A Difficulty Level is Just a Suggestion

Feminina O'Ladybrain

Oct 16

Spoilers for story and fighting in Horizon: Burning Shores

Butch:

Man, you're right. Londra's a jerk.

Apex Slaughterspine? Dude. That thing sucked. And that poor girl got stepped on!

This "bigger thing" is a horus, isn't it? You must know, because you must be done, because if this is the final bit, you must've done it already and, thus, you're done.

It's a horus, isn't it?

Anyway, killed the big thing, then decided that I should magpie before the final act, so I figured that, now that Seyka's sister is safe, I could go wipe out that devotee camp, so I did. Then, I saw a cave right by there and it had delver dudes in it, so I spent WAAAAY too long figuring out how to get to the prize. There was a crate involved. I'm not good at crates.

Still, got it, and now I have another trinket. Got near a cauldron and hit save.

I think Londra is not just drifting away from his own humanity (literally and figuratively), he's lost the ability to know what "human" is. Even if we concede that he is, in fact, heartbroken, his efforts to "replace" Evelyn are lacking an understanding as to what made Evelyn Evelyn. He's trying to make a puppet, an automaton. We even find the datapoint of him saying "I can always choose another one in a couple generations."

With all this, as awful as it is, I think he did love Evelyn. Wanting to be with an Evelyn substitute isn't wanting to be with the most popular woman in the world. Kira or whoever isn't a famous movie star. Having her wouldn't give Londra any special standing with the gossip press. That said, he wants his faux Evelyn. He's just doing it in the most grotesque, inhuman way possible.

We have a clone finding that she can love vs. a human who has so forgotten what his humanity and love are that he's making clones.

I think that's intentional.

Feminina:

Horus? What's a Horus?

Ha.

Londra is the worst. Agree with your points.

I'm not sure he even sees himself as 'human' anymore -- I think he considers himself way above human, and mere humans are so far beneath him that they mean basically nothing. It was interesting to see the way he treated his AI, Nova, compared to the way he treated the Quen. Essentially, they were all just things for him to tinker with, and any preferences they might have had about that didn't register at all.

Alternatively, his knowing that all the humans on Earth now are descendants of clones basically created by his own group allows him to think of them all as artificial, while only he himself is 'truly' human in his own mind...but my sense is really that he feels he's transcended humanity. And one could certainly argue he's not wrong.

Whether or not that's a good thing is where the themes maybe really come in. Like so many narrative figures who seek to transcend humanity in some way (let's live forever and be incredibly powerful!), he becomes a monster by succeeding.

Butch:

Hmm. I suppose he has transcended. And yes, he does treat them like he treated Nova, who, in the end, seemed to be more human than Londra or the brainwashed Quen were. She was, at least, aware of herself and aware that he was keeping her captive. I suppose when you know you're surrounded by clones you created, that would make your head kinda big.

Though, in some way, Aloy's the same. She is, essentially, Elisabeth Sobeck, right? For all of Zenith's posturing and ego, nothing would exist, no humans, no machines, no Zenith, nothing, but for Sobeck. Sure, others participated, others financed it, but Sobeck is what made it happen. If the Zenith are gods, Sobeck was Zeus, and Aloy is Sobeck. But Aloy's cool! She's humble! It can be done.

You're finished, aren't you? You are. If you are, I have questions: What's worth it? Flight patterns? I doubt the cauldron is. The trinkets? Should I putter or is it a waste of time? I don't need overrides and brimshine, but story and theme are good.

Also, if you're done and I'm close, it's time to ask that age old question, what's next? We actually have CHOICES! Phantom Liberty? AC Mirage? Jump right to BG3? SO MANY CHOICES!

I defer to you.

Feminina:

I mean, I like poking around in cauldrons, and you get a bilegut override, but it definitely isn't critical to the game. I haven't even used it.

The flight patterns are all snippets of old world tragedy, there's not a big reveal that I've found. I haven't found all the delver figures...there's still one I'm missing and I'm not sure where it is. I'm trying to decide whether to keep looking for it or just wrap up, which I'm probably about to do, but haven't done yet.

Butch:

Ah. Have you finished the main story, though?

I don't like cauldrons as much as you like cauldrons. I may skip that. Though, gotta say, I've gotten very good with the birdy. Might flex those muscles.

Watch, now I've gone and jinxed it.

Feminina:

Well, I have to go back and talk to Seyka. That's an ongoing theme in this game. But mostly, unless something pops up, yes, I've finished the main story.

I kind of liked the aerial capture missions. It's fun to fly! And dive into the water!

Butch:

All right. I'll try my hand at flying. But you can keep the cauldron. I avoid bilegut anyway.

There is a lot of talking to Seyka.

How awful is the fight that is probably a Horus?

Feminina:

The big fight is so not-that-awful that I began to suspect I'd accidentally had the settings on Easy all this time. I went to set them back to Normal at the beginning, but maybe I didn't save the settings?

But then I didn't bother to confirm or disprove that, because I was in the middle of a fight and it's not like I'm going to go back and do it all again on Hard even if it was on Easy.

So basically, it's not that bad, but if it IS that bad, just turn it down.

Butch:

Huh. That's odd. The slaughterspine was hard, but maybe that's because I suck and kept missing with the thing that attracts the things from the gun.

I'm not complaining. I don't want annoying.

Feminina:

Yeah, that one was hard in that it took a lot of running around, but now that I think about it, it didn't kill me because there were so many health berries everywhere and I just kept racing around and healing in between shots at it (one of my key tactics in any game where it's an option), so it wasn't HARD hard.

Did you die? If it killed you and not me, I probably had it on Easy.

Butch:

Hmm. Now that you mention it, I think I only died once, and that was because I did a stupid and got caught in a corner, as one does. I think I just came close a few times, and it took me forever.

Feminina:

Hm. Maybe we're both just that tough, then. I mean, we ARE very high level and have finished the main game and all. This might be designed to be doable for people if they join it midway through the main game?

Or maybe we both accidentally have it on Easy!

Whatever. I'm not going to worry about it. But the really big final fight that's possibly with a Horus is about the same level of difficulty. Lots of running and shooting, not a lot of dying. Time-consuming, not deadly.

I'll take it. I was perfectly happy with the way it played out.

Butch:

Bah. Time consuming. Grumble.

I think we're pretty tough. I remembered, at the start of the evening, to spend the bazillion skill points that I had been forgetting to spend, so I bought pretty much every skill there was. That's gotta count for something.

I did come close to dying. But, as you say, lots of berries.

Which is good because man, scrolling through all the traps and shit to get to "healing potion" takes forever! I took so much damage being all "No, no, not that, or that, where is it, seriously WHERE IS IT?"

Feminina:

Yes! I'm running around frantically scrolling past things..."can't call mount, don't need traps, don't need that food, can't call other mount..."