Having finished Persona 3 Reload I decided to jump back in to Horizon Forbidden West before moving to my substantial Steam backlog. But first, since Lego Star Wars didn't work out (due to blasterplay), I needed a new game to play with Dani. I downloaded a bunch of things from my PS+ list and started with...


We started with the wordy racing title Hot Wheels Unleashed 2: Turbocharged. I was hopeful HWU2 would be like Mario Kart and have robust driver assist for the little one. There was an option for it, though I'm not sure if it applied to story mode. We quickly had Daddy driving and Dani reading track notes. Still, at this age doing track selection, car selection, and unlockables is plenty of fun.


It's an enjoyable arcade racer - I wouldn't play it on my own but it's a good shared experience. HWU2's story mode has normal races, time trials, last car standing, and boss fights (drive fast, get powerups). You can unlock and upgrade cars from the Hot Wheels lineup that have different handling characteristics. Dani's favorite triceratops car turns like a brick while the Audi Quattro glides through corners but only vibes with Daddy's aesthetic.


The next game we tried is the one we're going with. Sackboy: A Big Adventure is a 3D platformer descendent of the Mario and Donkey Kong games. Ordinarily, I shy away from these games because they feel bland, yet invariably I enjoy the heck out of them. Sackboy starts with some very safe areas that Dani had no trouble with. Quickly, however, the levels offered enemies, cliffs, disappearing platforms, etc. It's easy enough for Daddy which, I think, is important to keeping the little one's attention but until Dani has better controller authority she will have to stick to friendlier areas and overworld navigation.


Sackboy has a ton of unlockable cosmetics that Dani gets a kick out of. There are also a variety of level types like a single moving platform, sliding, and the catchy music levels.


Me and J are still working through Shadow of the Erdtree.

We were disappointed to see that the Manus Metyr area is solo-only. Perhaps that's just because it's a frantic gallop followed by a talky cathedral and From wanted to save us from summoning for that.

Oooh, uh, about your lord, Placidusax...

You can't really make it to the top of the Jagged Peak without popping in to Bayle's arena to get wrecked.

Like with the main game, my primary strategy has been to wander through the map and keep track of bosses I (we) had to skip. This isn't bad, but it results in some neglected NPC quests that suddenly became relevant when you hit a difficult boss. Messmer, Putrescent Knight, Bayle - they allow ally summons if you're in that ally's good graces. So I worked backward from those battles to find out what I had to do to bring some meat shields to the encounter. And since dead ending quests is pretty easy to do in Elden Ring, I represented the research as a dependency graph:

My to-do list that excludes the endgame. The starting point for this graph is having broken the great rune and killed the Dancing Lion and Golden Hippopotamus.

I've avoided looking directly at endgame spoilers but it seems that every questgiver comes back later in a big fight or final gauntlet ͥ . So that's a pretty good reason to help them collect 100 rocks or fight a megabear or whatever. Not Moore though, I guess I killed the wrong bug and so he invaded me and got thwacked.



I put HFW down a few years back because it's a substantial game and I was needed elsewhere. Happily, I've loaded it up and am once again exploring postapocalpytic California and a few inconsequential states to its east. Let's get my meme question out of the way:

Is Horizon Forbidden West good for a four-year-old?

Despite the game's rating, about 15% of HFW is totally okay for a kid. Most of HFW is shooting arrows at people and dinosaurs with glowing red eyes, but it's quite easy to explore the vast wilderness while avoiding combat. Part of this owes to the invisible geofences in which each dinosaur resides. We even got to see the virtual version our last Thanksgiving trip. Also entertaining to a kid: climbing, collecting crafting resources, and limited amounts of menus/settlements.

Difficulty and progression

I think I'm playing on hard. I'm not sure, I chose the setting three years ago. Still, when I fired the game up I was surprised by how long it took to take down even midsize enemies. Possibly related - I seem way overleveled for my point in the story. I haven't been grinding to get ahead of the difficulty curve, rather it seems as if side activities and normal machine fights provide a steady stream of xp that makes you overleveled (on paper).

Equipment and upgrades

Gear upgrades are not cheap, you need plenty of money and some uncommon machine parts. So it made sense to bypass the purps ͥ and aim for legendary gear that would carry through to the final fight. Turns out, these aren't easy to get either. Some weapons are rewards for finishing the collectibles/challenges scattered throughout the map (rebel outposts, ruins, races, etc.). A few are available from vendors. Most are acquired by completing arena challenges. So while I snagged the dreadwing parts needed for the legendary infiltrator armor and killed all the rebel outpost leaders, I'm not sure I have the skill to take down a tideripper in two minutes.

With the Utaru Winterweave outfit at the top of my list, I had to fight the stormbird and dreadwing in an unmarked mountain lake a few times. It wasn't as farmy of an experience as Borderlands 2 or some of the clickfest games, but the climb made it a bit laborious. Pretty though.

Pet velociraptor

Being able to reprogram a herding dino in both Horizon games was an awesome spin on the common RPG mechanic of having a horse or whatever. Fast travel makes them only useful in unexpored areas and even then they're of limited use because they're no good offroad. But the mount mechanic takes a turn for the awesome when you unlock the ability to reprogram clawstriders (robo-raptors).


Clawstrider mounts are a bit more nimble than chargers and bristlebacks but their awesomeness comes not from being rideable. Set in aggressive mode, Aloy's clawstrider buddy is like a stealthy, trusty hunting dog that punches way above its weight in a fight.

Raptor bae couldn't solo a dreadwing but he drew a lot of aggro and survived the fight.

They did a what?

Yep. A water temple. It's not as bad as Lake Hylia but that's no excuse.

Cauldrons

I finished the cauldrons but have yet to collect the resources needed to override everything. I hope there's a spot I can turn an overridden thunderjaw loose on something else inside its geofence.

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	THAT SENTENCE HAD TOO MANY SYLLABLES! APOLOGIZE!	�
	From Mr. Torgue in Borderlands 2 (pic unrelated)

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