The Flame-Haired Machines Huntress

[RavenAsh]

Ashley Burch used her "Batman voice" a lot more in the second game. If you compare any random cutscene from part 2 to part 1 you'll notice how different she sounds in the second one. She's speaking more from the chest, deepening her voice and it can be a little breathy and a little forced whispery. It seems like a creative decision to make her sound older and more mature. I think it works most of the time, but there are moments where this speaking style can come across as bored or annoyed.

Spoiler:

It’s also a decision that I think was made to differentiate her performance between Aloy and Beta. And it also works when you consider her arc prior to the final mission- until she quite literally takes the weight of the entire world off her shoulders alone.

 

[BladeS]

Ashley Burch used her "Batman voice" a lot more in the second game. If you compare any random cutscene from part 2 to part 1 you'll notice how different she sounds in the second one. She's speaking more from the chest, deepening her voice and it can be a little breathy and a little forced whispery. It seems like a creative decision to make her sound older and more mature. I think it works most of the time, but there are moments where this speaking style can come across as bored or annoyed.

Since I've gotten at least far enough to see some of their interactions, I wonder if that was the distinguish her from B**a?

I did notice when they are in a scene together, Aloy sounds a bit older and more mature to her counterpart. As far as story goes, I've only collected the 3 AI, about to head to San Francisco. So I don't know how their relationship progresses.

It's been a few years since I played HZD so I wonder if that's why I don't notice the difference.

 

[R_R_X]

I agree with basically all of that. For me, I think it comes down to 2 things. One: Sylens was much more interesting in the first game than the villains in this one, including him, although he wasn't really a villain in Zero Dawn. Two: I loved learning about the world for the first time and the mystery behind basically the whole plot in the first one. And to clarify, I feel the same way about her arc, I was talking about the voice acting.

I feel like part of the reason Sylens and the story was better in the first was because we didn't know anything about him and the world, unraveling a good mistery is always fascinating when told right and revealed through great characters like Sylens and Zero Dawn absolutely delivered on that front.

As far as villains I think the second game's story didn't try to have a main villain for you to fight to show that the whole world, even the new guys, are too egotistical to change who they are, Aloy sees the trajectory the world is going and she's desperately trying to get everyone united but it's extremely hard when you have Ted Faros wannabes walking around, tribes killing each other over stupid reasons and the new guys causing more trouble, the real villain of the story was human hubris, it's really the villain of the whole franchise when you think about it, every bad thing happened because of big egos and pride, that said I hope they have an interesting final villain to beta in the third game, feels like

Spoiler:

Nemesis

could be a red herring.

The voice acting was definitely different, probably to show she aged and how furstrated and tired she is of trying to save people who don't want to be saved, also

Spoiler:

they definitely wanted her and Beta to sound different, in the first game Aloy sounds younger and closer to Beta.

 

[Jman101010]

I haven't finished Forbidden West just yet (about 60% done it looks like), so I'm not reading under the spoilers for anything. But I see this mentioned a lot about how she always sounds like she's over everyone's ****, sassy, or generally uninterested and one note. For reference, I started seeing people say that that around 1/4 into the game and so I paid closer attention and tried to really look for it... And, I don't see it. I keep looking at her interactions where she's helping people, talking to her companions back at the base, and she seems generally engaged. Sometimes I'll see where she's over someone's ****, but... it's not a majority of the game at all. I almost feel like people aren't understanding the situation she's in.

She has this vast knowledge of what the reality of the world is, what's behind everything and how it all works. But she's surrounded by people who keep killing each other and engaging in insane rituals and politics, while parroting ideas of "Gods" and other fantastical ideas that came from things as mundane as an interactive museum hologram.

Like, could you imagine the amount of frustration you'd feel carrying that around? Knowing that all the fighting, death, and politics is based on a complete misunderstanding or how the world actually works?

All that being said, I definitely think I like the story from 1 a lot better. It's hard to capture that sense of wonder from the first game. As you play through, realizing what happened, the amount of misunderstanding in the world, how it came to be etc.

I definitely understand her situation. Maybe I should describe it as tired sounding. There is a few moments where she sounds more playful and upbeat with friends, but those seem few and far in-between. She generally is a little more engaged with her friends, but most of the time there's not that big of a difference. I understand why they would've made that decision, but it gets a bit tiring. I've 100% and Platinumed it, so I've done a lot more than just the story stuff, meaning there's a lot more side dialogue where she sounds tired than there is with her friends.

 

[Jman101010]

I feel like part of the reason Sylens and the story was better in the first was because we didn't know anything about him and the world, unraveling a good mistery is always fascinating when told right and revealed through great characters like Sylens and Zero Dawn absolutely delivered on that front.

