"Home isn't really a place at all. It's more like ... the people I want to be with."
Hello everyone!
I was all set to watch a Hannah Swensen mystery this past Sunday, because I remembered that I really enjoyed the Murder, She Baked on Hallmark Movies & Mysteries.
Turns out, as I start watching the movie I'd chosen, it looks ridiculously familiar.
Aaand I already have it on the blog.
Given the fact that the newest entry only really premiered this weekend as well, I won't be able to watch it until a week's past, so I had to call an audible and switch gears real fast.
Luckily for me (and my unfortunate head with the biggest potential for a migraine I've had in forever) I was only about an hour away from finishing something else, this time on Youtube.
Burning Shores picks up Aloy's story, and runs with it.
You'll find links to the previous installments in the Horizon franchise at the bottom of this page, as per usual, because I've reviewed them all!
So after finding out her true purpose, freezing her athletic tush off, and ridding the world of potential immortal overlords, Aloy wonders what a girl has to do to be able to enjoy a margarita by the pool in peace.
Turns out, not listen to Sylens, for one (RIP Lance Reddick! You will be missed).
But she's a good girl so she goes and listens anyway, and he tells her that one Zenith seems to be unaccounted for, Walter Londra (played by the incomparable Sam Witwer). Walter used to be a magnate of epic proportions back in the day, and is still super obsessed with putting on a show, mind you, but equally he seems to have fled to his old haunts down in LA, now called the Burning Shores.
Aloy figures having a rogue Zenith around isn't good for anyone's health and tags after him, gets shot out of the sky for her efforts, and teams up with a Quen, Seyka, just to not get eaten by what look to be giant hippo and frog robots.
Seyka explains that she's part of the Quen expedition, but their fleet got separated from the main group which landed a San Francisco, and they have no way to reconnect with Alva and the others because they apparently have no functioning Diviners left (they have Focuses, remember?) and their one navigator is also MIA.
Oh, she also happens to be Seyka's sister, by the by. No big deal.
After speaking to some arrogant Quen who apparently aren't as Ancestor-forward as Alva's group is since they don't recognize Elisabet Sobeck immediately, Aloy garners from the admiral that he's doing Seyka a huge favor by NOT incinerating her on the spot since she stole a Focus off a dead Diviner.
Since Aloy is enlightened and progressive, she still doesn't get this Quen limited-knowledge bullshit, but anyway, she teams up with Seyka since she needs to get to a place called Starlight Rise, which just so happens to be protected by that stupid tower she has a personal vendetta against for shooting at her sunwing and knocking her out of the sky to boot. It also seems to be where the missing Quen apparently are, and this is immediately much more complicated because one of them is Seyka's sister, making her emotionally involved.
But she's a good fighter so they take out the tower and work around the wall Londra put up on this pitstop he's concocted there, where they find evidence he's taken the Quen hostage and is having them dig out his old haunts for him, though for what end remains a bit ambiguous for the time being.
Following his trail to right under the Hollywood sign (which will apparently survive any and all apocalypse, even a war of machines) they actually find their missing Quen. Success!
Only ... they seem to be VERY happy right where they are, wear weird ass clothing that nobody in their expedition otherwise wears, and have gold makeup I haven't seen before in the game either. Also, they seem to've drank the Londra Kool-Aid because they spew stuff about the Ascension and how he's the coolest thing since sliced bread.
Sounds sus. So, naturally, Aloy and Seyka infiltrate the little Londra-museum he's apparently had time to set up to try and figure out just WHAT it is he's doing, which turns out to be building a rocket ship with the help of the Horus this facility seems to be sitting under. He's still planning on getting the hell outta dodge, but now he's taking some Quen with him, which they learn after defeating a big guy named Zeth.
He's taken said Quen to an abandoned amusement park that is the BEST Easter egg I've seen in this game after the God of War one, because it's literally a nod to Universal Studios, and particularly the Jurassic franchise.
Listen, if you don't giggle when Aloy eyes a raptor hologram and comments that 'this one looks clever', then I don't know what to tell you. You're a lost cause.
Sneaking around the park and killing anyone that gets in their way, Seyka and Aloy finally discover that Londra seems to be gathering Quen DNA for ... something. They meet his personal AI, Nova, who explains she's been his servant for a thousand years and that, yes, he wants to build his own colony, far from the threat of Nemesis. He's also taking Quen DNA because he kinda needs it to build said colony, but he also wants to replace his dead wife, and he's apparently zeroed in on Seyka's sister for that particular role.
Oh and because he's such a benevolent guy, he reactivated his Mutiny Suppression Protocol, which basically brainwashes anyone who he applies it to, and that's why the Quen have been willingly fighting our duo all the way - the side effects of that protocol made them irritable and aggressive. He's refined it for his current followers, however, to just make the docile, because he's not a barbarian, ya know?
Sickened, Aloy agrees to delete Nova who wants to be free of Londra, and then hightails it for Londra so she and Seyka can disturb his little culty ritual of seducing Seyka's sister, which annoys him and he unleashes a machine to buy himself some time to escape.
Back at the Hollywood sign it turns out he hasn't just been using the Horus fabricating capabilities, but waking it up inch by inch, and while I was initially disappointed that we'd only get the tentacles smashing around ... the thing moved.
