Monster Hunter: World

The world building concepts and overall creation that has come to life of the game, the way things look and how they’re presented and executed is IMO fantastic. It really does feel like (to me, in some ways) DMC meets a sort of Dinosaurs-esque fantasy. The movements are swift and pretty sick too, and these actions is also great. I do, however, wish a 10/10 story was on the line, thus far I’m feeling such is a 7/10. The gameplay isn’t my fave ever but it’s very good. Graphics are good, solid, graphics + worldbuilding + look/design + creativity = 10
Everything else is around a 7 to 9 out of 10, but only one 7/10 (aforementioned) . Seriously, it’s a great game, and I love the feeling of defeating monsters and their surrounding buddies and you’re then finished with doing a quest and it’s just such a fun game most of all, that’s why I give it 10/10. FUN.

i played nothing but this for like 6 months and loved it

This is the Monster Hunter dream for someone whose last and only title was Monster Hunter Freedom, the psp port and extras of the first title. Now that game is practically unplayable now, because of outdated design, but it was a great experience. But now Monster Hunter World comes and makes that one even more obsolute.

Simply said, this game adds so much quality of life changes to the Monster Hunter franchise that its hard to turn back. Its not just the visuals which are absolutly fantastic, the level and creature design that makes environments feel like true jungles, deserts and plains brimming with life. Its a whole lot of cut corners and grinding, that would only make the game more frustrating than it should.

Now the games additions arent all perfect. The focus on story scenes doesnt really provide the reward it should, its a rather boring set of characters and story. The way that the architecture for online built is also puzzlinly overly complex. There are also a couple of monster that simply arent fun to fight.

But when the game is at its best, and you use your knowledge to easily kill 1 on 1 the monster that gave you trouble throughout half the game, this game is second to none. There are so many weapons to explore, and monster to learn. Its a game that makes grinding for materials extremely fun as the core gameplay is close to perfect. As perfect as third person combat goes anyway. A must play for this reason alone.

I’ve never really considered myself much of a fan of grindy hack’n’slash kinds of games but Monster Hunter takes this really niche formula and makes it feel about as deep and epic as humanly possible. The simplest description of Monster Hunter is that it’s a glorified boss battle mode that takes place in large open ended arenas; it almost feels a lot like a hunting game too in how you’re made to track down monster’s using their foot prints and exploiting the surrounding environments to your advantage. Each boss encounter is long and unpredictable, plus the game gives you a near endless array of weapon options and combat strategies. This is an RPG at it’s core and you’re gonna get consumed by the complex bottomless pit of crafting and weapon forging. The game is ever so slightly held back by a few different things; namely a phoned in narrative and occasional incohesion of it’s systems but overall there’s far more good than bad here.

The game’s set up is that your character is part of a brand new fleet of hunters setting out into a new world for the purposes of researching a giant Elder Dragon named Zorah Magdaros who’s travelled to the new world for some reason and… Well that’s it really… The game slowly ramps up the narrative’s sense of urgency later as you discover more about the new world but the story certainly doesn’t get interesting until well into the game. There are several important NPC characters who will guide you along the adventure but not a single one of them is characterised or has any sense of impact or importance, and this couldn’t be any truer than with the Handler who’s supposed to be your partner. I guess it would be a bit different if some of these NPCs could hunt with you like in a Dark Souls kinda scenario but nah they just bounce at the first sign of trouble… Okay I mean this game obviously doesn’t prioritise the story so let’s dig into the combat which IS the game’s bread and butter.

Right out of the gate the game hits you with 14 distinct weapon classes and it might feel a bit daunting to find what works best for you at first, but the key is to experiment with as a many as you can and try to learn more than just one class. You’ve got standard melee weapons, ranged weapons, combinations of ranged and melee, and the Hunting Horn which is mainly a support class. The crafting system in this game is insane and it ties in with the diverse set of monsters you’ll hunt who possess different elemental types or special buffs. The weapon upgrade trees in this game are so vast that it would take forever just to acquirer every max weapon in the game. Then there’s the true MVPs of the game; the Palicos. They not only fight with you but they’ll also attempt to heal you and knock you out of stuns, thus you owe it to them to keep their gear up to snuff. I also like how you can go on expeditions within the game’s 5 major ecosystems for the purposes of gathering necessary crafting materials like plants, ore, monster parts, etc.

The ecosystems in this game and the treacherous monsters who inhabit them are the game’s true trump cards. The boss roster is fairly diverse with each possessing distinct attacks and features. Most of the bosses resemble dinosaur and dragon-esque aesthetics but there are a few odd balls thrown in like the flying squirrel Tobi-Kadachi or the rolling armadillo like Radobaan. They could have gotten maybe a bit more adventurous with the roster as a whole, especially since a little under half of the monsters are carried over from previous Monster Hunter games. There’s only one monster that induces bleed and one that induces frostbite; so having resistance builds for either of those things is kind of pointless versus having a fire resistance build to combat the several monsters in the game with flame based attacks. That said there are certainly a lot of unique boss encounters across the board. The hunting process can often be fascinating as it involves tracking them down, chasing them around the ecosystem, and then retiring back to their lair for a nail biting final stand.

The environments feel very real in this game, there’s tons of docile fauna in some areas that just do their own thing, or sometimes there will be a herd of little minion monsters following their pack leader around like with the Great Girros. Sometimes large monsters will get into turf wars with one another, and occasionally monsters will interrupt fights you’re having with other monsters (I’m looking at you Bazelbitch!!!). Sometimes a monster you’re hunting will decide to run off and hunt something for itself or attempt to get some sleep. The world just feels like it’s operating completely independently from you which is a really cool thing to accomplish in a video game. There’s even NPCs scattered about within the worlds that will dish out optional side quests and objectives.

I mean there’s just not enough good things I can say here like shit; I haven’t even really gotten into the online features which work adequately. They could have done a better job to make doing story quests in co-op less of a pain (since you have to watch cut scenes before other players can join) but I really can’t complain, especially since the squad system is so convenient for match making. Even if I’ve got some mild complaints here and there I just feel like Capcom has catered to this style of gameplay so freakin well that they’ve practically made it an art form. This game is a must have for Playstation 4 and it’ll most definitely be a year end highlight for 2018.