As far as villains I think the second game's story didn't try to have a main villain for you to fight to show that the whole world, even the new guys, are too egotistical to change who they are, Aloy sees the trajectory the world is going and she's desperately trying to get everyone united but it's extremely hard when you have Ted Faros wannabes walking around, tribes killing each other over stupid reasons and the new guys causing more trouble, the real villain of the story was human hubris, it's really the villain of the whole franchise when you think about it, every bad thing happened because of big egos and pride, that said I hope they have an interesting final villain to beta in the third game, feels like

Spoiler:

Nemesis

could be a red herring.

The voice acting was definitely different, probably to show she aged and how furstrated and tired she is of trying to save people who don't want to be saved, also

Spoiler:

they definitely wanted her and Beta to sound different, in the first game Aloy sounds younger and closer to Beta.

I definitely agree with the last part. I think that's why it was more prominent.

Spoiler:

I thought Beta would some very similar and that I was going to be annoyed, but I actually really liked the way she was voice acted.

I guess it was a trade off.

 

[vaanrose]

Spoiler:

It’s also a decision that I think was made to differentiate her performance between Aloy and Beta. And it also works when you consider her arc prior to the final mission- until she quite literally takes the weight of the entire world off her shoulders alone.

I specifically chose not to mention that for spoilers but yes, I definitely agree that's part of it.

Spoiler:

I really liked the way Burch played Beta. She gave me pre-transition Elliot Page vibes, I thought it worked really well for that character.

I wound up liking that character significantly more than I expected I would. Hint hint R_R_X

 

[RavenAsh]

I specifically chose not to mention that for spoilers but yes, I definitely agree that's part of it.

Spoiler:

I really liked the way Burch played Beta. She gave me pre-transition Elliot Page vibes, I thought it worked really well for that character.

I wound up liking that character significantly more than I expected I would. Hint hint R_R_X

Didn’t want to be to overt with my love for that character to give away how much I’d love a representation of her next to our Fire Haired Machine Hunter but since you’ve already started….

Spoiler:

I know this artwork is only tangentially related to this discussion but I just had to share, one of my absolute favourites. Game 3’s tutorial could be Aloy teaching Beta! (Credit: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/Wm3KzE)

 

[RandomHero]

If they do any companion pieces I’d prefer Erend or Varl, personally. They go back to the first game, which I think most will agree was a bit more memorable regardless of reason. I also like the idea of having a few warriors to display Aloy with considering the battles she’s fought. Erend and his hammer would be a really great figure that would command a lot of shelf presence.

That said, it’s probably going to be a bit of an uphill battle to get LIM to go further down the Horizon hole. We’re lucky to be getting Aloy. Hopefully sales are strong and they’ll consider more like they did with the Outlaws of the West line.

 

[RavenAsh]

Totally understandable. Could you imagine Erend’s armour with that huge hammer? He’d be like a Thor figure haha.

And I agree- getting her alone would be massive

 

[vaanrose]

If they do any companion pieces I’d prefer Erend or Varl, personally. They go back to the first game, which I think most will agree was a bit more memorable regardless of reason. I also like the idea of having a few warriors to display Aloy with considering the battles she’s fought. Erend and his hammer would be a really great figure that would command a lot of shelf presence.

That said, it’s probably going to be a bit of an uphill battle to get LIM to go further down the Horizon hole. We’re lucky to be getting Aloy. Hopefully sales are strong and they’ll consider more like they did with the Outlaws of the West line.

Spoiler:

Yeah but those other guys don't share a face with the character they're already making lol

 

[The Green Goblin]

Erend and Varl were so one dimensional in the first game, if there were to be a companion piece to this, I'd want it to be a Clawstrider. Go big or go home, lol.

 

[RandomHero]

Erend rules, I will fight you. Give me more people discovering football and heavy metal for the first time.

 

[BladeS]

Finished up the main story last night and went back and read through the spoiler comments. I agree with most of the comments in this thread in one way or another. I think I agree a little more with R_R_X on his assessments. I also stand by my sentiments that I didn't have many issues with Ashly/Aloy's delivery. Something I want to bring up to defend my point... Aloy is (initially) very isolated literally and emotionally, very goal driven, "No time, gotta save the word, gotta save the world". You can say, "Well, she was more emotive in the first game, she felt very one note and emotionless in her delivery in this one."

And I would say, "Yes, exactly!". That's right in line with the story. She is shutting herself off from her emotions, from others, in order to hit her goal. Fix the planet, save the world. "Everything is on me, no time for relationships, no time for emotions, it's all up to me, just like Elisabet!"

