Monster Hunter: World – Review
Monster Hunter has had a very steady fan base since its release back in 2004, and while the Western world wasn’t immediately taken by storm by the franchise, the last iterations did wonders for the existing fan base and made it grow that much more. While the last releases were often only found on either Nintendo’s handheld, the 3DS or the Wii and Wii U, the series blasts itself into the next generation with Monster Hunter: World, which proves to be the biggest spectacle the series has seen so far. While our giant weapons may have begun to rust since the last game, we couldn’t be more happy to dive back into the epic battles that await us, each one bigger than the other.
Story
In Monster Hunter: World, you’ll be a hunter that’s part of the Fifth Fleet, which are making their way from the unnamed Old World, to the New World, as the old one is getting overpopulated. While some fleets before you have made their way to this luscious new area, it is still overrun by gigantic monsters and creatures, hence the need for more hunters. Sadly your trip to the island doesn’t go all that swimmingly as you come across the Zorah Magdaros, which is a legendary giant creature that is drawn to the New World every decade, for unknown reasons. Nonetheless, you, and most of the Fifth Fleet eventually make it to the island unscathed, which is nothing shy of a miracle, and you’re ready to start your career as an expert hunter in the new area.
While the game has a narrative, it’s only a minor gimmick for the overall package that is Monser Hunter: World. That being said, it’s fun for those looking for a single player experience, as they still have a red thread to hold on to.
Graphics
Graphically Monster Hunter: World is an absolute delight, ranging from the luscious forest environments, to frozen tundra and murky swamps, each featuring its own wildlife, from small insects and creepy crawlers to massive lizards and bird-like creatures, each trumping the last one you had to fight. These somewhat prehistoric looking animals were clearly designed with care and an eye for detail, as you’ll constantly be wowed by the game, be it when you’re running for dear life, stalking your prey, or fighting the biggest monster of them all.
The only thing that seems to be a little less well designed are the character models, which seem to contain a bit more pixels than the creatures, and the facial features look good, but characters sometimes move a bit awkward, and their facial expressions fall in that same category.
Sound
While the sound design is also very impressive, with the music ranging from very tranquil to intense when a battle is around the corner, with impressive roars and grunts from the monsters themselves, it just lacks a fully voiced experience. Don’t get us wrong, the music is great, the sound of your weapons clashing with armored scales or soft flesh is rather satisfying as well, but this game could have been a lot more special if all dialogues, or at least all quest dialogues were fully voiced.
Gameplay
Monster Hunter: World is an action RPG, with a heavy focus on the action part. From start to finish you’ll be thrown into expeditions and quests all revolving around fighting gigantic creatures hoping you can take them down, or capture them. Be warned that this game isn’t all that friendly for those who never played one of the prior games, but with some research and experimenting you’ll go a long way. While the game is also available in a single player mode (if you limit your online room when it comes to the available amount of players), it’s clear that Capcom designed this game to be played with other hunters, preferably handling different weapons than your own hunter. The latter means that you can easily give all the party members (four, including yourself) roles, such as ranged, support, DPS and so on.
Newcomers will be overwhelmed by all the different options in terms of crafting, researching, exploring, mechanics and so on. While the game does offer text-based tutorials, they will not really help you all that much, so you’ll have to venture in the deep, take some risks and see what works. Even though things are quite complex, trial and error is the way to go, and if you run out of funds, you can always replay optional missions for some extra cash and materials. All that said, you’ll have a blast exploring the gigantic world, trying out new weapon combinations, forging new gear and of course, slaying bigger and stronger foes, the further you progress. The latter is done by following the story quests, and of course the optional quests to gain some more experience and practice on how to slay certain monsters. Overall this game is a massive gear hunt, as killing monsters will reward you with materials for better gear, which allow you to take on bigger monsters, and so on. Keep in mind that this isn’t an easy game at all, you’ll fail a lot when playing on your own, but taking down a monster will give you such a satisfying feeling that in the end, it’s all worth it.
It’s clear that this new Monster Hunter title was made for the next gen consoles, as each part of an expedition/quest area moves seamlessly into one, where the older games divided each map in subsections, with separate loading times. Also, the character movement has been improved greatly from a fairly slow moving character with wooden animations, to a smooth moving character. Input lag still occurs ever so slightly, and you won’t get anywhere by bashing the buttons, as your character will perform said button inputs before you can dodge or run out of the way. Potions have also been improved, allowing you to slightly run around when taking one, making it slightly easier to pick a safe spot to heal, or move out of the way.
Our biggest gripe with the game is that the game is completely multiplayer oriented, which isn’t a bad thing per se, but it’s annoying that those who want to play the single player experience also have to create online sessions, which can be set to private, and can’t pause the game if needed. You’ll have to fully commit yourself to a mission and its time limit if you’re playing on your own. The game doesn’t allow you to pause it, which is annoying, especially if you’re a gamer that can’t always game big chunks of time at once. Ok, granted, the fifty minutes quest limit isn’t that long, but we can imagine that a lot of players can’t always commit to this in one single session, without having to pause once in a while. Also, when playing multiplayer, everyone has to be at the same point in their campaign to properly play together.
Conclusion
Monster Hunter: World is an absolute delight for fans of the franchise, as well as thrill seekers who want a bang for their buck. The game offers so much more than a simple ‘grind, craft, repeat’ experience, as it’s all about working together as a team, trying to explore an enormous world, while coming up with new tactics to bring down extremely strong foes. Not only does the game look good, the entire atmosphere is absolutely overwhelming and it shows that this franchise has so much more in store for us. While we’ll still be playing this one for quite some time to come, we can’t wait to see what Capcom does with this series in the future. If you need us, we’ll be crafting bigger and better weapons for the time being.
Monster Hunter: World - Review,
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