And walked out. And started a boss fight with Aloy, because NATURALLY.
Listen, I totally, TOTALLY get why people are mad that this is a PS5 exclusive since the main game was still cross-gen. But I also TOTALLY get why only a PS5 is capable of rendering a full on Horus machine for battle, because a PS4 would have probably taken one look at that and melted on the spot out of protest, committing honourable seppuku.
Back to the show, using Seyka as a distraction on the waterwing acquired earlier in the game (while taking down ANOTHER of those stupid shooting towers), Aloy takes the Horus dead-on, eventually managing to crawl right into its skull and fighting Londra in there, where he's hooked himself up to the processing orb to be able to control it.
She beats the crud out of him, takes him out, and hops on with Seyka while the Horus re-parks itself in a different location from the Hollywood hill it originally started from. Parallel-parking next to a volcano is a bitch, y'all.
The machine down, the remaining Quen saved, our duo return to the admiral who's so elated he's even more reserved than at the beginning of the DLC when you first meet him, but Aloy has one last surprise for this lot: she connects Seyka with Alva so they can coordinate a regroup of the two remaining fleets here in America.
Then, to top it off, Seyka opens her heart to Aloy saying she'd love to stay with her and ... maybe ... see where it could go? As a player, you then have three options, saying yes, saying it's too much for you at the moment, or saying you're not quite ready for something of the sort. It depends on your preference, but be advised that Aloy having feelings for Seyka IS a canon choice and Guerrilla has announced it, post-game. I'll chat more about it in one second.
Because Aloy still has something to conclude, which is returning to Sylens at her home base where he's been sifting through data she got from Londra, and he explains there may be old weaponry they could potentially use against Nemesis, that Londra made a list about.
They have one of their delightful one-on-one verbal spats, until Sylens thanks Aloy for her "extraordinary contributions" and she decides maybe they can thaw his icy heart after all.
Aaand scene!
Whew.
I'll admit: the story takes a beat to properly set up. I think I needed roughly forty minutes of a four-and-a-half long video to really start getting into it, because unfortunately the DLC just ... feels emptier than what Guerrilla offered in the past. There isn't all that much to explore, even when the game itself urges you to do so, from what I've seen, and it's quite apparent that the game studio's primary focus wasn't so much the story of Londra and the Horus as it was of Seyka and Aloy.
Yup, this is literally romance-geared, and I have to say that ... I did not get all those romantic vibes people keep gushing about online.
Before anyone comes after me: I really don't care who Aloy ends up with. She can be alone, she can have a harem, she can go up to Banuk territory and play those water pipes with the chick from Frozen Wilds for the rest of her days after Nemesis, for all I care. The option in which she chooses Seyka is cute and soft and adorable, but it's not a strong enough pay-off for what we get through the rest of the DLC content.
I'll be honest, Seyka grated my nerves at the beginning, and then was just kinda meh through the rest, nor do she and Aloy have many interactions that would make me think Aloy thinks of her as anything more than another companion. Sure there's that near-collision at the beach, and Aloy obsesses way more than normal when Seyka gets butthurt about not being told the Nemesis story immediately, but those are fragmented scenes stretched through a long period.
In between ... she's just like any of the other companions, and she and Aloy interact on that level, too.
I also don't get the sense that Aloy has feelings for Seyka in the two options that aren't 'yes' there at the end. Which is probably why Guerrilla came out to defend and explain their choices and their canon, because choosing anything but yes literally tells the player Aloy's done with Seyka and won't be circling back to that, but it inconveniently (for the developers) DOESN'T shed light on the fact she apparently has feelings for the Quen no matter what you pick.
I honestly don't know. The writing isn't as strong as in the previous DLC, and I think it actually kinda took a hit trying to focus on the romance but then also didn't really deliver that romance well, either, which is a shame because I think Aloy and Seyka do have potential.
I have a bone to pick with regards to the defense of Seyka though, because apparently, she's the first person Aloy runs across who's her equal and starts off right on the opposite side of how Aloy started off: Seyka has a people and a purpose until she doesn't and is cast out.
Oh really? What about Kotallo, Guerrilla? To name just one. He's basically, from that description alone, the male version of Seyka. He also had a people and a purpose until he was practically cast out and definitely shunned after losing his arm after the ill-fated Embassy.
Now don't misunderstand me, I'm not pushing for Aloy and Kotallo; like I said, I'm happy as long as Aloy ends up happy. My problem is that the defense of Seyka is weak, it reduces previously-established (and generally loved) characters to inconsequential nothings, and the writing really doesn't sell on Seyka that well either, beyond making her another companion.
And to all you bigoted, homophobic idiots out there: sit down and zip it.
Overall the writing feels like it's a minor issue with the DLC as a whole, because Londra isn't that threatening as an enemy, until he gets into the Horus, and while it's great we finally get to see one of those big things in action, it sucks that the overall feel of Burning Shores is much flatter and emptier than any other installment that's come out of the Horizon franchise thus far.
So while it's still ENTERTAINING, it leaves a lot to be desired, in my personal opinion, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the conclusion of the trilogy with Nemesis will go back to Horizon roots and deliver a kick-ass story.
It's what we're here for, after all (besides walloping robo dino butts).
xx
*images and video not mine
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