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Here There be Monsters! - (Monster Hunter World Review)
7 years ago
So as someone who's never played the Monster Hunter series, I went in blank slate with no idea what I was getting into. Highly recommended by friends, strongly not recommended by many in the reviews, I had to wonder if this game was worth the asking. After nearly 40 hours of play time, I'm going to say 'It's worth a buy.' Mind, a few notes and things to consider before you do.
TL;DR - I would recommend this game to folks, there are technical issues this game is handling and is coming with patches, but if you can work past it or willing to wait, its worth it.
Pros:
+ Beautiful Graphics
+ Great Soundtrack
+ Solid Gameplay
+ Varied approaches to your hunts
+ Many, Many choices on gear and setups
+ Varied and complex regions to hunt in
Cons
- Awkward keybinds for K/M, clearly normally meant for Controller (Being patched)
- Connection issues (pending patch going to fix)
- Finding friends to join the same session can be irksome
- Some unexplained game mechanics
- Jumbled inventory system
- A few AI Bugs
For those of you who's played Dark Souls, you'll feel right at home. Each monster is a challenge unto itself. They're large, wild, where you need to learn their behaviors, learn what weapons meet the challenge the best, and plan accordingly. But all the monsters have multiple directions to be approached, and a huge selection of moddable and craftable weapons to chose from to tackle the challenge. Mind, this is not your standard hack n' slash, you will need to learn how each weapon functions, as going in swinging with one could end with you ending up wide open for a Monster to send you flying against the cliff face for a mistimed swing. Greatswords are huge, slow swinging beasts that do large damage, but need to plan your swings, or the dual blades where you have to learn to dance around your prey to whittle it down. All viable, but all need planning. Mind, it has a steep, but fair learning curve, be prepared to take your hard knocks till you finally figure out how to tackle your challenge best.
Story-wise, it is clear they made a story purely focused on convincing you to move forward with progression, but not much else. A poorly lip-synched, barely worth understanding tale of the 5th Fleet of Monster Hunters coming to the New World to solve the mystery of the Elder Dragon migration. However, in the end, it putters along barely giving you the sense of urgency as you realize you're short two monster fangs to craft up your armor ... story can wait, back to the hunt. It all is just a backseat item to the real meat of the game...
Kill monster, carve monster, make their bits into gear, kill more monsters. The system is not much more difficult to understand than that, but in turn, you're given a huge selection of weapons and armor, foregoing the usual stats and levels. Weapons from the beastly greatswords, the defensive lance and shield, the tactical and nimble insect glaive, even to hard hitting ranged Bowguns. Up to 14 different weapons to choose, all with their own tech and crafting branches to make the right tool for the job. Armor as well plays a big role as each set comes with its own bonuses and upgrade options that'll let you tackle challenges while negating the risks in the field from monster and environmental hazard alike.
Along for the ride is the game’s companions, the Palico, a feline anthropomorphic character you can gear up slightly. While seeming mostly cosmetic, the Palico is more that cuteness and advertisement for the game, geared with unique tools, the Palico can help in fights with some damage output, healing, and other utilities to assist in your adventure, as well as help you call in assistance from local wildlife, by taming smaller monster beasts, to even getting in touch with indigenous Feylines who you can recruit along for your hunts. While not a major part of your arsenal, the Palico is a fun and helpful companion to make up for the lack of teammates, up till you have 3 hunters on the team. Afterwards, your Palico will faithfully wait back at camp, as you can only have them out with one other hunter, and no more.
The graphics of the game, while demanding, are immersive and breathtaking, from the details of the monsters themselves, down to the foliage around you creating the lush canopy of green in the Ancient Forest, to dust covered, jagged plains of the Wastes and many other environments which changes up the strategy of approach and gear when exploring these lands. But with these great environments comes an impressive soundtrack to accompany you from just generally exploring out into the wilds, to the wild drums of the hunt as you’re toe to toe with your quarry, often falling into subtle tones as the beast runs of while you make chase, only to pick up again in intensity as the fight resumes. Weapons also come with satisfying impact, as every bladeswing, strike, and shot brings a satisfying sound of contact, even missing your swing still gives way to the sound of just how heavy and powerful your weapon is as it hits the earth, letting you know you’re playing with big toys, not whiffle bats.
