Monster Hunter: World -- A Review Coming From A Newcomer To The Series

Monster Hunter: World is an action role-playing game developed and published by Capcom. A part of the Monster Hunter series, it was released worldwide for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in January 2018, with a Microsoft Windows version being scheduled later in the year. In the game, the player takes the role of a Hunter, tasked to hunt down and either kill or trap monsters that roam in one of several environmental spaces. If successful, the player is rewarded through loot consisting of parts from the monster and other elements that are used to craft weapons and armor, among other equipment. The game's core loop has the player crafting appropriate gear to be able to hunt down more difficult monsters, which in turn provide parts that lead to more powerful gear. Players may hunt alone, or can hunt in cooperative groups of up to four players via the game's online services.

Synopsis

In an unnamed high fantasy setting, humans and other sentient races have set their eyes on the New World, a separate continent from the populated Old World. The New World is an untamed wilderness where many powerful monsters roam, and where researchers have been drawn to uncover new mysteries. Several ocean-bound Fleets have been sent already to establish working bases, safe from monsters, and operations are led by the Research Commission.

Plot

The player controls a hunter that they can name, supported by an assistant handler, who are a part of the Fifth Fleet which has been summoned by the Research Commission to provide more support to the New World. A particular focus of the Expedition is to study Elder Dragons, powerful beasts that can affect entire ecosystems, and why they migrate to the New World every ten years in an event known as the Elder Crossing. While traveling to the New World, the Fifth Fleet encounters Zorah Magdaros, a massive Elder Dragon the size of a mountain. After being rescued and arriving at the base camp, known as Astera, the Hunter and their Handler undertake various tasks to explore the area and study Zorah Magdaros at the behest of the Commander of the Expedition. The Expedition determines that Zorah Magdaros is dying and is migrating to a massive graveyard, known as the Rotten Vale. An Expedition-led capture mission against Zorah Magdaros is foiled by Nergigante, an Elder Dragon that feeds on other Elder Dragons, and is protecting Zorah Magdaros as its future meal. After escaping the ambush, Zorah Magdaros unexpectedly enters the Everstream rather than traveling to the Rotten Vale. After further investigations, the Expedition learns that if Zorah Magdaros dies within the Everstream, its released bio-energy will destroy the New World. With no time to evacuate, the Expedition develops an emergency plan to intercept Zorah Magdaros and drive it to the ocean, where its released bio-energy will form a new aquatic ecosystem. Nergigante once again interferes, but this time is driven off by the Hunters, and Zorah Magdaros is successfully driven into the ocean.

However, when Nergigante flees to the Elder's Recess, an area in the Everstream with massive amounts of stored bio-energy, the presence of Nergigante drives away its Elder Dragon prey toward neighboring locations, upsetting each individual ecosystem. With the help of the Admiral, the true leader of the Expedition, the Hunter is able to track down and kill Nergigante. With Nergigante dead, the Elder Dragons calm down and return to the Recess. After their defeat by the Hunter, the source of energy within the Elder’s Recess is discovered: Xeno'jiiva, an infant Elder Dragon, which had been incubating within the Elder's Recess, and was feeding on the bio-energy of dead Elder Dragons. Xeno'jiiva hatches upon being discovered, and at the behest of the Admiral, the Hunter defeats it before it can wreak havoc on the world. With the Elder Crossing now fully understood, the Expedition is considered finished, but members are offered the chance to stay in the New World to continue their research.

Gameplay: 

Monster Hunter: World is an open-world action role-playing game played from a third-person perspective. Similar to previous games in the series, the player takes the role of a player-created character who travels to the "New World", an unpopulated land mass filled with monsters, to join the Research Commission that study the land from their central command base of Astera. The Research Commission tasks the Hunter to hunt down and either kill or capture large monsters that roam outside Astera to both protect the Commission and to study the monsters there. The player's character does not have any intrinsic attributes, but instead these are determined by what equipment the character is equipped with. This includes a weapon, selected from the series' fourteen archetypes (such as long sword, bow, or hammer), which then further defines the types of combat moves and abilities the player can use, and pieces of armor, which can lead to beneficial or detrimental combat skills if matched properly. While some basic equipment can be purchased using in-game money, most equipment is built from loot obtained by slaying or trapping monsters, rewards from completing quests, or items gathered while in the field. This creates a core loop of gameplay that has the player fight monsters they can beat to obtain the right loot to craft improved weapons and armor to allow them to face more powerful monsters and the potential for even better equipment.