Spoiler:

Tilda even says that about Elisabet and why they had issues with their relationship. Aloy is going down that same path. But then as you guys know, and the point of the game, she sees the value in her friends and her relationships. She sees how important they are, and she starts to open up. You talk about Rost a little bit with Varl and you see that emotion start to come out. You have the drink with Erend and she's actually laughing and smiling. I don't really think Ashly's delivery was the issue, I think a lot people are missing the nuance of her mindset and how cold she should come across.

Also, you know, to differentiate her from Beta. Like we all kinda agree on. Which, by the way, awesome difference in voice work for both of them. When they had scenes together I never got confused or annoyed at their voices being identical. The delivery was very consistently different.

I absolutely loved this game and feel genuinely bad that it came out at the same time as Elden Ring. So many people **** on it and said, "oh it's another open world game with the same formulaic gameplay as a million other open world games." And while I agree with some of that criticism, the atmosphere, the story, the beauty and uniqueness of the world and the quality overall was fantastic. Plus, they released a game that wasn't a broken mess at release. Which, in today's market, should absolutely be commended. And yet, it was overlooked for people to say it was boring, unimaginative, and formulaic. Sucks.

Onto a few gripes I had with the game... Number 1 being, holy crap, Aloy, you don't have to talk through every single action and puzzle in the game. I know I should glide to get to the other platform. I know I should use a crate to get up high. I don't need dialogue to walk me through the entire game. Make that a toggle, or a setting when playing on the Story difficulty. Number 2, the melee combat, while it has improved, was pretty frustrating and didn't work for me. Especially some of the melee pits, or the fight with the enduring. Number 3, regarding the story...

Spoiler:

I didn't love how 0 to 100 that Tilda went. She was so on board with helping us, and then within the span of 5 seconds is trying to beat us until submission. I get that she's manipulative and got her entire wealth with espionage, but draw out the scene a little bit, build up to it. She just was like, "You're coming with me, RIGHT NOW. Oh no? TIME FOR DEATH."

Then she just kinda immediately died. I was hoping she'd roll out of her machine pod and we'd had some additional dialogue, maybe she's left in a sort of paralyzed/vegetative state trying to recover back at the base... Leave it open ended. Having her in the next game would have been really interesting and add some complexity to everything.

I hope there's more to her death, cause that really cheapened that ending for me.

But other than that, I was fine with the storyline, and I like the direction for the next game. Speaking of which...

Spoiler:

I 100% agree that in the next game we'll play as Beta. It's the perfect way to explain away her lack of armor and weapons and abilities. Allow you to develop your build again, while still going through a full Horizon game.

Nemesis will obviously be the final villain of the next game. I do wonder though, wasn't it specifically trying to kill the Zenith's? What reasoning does it have to go after the rest of humanity at this point?

 

[WhoaItsJBot]

Erend and Varl were so one dimensional in the first game, if there were to be a companion piece to this, I'd want it to be a Clawstrider. Go big or go home, lol.

If I could choose any companion figure it would be Kotallo. He was by far my favorite in FW.

 

[Jman101010]

If I could choose any companion figure it would be Kotallo. He was by far my favorite in FW.

Same here! He's played by the same guy who played Charles in RDR2. I recognized him right away.

 

[AviMiz97]

Hey @R_R_X, you recently gave updates about some figures, but do you have anything about the Flame Haired one?

 

[RandomHero]

I don’t want to speak for R_R_X, but he did say that we would *maybe* see a prototype this year, so I would figure there won’t be much in the way of updates for a while. Maybe he’ll have more to tell us after we see Nate, Joel and Ellie up for pre-order.

 

[R_R_X]

Hey @R_R_X, you recently gave updates about some figures, but do you have anything about the Flame Haired one?

Still in early development, probably won't have anything to show until the very end of the year or beginning of the next.

 

[Scythe Of Luna]

Aloy is going to be a huge check off the "Female figures I want, but I doubt anyone will make them" list.

I still hope someone makes a Senua from Hellblade eventually too. I have a better chance with that than Nariko or Bloodrayne at this point, probably. LOL

 

[Burnside]

Aloy is going to be a huge check off the "Female figures I want, but I doubt anyone will make them" list.

I still hope someone makes a Senua from Hellblade eventually too. I have a better chance with that than Nariko or Bloodrayne at this point, probably. LOL

It's a mistery why this figure does not exist. Probably companies believe it wont be popular.
I mean Senua is relatively easy to make. No exquisite tailoring, minimum amount of accesories. Nothing hard on the body literally poptoys body would do the trick