They overcomplicated everything. Too many weapons, too many ways to upgrade, the way you have to fight machines now and be so precise knocking things off. Getting knocked over ALL the fecking time and taking forever to get up is the worst part, especially when there's no parry mechanic or auto lock meaning you're just rolling around like a tit most of the time trying to avoid their stupid attacks. The story is crap, Aloy is much more irritating, the game is "open" but locks off so much to you until later on (I mean why bother with all the ? marks when most of 'em are locked off until really late on in the game cause you haven't unlocked the mechanic/item yet, it just totally discourages exploration).
The more I think back on it the more I hate it. Incredibly polished and beautiful game but everything they introduced just made it more annoying to play than the first one. It's like they ran out of ideas on how to actually improve the mechanics of the first game and address its biggest problems so decided to just go bigger and assume people would be happy with that. And maybe most were.
I agree with some of this definitely.
Too many weapons, too many choices, they're not explained well at all how the status effects work and weakness etc. There's a good video on YouTube that explains it though and makes the game much better imo.
The getting knocked over infuriated me too, so agile running about, but feckin useless once she gets knocked over, gets up like a 90year old.
I enjoyed the fights though still, I just learned to approach situations much more carefully. (Still dislike the set piece battles where the machines know you're there so you can't creep on them).
There's an option in settings so you don't have to knock the pieces off to collect them, once you kill the machine you can harvest all parts, one of the settings I first changed. Couldn't be arsed being that precise.
I enjoyed it by the end, the story isn't great but some introductions of new characters and machines were great set pieces. Also some of the areas are feckin beautiful. I'm definitely replaying it all but gonna take more time. Then do the DLC.
Agree with Aloy, she's feckin demented, constantly talks to herself. The puzzles she basically solves for you as you walk into an area, discover new area, 2 seconds later "maybe I could use my grapple".
Human combat sucks still.
Story didn't live up to the first imo.
Still a great game, I like how the machines never just get more HP and stronger weapons because you've levelled up so they have. You actually feel more powerful fighting later in the game, instead of feeling "oh I'm the same toughness as the enemy" as most games decide to do it. Obviously you get their stronger variants.