We’re in the same boat. I was fairly confused after beating Zelda, bc I thought it was just a decent game and nothing more; yet, it’s been praised as the second coming. I don’t personally understand it, and I liked Horizon ZD far more. But, to each their own.

I also haven’t played Horizon FW yet, but I have both that and Elden Ring ready.

I like Horizon, game is great. The only reason I'm not playing forbidden west ATM is cause I'm currently playing the best game of 2022.

Regarding Horizon zero vs Zelda BoTW... Zelda is better game, but not by much, and certainly both are far behind, very far, compared to Elden Ring that is the best open world fantasy game ever created.
For real, you need to play Elden Ring...It just can't be surpassed is n 2022, guaranteed GoTY.

I went a bit offtopic, but that's it.

Nice review. Could do without the clickbait thread title - its no Zelda. Pretty much agree about the setbacks.. the horrible platforming and traversal leaves a lot to be desired. The combat too; melee is very unforgiving and janky. It does look very pretty though and the animation is top notch.

Saying that its not really doing much to pull me in. Tbf I'm not gotten that far into it.. think I put a few hours in before booting Elden Ring and I haven't looked back. That game is a breath of fresh air as far as open world games go.

Horizon is a good game, though I wish Sony would consider launch date better. The first came out, I played a bit and then it sat because of BotW. Forbidden West launched, played a bit but now it is sitting because of Elden Ring. Just bad timing for both releases, personal opinion for the record. Still a fun series. The biggest flaw with Horizon is the open world, like most, is a bit boring. Too many silly side quests that just aren't fun.  Where Zelda and Elden both shine is when I find discoveries, I get excited.  Most open worlds do not have that feeling.  I do hope BotW improves the combat system, Elden is much better in that regard.

I loved Forbidden West to bits, clocked in around 61 hours with lots of content left. I'm leaving it for the DLC and New Game Plus that will be added soon. However, Zelda and Horizon are very different, as many others have already mentioned. They scratch entirely different itches. I've also been playing Elden Ring for about 35 hours now, and that's something different from both aforementioned games again. I think many gamers get "open-world" tangled up as a genre when it's really not, it's simply a style of design. Mario Kart and Gran Turismo are also both racing games but are leagues apart. I kind of see Horizon vs. Zelda vs. Elden Ring the same way, albeit not quite so extreme in their obvious differences. What's perhaps the most important to me is this simple fact; I love all three games a lot, and I don't think I would if they were more similar.

BotW has it's flaws for sure, but it is probably the best designed open world I've experienced. I have yet to play Horizon, but from the impressions I've seen, the praise tends to center around the combat and the enemies, not the open world design. As such, it should be unsurprising that some people prefer Horizon over BotW. They are different games with different strengths and weaknesses.

I thought story was not only better, but also better presented in breath of the wild, more memorable, presented with its own style. Where in horizon is just generic story telling just like assassins creed or any other open world game. Gameplay is not even close, in zelda he gets out of stamina climbing stuff or swimming etc, also temperature of the world matters in zelda, you might die of heat or cold if not dressed appropriately. There's a much bigger sense of survival in zelda you need to cook and eat and stuff. Also there's no map littered with fetch quests, its your own adventure, you put the markers on the map yourself and you have to discover stuff yourself. Characters also have a lot more heart and individuality, unlike the boring characters of most open world games including horizon. Bosses also are way different from each other and you tackle them very differently, unlike horizon which is always the same, attack weak spots until you kill.

Zelda never gets boring, while on the last third of horizon I was getting bored of doing the same stuff all the time and the dialogue was boring me to death.

Also, zelda tends to be more difficult, which I love, I thought horizon was too easy on hardest. While I still haven't beaten a part in Zelda which I haven't figure out how to do damage on a boss. I never look on the internet for clues, I like to find out for myself, it makes it exciting and you feel rewarded.

With that said, I love horizon, finished the first one 3x but its nowhere near zelda.

Nintendo just has a way of making their games special, magical, same with pikmin or advance wars, they do strategy like no one else, its unique games with a lot of heart put into them, unlike most other games that are just by the numbers, only improving graphics.

Take out graphics and most modern games would be horrible.

But I thought Dark Cloud was their answer to Zelda? lol

I am an OG and thus, prefer old games to new games, but I thought BOTW was great. Not my favorite Zelda (again, OG) personally, but objectively great. It's also the only time I can think of where a massively popular franchise reinvented itself three different times and not only survived to tell about it, but actually grew its fanbase which is... wow.

But my one and only complaint is this: breakable weapons. Simply put, it's awful. At least in my opinion. If they patched the game, making that an option for players, it would be OOT-level-perfection. 

Huge disagree. Breakable weapons are key to the design of the game. The whole point is to have you continually switching your weapons on the fly and using what you can find around you. It simply wouldn't be the same game if you could just find one powerful sword and use it for the full game.