A few things I want to clarify based on early comments: 1) This video is edited with "progressive revelation" meaning that misunderstandings early in the game may be later uncovered/learned. 2) I did scan all machines for weaknesses and actively used them. Still often felt like I did little to no damage. 3) I watched every cutscene/paid attention to the story. 4) none of the above means I still couldn't have missed things that may or may not have been obvious. This is just my experience as someone approaching the game for the first time ever with no background knowledge of it and limited knowledge of how games convey information. I also know I will often miss obvious things, it's just how my mind seems to work.

"after playing the game I still don't know why those beasts exploded" eesh, that's a major mechanic! The machines are built with different parts that are vulnerable to different things like fire and tear. Blaze containers explode if you set them on fire. The way to take advantage of a machine's weaknesses is to take advantage of its parts' weaknesses.

I'm amazed you got through this game while absorbing almost none of its systems, doing almost none of its off-the-path experience and comprehending just as little of its story.

I think zero dawn has one of the best storylines of any game I've played. The carja/nora stuff is secondary imo, the real story is finding out about the ancient civilisation. Seeing all these machines, that were originally peaceful, but now are aggressive and dangerous, but nobody knows why. How/why do the machines even exist in the first place? Finding out about Elizabet and zero dawn, figuring out how they beat the faro plague. But then you have a HUGE revelations from general harres and elizabet, and everything jsut clicks into place. You see the deer, crocodile, and hawk machines and understand their purpose. What the cradles are, how civilisation came to be in the new world. Its unfortunate you "checked out" due to the cult storyline :( On the combat, whilst there was a couple things you missed; i think the main thing was that, weak points / weaknesses make the fight easier, but by no means do they make it easy. Every machine is supposed to be a challenge, especially the huge ones like thunderjaws and deathbringers. I think the open world is debatable / personal preference. I wanted to find all the machines and fight each one. Can I kill these guys super stealthily? Can i face them head on in open battle, etc... Plus you got the option of things like the cauldrons. There's a lot that you can do, being open world gives the player the choice. Good video tho :)

The thing is, there IS stuff to explore for. You can find side quests that give you neat gear, beautiful environments, merchants that sell useful items, new machines you don’t find through the story, and collectables if you’re into that sort of thing. You can even find 3 power cells hidden across the entire map to unlock an armor set with a regenerating shield that basically gives you a second (smaller) self healing health bar. Also you seemed to only use the standard bow when there’s a lot of other useful options such as slingshots with elemental bombs to easily inflict certain status effects, the tearblaster or tearblast arrows to easily strip armor off of enemies, and the war bow to hit canisters with their associated elemental damage to make them explode and do big damage. You can kill even the strongest machines very quickly if you know how to actually take advantage of their weaknesses. (Except corrupters. Those guys just suck.)

Doing blind play throughs of classic games without context is interesting content. Even when I’m frustrated as hell that you didn’t spend the extra 100 hours that a lot of us did. At the time these games were revolutionary. You’re not wrong at all with your objective reaction but negative comments will always be a given. Videos are good fun. Hope you make more.

16:40 you dont "respawn" when you die, instead your last savegame is loaded. this has the purpose so you cant gain an advantage or disadvantrage by repeatedly dying

Based on your commentary, you missed a lot of stuff the game tells you/implied The Sawtooth that exploded, exploded because your fire arrow hit a Blaze canister on the bottom (think that’s where it’s located) which caught fire long enough to explode. You’re a clone of Elisabet Sobeck. GAIA explains that to you when the two of you meet. The identiscan in Mother’s Heart after Aloy is knocked out said you’re a 99% match for Elisabet, or some similarly high percentage. GAIA said because things got to the point of no return she took Elisabet’s genetic material and cloned it to make Aloy, leaving Aloy outside the door in Mother’s Heart in the hope that she could one day fix things The enemies and machines that rely on ID confuse Aloy for Elisabet

You completely neglected melee that entire game

I want to say great video... But it was honestly kind of frustrating to watch! I don't know how you missed half of the games mechanics and somehow managed to miss most of the story... I have read some of your replies in the comments, so even if you didn't actually do that but just left out the parts from your video, you shouldn't have done that, this made it seem like you skipped every cut-scene and tool-tip/prompt!

Not every game is for everyone. I will say, a lot of understanding the story requires you to engage further with the game than you did…reading things, playing side quests. Forbidden West is an even better game than this one, but it requires engagement that I don’t think you’re willing to give. The fighting mechanics are some of the best in any game I’ve ever played but do require some time to learn. In fact, in the second game, using elemental damage is used even more extensively in machine fighting and you didn’t seem to catch onto it and its more limited capacity in this game. I would still recommend Forbidden West, though.

Man I haven’t play this game in a while. One of my top 10 favorites. Really liked the story and combat.

So far I’ve only read the title, but oh my god I agree. I love this game, but it’s strongest areas are doubtless the points when it isn’t open world

"Or else add more reason to explore, maybe bows and armor or special futuristic weapons that can only be found or crafted by exploring." I'm pretty sure throughout the game that power cells should have been placed somewhat along your path, I KNOW there is one in all-mothers temple. From the NG+ Footage though it seems you really didn't get the shield weaver armor which is pretty much exactly what you are speaking about there I would think. Either way, been checking out the channel and I'm finding it fun being reminded all the habits I take for granted at times in games, especially since I'm the sort of person to make sure I read most notes and details I come across. I can't say I've ever really been critical about the death cult plotline before since in many cases including novels and stories, sometimes it can be easier to fast-track people without reasons, because people will sometimes just accept there are some in the background. I can't justify you not checking vendors for half the game though like in the case of the fast travel bag, that one is a bit more of a weird one to me since that's also a funnel for all the items you seemed to hoard. I can get behind enemies on hard mode, being a bit difficult to just hit randomly. Many games of this type straight up make enemies 'bullet sponges' or their equivilent on higher difficulties since it can be hard to have different AIs for different difficulties within a game Plus the game does get a bit specific with it's weak spots and sometimes the focus which lets you see past some of the armour, makes you think you can hit it when things need to be removed first and other conditions.

​ @ThroarbinGaming you literally did no exploring or seeing half of the game. There is a lot there in terms or visual story telling and side quests. Did you know you can ride just about every machine in the game? No, because you did squat for paying attention or world exploring. Hell, you didn't pay attention to shit for the story or how to play the game, then complain about the story and how to play the game. There are weapons and strategies effective for each machine, none of which you used. It was not a death cult. It was the fallen regime of the Carja, lied to and used by the big bad machine. Play the damn game before you review a game. Stop rushing through without learning it and saying its a bad game. Down voting every video until you learn this lesson.

corruptors are weak to fire as it can catch fire more easily, take more damage, and ALSO, overheat and expose its heat core, which takes a LOT of arrow damage, especially when destroyed!

The group that tried to kill Aloy at the beginning are not Carja or even Shadow Carja. They’re Eclipse. If I remember right, an offshoot of one of the former, led by Hades

the shellwalkers (shield enemies) you just have to shoot of their (from your pov) right (their left) "hand" and they cant shield anymore. so viewing this i would give you 1 tip in general: look through the menus iirc there are explainers for every weakspot of a creature, how to disable it and what disabeling it does. If you ever play the sequel (wich i hope you do) i hope this will help you

Forbidden West kind of feels more like an open world game. There're many more secondary quests and different things to explore in the map. Also, yes, you missed the whole story pretty much. Aloi IS a clone of Elizabeth, one that she made as a "fallback" plan in case things went bananas.

In the first battle with the sawtooth you shot its weak point with the fire arrow wich triggered the explosion