Honestly, I thought this was one of the best games I have played in a while. I would put it up there on par with The Last of Us. I might actually like this game a little more than The Last of Us. To me, it was beautifully done. Everything about it, in my eyes, was masterful.
I loved the story and the "unique" feeling to it. The dinosaur/animals was a nice touch. I thought the combat was great and honestly, I'm not the biggest fan of RPG's but this game, this game managed to keep me immersed and enthralled with the setting and story.
I too went off and practically completed the entire game before finishing the main quest. (Something I don't generally do but, it was great interacting with all of these side characters/missions!) I will say, if I could do it over again, I probably wouldn't play that way. It's a shame because there were a lot of cool set pieces that were ruined because I had already experienced them on my own.
*Like when you have to save the soldier from all of the Snapmaws. When they come out of the water/coming over the hill and seeing them all by the waters edge, that was such a cool spectacle. I really wish that was my first time seeing them but, unfortunately, it wasn't.
The game was also incredibly easy later on with the main missions. I feel like if I hadn't upgraded all the way to level 50, some of the missions would have proven to be cumbersome/difficult. I kind of breezed through most of them. I loved the character of Aloy and how Guerrilla and co chose to write/represent her. I think they did an commendable job adding a new face to the Playstation family. I'm really, really excited for the prospect of a sequel.
I platinum(ed) this game which is something I rarely do. I have to really, really enjoy a game in order to do that. I think I only have a total of six platinum trophies. All in all, Guerrilla Games really knocked it out of the park with this one.