The game does have a few issues to its performance for seamless gameplay. For one, if you prefer keyboard and mouse like me, you’ll find that the binding options are a bit awkward to handle, as one keybind could have multiple uses, and that Ranged / Melee / and Menu have separate keybinding setups, some of which change on you when in the field or in the trading hub. Another issue is finding your friends to connect to, setting up sessions is easy enough, but finding and getting into a friends session can be problematic. Steam friends list can alleviate this a bit, but the need to trade Session codes still feels a bit archaic in today’s multiplayer world. Another issue is the inventory system, which is clearly still designed for console players, but for PC, the translation is a bit jarring and jumbled, having to deal with odd commands from different keys just to swap and deploy items, though to alleviate this, it gives options for ‘restock’ which can resupply your consumables from your Item Box to your inventory as long as you have it available. Lastly, he game tutorials can come up lacking, ending up glossing over key elements that would have sometimes been considered very important for progression seem to have been forgotten to mention, or are mentioned at much later times after the element of the game really could have been useful earlier.
The game does come with its share of flaws, as well. While Capcom has acknowledged these are issues they are looking into resolving, you do run into several issues regarding connections with companions, mouse input issues, and even a few performance issues. Patches are incoming, so if you prefer to avoid as much frustration as possible, give it a few weeks for those to patch out. The game is also not very friendly to lower end gaming PCs, often running with frames per seconds to agonizingly slow rates that can make the game difficult to play, so if you’re interested in MWH, consider upgrading your PC, or at least give some time or patches to optimize the system.
All in all, Monster Hunter World is delivering on its promise to bring a beautiful, amazing world with fun, yet challenging mechanics and a good time hunting gargantuan monsters with an array of tools at your disposal.
PC Details:
nVidia 980 GTX
i7 Processor
16 GB DDR4 RAM
TL;DR - I would recommend this game to folks, there are technical issues this game is handling and is coming with patches, but if you can work past it or willing to wait, its worth it.
Pros:
+ Beautiful Graphics
+ Great Soundtrack
+ Solid Gameplay
+ Varied approaches to your hunts
+ Many, Many choices on gear and setups
+ Varied and complex regions to hunt in
Cons
- Awkward keybinds for K/M, clearly normally meant for Controller (Being patched)
- Connection issues (pending patch going to fix)
- Finding friends to join the same session can be irksome
- Some unexplained game mechanics
- Jumbled inventory system
- A few AI Bugs
For those of you who's played Dark Souls, you'll feel right at home. Each monster is a challenge unto itself. They're large, wild, where you need to learn their behaviors, learn what weapons meet the challenge the best, and plan accordingly. But all the monsters have multiple directions to be approached, and a huge selection of moddable and craftable weapons to chose from to tackle the challenge. Mind, this is not your standard hack n' slash, you will need to learn how each weapon functions, as going in swinging with one could end with you ending up wide open for a Monster to send you flying against the cliff face for a mistimed swing. Greatswords are huge, slow swinging beasts that do large damage, but need to plan your swings, or the dual blades where you have to learn to dance around your prey to whittle it down. All viable, but all need planning. Mind, it has a steep, but fair learning curve, be prepared to take your hard knocks till you finally figure out how to tackle your challenge best.
Story-wise, it is clear they made a story purely focused on convincing you to move forward with progression, but not much else. A poorly lip-synched, barely worth understanding tale of the 5th Fleet of Monster Hunters coming to the New World to solve the mystery of the Elder Dragon migration. However, in the end, it putters along barely giving you the sense of urgency as you realize you're short two monster fangs to craft up your armor ... story can wait, back to the hunt. It all is just a backseat item to the real meat of the game...
