Just finished this game after a near 90hr playtime, and still feeling like heading back into this beautiful world that Guerilla crafted, and exploring every nook & cranny of it. (Which I will be doing pronto, as I went into the Frozen Wilds right after the "Mountain that Fell" mission, and kinda rushed through the DLC campaign, since I wanted to start the final mission on the main story. Left quite a bit of side missions in the DLC side, and I heard they are pretty good to play through.)

I got this game in April last year, after hearing all the amazing reviews. Played till the part where Aloy has to leave to explore the wider Nora territory and travel to Meridian, at which point I got sidetracked with other games, and this one got benched. Must admit the slow progress till this point, also made me feel like playing something else. Anyway, finished up AC Origins about a month ago, and was thinking that its time to play this game properly now. Since I had already unlocked quite a few skills in the skill tree when I stopped playing, I didn't want to play from scratch. So, watched a lets play video to recap the portions of the game I had already played, and started off again. All I can say is, "damn why did I wait this long to finish this masterpiece". For a studio that did FPS games, Guerilla took such a risk in designing a new IP in 3rd person RPG; but they certainly created a masterpiece here, and one that deserves GOTY. Certainly my favorite game now.

While the game is filled to the brim with amazing scenery and music, complemented with a well written story, lore, and acting, that makes the world feel so alive and gives the story missions such depth, it was some of the more smaller moments that really stuck in my head and made me go wow. So here are some of those stand-out moments for me, in no particular order.

Favorite Moments:

1) First Platinum - Well obviously not a moment in the game, but I wanted to say that this is the first game I got a platinum on my ps4. Normally not so much into hunting down trophies, just for the sake of getting a platinum. Got way too many games in my backlog, and so would rather finish a games story and move onto the next. But with this game, I was so much in love with exploring the world and lore, that I didn't even realize I had grabbed all but 3 trophies by the time I finished the main story and quit the game. The missing ones were for clearing one more corrupted zone and a bandit camp, and the 23 grazer dummies. Well immediately popped back into the game, and got all 3. Feeling pretty good. Ok so onto actual games ones .....

2) Apocashitstorm Tour - Aside from "Best Name Ever!!", following Bashir's story was such a thrilling and truly emotional ride. For what is essentially just a "collectible", the story that unfolded was simply amazing and well crafted. Following his journey through life, exploring the relationship with his mother and step-dad, and deciding to go on the vantage tour when he realized the approaching extinction event, was conveyed in spectacular writing. Finding that last vantage was saddening, and just made me feel that I wanted to know more about the guy.

3) Banuk Figures - Another "collectible", with a really emotional story to tell. Learning of Tiktuk's story, and realizing all his figures and paintings were for a child that would never see them, was so emotional. These stories made hunting these collectibles totally worth it, unlike how its implemented in most games (looking at you AC2 and the stupid feathers.. ugh!!)

4) Please Reply - One of the saddest Datapoints in the game. Realizing the soldier is dead, and someone is compiling pieces of old mails to keep his wife in the dark; hearing her comments on this; and that ending about how he wont be with her when the lights go out. Such feels man. Really helps to convey how terrible the events were for everyone, facing extinction.

5) Rost's Shrine - Ended up using the fast travel here while trying to find a collectible, and remembered the matriarch mentioning they had laid Rost to rest with a shrine near his home. I came here at the story point where Aloy had found out that Olin's family was held hostage, and also having explored pretty much all of the map. Got a prompt to speak to Rost, and was left amazed when Aloy began recounting all her adventures to him. The dialogues and way Aloy speaks to Rost here shows how much she valued him in her life. Its amazing that they left this exchange as something not part of any quest, but simply a voluntary action by the player in exploring the world. Made me eager to visit the shrine more often, and share more of the adventures. (A related event with CYAN as well, thought I was pretty much in the last stage of the game by this point, and so had nothing new to add in revisiting her)

6) Big Ass Stormbird - Chasing after a collectible, ended up encountering this big boss stormbird after climbing over the cliff. This boss fight took me my real surprise, as I cam here before starting the "Mountain that Fell" mission, and wasn't expecting such an encounter while free roaming. Hearing Aloy make a comment about "what was it guarding, that it didn't want me to see", made me curious to go all the way to end of that place and discover the ruins (should point out that I had disabled ruins marker on my map so had no idea what was there). Even more amazing is that when returning to this place after starting the mission, the stormbird is missing, obviously having been killed by me at an earlier time. Brilliant decision to make the game-world persistent and feel more alive.

7) Don't Look Down - So coming here as part of the actual mission for "Mountain that Fell", Aloy makes a remark to herself to "don't look down" while climbing up the cliff. I tilted the camera to look down and Aloy immediately says "damn it" in response. A nice little touch, which could be easily missed by the player if they didn't bother to look down.

8) Sylens - Ok bit of cheating here, seeing as the guy was a major part of the game story, but I simply loved the phenomenal performance of Lance Reddick. From the moment I heard his voice the first time at the dig site, I was struck with the thought that he sounded very familiar, and kept picturing the hotel manager from John Wick. Then when Aloy finally meets him, lo & behold my guess was right. His interaction with Aloy over the Focus while learning the history of the Old Ones was so well done, and those sarcastic quips were delivered with perfect timing. Looking forward to learning more about this guy in the next game.

9) Seeing All-Mother from Near Sunfall - Wanted to see if it would be possible to view the giant metal devil on top of the mountain from the other corner of the map. The fact that you could actually see it from there, shows the care they put into designing the world.

10) Elisabet Sobeck, Alpha Prime - No real reason, other than that I think this was the only point in the game that Aloy identified herself as Elisabet. Given that she was created from Elisabet's genetic material, making her a clone, it felt pretty badass to finally hear her identify like that.

Just some minor quibble about few things that I wish were in the game:

1) Meeting GAIA - It would have been fun to meet GAIA, as Aloy after realizing that she is Elisabet. While this might be the route in the next game, was really expecting to have some kind of encounter between these 2.

2) Discovering and Exploring Elisabet's Home - Given that so many major points for the ZD program was in this map, I was kind of expecting that there would be a mission to locate Elisabet's home. Especially given the remark Aloy made about hoping to see her home one day. Still, it was a nice touch with the video at the end of the game.

3) Interacting with CYAN After Final Battle - Wish that we could talk to CYAN and share the experience of defeating HADES for good.