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I'm just posting base impressions on this based on what little game time I actually have in it (I've put about 8 hours into the game as of writing this) and after having it stare me in the face for 3 days before I could play it (god damn was that the longest wait I've ever had before playing a game (didn't have any time during the week and I've completely stayed away from any articles/videos that may give away spoilers for this game)). I'm highly impressed with this game, Guerilla went out of their way to give a a highly polished game out of the get go (it had the smallest day 1 patch out of any game released in recent years that's how polished this was). The visuals are amazing, even on my old school PS4. Don't get me wrong there are some wonky animations here and there (I ran into an NPC who's eyes liked to wander up into her head (kinda creepy when you talk to her)) but overall this is an impressive looking game (I climbed up my first Long Neck today and the view from on top of it's head was breath taking). I'm also extremely happy the the map is rather big, not huge like a lot of games like it (no where near as big as Zelda's map (good god that map is huge from what I've seen on live streams) but big enough that I can see why this game will take up to 50 hours to beat (I hear if you just do the story the game is rather short but I'm OCD so I'm doing all the side quests and getting all the collectibles while I travel between story missions). I can't speak much on the story but what I have done of the story missions I have to say it's rather interesting and engaging. There's a lot of mystery in this game and I wonder just how much of it we unravel as we play through it (like why is the world the way it is, who was Aloy's mother (a major plot point I'm gathering from little I know), what's with the machine animals, etc (I'd put more examples but I'd be walking a thin line for spoilers based on where I think the story is going)) because I'm expecting this game to be a series. While most of the characters I've run into are rather bland (not much to say about them, I've run into a few that have been interesting but they seem few and far between) Aloy is a wonderful protagonist who, much like me, is questioning what the hell is wrong with the world. She's sarcastic as hell when dealing with assholes and a compassionate person when she wants to be (lets just say not many people like her from the get go so she's rather callous until the need arises for her not to be). Overall she's probably one of my favorite protagonists to date. Combat is a joy and I say this after having my ass handed to me a few times (I have yet to be killed but I've been pretty close to dieing a few times). A lot of it is stealth based and going loud and proud isn't a viable tactic in this game (especially when fighting corrupted machines, a few reviews have pointed this out). Almost everything travels in herds (or at least the ones I've run into, I haven't run into the huge T-Rex looking machine yet nor have I run into any of the machine birds) and alerting one pretty much alerts all of them. Picking targets and luring them away one by one is pretty much the key to most encounters (human and machine alike) when you can pick and choose them (some encounters do not give you a choice and a lot of those have been story based at the moment) otherwise it's all about relying on your skills and weapons. There isn't much choice in weaponry I've noticed. Pretty much all you get is you're spear (I don't know if you get another one throughout the game but the one I started with has been upgraded once due to a side quest), a variety of bows with varying uses (some are for sharpshooting, some for close range combat, some built with stopping power in mind, etc), a variety of slings (for launching elemental type bombs that cause status effects), tripcasters (used to create traps on the battle field that trip machines), traps in general, and some others I haven't tried yet. There is of course a variety of different ammunition types for you're bow and I can't list all of them as I haven't exactly run into any other then normal, precise, fire, and tear arrows (tear arrows rip armor and components off of machines). All in all I'm very happy with this game and the hype I had for it was definitely rewarded. This is probably my game of the year and it's barely started, that's how much I'm enjoying it.

I did my second dungeon tonight. The entrance wasn't as amazing as the first one, but the dungeon puzzle was crazier. I've learned that a lot of enemies and bosses do have some weaknesses. I happened to have the right weapon set for the dungeon boss this time and made short work of him. I also got a fast horse, but it died immediately when guardians chased after me. I thought registering them at the stable would prevent this, but apparently not. That horse was an ass to break in, so I guess I'll just stick with my slow horses. I haven't even mentioned how great the story is in this game. The voice acting is superb too. I was kinda thrown off about characters actually talking when I first saw the trailer, but then I saw that Skyward Sword had voice actors too. I find this interesting... because to keep Link silent they only voice cut scenes and minor parts, otherwise its the usual chat box. Its a shame because the voicing is really good, but I guess it would be awkward for link just to stand there quietly. I also forgot to mention about enemy respawns. Once you kill a camp or any monster they don't come back, until Gannon resurrects them every few nights (in the game's day/night cycle) across all of Hyrule. Its called the blood moon and you'll be given a small cut scene for it when it happens. Even if you stay at an inn or fast forward time at a camp fire. I've probably only seen it 4-5 times in the last 3 days of hardcore marathoning. If you're about to go into some open world questing, and its night, try to fast forward to day somehow if its not too out of the way. I've had it happen when I killed a super annoying monster, and another time when I killed 3 monsters that could one shot me. It was pretty disheartening not only because I beat them without dying, but because it was just more added wear on my weapons.