Don't forget to upgrade and level up your Palico. There will be times where your partner in crime will be your only lifeline. Not to mention, your cat buddy here gets to wear some awesome costumes to boot. 

After taking a quest in Astera, or after choosing to simply go on an open-ended expedition, the player is taken to a base camp in one of six large regions that make up the New World. Each region is made up of numbered zones, but unlike previous Monster Hunter games, these zones are seamlessly connected, and there are no loading screens when moving between zones. The player must traverse zone to zone, though they can quick-travel to any of the base camps in that particular region when outside of combat. From camp, the player can acquire limited provisions, rest to restore their health, and new to World, have a meal that provides limited-time buffs to the player. The player sets out to track down monsters, which in World is aided with the use of Scout flies, which hover near tracks and other signs of large monsters, or highlight resources that the player can collect such as flora, ores, bones, and insects. Investigate the traces of the monster leads to improving the Scout flies' abilities for the quest, eventually enabling them to lead the player via their glowing flight path towards the monster they seek; further, investigating these help the player to gain research towards the monster that helps them gain insight on its strengths, weaknesses, and behavior.

Once a monster is located, the player can take several approaches to either slay or capture it using traps once sufficiently weakened, using a combination of their weapons and items they are carrying. As a monster is weakened, its tactics will often change, frequently becoming more aggressive, or fleeing to a lair to rest or find food to recover. The player has additional tools within World for combat. Each player has a Slinger, a tool that can be used to fire small projectiles like rocks at the monster to damage it or cause other debuffs, or can be used as a grappling hook to reach higher elevations or pull down objects onto a monster. A new type of tool called a Mantle can be used for a limited amount of time; these cloak-like objects provide a buff to the player, such as acting like a ghillie suit to reduce the chances of monsters detecting the player. Furthermore, the player has opportunities to use the environment strategically against the monster, such as bursting a natural dam to flood out a monster, or leading a monster into another monster's den to cause them to fight each other. The game includes a dynamic weather system and day-night cycle, which can affect the behavior of some monsters mid-quest.

In combat, the player must watch their health — if it falls to zero, they faint and are taken back to camp but then can set out again at a reduced reward; however, fainting three times will cause the quest to fail. Further, the player must watch their stamina, which is consumed for nearly all attacks, dodges, and other actions; stamina will recover quickly but the player must not take other aggressive actions for this to happen, which can be tricky in the heat of battle. The player can carry various restorative items for health and stamina; unlike previous games where the player was forced to stand still to take these, World allows the player to take these while walking, though the player must not be interrupted for a few moments to gain the full effects of the restorative item. The player must also be aware of various debuffs that monsters can inflict on them, the sharpness of their weapon or the quantity of ammo for certain weapon types, and the limitations of items they can bring on a quest that restrict how much they can recover while in the field. If the player successfully completes the quest, they gain reward resources, often consisting of parts from that monster along with zenny, the in-game currency. The distribution of rewards from a quest are determined by rarity, so obtaining certain rare parts may require repeating a quest several times to get a desired part.

If you ever need a break, you can always crash at your room in Astera for a breather...

