Lego Horizon Adventures - Review
When I first saw Horizon, it was in a hands off session in a tiny room at E3 2015 and it got my attention and while I have enjoyed the two main entries, I had concerns that the next entry might not live up to the expectations I was setting and I was right. There is no way in the world anyone could have predicted Lego Horizon Adventures, a game that tells the tale of the first game, albeit in a much more simplified manner and of course, made from Lego. The question many were asking, did these two worlds assemble in just the right way to make something special?
If you have played the original game, then the story here is going to be familiar, but also missing quite a bit. The best way to think about this story is that it is the movie adaptation of the original games book style narrative, they have the same basic structure and major plot points, but that is it. You still play as Aloy, and your fight is still against Helis and his sun loving cult, but the majority of the story has been cut, to keep it light. Knowing the full story, I can see where elements have been trimmed, but I can also tell you that it doesn’t impact the narrative that they are putting forth here. While the main story is the same, the developers have clearly taken inspiration from the countless Lego games that we have been enjoying for years now, as they never take things too seriously. Yes there are a few times when the story gets a little heavy, but even those moments are quickly forgotten as another joke is thrown at you. Some of the jokes made me laugh and the quirky behaviour of characters I know to be quite serious, often made me smile, but your millage may vary there, but honestly by the time the credits roll, I just found myself enjoying the story and characters, more than I thought I would.
Much like the story, the gameplay has been simplified by a lot and again, it keeps some of the core aspects, but drops most everything else. The first thing you need to know is that apart from the opening mission, the entire game can be played with a friend and if you do, you will have a richer time with the game. Now for the most of my time with the game I did play solo and I still had fun with it, but when I was with a mate, it was more enjoyable as we were bantering back and forth. While Aloy is your starting character, you will eventually recruit more members to your team, including Varl and Errend. Each character has a different way of attacking enemies, you can swap between them either in the village or at the start of a level and while I mostly stuck with Aloy, it was fun to try out the others. Aloy herself uses a bow for her attacks, which lets her hide in the grass and take shots at enemies from safety. If you swap to someone like Varl, he uses a spear and requires you to get a lot closer to lay the smack down on enemies, so there is some variety in how you approach each encounter, depending on who you are playing as. Combat is mostly contained to a single button for attacking, pressing it does a weak attack and holding it down charges it up. As you play through the various stages, you will discover powerful temporary upgrades for your character, like fire arrows for Aloy, but you can also pick up secondary attack options.
The games combat is probably one of the weakest parts of it, I get that they wanted something simple so that players of all ages could understand it, but I would have loved to have seen the inclusion of a dodge, or really a second permanent attack function. There is more to combat that just mashing a single button of course, the game makes full use of the Focus device that Aloy wears on her head and much like the mainline entries, activating it will give you weak points on enemies to target. If you shoot an arrow at an enemy without knowing its weak points, you will only do a marginal amount of damage, if you have highlighted them, then you will do more. The only real roadblock for that system for those younger players, is that you will need to be aware of your position in relation to that of the target, because if the weak point is on the other side, you won’t be able to hit it. The game also makes full use of elemental effects, fire as I mentioned before, but also electricity, ice and poison. There are basically three ways of using the elements, first is that your weapon is given a temporary buff, the second is that there are explosive barrels around the place that you can pick and throw and the third are the environmental ones, like a campfire or patch of poisonous ground. These elemental attributes can impact both yourself and the enemies, so you always need to be on alert for what is around you and what enemies might have on them.
