rionaleonhart | The Ten Would Have A Hard Time Fighting Her Off.

More Horizon Forbidden West! Just completed the main story mission at Cauldron GEMINI.

'Meet me at Thornmarsh when you're done,' Atekka says. 'You deserve a proper reward.' This is absolutely a proposition.

I can't cope with the fact that the Quen wear Wi-Fi symbols and call their leader 'the Ceo'.

I love Tallnecks, and it's cool that survey drones give you new backgrounds for the dome, but this game has too many 'jump onto the moving thing, and if you miss you have to redo a load of climbing and wait for the moving thing to come back around' collectables.

I love how much Aloy hates this entire 'hey, I'm kin with Ted Faro, put on this Sobeck cosplay' scene.

'And then I won't be alone any more.' The realisation that Ted Faro has spent centuries alive and isolated after all his fuckups, hoping to be able to see the new world, has immediately catapulted me from unadulterated 'I fucking hate Ted Faro' to 'actually I'm sort of interested in this character now?'

Don't give Ted 'The Worst' Faro exactly the sort of backstory that makes me like a fictional character! I can't handle this!

Oh, he turned into a monster and ended up getting killed offscreen. I suppose that at least reduces the danger of me coming to like Ted Faro, but what's the point of having him survive to the present day if we don't get to have a conversation with him?

I both can't believe and absolutely can believe that Alva wants GAIA to build her a Roomba.

It's lovely to see Aloy and Beta finally learning how to interact with each other.

Alva's enthusiasm about new information is very cute.

I find it pretty endearing that Kotallo's worried about Alva, too. Advising her to run if they get into trouble!

I also like Kotallo struggling with how curious Alva is. This game's managed to build a surprisingly enjoyable dynamic between the two of them, considering that they've yet to interact onscreen.

Love Erend talking about not wanting to be 'the usual screw-up', and struggling with emotions when Aloy tells her she's glad he's with her. I'm enjoying Erend so much more in this game than I did in the first one.

NO?????

YOU CAN'T KILL VARL

VARL IS A SWEETHEART AND THIS IS COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE

He'd just had such a sweet exchange with Aloy! ('Thank you, Varl. We couldn't have done any of this without you.' 'Right back at you, Aloy.') He tried to be poetic and made her laugh! You can't kill any of my base friends; I always look forward to talking to them when I go back to base!

You can't be my replacement murder boyfriend if you kill one of my other boyfriends, Erik. I'm sorry, but that's the rule.

This game is stupidly gorgeous. I'm constantly awestruck by how pretty it is.

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'And then I won't be alone any more.' The realisation that Ted Faro has spent centuries alive and isolated after all his fuckups, hoping to be able to see the new world, has immediately catapulted me from unadulterated 'I fucking hate Ted Faro' to 'actually I'm sort of interested in this character now?'

That does sound interesting!

You can't be my replacement murder boyfriend if you kill one of my other boyfriends, Erik. I'm sorry, but that's the rule.

Good rule! Otherwise the murder boyfriends will just go all Highlander on each other.

Ted Faro is FAMOUSLY THE ABSOLUTE WORST; he accidentally destroyed the world by creating a self-replicating robot army that powered itself by devouring all life, then deliberately destroyed the database of knowledge that was created during the apocalypse to educate post-apocalypse humanity. I hate him! Everyone who's ever played Horizon Zero Dawn hates him! And now I sort of want to write fanfiction about him. I can't believe this.

I also can't believe my murder boyfriend would murder someone. This is outrageous.

I just read the wiki describing him, and yeah, he’s horrible and I would totally read your fanfic.

What a shocking development for a murder boyfriend! If only you’d had some kind of warning!

On a completely random note: something that made me laugh (and think of you), we were teaching about classification keys in Science and debating whether or not a platypus is a mammal or a bird. One of the children's argument was that a platypus was a mammal as they are a big fan of Phineas and Ferb and Perry the Platypus is most definitely referred to as a mammal. I thought that was a hilarious line of reasoning. :P So there you go: Phineas and Ferb is educational.

-timydamonkey

I'm delighted to hear this. He's a semi-aquatic egg-laying mammal of action!

Varl's death was so unexpected AND SO EMOTIONALLY DEVASTATING FOR ME. I didn't really realize how attached I felt to him as a character up until that moment. I assumed when the game started off he'd be so awed by everything going on he'd just continue referring to GAIA as "the goddess" and keep falling back onto his religious beliefs as a way to cope with all the technological advancement, but he actually grows to understand it and he probably develops the most out of the returning companions that we see. He really does become the heart of the team. I'm pretty sad that we never got any sort of loyalty sidequest with him like we do with the other companions, but in hindsight that's probably a pretty big indicator that he's the one to bite the bullet. That, and he develops enough in the intervening hours that his death becomes a real gut punch.

The thing that was probably even more heartbreaking than that, though, was the conversation that Beta and Aloy had before heading off to GEMINI. Specifically, the moment where Aloy tells Beta that the reason they're so different is because Aloy had Rost as a source of strength. It really brought tears to my eyes when he appeared on screen and Aloy was explaining why Rost meant so much to her.

Probably only second to that is when Beta tells Aloy that she can't go back with the Zeniths again after everything she's been through, then asks her "Do you understand?" And then Aloy ultimately being unable to go through with having to kill her when she does get captured. I honestly don't see how people can call Aloy boring and wooden after that moment in the game. There's so much anguish and pain that's visible on her face. You can see her physically and emotionally struggling with having to put an end to the one person who probably understands her and her struggle the most, and she can't bring herself to do it. When she whispers "I failed.", God it hit me so hard. This game was supposed to be about killing robot dinosaurs, you're not supposed to make me feel things!

The possibility that they might kill one of my base companions hadn't occurred to me until an instant before Varl's death. I was so distressed to realise what was coming.

Aloy telling Beta about Rost was lovely. I'm glad this game called back to him.

Probably only second to that is when Beta tells Aloy that she can't go back with the Zeniths again after everything she's been through, then asks her "Do you understand?" And then Aloy ultimately being unable to go through with having to kill her when she does get captured.

This was AGONISING. I found the recorded message in Beta's room afterwards, where she says 'I know you'll have kept your promise, which means I must be dead,' and it was such a punch to the gut.

Thank you for this comment! I really enjoyed hearing your thoughts.

This was AGONISING. I found the recorded message in Beta's room afterwards, where she says 'I know you'll have kept your promise, which means I must be dead,' and it was such a punch to the gut.

Ugh, so heartbreaking. I'm happy that Aloy and Beta have such a strong bond now, but man, the feels ;-;

Thank you for this comment! I really enjoyed hearing your thoughts.

No problem, and thank you! None of my friends own Forbidden West, so it's nice having someone to talk to about everything as I go through it :)

The Ten Would Have A Hard Time Fighting Her Off.

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RIP Varl

Re: RIP Varl

Re: RIP Varl