighting is BLOCKING before it will actually do anything. The actual combat challenge, on the other hand, seems more clear. Defeat the enemy with the move. Not spam the move over and over until the enemy is defeated. Just beat the enemy down as quickly as possible -- wait for them to block -- and then use the move as a finisher. The trainer is actively shouting the solution at you during the fight.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2024 07:12
|
|
|
EricFate posted:I'm currently 20 minutes into this one, kind of mystified. The title Block Breaker is a bit of a misnomer; it'll break the enemy's defense and stun lock them regardless if they're blocking attacks or not. After doing research (and beating this challenge finally in this most recent recording session) the dumb thing is that spamming the move is the quickest way to beat the challenge. The issue I had previously was timing of the button presses. The game doesn't really give you any feedback on what you're doing wrong or right until you actually hit the combo and see the little pop up text for getting Valor for it. Though I'll happily admit that most of the problem is that I'm just bad  MrFancyPants has a great guide on melee combat in general if anyone's interested (mild spoilers for future melee pits): Link
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2024 12:54
|
|
|
coop52 posted:The title Block Breaker is a bit of a misnomer; it'll break the enemy's defense and stun lock them regardless if they're blocking attacks or not. After doing research (and beating this challenge finally in this most recent recording session) the dumb thing is that spamming the move is the quickest way to beat the challenge. The issue I had previously was timing of the button presses. The game doesn't really give you any feedback on what you're doing wrong or right until you actually hit the combo and see the little pop up text for getting Valor for it. Though I'll happily admit that most of the problem is that I'm just bad This is painfully true. I think the main issue I had with the melee in this game is that while it gives you all sorts of interesting sounding counters -- there just aren't a whole lot of visual or sound queues to let you know when they might be effective. The only exception is the one you showed off earlier where you get to add a temporary weak point to an enemy for you to shoot -- which the designers thankfully implemented in a way that falls in line with everything else you have already learned as a player. (Which is, glowing thing = weak point.)
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2024 18:33
|
|
|
There was this thing when the game released, about some of its devs finding that Elden Ring had bad UI, and they were wrong about the bad UI, it's not where they thought it was, this game has bad tutorials while Elden Ring has what Horizon 2 shook off: terrible inventory janitoring. I find this faintly funny in the abstract but it's still irritating on actually having to deal with it.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2024 20:36
|
|
|
UPDATE Ep. 16 Up on the Root The Roots that Bind is a pretty nice sidequest, giving us a little more insight into the Utaru culture. I think the seed pouch is a nice idea, though I don't know how well it'd work in execution since seeds don't generally last that long, maybe a year or two without more specialized storage. SIGSEGV posted:There was this thing when the game released, about some of its devs finding that Elden Ring had bad UI, and they were wrong about the bad UI, it's not where they thought it was, this game has bad tutorials while Elden Ring has what Horizon 2 shook off: terrible inventory janitoring. I'd trade having good inventory management & bad tutorials over good tutorials & bad inventory management any day. It's far more likely that someone will have made a guide or video to better explain what the tutorial covers than hope that someone's modded a bad inventory system into something decent.
|
|
#
?
Feb 23, 2024 01:18
|
|
|
coop52 posted:I'd trade having good inventory management & bad tutorials over good tutorials & bad inventory management any day. It's far more likely that someone will have made a guide or video to better explain what the tutorial covers than hope that someone's modded a bad inventory system into something decent. Extremely same, learning is a one time thing, bad UI is a persistent one, at least ER's inventory only strikes if you try really hard to get rare drop weapons and such (that I've rarely even used in any case).
|
|
#
?
Feb 23, 2024 01:30
|
|
|
UPDATE Ep. 17 Hitting the Sweet Spot I'd be more forgiving of the Vistas fiddley-ness if they were as cool as the Vantages were. It's kind of disappointing we just get a text box instead of audio recordings for these. Edit to add: just noticed there's a delay on the Forbidden West PC port release, sorry PC crew 
|
|
#
?
Feb 25, 2024 16:27
|
|
|
UPDATE Ep. 18 Robo Old Yeller Ep. 18a Robo Old Yeller (no commentary over cutscenes) Time to explore the Utaru's sacred cave. Varl and Zo join us, but as you can see the battle system really wasn't set up for companions, and they end up just standing there half the time. The video's a bit long because surprise, there's another story quest you have to do once you find out what happened to the Land God. Good news, most of the rest of the map is now open to us. This quest is a pretty good transition point from leaving the early game and entering the mid-game.
|
|
#
?
Feb 29, 2024 01:17
|
|
|
Stalagmites Mount, stalatites Tumble down? It doesn't work that well when you translate it I guess. I respect how completely honest the game is about its plot coupons, no gradual discovery, just a straight up groceries list.
|
|
#
?
Feb 29, 2024 22:57
|
|
|
UPDATE Ep. 19 On the other side of the mountain Time to explore what's on the other side. We have our first real encounter with the Tenakth and are about to spend a whole lot more time with them.
|
|
#
?
Mar 3, 2024 18:04
|
|
|
The dome scenery thing is very nice, but, however, I must add, Hexagons Do Not Tile Spheres.
|
|
#
?
Mar 3, 2024 22:32
|
|
|
UPDATE Ep. 20 Machine Stig As expected from the quest we got in the last video, first Thunderjaw fights up and it's a doozy. At this point there are no tearblast (or tear pricision as they're called now) arrows or a decent ropecaster available so it's a bit more of a challenge compared to the first encounters in Zero Dawn. We also meet a group of punks and take part in their Charger race. Gauntlet Runs can be pretty fun.
|
|
#
?
Mar 7, 2024 23:05
|
|
|
The Gauntlet Runs were my favorite new activity in the game. Especially fun to conquer the last one. 
|
|
#
?
Mar 7, 2024 23:12
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 29, 2024 15:53 |
|
|
UPDATE Ep. 21 Filling your gaping wound Continuing with the side quest chain we started in the previous episode, time to solve the Desert Clan's water crisis and interfere in their politics at the same time. Also, we meet the most important member of the tribe, Meat!
|
|
#
?
Mar 10, 2024 22:03
|
|