As for the world, its broken down into two main parts, the hub of Mother’s Heart and the locations that border it, the latter being the stages you will play through as you unlock them. The stages are basically broken down into two parts, the opening exploration aspect and then after you discover a mysterious trader, you will usually encounter a boss fight or challenge. As I said before you can change your character at the start of a stage, but the moment you push on from that first section you are committed to them, unless you quit back out and try again. The stages are quite linear, there is some slight exploration to them, but slight is the right word as you are usually just taking a step off the main path. The main path you need to follow is indicated by gold studs that line it, like the breadcrumbs from Hansel and Gretel, but the side paths are guided by silver studs, so it is easy to know which way to go. Honestly though, unless you want to unlock everything in the game, you really don’t need to ‘explore’ as there isn’t anything beyond studs at the end of the path. You may occasionally not even get a lot of studs, just the chance to build something from the old world and that is it. The whole building things is still here, much like in the games from TT Games, but its either done for bridges to proceed forward or restore some old world tech, there is nothing to unlock by doing so.
Speaking of building things, this is a good time to mention just how amazing the game looks, because not only is the game built entirely from Lego, something that makes me happy, but it plays like it is Lego. Think of The Lego Movie and now give yourself control over the action, that is what we have here, the game that The Lego Movie got is nowhere near as amazing as this is. There are shots in cutscenes where you can see the seamlines in the mould of Aloy’s hair and when your character runs on dirt or sand, what they kick up are actual thin square Lego bricks. The entire world being actually made from Lego means that at any point, you could stop and then build the shot on your screen for real, it is a touch that I honestly am blown away by. For that reason, I would have loved to have seen a photo mode, just so you could take some great shots, but maybe in the future. The locations themselves are not as expansive as I was hoping for in terms of their looks, there is a basic forest, a jungle, a mountain and a desert and each time you do a mission in each, most of what you are seeing will repeat. I recall seeing the same jazz club in the forest location in each map, even though story wise, we were in very different parts of the area. The hub location of Mother’s Heart is a decent place to spend a bit of time, but as it will change over time, based on your progress and the decorating choices you make, things will be a bit different for you over me. The inclusion of other Lego brands like City, Ninjago and Amusement felt weird at first, but as the games humour settled in, I found the idea of having Aloy dress as a zombie cheerleader just perfect. Even better the cutscenes are done in real-time, so if you are Aloy as a corn cob, she will be on screen having a heart to heart while in that same outfit, it’s quite nice.
With conversations on the mind, now is a good time to talk about the games audial aspects, as there is some wonderful and some mediocre. The wonderful comes from the returning nature of most of the original games voice cast coming back here, so Aloy sounds like Aloy and Rost sounds like Rost, and so on. For obvious reasons Sylens is not voiced by Land Reddick, but hearing the rest of the cast do some great takes on their existing characters was great, plus many of the new voices just fit in, which is another bonus. The cutscenes and the humour are the stars of the voice work, the black mark on it is just how little there is for the characters to say when playing through the levels, many of the lines repeat a lot in a single stage, never mind over them all. The games musical score is also delightful and mixes in that familiar Horizon score, but with a more upbeat twist, which again fits the light hearted nature of the game.
Lego Horizon Adventures could have easily been a phoned in release, but the teams at Guerrilla and Studio Gobo have created possibly one of the best Lego games ever, the fact that is Horizon themed is a bonus. The game offers up some fun stages and great combat encounters, but the lack of depth to both might be a turn off for some more serious gamers. For those younger gamers, the game offers a nice balance of challenge and reward and being able to replay locations eventually means you can locate all those little secrets in your own time. The customisation does feel out of place at the start, but eventually you will come to enjoy it, as its intended to be as fun as the rest of the game. If you are not a Lego game fan or a Horizon fan, there is very little in this game that will tempt you into playing it, but if you are willing to give it a shot or are a fan of either, then you will discover a game that pieces things together and the result is charmingly fun adventure.
The Score
9.0
Review code provided by PlayStation
The Pros
The game looks like its made from actual Lego, making it one of a few games to achieve that
The story hits the same major plot points, but does so with the now famous Lego layer of humour attached
The Cons
The combat can be fairly basic at times, with just one button for attacks and it can get repetitive because of it
There is very little to discover in the stages outside of the main path, which is a shame
