#gerard bieri

[mxnf]

[defaultjane-official]

[Horizon Forbidden West/It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia]

[hc-stardust]

A meme that turned into a continued concept, I guess.

Originally envisioned them yelling at the Zeniths for mistreatment of Beta, then figured out it would be funnier if they each yelled for even more different reasons.

Patrick's angry for the gene ethics and the mistreatment of Beta .

Elisabet's angry at the whole Zenith fiasco, Gaia's destruction, for Beta's treatment and for Aloy's almost abduction.

Aloy's angry at the whole mess the Zeniths made, also here I imagine her angry for Beta, for Varl, and at them for chasing her down and nearlly costing her her life.

[stormhaven13]

I'm making this its own post rather than reblogging my other one about the HADES facility, that seems to reach more people, and this is important. Let's talk about our main antagonists, and their reveal. Spoilers for a lot throughout this post, including some major twists and the ending of Forbidden West.

I'm going to start by giving general reactions throughout the reveal cutscene, then move into more specific thoughts.

Firstly, they can open a gene-locked hatch. Sylens doesn't even plan for this, he has no way of knowing they had the ability to create Beta. Her reveal is well done, giving us an immediate idea of their capabilities, but hiding her allegiances.

Then, we have the clearly advanced robots, much more fluid than the machines we deal with.

I love the contrast between the white that Beta wears here, and the armor that I have Aloy in (Shadow Stalker, of course).

First sight of Tilda. I am terribly face blind, so that didn't faze me any more than the voice did, but I'm sure many people recognized her at that point.

I like the introduction of the Zeniths here. They immediately give them a dynamic, made them threatening, but leave enough mystery that promises more. I wish they delivered better.

The boss fight. The concept is interesting. But it has next to no difficulty on Ultra Hard, the worst of his attacks don't even two shot me, and his ranged attacks are truly pitiful. I get that they don't want you to get stuck in a story mission, but like. I chose Ultra Hard, let me get my ass beat please. I want to be scared of them, and that fight didn't do the job.

What does do the job is the Specters, and the fleeing. It's a masterful sequence, and their attacks hurt an appropriate amount.

I love how ultimately what screws Aloy over isn't truly the Zenith, or the Specters. Its the facility falling apart, its almost drowning. It's making a bad call, as everyone does every so often.

And then we get Aloy attempting to "recover" (read immediately try and get herself killed out of shear stubbornness). This is just a masterful scene, introducing us to Utaru culture, showing off Aloy's smarts that she does have when she decides to listen instead of running face first into danger. We get to see Varl, who has clearly been building connections, trying to find allies for the cause. He's been here for awhile, or at least in theory. The game tells us it's been two days, which I don't really buy. It's a tough line here, as really any amount of unconsciousness in reality would be real bad for Aloy, but there needs to be time for Zo and Varl's relationship to build. They probably needed more time for the latter, especially if they want a kiss here. It works great otherwise, but the kiss feels early for them, even if its good for Aloy's arc.

I love Varl trying to translate for Aloy, and Aloy completely struggling to be unable to help. It's badly needed. And we get Aloy being truly genuine with her friend, feeling that this is something she can never have for herself. It's not even really about romance at this point I think, it's about connection.

Alright, general thoughts. This quest is (mostly) very strong. It's great for the both the character and larger plots, introduces our new antagonists, who cannot be stopped by just Aloy's bow and spear, and her stubbornness. Here is a foe, like HADES, that she can't just stab and fix. In theory, this is all great...

But we know where it ends. As I hinted at above, I don't like the Zeniths, I don't like this story line, and I have real problems with their characters (not you Beta, you can stay). We'll talk more in detail as we near the end of the game, but the problem is pretty basic. None of them, except Tilda, are given any amount of depth whatsoever. Tilda has her own issues, we'll cover her later, but with both Eric and even worse Gerard, we will never learn anything meaningfully more than this quest about either of them. Eric is a sadist, and Gerard. Is the leader I guess? He's even weaker than Eric, which is saying something.

This is made far worse by following Ted Faro, one of the best villains in just about anything I've seen or played. People (including me) hate Ted Faro, but I also understand him. I see him reflected in the real world, Faro is driven by pride and ego, and the desire to protect those two things above all else. Gerard and Eric are given none of the depth that Ted has, and to be clear Ted is not a deep character, he's simply an extremely effective villain. They are just, in the end, too close to Faro, and given nothing to do. When they do something I hate, I don't get mad at them, I get mad at the writing. And that is a true failure of a character, to me.

[horizon-aloy]

[viperchick47]

Here everyone, have a box of tissues. It's THAT time again 😭😭

Tissue box 1/?

[carvion]

Erik: I just ended a pretty stable relationship

Gerard: Oh. I’m sorry to hear that, are you okay?

Erik: What? Oh, yeah. It wasn’t my relationship

[mxnf]