Monster Hunter: World Review

When I was a young lad I would go on adventures in the woods. I would pretend I was a hunter with a trusty axe and bow, both plastic, as I was a kid after all. I would hunt MONSTERS that would prey on the living. Nothing would get harmed because everything was imaginary. As I got older the idea of playing in the woods with my imagination sort of dwindled into other things, but there was LARP (Live Action Role-Playing), which kept my imagination flowing.

Before LARP I actually remember my first outing with Monster Hunter on the PSTWO. I had gone around to a mate’s house and she had just purchased the game from our local independent retail store. Yes, an “independent retail store”. That’s something you don’t hear much now.

When my friend started playing it, I thought the game was SHIT, boring, repetitive, and I wondered what the point of it was. You run around the same map over and over again hunting down different monsters to create new gear. I didn’t understand the idea behind the game. In my opinion, there were much better games out there. That all changed after I got to play the game myself and a few hours in I was hooked to the grind fest the game was. I wanted to create that next piece of armour. I wanted to kick the shit out of the monster that kept on kicking my arse all over the place. “Payback is a bitch,” I would say to myself.

I could not keep the game and I did not want to purchase a PlayStation so I kept on going around to my mate’s house just to play the game when she allowed me to.  We both skipped Monster Hunter 2 and the next time I played the franchise was on the 3DS and Wii U. Fortunately for me I get to play the game on PC. It’s loaded and ready to go so let the HUNT BEGIN.

Well in a moment, before I got this game, I heard many issues. One major issue was the game consistently crashing. Capcom has issued a statement regarding this;

“The development team are working hard right up until launch to ensure PC gamers around the world can enjoy the Monster Hunter: World experience. Thanks to the development teams continued efforts, a patch has been made available for download now for the preview build which fixes crashing issues. The version that consumers will purchase at launch will include this patch.”

Good news I have to admit. Can you imagine if this got released and thousands of gamers could not play the game due to crashing? Ouch!

When you first start the game you get to create your character and Palico. There are plenty of customisation options and it took me some time to create my first character, which I still feel it is not perfect and I wish there were more facial and hair options.

Then I got a little upset when I saw this as DLC:

• Gesture: Zen
• Gesture: Ninja Star
• Gesture: Sumo Slap

Enjoy three new amusing gestures you can use when interacting with other players in the game.

• Sticker Set: MH All-Stars Set
• Sticker Set: Sir Loin Set

Fun stickers you can use when chatting with other players in the game.

• Face Paint: Wyvern

Add a new face paint for character customisation in Monster Hunter: World.

• Hairstyle: Topknot

Adds a new hairstyle for character customisation in Monster Hunter: World.

I personally think everything like this should be FREE: gestures, stickers, face paint, and hairstyles. Maybe make them achievements or some type of unlocks in-game but not PAID for. Now I would not mind paying for new quests, new monsters, and custom costumes, but anything else, no thanks.

Now let the HUNT BEGIN

In a world full of danger you will need all your skills to survive, so when I first loaded the game and entered the new world, the game decided to only give me my wits to survive. Where the **** is my weapon as I frantically started clicking on the mouse button as a big beasty comes on the scene wanting to have his/her dinner. Lucky enough a Monster Hunter arrives on the scene to save the day and take us to base camp but not before another big beasty arrives on the scene also looking for dinner and attacks the smaller beasty that wanted us.

WOW! What a start to a game

Now there were a few things I picked up straight away and noted down when I started playing the game and I feel it would be a good place to start:

• Voice Acting is good, however, there has been no change in the mouth animation, so the voices are out of sync to mouth movements.
• Staying with voice acting, if you have played some games of late, say Ni No Kuni 2, or Octopath Traveler, voice acting has been ‘half done’. Some sections of the game are fully voiced and then some are only partially voiced. Monster Hunter: World is no different. Some sections of the game have everything voiced but other parts have characters only say the first few words and then you have to read the rest. It is not a deal breaker, but I felt it was a little off-putting and breaks the immersion. In the end, I just read everything, even when everything was fully voiced.
• I was also upset that my character was mute. I was looking everywhere to see if there was any way of getting my character to have a voice but I should have figured that out when I created the character as there was no option. I just felt that in some sections when he was being asked a question it would have been nice to put a voice to his face.
• Then we have graphics options up to 4K with unlocked FPS. Just check out the screenshots below and you will see why PC gamers should be happy. I could not find an option to remove motion blur as I suffer from sickness in games that have an overuse of Motion Blur I believe there should be an option to disable this.
• And finally, DO NOT PLAY this game with a keyboard and mouse. It’s a pain in the butt. Play the game with a controller. I tried to get along with it at first but in the end, I moved over to my Xbox One Wireless Controller and had a much better experience.

