LEGO Horizon Adventures Review

I was not expecting myself to enjoy Lego Horizon Adventures as much as I did. I am not a Horizon super fan but I do enjoy the series to some degree. The idea of a Lego title based on the series felt like a bizarre move since it's not a licensed game based on a family friendly kids franchise.

However with that said, this is easily the most interesting and innovating lego game I played in such a long time. Usually every lego game after the first Star Wars in 2005 is just a variation on what that game did maybe some attempts at an open world but it never goes furthur than that. Skywalker Saga did try to breath new life but it sort of just felt like a hodge podge of different ideas if not entering into the realm of a mini game compliation. I already knew I was in for a different kind of lego game experience when there are difficulty options and actual fail states. Death is not a slap on the wrist this time around. The closest you got to that in other lego games was not getting 1st place in the Pod Race in the games based on Star Wars.

Lego Horizon Adventures however is the game in the series I always wanted. I never cared about the mainline series' open worlds, RPG and traversal systems and the stealth mechanics. All I really cared about was the projectile based weapons, the elemental weaknesses on enemies and weak point based damage system. This to me is what made the series interesting and finally there is a game in the series where this is in the forefront and all the above mention stuff is out. The closest thing to RPG system is this game is a light levelling system similar to the Ratchet and Clank games where even if you die, the XP gained from killing enemies will be retained even upon death. You can also use lego pieces to get buffs but it still is light by comparison to the main series.

An improvement over the mainline games too is the camera, some could scoff at the isometric camera and while the lack of a dedicated dodge button is missed, I love the fact that now, I have a better view from where enemies are going to attack me and where their projectile attacks are going to land. There is a red circle for when an enemy is going to an attack and stay out the circle, you don't take damage. This by comparison to the 3rd person Horizon games where it's easy to get hit from off screen whether it'd be from far off projectiles are enemies just randomly charging into you from behind, blindspots or aiming your bow to land a hit. Despite the lack of a dodge button, I feel more capable in this game than I do in the mainline series, the removal of the aforementioned stuff just adds to it.

In terms of combat difficulty, the game is by no means a cakewalk but it's overbearing when it comes to challenge. The "balanced" combat difficulty actually does live up to its name. While your health does increase upon level ups even weaker enemies can wipe a quarter of your health and stronger enemies can do even more damage. The thing that prevents combat from feeling impossible is that there are medicinal berry trees scattered all over the various battle arenas.

What Lego Horizon ultimately is a twin stick shooter where you need to kill waves of enemies to progress and complete the level with bosses thrown in every few levels. I love that it's level based and focuses on what makes Horizon interesting like I said before.

New enemies get introduced throughout the campaign and they get mixed in with the fodder enemies too, they all have different weak points and targets to hit. This is the kind of game that I wished the main Horizon games leaned more into

The biggest hurdle is the controls. It looks like a twin stick shooter but does not control like a traditional one. In these games on console left stick is to move while right stick is to aim. Thing is, you can't aim and shoot at the same time. It's like Resident Evil 4 2005 where you aim, stand still and then fire. This can be offputting especially at first and it took a while to get used to. There's accessiblity options in the menu, I put aim and shoot to by clicking R3 and also switched it to toggle aim rather than hold.

There also different gadgets, elemental weapons and even environmental hazards like fire, ice, electricty hidden to damage enemies with so aiming with just the bow arrow so you don't have to primarily use that. Enemies can also hurt themselves by charging too.

After that, the only big negative I can say on the game is the story and writing. It can on the obnoxious side with the 4th wall breaks and referential humor and I am not a fan of the replaced voice actors for Hellis and Sylens.

The splash damage on rocket attacks can get a little on the cheap side since you might get hit even when out of the red circle

Overall, this was the most enjoyable Lego game I played in a while especially considering how samey many of them tend to be. Horizon and Lego did sound like a weird combination on paper but it turned out to work better than I thought.