Astera acts as a central hub where the player can buy and sell goods, manage their inventory, craft new equipment, and gain new quests. A core facet of Monster Hunter games is the construction and upgrading of armor and weapons at a forge using the monster parts and resources the player has gained from combat. As the player defeats tougher monsters, they can make armor with more defensive value or particular elemental resistance, or can improve weapons to be more lethal and deal elemental or debuffing damage. Weapons and armor also carry various skills which have a number of different effects for the player; World introduces a new streamlined skill system compared to previous games, where each weapon or armor piece has one or more ranks in at least one skill, and the total effect of a skill on the player is determined by adding up all ranks of that skill from all equipped items the player carries. Additional services in Astera include a farm to grow quantities of flora while the player is out on quests, training areas to practice weapons, a gathering hub to take on special Arena challenges against one or more monsters, and a canteen which the player can order a meal from specific ingredients to provide buffs and special conditions while out on the field.

World features a story mode offered through the quest system. Unlike previous games, where the story mode led the player through and to complete the "Low Rank" quests, before opening the game to more difficult "High Rank" quests without a story driver, World will have a narrative that continues into the "High Rank" quests. The game's complete story mode is estimated to take between 40 and 50 hours, according to director Yuya Tokuda. Instead of quests that required the player to slay a number of smaller monsters or collect resources, World will offer these as Bounties that can be achieved alongside the main quests, or provided as Optional quests that generally lead to improving some facet of the resources in Astera. A player can have up to six different Bounties active, and which provide rewards when they are completed. The player can gain Investigation quests as well, which come from investigating the trail of monsters with Scout flies or by breaking off parts of monsters in combat. Each Investigation offers a quest that may have unique limitations or goals compared to main story quests, such as time limits or reduced fainting limits but also provide additional rewards; Investigations can only be attempted, successfully or not, a limited number of times before they are exhausted and removed.

Assemble your crew...

The game supports both single-player and up to four player cooperative mode while being online; there is no local online multiplayer. The game's quest system is the same in both modes. Players gather in multiplayer servers supporting up to sixteen players, during which they can post quests to invite others to join, or join other existing quests as long as they have progressed far enough in the game's storyline. If there are only one or two hunters on a quest, each brings with them a Palico (an anthropomorphic sentient cat species) to assist them in combat; these Palico can be equipped with weapons and armor crafted in the same manner as the hunter themselves. If there are less than four players in a party, a party member can launch a red SOS flare, which other players, while in their instance of Astera, can opt to join to help out, creating a drop-in/drop-out system. The game also supports Squads, the equivalent of clans or guilds in typical massive multiplayer online games. The game allows players in different release regions to work together; the game will use a pre-determined set of common greetings and commands that are translated to the various languages so that players can effectively communicate with each other. However, players are limited to cooperating with those on the same platform, and will not feature cross-platform play. Players also need to register with their console's service (PlayStation Network or Xbox Live) to use multiplayer features. With an aim to reach a wider audience than past games, Monster Hunter: World also provides more information to players, such as a companion that will warn the player when they are running low on health, and more details on the advantages and disadvantages of weapons and armors against specific monsters.

In addition to quests shipped with the game, Capcom plans to offer free downloadable content quests, similarly featured in the handheld versions. However, with the greater degree of connectivity offered by modern consoles/computers compared to handheld systems, Capcom anticipates offering time-limited Event quests that players can easily jump in on through the new matchmaking system. Capcom also anticipates on adding new monsters to hunt through free downloadable content; the first such update, adding in the Deviljho monster from previous games was released alongside other quality-of-life updates in March 2018. Capcom also expected to provide paid post-content material as well; however, Capcom does not see World as a type of service, as they do not expect players to continue playing the game five to ten years after release. The game will not include any type of microtransactions; Tsujimoto said that as Monster Hunter is meant as a cooperative game, they did not want to create any type of "friction" between players due to some having simply purchased better equipment with real-world funds compared to those that spent the time to work through challenges to acquire the equipment.

The Verdict:

Before I start this review, I repeat that I have not played any of the prior Monster Hunter games in this series. I tried out the beta back in December on a whim and enjoyed what I played for the most part after getting some friends who are series veterans to give me an idea of what the jest of everything was in terms of the basics. That being said, this review isn't for the veterans. This is the humble opinion of someone coming in brand spanking new to this series.