Back to the game now, saved from the beasts outside you end up in the main player hub, this is where everything happens, from getting quests, crafting items and having a snack it is all here.

• The Smythy is a place to craft new gears and weapons, this is a place you will spend a lot of your time.
• The Canteen a place to have a bite to eat before an upcoming battle. 
• Don’t forget to speak to merchants they also sell consumables and crafting materials.
• A Research Center that gives you side-quests, which is something you should always be checking in on.

Monster Hunting is no easy task, and if you have played any of the Monster Hunting games you will know this already. If not, then get well prepared for a master class in fighting, learning, and dying (a lot). Monster Hunter: World is possibly the best in the franchise for new gamers to join, as there is a ton of tutorials to help guide you through this mammoth game and you will need them. Watch every tutorial and start learning and understanding how the game plays.

The first thing I did was test out every weapon in the game to find out what I preferred to play with. You do this by talking to your housekeeper and travelling to the training area. Within this zone, you can test our all weapon types and choose the best weapon you feel suits your play style all the way from heavy hammers to quick duel blades.

There is a lot to choose from. Here is the full list:

• Lance
• Gunlance
• Charge Blade
• Switch Axe
• Bow
• Heavy Bowgun
• Light Bowgun
• Insect Glaive
• Hunting Horn
• Hammer
• Duel Blades
• Hammer
• Sword and Shield
• Great Sword
• Long Sword

I went for the Insect Glaive, as it gives an easy way to mount monsters, bring the pain and bring them down.

The Insect Glaive comes in two parts: the Glaive, which is the pole with a blade attached to one end, and the Kinsect, which can be sent out to extract buffs from monsters such as a speed Boost, or a defense Boost etc. I have used this item ever since it was introduced in Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate on the Nintendo 3DS.

Now it does not really matter what weapon you choose but you should choose the weapon that best suits your play style. Many gamers like a slow and powerful weapon like the hammer. Personally, I can not stand them. Whichever weapon you do choose they all have their own combos and trees to climb.

So you have your weapon of choice, now its time to take on those big beasts. You are all ready, accepted that quest, then I would recommend having a bite to eat at the Canteen first, this will give you buffs, from health and stamina as well as stats, like attack power and defense. Your character will eat like they have never eaten food so good in there life, it is rather comical. When all done, start the hunt, the first thing you should do is head to the supply crate on the left and take out anything you feel is needed for this battle, including quest items, I normally miss the empty flasks. Now one of the easiest monster you will be hunting is the ‘Great Jagras’, they will swing their claws, tail, and charge from time to time, if they have a bite to eat, they will also roll on their side to attack you. Overall it is a simple battle dodge/roll and attack. If you are able to mount them, it is even easier, as you can topple the monster and then attack them with a flory of hits.

As you progress through the game, you will at some point end up fighting the Rathian or the Rathalos, a mother****** of a Wyvern that spits fireballs from his/her arse (kidding) but they do have poison at their disposal, Rathaslos in their claws, Rathian in their tail. I fecking hate these beasts, and I had to turn to YouTube for a guide to take them down. OK Before you say I suck, you are probably right but screw you.

The Monsters will get progressively harder the further in the game you get and when you start hunting for higher ranked gear, I would recommend going online and respond to an SOS with your target set to the beast you want to hunt. There is no other easier way of grinding for higher level gear.

One thing I can guarantee is no fight will feel the same. Every Monster has their own set of skills and their own fighting style. It is like an end level boss fight every single time. I am no master monster hunter and I ended up dying a few times until I understood each beast’s strategy. Once I had figured that out I then steamrolled over the beasty and had a mighty meal in celebration. Going, to be honest, here, reading or watching guides were very handy.

