Many fans have been eagerly awaiting the release ofMonster Hunter Wilds. Seasoned veterans and new players seeking to sink their teeth into the series have been eyeing this new entry to see what the game is all about. Since the release ofMonster Hunter WorldandRise, we’ve been eager for more of the series to make its way onto console and PC for more over-the-top and intense fights. But how doesMonster Hunter Wildscompare to the past two entries that completely shook up how the series is played?
Review: Avowed
A traditional RPG with a lot of charm, Obsidian Entertainment continues to impress with Avowed.
Becoming the Best Hunter You Can Be
Like many of the past entries, you’ll get started on your adventure in a series of story quests just to get familiar with the controls. After the introduction cutscene, you’ll be put into the character creation section. This is in-depth and one of the best character creators in the series by far, allowing you to make your hunter in the image you’ve always wanted. Once the intro sequence is done, you’ll be loaded into a new spot to go ahead and try out weapons. You can experiment with every weapon type and find a favorite before taking on your first hunt. The good news is that if you didn’t like how this starting weapon felt in the hunt, you can change it out as soon as you get into the Base Camp.
There are fourteen weapons to choose from that are going to be well-known to those who have played past entries of the series, all having their own set of moves and specialties. There are all the weapons fans know and love, from the reliable Great Sword to the flashy moveset of the Insect Glaive. With no new weapons being added, you’re able to look forward to each weapon having some new tricks to use while hunting monsters. The Bow can use Tracer arrows to pull your arrows to the monster, while the Long Sword has new ways to charge the Spirit Gauge. One of the best parts of the Monster Hunterseries, besides hunting powerful and creative monsters, is the ability to try out each weapon. Not being locked into a weapon you dislike means you can always explore new options and try out new avenues to take out these awesome beasts.
Sprawling Maps to Explore
There are a number of changes to the gameplay ofMonster Hunterwith this new entry, but one thing that can be agreed on for the most part is that the game is gorgeous. While the game looks beautiful, however, it does have some performance issues. At times on the PlayStation 5, the framerate will drop if multiple monsters enter an area. If you cap the framerate at 30 or 60 fps, it happens less often, but if left uncapped it’ll happen regularly. The new locations are beautiful and have amazing sights and monsters hiding within them. The size almost hampers the game with a new addition to it, however, the Seikret mount.
These Seikret mounts are used to travel in these huge map locations. The Seikrets somewhat take the spot of the mounts that players had gotten to use inMonster Hunter Rise. Unfortunately, when compared to theRisePalamutes, these new mounts are more limited in what they can do. When approaching an area to flank a monster in the new vertical parts of the world, all control is taken away from you as the player and shows the mount jumping around, and in story sections, they’re just used to carry you from point A to point B without much input from you. They move on their own automatically when you have a marker on the map or a monster, which sounds nice on paper, but they end up feeling clunky when controlling them. The way Seikrets were implemented takes away some of the freedom of traveling, collecting materials and moving along trying to take down monsters.
These new mounts feel as though they could have been so much better. It’s hard not to compare past games with current ones in a series when the new Seikrets feel like a step back from the Palamutes we had previously received. They don’t engage in combat with you, they have a delayed response when you call them in to chase a monster and they feel clunky to use most of the time. Trusting the player with the freedom of using the mounts to chase down a monster should be a given, but it feels as though the game is holding your hand to push you in the right direction every time.
A New Story with New Mechanics to Fight with
Something new aboutMonster Hunter Wildsis the way the overall story is portrayed. It isn’t what most fans are going to expect of the series, as it’s a more cinematic experience at times. For the most part, we’ve gotten an overarching story to go over what direction the game is going, with fights to accompany each section. In this iteration, we start by traveling with NPCs and exploring this new world with more cutscenes than usual. The way that quests and hunts are portrayed is most likely going to be hit or miss for most players.
Something new aboutMonster Hunter Wildsis the way the overall story is portrayed.
Quests being more cinematic isn’t always a bad thing, but it’s also something new to this series of games. Most Monster Hunter games will have you speak to NPCs briefly before you head to a map and fight a new monster. Each one will give you a new intro cutscene to this monster and then the fight will commence. This process is more or less the same but with cutscenes and a lot of traveling with NPCs to and from destinations. While new lore is always welcome, many of the traveling scenes could have been a brief cutscene that we get before getting to the monster location and starting these amazing fights.
One of the downsides to the changes in how the gameplay formula works forWildsis that some of the changes feel odd and almost like a band-aid for an ongoing issue. The controls feel as if they’ve been slightly altered in comparison toMonster HunterWorldandRise. They somehow don’t feel as fluid despite being updated, and you’re encouraged to use the new Focus function to attack specific monster parts. It’s an odd direction to take when everything could be made to feel more natural. This seems as though it was made to fix a problem that wasn’t there, making the game feel clunky while trying to make it feel more complex. It’s still fun, beautiful and full of amazing monsters to fight, but something feels missing.
Closing Comments:
Monster Hunter Wildsis a fun experience and has all the staples that make the series so enjoyable. Unfortunately, some choices make it hard to enjoy yourself for a significant amount of time while making your way to the portion of the game that you’re trying to experience. The main story aims to provide players with a more immersive experience, but ends up getting in the way of the fighting monsters at a reliable pace, forcing you from point A to B frequently before allowing you to engage with these newly-added monsters. The focus mode for aiming your strikes feels odd at first, but after some time, is something that you get used to. The Seikret mounts seem like a good idea in general, but they end up delivering an odd experience even after learning the quirks of how they work and can be frustrating to use. Despite these issues,Monster Hunter Wildsis still a fun and challenging experience for fans of the series and newcomers looking to dive into it once they get past the learning curve.
Monster Hunter Wilds
Version Reviewed: PlayStation 5
The unbridled force of nature runs wild and relentless, with environments transforming drastically from one moment to the next. This is a story of monsters and humans and their struggles to live in harmony in a world of duality.Fulfill your duty as a Hunter by tracking and defeating powerful monsters and forging strong new weapons and armor from the materials you harvest from your hunt as you uncover the connection between the people of the Forbidden Lands and the locales they inhabit.The ultimate hunting experience awaits you in Monster Hunter Wilds.