If I could recommend anything to any newcomer is to hit up the Training Area in your avatar's room at Astera and literally try out EVERY weapon in the game until you find one you like and feel comfortable with. Most hardcore players end up using every weapon in the game in some fashion, but for the bulk of my 150+ hours with the game, I've stuck with primarily one weapon type and I have another that I might fall back on but I haven't used it since low rank so I'd need to practice it quite a bit before I even dare trying it for high rank and tempered hunts. The training area is pretty much this game's equivalent of a practice/training room in most fighting games, but without the extra bells and whistles. It's just merely a space for players to try out various weapons before taking them out into the field on missions. During the beta, I spent the bulk of one afternoon feeling out each weapon type until I settled on one I liked. Every weapon in this game has a particular weight and feel to them and it takes a bit of a mental adjustment if you've played other action/adventure games and think they would operate in the same fashion. Some weapons allow you to block, others give you more options in terms of jumping into the air and doing acrobatics to evade attacks in the air, others give you the means to charge/build up energy to deal even more massive damage with their attacks. Then last but not least, you have firearms and bows that attack from a distance while simultaneously inflicting various status ailments to your enemies. For passive players, there's the hunting horn too that plays melodies to buff everyone in a party of hunters. The latter I didn't use much but I found it to be invaluable in single player when directing my Palico (your cat-like partner that acts as your sidekick in single player missions) to use his gadget to buff my avatar to deal more damage or to protect against various status ailments/blights.

One thing that newcomers should be aware of that this is a pretty grind-heavy game. Not so much in low rank, but once you hit high rank it's more beneficial for you to play with friends or randoms in online multiplayer because the rewards multiply (the reward money is divided by the number of players participating in hunts, so keep that in mind too) for how many players complete any given quest (thanks to increased difficulty as enemies have higher health pools to accommodate the number of players in a session). I wouldn't say the low rank stuff being as grind-heavy as the early portion of Horizon Zero Dawn, nor as unforgiving with drop rates on rare items/spoils/craves, but that's just from my own experience. I've heard from my friends who are veteran players of the series say that drops would require them to farm for an entire day/weekend, only for it to come up for me after a few attempts. This is regarded to many as one of many "walls" in this game to hinder your progress as you find yourself extremely outclassed in terms of gear (armor, weapons, and consumables) then find yourself grinding for hours end (at least until you get all of the upgrades to the farm consumables for crafting items) for better equipment or to study that particular monster's behavior to best it in combat. In that regard, I urge newcomers to play this game at their own pace. Don't feel like you need to rush to keep up with everyone else. Trust me, everyone in high rank/post-game hell would kill to have the simple days back instead of the can of worms that opens up once you hit a particular threshold in the story. There's that certain sect of players who thoroughly enjoy that challenge and welcome it while others just enjoy the simplicity of the gameplay that this game brings to the table. It's easy to allow other higher ranked players "rush" you through the game's story/narrative quests (dubbed Assigned Quests), but where's the fun in that when you don't really learn how to endure everything that this game throws at you on your own. Ultimately, you will end up being more of a burden on teams than an asset at high rank and especially in post-game tempered hunts when the game really kicks up a notch in terms of difficulty in monsters' behavioral AI.

There's a lot to take in here and the game gives you the bare minimum in terms of explaining it. Starting out in low rank, don't get too attached to your armor sets as it's going to be near useless the second you hit high rank, but you can clear the story missions with armor barely as good as the high rank Bone, Metal, or Aloy (reward from the PS4 exclusive Horizon Zero Dawn dedicated event quests) armor sets. I'm in post-game and still managing to survive wearing that gear, so don't put too much stock into your gear until endgame. Keep an eye on your defense and attack power, but other than that, don't worry too much about skills and affinity early on. After you get past the bulk of low rank and start getting your feet with wet with high rank is when you should start caring about your skills. When you've invested enough time into this game to at least hold your own in high rank (without having other higher ranked players online carrying you through the game...), you will discover that there's a wealth of resources online (Reddit and the Monster Hunter World wiki's are great resources) to help you become knowledgeable on the game then there is a lot of nice veteran (at least from my experience) players who will answer any questions you may have and steer you into the right direction instead of telling you something that would wind up getting you killed until you know better.

