All the talk about the combat really makes me excited, there are 2 things that are the most important aspects of a game for me, the combat/gameplay and the characters and if the game excels at them then i will most surely love it even if everything else is subpar, so im really hoping Aloy is a great protagonist.

I think you're in luck as those are two of my favorite aspects of the game. I would also add the world itself, which is just gorgeous to run across...

I have such a big smile on my face right now.

Skyrim is a game i loved but i couldnt give a f#ck about any of the characters in it and the combat was... well... not as good as i expected, but the world however was so interesting and captivating that is the single player game i have spent the most time in, (even more than the souls games and those are games i like more).

And now you tell me that the world in Horizon is also gorgeous?... im having a hard time not starting that game today...

Edit: i assume you also mean that the world is interesting to explore, since its always been obvious that the game looks great.

It's a technical masterpiece for sure but story and narration is not all that, some of the acting is wonky and combat against humans is downright boring, so it's not really anywhere near a 10/10 for me.
There are also very few sidequests, and those there are vary very little, they're usually "talk to person A, wants you to track person B, use Focus and find tracks, follow tracks into inevitable encounter, return to person A and get XP and a box of shit rewards like Wire and Wood".

Combat against robots is a lot more fun, but the game is poorly balanced, you're overpowered at the beginning, especially if you choose the Silent Strike skill early on, then the middle is more challenging, especially against flying foes, but after a few hours you're back to being OP, Tear arrows rend even Thunderjaw useless in half a minute. Not to mention AI is really, really poor, many enemies turn and run when you climb onto a 5' tall rock, allowing free shots at their backs, they don't notice when you stealth kill someone 3' away and humans can be lured into huge piles of corpses without ever seeing you. Also, despite all the different tools, you can take down any foe with convential and simple means, I've literally never used the Ropecaster or the traps in real combat, there's really no need.

It's a great game but it has quite a few weaknesses.

melee combat is too pitiful to be compared to the like of soul's game, dragon dogma and Monster hunter even ranged combat is not that good and repetitive and the scored on metacritic is well deserved to be below BOTW

Havent left the Sacred Land yet and it already feels like a masterpiece. It is a mix of SotC with Fallout and Skyrim. Love it

Im still playing it, but its already an excellent game.But for me its no masterpiece.As i said, while its a great game, it misses things in my opinion.The stealth is kind of a joke, the human AI feels lacking, and I find that it was a big miss that they didnt implement a Diablo-like system with the equipment.(didnt need to be at that level, but they could have put the same type of equipment with different stats, so that you are always finding new and exciting stuff), and thats personal, but they could have pushed the RPG element a little further, as in everytime you leveled, yu also improved stats like in a regular RPG, like atack, defence or speed.

For me, this game is exactly what the score was a few days ago at metacritic, so a 8.8 for me.

yeah like BOTW which is not deserved to be at 10/10 score and should be at least 9.8/10 and horizon should be lower than 89 metascore around 85 is perfect for game that caliber same as ubisoft open world game.

Yeah, I agree on that part about the gear, the loot you find is always redious and/or useless after a while. There are very few weapons and armors all in all, they make up for it with lots of different ammunition but it's just not the same. RPG elements are very simplified, this is also partly what makes the game so easy most of the time, action-oriented titles tend to have a more mass market oriented style.

I'm glad they didn't fill the game with gimmicks though, and they could always make it deeper in expansions or sequels, I hope they do! Oh, and fix the ridiculous save system, having only save points and clunky, instanced autosave in any AAA title in 2017 is unacceptable.

Please, if you dont have anything meningful to add, just dont post.Starting a flame war is not going to help anyone.