Kill monster, carve monster, make their bits into gear, kill more monsters. The system is not much more difficult to understand than that, but in turn, you're given a huge selection of weapons and armor, foregoing the usual stats and levels. Weapons from the beastly greatswords, the defensive lance and shield, the tactical and nimble insect glaive, even to hard hitting ranged Bowguns. Up to 14 different weapons to choose, all with their own tech and crafting branches to make the right tool for the job. Armor as well plays a big role as each set comes with its own bonuses and upgrade options that'll let you tackle challenges while negating the risks in the field from monster and environmental hazard alike.
Along for the ride is the game’s companions, the Palico, a feline anthropomorphic character you can gear up slightly. While seeming mostly cosmetic, the Palico is more that cuteness and advertisement for the game, geared with unique tools, the Palico can help in fights with some damage output, healing, and other utilities to assist in your adventure, as well as help you call in assistance from local wildlife, by taming smaller monster beasts, to even getting in touch with indigenous Feylines who you can recruit along for your hunts. While not a major part of your arsenal, the Palico is a fun and helpful companion to make up for the lack of teammates, up till you have 3 hunters on the team. Afterwards, your Palico will faithfully wait back at camp, as you can only have them out with one other hunter, and no more.
The graphics of the game, while demanding, are immersive and breathtaking, from the details of the monsters themselves, down to the foliage around you creating the lush canopy of green in the Ancient Forest, to dust covered, jagged plains of the Wastes and many other environments which changes up the strategy of approach and gear when exploring these lands. But with these great environments comes an impressive soundtrack to accompany you from just generally exploring out into the wilds, to the wild drums of the hunt as you’re toe to toe with your quarry, often falling into subtle tones as the beast runs of while you make chase, only to pick up again in intensity as the fight resumes. Weapons also come with satisfying impact, as every bladeswing, strike, and shot brings a satisfying sound of contact, even missing your swing still gives way to the sound of just how heavy and powerful your weapon is as it hits the earth, letting you know you’re playing with big toys, not whiffle bats.
The game does have a few issues to its performance for seamless gameplay. For one, if you prefer keyboard and mouse like me, you’ll find that the binding options are a bit awkward to handle, as one keybind could have multiple uses, and that Ranged / Melee / and Menu have separate keybinding setups, some of which change on you when in the field or in the trading hub. Another issue is finding your friends to connect to, setting up sessions is easy enough, but finding and getting into a friends session can be problematic. Steam friends list can alleviate this a bit, but the need to trade Session codes still feels a bit archaic in today’s multiplayer world. Another issue is the inventory system, which is clearly still designed for console players, but for PC, the translation is a bit jarring and jumbled, having to deal with odd commands from different keys just to swap and deploy items, though to alleviate this, it gives options for ‘restock’ which can resupply your consumables from your Item Box to your inventory as long as you have it available. Lastly, he game tutorials can come up lacking, ending up glossing over key elements that would have sometimes been considered very important for progression seem to have been forgotten to mention, or are mentioned at much later times after the element of the game really could have been useful earlier.
The game does come with its share of flaws, as well. While Capcom has acknowledged these are issues they are looking into resolving, you do run into several issues regarding connections with companions, mouse input issues, and even a few performance issues. Patches are incoming, so if you prefer to avoid as much frustration as possible, give it a few weeks for those to patch out. The game is also not very friendly to lower end gaming PCs, often running with frames per seconds to agonizingly slow rates that can make the game difficult to play, so if you’re interested in MWH, consider upgrading your PC, or at least give some time or patches to optimize the system.
All in all, Monster Hunter World is delivering on its promise to bring a beautiful, amazing world with fun, yet challenging mechanics and a good time hunting gargantuan monsters with an array of tools at your disposal.
PC Details:
nVidia 980 GTX
i7 Processor
16 GB DDR4 RAM
