izigame.me

I really wanted to love this game, but after finishing it I can't help but be extremely disappointed.

The tl:dr is, This game is 1 dimensional. The world feels huge, so props for that, but the actual game play and story pales in comparison to any other LEGO game. It's not a LEGO game as we know them from Tt, and it's not a Horizon game as we know them. It's not even a combination, it's a weird third thing that is very unsuccessful and offers little for a price tag equivalent to Forbidden West.

In case you're still wondering where this game falls short let me lay out for you some areas of the Horizon games and how this one compares.
- Machines: 9/10. Love seeing them in LEGO bricks. Though it lacks the index feature and doesn't provide any info on them.
- Exploration: Not a thing until late game. Each level is painfully linear. They spent a lot of effort to build the world entirely out of LEGO bricks, which is amazing. But then they stole most of the wonderful from that by locking everything to tiny paths with no purpose. Even the exploration late game is linear, there's sense of wondering off the path and discovering something cool.
- Weapons: Lame. There is no variety of weapons within a character which means You're reliant on gadgets to ensure each encounter with a character doesn't play out identically. This was solved in Tt LEGO games by allowing to swap characters for variety. That's not a feature here.
- Combat: Dull. Bordering on mind numbing. Just smashing attack. No stealth, no variation in attacks. It's a shame because Horizon combat is so varied and dynamic. You don't even get ranged and melee in the same character.
- Elemental combat: Severely lacking. While there are elemental weapons and traps they don't interact with the machines in the unique ways they do in Horizon. This seems like a huge miss of a major game element. Why do grazers and broadheads react the same way to elemental weapons. The nuance of elemental resistances was a fun part of Horizon.
- Crafting: Not a feature. Something that feels like it's not a huge miss, but also something they could have added to give game play more than 1 dimension.
- Cauldrons: They're in the game! actually some of the only fun levels. The game needed way more puzzles, Cauldrons provided a tiny taste of that.
- Overrides: Sadly these were not included. I can't see why not. Players of all ages would have loved a friendly LEGO Broadhead by their side.
- Armor/Customization: There's no armor, stats at least. Which is nice. There's tons of customization though. Frankly it's clear that was the focus over any actual game play. And yeah I loved changing my outfit, and my companions so they showed up in the cut scenes themed how I wanted. Changing Mothers Hearth is fun too.
- Story: It's fun. They did a good job distilling, retelling, and adapting the Zero Dawn plot. It would have been fun to play that out if the game play actually was worth while.

All in all this is a bummer. LEGO design team and Guerilla clearly put a lot of work into this game, unfortunetly I don't think they put their efforts into the right ares. At the end of the day this is a game that needs to be fun to play. It's clear it's made for younger audiences, but even saying that feels insulting to kids. Kids play Pokemon, Minecraft, and other LEGO games with ease. Delivering them something this dumbed down and one dimensional is inexcusable. So no I would not recommend this game, ESPECIALLY not for $60.