My friends who are veterans to the series say this is a minor gripe and something that has been part of the series for a long time, but I absolutely hate this game's idea of camera control and targeting. Capcom thought it was a brilliant idea to tie sprinting to two different buttons (this can be changed in the Options BTW) but not a dedicated lock-on button? I hated it with the original version of DmC (Devil May Cry) until the Definitive Edition dropped (along with Remember Me too) and I hate it here as Capcom rarely knows how to do a targeting and/or camera system right in these action/adventure games. I guess the sadists who like to torture themselves playing Dark Souls-like games don't care about a handicap in that fashion, but it just annoys me when you play other games that do something so simple like that VERY well then you go back and play something like this (that's a triple A big budget release title no less) and it's mediocre in comparison. There's means to adjust the camera/targeting in the Options menu as well, but I still haven't found a setting that doesn't have my character clipping through the enemy at times when I'm trying to land hits in. Just give me a wide angle shot that follows the damn thing I'm trying to kill around without unsyncing my target lock whenever he gets more than a few steps away from me. I've lost count at how many times I would get carted (this game's means of getting killed when your health drops to zero) mainly because I couldn't see the damn thing that was attacking me or running into me to trample me to death for being in it's hitbox. It's stuff like that in which makes me feel like I'm playing a re-release of a PlayStation 2 game than a PlayStation 4/Xbox One current-gen title. I've gotten to the point where I have gotten used to just manually panning and adjusting the camera around during gameplay, but it's nowhere as convenient as I would have liked.

In terms of visuals, there's times where this game is absolutely gorgeous to look at (Coral Highlands immediately comes to mind) and others where the environments (there's only FIVE key areas on the World Map - that's it... Like wow). look so damn boring that I was wondering where did the budget go into in terms of level design. Monster designs could have used some more creativity too if I'm perfectly honest too as there's FAR too many "dragon-type" designs in this game for my taste. It was cool during the first half of the game where there was a lot more variety in terms of what kind of monsters that you ran across in the various story missions. Then high rank happens and 80-90% of everything you fight for the rest of the story missions in the game falls into dragon-type territory. Despite the fact that I enjoyed most of the "gimmicks" revolving around the 3 Elder Dragons (One fight is against wind pressure bouncing you around everywhere if you get trapped within it while said dragon's has extremely high defense save for a few sections on his head and torso. Another is a fight against extreme heat/fire with this dragon enraging to leave timed explosions in his wake while having the ability for a massive AoE (area of effect) supernova attack that will more likely cart you if you're caught up in the explosion. Finally, the Elder Dragon that you encounter in Rotten Vale is the weakest of the three, but the entire fight revolves around him exploiting the hazardous poisons in that environment/locale while adding the ability to cut your max health points in half no matter whether or not you've buffed them up prior to the quest.), it left me longing for more variety that every "boss" type comes down to another big dragon you have to topple. That was cool during the open beta where Rathalos and Diablos were the top of the food chain in terms of what you could encounter in those quests, but getting the full retail release of the game and see that it hasn't changed much let me down a little. I have heard that there's going to be more monsters added down the road as downloadable content (DLC), so I guess that's something to look forward in terms of extending the shelf life of this game. Sue me, as a gamer who spent the majority of 2017 playing Horizon Zero Dawn, it's hard to look at another open-world action/adventure game and NOT be nit-picky when that game did everything so well in terms of gameplay and variety in terms of enemies that you ran across.