Wait before we move on,  there is one thing you should know, Monsters have no health bar. So how do you know when they are going to die? well, they will start to limp and try to escape, at this point you need to end their life. Other than that you need to keep fighting right to the very end, do not let up as some fights can take up to and beyond 30 mins. During fights you will notice visual damage, for example, you can hack off a tail, the tail could be a part you need to upgrade your weapon. So when it comes to a fight consider aiming for something other than their face. There is also one other thing to note, quests have timers, so even though a fight may take some time, and it might also take you some time to find the beasty, the quest to find and kill has a countdown.

If you are still struggling with a fight or an area then there is something you can do: send out a flare. This is a request for help from other monster hunters who play the game. This can also be the best way to play this game. Do not underestimate solo because it is still just as good and offers more of a feeling of awesomeness, You can say “I just killed that monster and that gamer I just watched on Twitch needed help”. But when you personally answer the call for help, it can fill you with pride, and doing special events and optional side quests with random people or friends is just as thrilling.

Co-op is not all bells and whistles though. There are some restrictions when running through the main story, players cannot join until the cutscene is over. There is also an issue with joining hunts, lower ranked hunters can not join higher ranked hunts, but a higher rank hunter can join lower ranked hunts. Do you enjoy being in a guild? in Monster Hunter they are called Squads, makes sense. They are impossible to find and the only way to join one is by having the leader of a squad invite you in. Being in a squad with your mates is a much easier way to play with them, so even though they are a pain to find, either join one, or you and your mates create one.

You will find one thing mundane, even after you have completed the main story of the game. You will be repeating many fights to score the correct items to upgrade your gear, weapons and your main base. This is the main core of the game but that main core is the thing that brings you back over and over again in order to create the next best item and to help fellow monster hunters out. When you have finished the main story, hours and hours into the game, you still have time-limited quests to do such as investigations, Bounties, and Deliveries. You can even create costumes for your Palico, that annoying but cute cat thing, or go out and capture creatures, which give even more resources.

 

So Monster Hunter is out and about on PC and PlayStation 4. PC is the definitive edition of the game for certain but you do need a good RIG to really experience this game to its full potential as the CPU usage is HIGH.

William Yagi-Bacon explains why this game, in particular, is so resource heavy:

“To eliminate interstitial loading during active gameplay, MHW loads the entire level into memory. In addition to managing assets loaded into memory, it keeps track of monster interactions, health status, environment/object changes, manages LOD & object culling, calculates collision detection and physics simulation, and tons of other background telemetry stuff that you don’t see yet requires CPU cycle. This is in addition to supporting any GPU rendering tasks.”

I am using an 8th Gen Intel Core I7 CPU and a single 1080ti with little to no issues, however, running the game on my partners older rig shows results of the CPU load being very high. As it is very early days in its release on PC, I can only hope in time Capcom can work some magic and optimize the game some more.

So final thoughts: Monster Hunter: World is the first in its series to offer new players to the franchise an open door thanks to the tutorials in the game. It does not matter if you are a solo player or a person that likes to play with others or friends, this game will give you hours upon hours of joy, or pure hatred for that one monster you simply can not bring down for some reason. There is plenty to experience, learn and delve into, in all the game should give you more than just a few weeks.

The game does have issues, like PC Optimisation on low-end rigs and Server issues for joining multi-player experiences, but none of this stopped me from enjoying the game. I actually played the game solo more than I did with help from others and my rig was more that capable of running the game.

Would I say Monster Hunter is a must-have game? Yes and no. if you enjoy repetitive experiences to upgrade your gear, or the feeling of accomplishment when you take down those monsters you have struggled with for hours then this game could be for you. There is so much content in this game it will keep you coming back for weeks or even months. If you are the type of person that hates long laborious fights, the need to repeat a kill over and over to attain items to upgrade your gear, then you might wish to skip this game.

Oy Yeah, if you are wondering about post-launch content. it will be coming to PC shortly after launch, just keep an eye on our site for more information as and when it is released

Not every game is suited towards every gamer.

Updated 1308.2018 12:00 PM

Capcom has issued a statement in regards to the server issues affecting Monster Hunter: World on PC

We have been receiving numerous reports that players are experiencing connection errors after every several times they depart on quests. We are currently investigating the cause of this and are working with Valve to resolve the issue as soon as possible.

We will keep you informed of further developments in this matter. We thank you for your patience and apologize for the inconvenience this has caused.