You hit up your friend, pestering and annoying him to play a new experience with you. Knowing nothing about it or the franchise, he reluctantly agrees. Having already finished the game a couple of years ago, but barely remembering anything except a bit of muscle memory and most of the mechanics, you show him the ropes, shaping your friend to have a good time and learn the world for himself.
50 hours later, he's in love with it (except Black Diablos, **** you), and you both have a blast playing it.
That's the shortest way to sum up our time with this game. Despite its flaws, I absolutely loved it and would call it a masterpiece. We've both headed into the expansion blind, but this will be my review of Monster Hunter World's base game.
From the get go, the way you're introduced to the world, the characters, the culture, the music, the monsters and a glimpse at the reason events are going to unfold in this New World you've entered is just art. There was no need for long pieces of exposition, movie like cutscenes (not that I'm saying those are bad, movie like cutscenes can make a game a masterpiece too, *hint hint* Death Stranding *hint hint*), or long paragraphs to read through. All you had to do was be a good observer, and read the world, its nature, its nuances and interactions, and you'd learn enough to get the point. In my opinion, you get to feel like a proper hunter.
So, I'll be keeping this review as spoiler free as possible, but I will show a few biomes, and a monster or two. If you don't mind, keep reading. Otherwise, what are you waiting for, go hunt some damn monsters!
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| Cleo, Astera and Me |
The World:The hub, the base of operations, Astera is one of the most detailed and well-thought-out hub spaces I've seen in a game. The way it oozes with Monster Hunter's culture, whilst still being redesigned for this new world, is executed well. Crowds, researchers, shops, crafters, and palicoes populate this place and make everything feel like a living thriving community.
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| The Tradeyard, where you see everyone in the bustle |
The detail, THE DETAIL Capcom has managed to put into each of its locales is beautiful. Generally, a locale is split into transition corridors, and well blended in arenas where both you and the monster you're trying to hunt would traverse through. But I can't express here how well it never makes it feel as simple as that. Each of the biomes feels very natural to walk through, its verticality, its expanses, its layers. To this day, I tend to get lost sometimes, because there are so many paths to approach and take to a location.
The palicoes, these cute lil' bundles of joy, are your best friend and your partner as you rise to best stronger and stronger beasts. From their absolutely adorable animations during cutscenes, poses and combat, to how essential they become as a support unit during hunts gives them a lot of importance and helps in building a very good and personal relationship with them, and you end up caring about them a lot.
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| My absolutely cute lil catto Cleo |
My favorite location in the game is the Coral Highlands, which is a large coral reef, and when I say large, I mean large enough to reach the skies where you'd be hunting monsters on top, above the water level. It's beautifully crafted and one of the most creative biome designs in a game.The progression, monsters and weapons:
You start out at Low Rank, hunting some relatively easy monsters, which help you get a grip of all the mechanics and your weapons, its combos and nuances. Here, the progression is fairly straightforward, either try to go for utility or damage, because High Rank weapons and armor sets will be a lot better, and you can start making proper builds for your weapons of choice, as you get a hand of a lot of customizability and flexible armor options. The weapons are equally in depth, each having their own combos, elements, damage types, sharpness, affinities, and a lot more. The amount of depth in the armor and weapons may seem overwhelming at first, but oh boy is it satisfying once you understand it and start to synergize and make a build.
Did I tell you, you get to choose between 14 DIFFERENT WEAPONS TYPES, and each of the weapons have their own PROGRESSION TREES? Yes, there are 14 different weapons with their own progression. It's insane the number of options you get. I played using the Switch Axe, Dual Blades and Insect Glaive for the majority of the game. Here's me holding them in my base game endgame setup.
All the monsters in this game are unique (except the piscine ones, they got the short end of the stick), have their own characteristics, behavioral patterns, locales, moves and powers. Fighting them, even when farming for their parts, never felt like a chore. It always felt like a hunter, respecting the beast in front of them, and it ends up being a graceful dance as you dodge, weave and land hits on the monster in hopes to put them down. I usually tried my best to capture them alive (because it's humane, but also gives extra rewards hehe), and send them for research.
The Elder Dragons were all a blast to fight, except one which was a bit boring because they leaned into a specific mechanic too much, expecting it to pose a challenge. All the set pieces in the game are well executed, and re-doing them multiple times didn't get boring either.
The few flaws I would mention are its lack of direction for new players to learn about skills, the RNG of collecting decorations, and the hit box of a monster called Diablos when you fight with a friend, because apparently, any part of his body you touch tends to do damage.
My favorite monsters from the base game are Tobi-Kadachi, a snake-like flying squirrel wyvern, who I really enjoy fighting and adore his design. And my favorite Elder Dragon is Teostra. I won't add a picture of him because he appears pretty late in the game.
I played the game with a friend, a small-time YouTuber and big time artist who goes by the name of Naveriptor, you can find him here https://www.youtube.com/@naveriptorx2893 .
These were his thoughts:
"Game good. Buy. Stop playing Valorant. Bye. This game was very different to what he usually plays. The game is lenient enough to teach you what you need to learn, but doesn't hold your hand and help you. The introductory monsters do enough to get a hang of the basics while also testing your abilities to play alone. The weapon variety and its viability for each of them really impressed him. Not only do these weapons have their types, but have their specific combos to learn, which makes weapons easy to pick up but hard to master.
Also, weapons aren't your only tool, but your equipments and items also play an essential role in making hunts efficient. He hates waiting for me, but enjoying the calm before the storm, where you restock, eat and prepare for the next hunt. He loved the interactivity between players, both in and out of combat. Furthermore, he loves how I would hit him with my Switch Axe, which would launch him into the air which he could in turn fluidly use to start a midair combo. But, if done poorly, and we go in for an uncoordinated attack, it would lead to both of us taking damage, and potential faints.
OK, rant time. A hunt if unprepared for goes on for longer than necessary, so when playing offline, not having a pause function felt extremely annoying. This really tends to hurt early game when you're trying to learn everything. Black Diablos can go unexist herself.
It's a game one should definitely experience for themselves in their lifetime. Playing with friends also elevates the game, so grab a couple of buddies and put down some baddies. "
-N
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Nav and I are posing along with our bois (Cleo and Shepard)
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Look out for another review once we finish Iceborne, the expansion, until then, I hope you had a good read.
~sodahead
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