I'm writing this portion of this review after the first update to the game dropped with Deviljho, the first DLC add-on monster has been added to the game and I'm honestly not impressed. He behaves like a jacked up Anjanath on steroids with a few extra bells and whistles (laser breath, can use other monsters as a club has he holds them in his mouth, and dishes out massive damage on physical damage, due to dragonblight and defense down at higher levels). The limited timed event over the past weekend that allowed players to hunt a Tempered Deviljho was downright insane as I've seen HR100-200 hunters get one-shot KO'ed by that fool with ease. I wasn't fortunate enough to slay that mighty beast in that event myself, but I heard it is supposed to be making a return down the road for players who want another kick in the balls.

I don't see everyone else getting to this point, but I'm close to HR85 and I'm starting to feel bored with the game, even after the inclusion of Deviljho. It's not that the game is bad, it's just that it's feeling redundant at this point. That crawl of grinding between HR50 to 100 seems like the worst as you're back hunting stuff you've seen at least a couple hundred times, while others (tempered hunts especially) seem like more trouble than they are worth. Sadly, you can't just ignore these types of hunts as after HR50, you unlock augment stones to be dropped from Elder Dragons that can unlock even higher potential with further upgrades for maxed out weapons and armor. You would be crazy to ignore this feature when there's tempered monsters, like Tempered Nergigante, that will shred whatever armor set you're rocking in post-game thinking you're hot shit into a shredded cheese unless you're loaded up with the best skills to give you an added edge over the opposition and make the most of out of your gear and resources.

Cheers! Drinks are on me for all of the awesome people I have had the pleasure of fighting alongside with in this game online.

Last but not least, I want to comment about the community for this game. The older I get, the more I play video games as a palate cleanser and to get away from people after a long day of work and what not. That's just how I am. With this game though? I've found myself actually liking to play multiplayer with randoms. There's no shit talking or putting people down for making mistakes - at least not from what I've seen/encountered and everyone is just out to help each other. Of course, you have a few asshats that were trying to stun/stagger lock players into not getting carves after the kill, but Capcom removed that after the recent update. From the majority of posts that I've seen on Reddit, IGN, and GameFAQs to even the Monster Hunter wiki pages, there's a lot of genuinely nice veteran players who are eager to answer questions and help everyone out, regardless of skill level and that's just awesome. As someone who came from the fighting game community that would feel downright toxic at times, this is a welcome breath of fresh air. I haven't felt this much at ease and without any anxiety nor dread to play with people online in this game than I've EVER played online before with randoms. I'm happy to say that answering SOS flares has become my staple thing to do to unwind after a long day of work. That being said, this is the best gaming community that I'm proud to be a part of - even though there are days when I want to reach into my television and choke some players who shoot flash pods at the monster during mounts or the long sword/dual blade/bow/heavy bow gun users who are selfish about dealing damage when they put everyone around them in stagger, but that's a different subject altogether...

Play It or Don't Bother?

Chow down and get your strength up, it's going to be a wild ride... Trust me you're going to need it.

With my few gripes as a newcomer to this game coming from other action games, I was a little skeptical jumping into the world of Monster Hunter. Monster Hunter: World has made this entry in the series the most accessible for both veterans and newcomers alike. It doesn't do everything perfectly, but the beauty of this game is joy of bringing players together to accomplish great things. In this case, that purpose is slaying monsters and harvesting parts from their corpses for better armor and weapons. Sure, it gets rather redundant rather quickly, but one cannot deny that this grind is a blast with a team of players, whether they be your friends from real life or random players that you met during your online travels.

For newcomers, I humbly suggest giving this game a shot. You might have a rocky start, run into a few brick walls, but that's the fun of this game. There's so much to learn and absorb, whether on your own or from playing with other players to the point where you're always helping yourself and your peers out as you work together. There's going to be moments where you will want to strangle your teammates for their mistakes/trolling or throw your controller in frustration from the stalker dubbed "B-52" by the community randomly party crashing on your hunts, but at the end of the day, you're going to want to jump back into the drivers' seat and come back for more until you get that satisfaction of that big victory over the fearsome beast that haunted your dreams. Eventually, you'll know everything about that creature and own him/her in their own environment like it's a cakewalk.