The Monsters Win

The sad news this week is that I've officially given up on Monster Hunter:  World.  It's not that it's a bad game, it's just that it's not the kind of game for me.  It was a questionable choice to begin with and it's the kind of game that I could see myself potentially revisiting at a future date.  I didn't finish the main storyline, so I don't feel like I can reasonably call this a review--it's just my personal thoughts on what I liked and disliked about the game.

Giant monsters are a central part of Monster Hunter:  World

Liked
+ Character creation has lots of options for a personalized hunter.  One of the features I particularly liked was the ability to pick the color you wanted and then use a customizable color palette to get exactly what you were looking for.  There are a wide variety of hair, makeup, and facial features to choose from.  You could potentially spend a lot of time tweaking your character to make them fit the aesthetic you're shooting for.

+Palicos!  Not only do you get to create your own character, but you also get to create a super cute, felyne companion.  The aforementioned character creation options are also extended to your palico--you can choose from a wide variety of fur lengths, colors, and patterns to make your felyne guardian feel like your own personal companion.

+Tasks to keep you busy.  There are plenty of options for how you can spend your time--main story quests, optional side quests, collection missions (to get new ingredients for the palico chef), arena fights, going on expeditions to explore new areas, or just farming for ingredients.

+ Looks nice.  The graphics are nice and I liked the variety of zones (in the part that I played).  There are some pretty stock biome types (your traditional jungle or desert), but there are also some interesting varieties like the coral highlands.

+Armor sets and weapons look cool and there are a ton.  The monsters you kill or capture provide crafting materials that can be used to craft new armors or upgrade your weapons.  Each type of armor has a look that closely matches the monster that dropped the parts.

+Collectibles.  You can capture small creatures and them keep them as pets in your room area of the main base.  It's fun to find new critters to capture.

Disliked
-Always online.  Monster Hunter:  World is clearly meant to be a multiplayer title.  You must play online, but you can very easily restrict your session to singleplayer tasks.  There really isn't an option for playing offline and others will join your session.  There are some nice options for having other people help you--you can fire an SOS flare and other hunters could help fight a monster.  I really didn't have problems with this system and 99% of the people who joined my game were doing their own thing.  I think it would be a great game to play multiplayer, but I just wish there was an option to play offline.

-Very grindy/repetitive.  I mentioned that there are a ton of armor sets and weapons, which is great, but the reality is that building those sets requires farming monster parts.  This potentially means killing the same monster over and over.  Killing monsters is fun, but doing it over and over just felt way too grindy to me.  The fights themselves are long and I just found that I didn't have the patience or desire to keep grinding out parts.

-Story is not very engaging.  I was semi-pursuing the main storyline, but didn't feel particularly drawn to the story missions.  To me, the meat of the game seems to be about farming monsters to upgrade your armor and weapons and, unfortunately, I lost interest.

I don't think Monster Hunter:  World is a bad game, it's just one that isn't for me at the moment.  I think there are gamers out there who will really enjoy it--killing monsters is a lot of fun.  The reality for me was that I just couldn't get into the grindy, repetitive nature of farming parts.  I'm going to shelve it for now and maybe re-visit in the future.

On the Fence About Monster Hunter: World

Since I knew my time with Assassin's Creed:  Syndicate was winding down, I began looking for my next gaming time sink.  Steam has a had a few different sales going on in the past few weeks and I decided to pounce on one non-wishlist and one wishlisted game.  Shadow of the Tomb Raider had been sitting on my wishlist for awhile, and honestly, I'm not a die hard Lara Croft fan, but I just couldn't resist the 67% off price tag (which happens fairly frequently).  My non-wishlisted choice was Monster Hunter:  World which was a bit of an impulse buy.  I've spent some time killing monsters and I'm wavering in my feelings about the game.

Monster Hunter:  World is part of a series of games that were primarily console games.  I decided to give it a whirl because the reviews were very favorable and it looked like the kind of game that I would enjoy--some exploration, some crafting, some monster killing...a nice, meaty game that I could sink my teeth into.  The entire premise of the game is that you are part of a squad of trained monster hunters who are exploring a new landmass that is teeming with an overpopulation of monsters.  Your character is being sent to the "new world" to help establish new bases and also to help reduce the number of potentially dangerous monsters in the area.  There's also a big, bad elder dragon (an enormous, magma spewing monstrosity) that seems to have made its way to the new world.  Part of your job is to figure out why.

My character and Palico.

One of the most daunting tasks is creating your character and trying to decide which of the 14 different weapon types you want to wield.  There are melee weapons--giant two-handed swords and axes, sword and shield, daggers, and several interesting/strange weapons including the gun lance (a lance that can also fire shells) and weapons that can convert into other weapons.  If you're hoping to put some distance between your character and the dangerous monsters roaming the land, you can opt for several ranged weapons--there are rapid firing crossbows, a longer range, rifle-like crossbow, or a more standard bow.  I opted to start off with a rapid firing crossbow.

Creating your character and picking a weapon is step one, but your creation tasks aren't done!  You also get to create a very cute felyne (a race of helpful cat-like creatures) companion called a Palico.  Your Palico fights by your side, has their own weapon and armor sets, and even finds items for you.  I, of course, modeled my Palico after my real-life feline companion.

Once you enter the world you have many options for how you want to spend your time.  You can pursue the main storyline, you can spend time exploring the many zones you discover, or you can pursue various sidequests which can range from gathering certain materials to hunting and/or capturing large monsters.  There is tons of stuff to do.

The Palico cooks make some tasty looking food.

The highlight of the game is, of course, hunting down monsters.  The monsters are huge and come in many varieties--some monsters fly, some breathe fire or spit poison, some are aquatic.  Defeating these monsters is no easy task and requires research so that you can learn their weaknesses.  Once you've engaged them, the fight can be quite long and requires careful attacks to disable weak points, as well as some well-timed dodging.  The fight also consists of several rounds of damaging the monster, having to chase it down as it flees, and then wearing it down until it dies (or you capture it).

So far, I've been on the fence about Monster Hunter:  World.  There are some tutorials in the game but much of the information you will need requires your own research.  I was frustrated because my initial choice of rapid-fire crossbow seemed to do almost no damage to the monsters I was fighting.  Apparently, you aren't meant to just pick one weapon and stick with it, but instead should vary your weapon type on the monster you are fighting.  This means that just as you're getting comfortable with a weapon that you should probably change it up which also means trying to learn a new weapon.  I finally changed to the insect glaive and it worked well for the monster I was trying to take down.  You also will need to tailor your armor choices to the damage type of the monster you are fighting and should invest in multiple sets of armor.  I sort of messed that up by investing all my armor spheres into one set.

The gameplay itself also has moments where it feels a bit sluggish and off.  I had some serious issues with dodging when I had my crossbow equipped and "fainted" several times due to getting smacked down by a giant, T-rex-like monster.  I still haven't quite figured out if the dodging is more of a timing kind of thing or if you should just be mashing the dodge button.

I feel like I've figured a few things out and I'm going to keep playing Monster Hunter.  I'm not totally sold yet and there are still aspects of it that feel very console-centric.