Monster Hunter World seems like it might be the new hyped up game for the start of 2018 with youtubers and Twitch streamers clambering to cover it. I downloaded the open beta over the weekend and had a mess about with it, here’s my thoughts on the game.
Monster Hunter World is an Action-RPG game and you play as a hunter funnily enough and you hunt monsters. It’s pretty much all in the title. From what I can gather there is a lot more to it than simply hunting monsters though.
The game seems like it is a very in-depth RPG, with crafting, loads of different weapons, potions and various builds to make your character stronger. You’re not alone out their hunting monsters though, you have a cute furry little companion called a Palico. A Palico is a cat looking creature and it accompanies you out in the world and helps you take down the monsters.
The game has got a fairly decent character creator, you can choose from the usalmale or female, different hairstyles, etc and you can also create a character for your Palico cat choosing different fur colour patterns and stuff like that.
There’s also a wealth of different types of weapons to choose from and different armour, potions and other things to build your character.
Gameplay
In the beta you could choose single player or multiplayer, I started off with the begginners single player quest. I had absolutely no clue what I was doing to be honest and when I got to the monster I was just bashing buttons wildly in the hope that something would happen. I did manage to beat the first monster but when I went to attempt the intermediate quest that was a whole different ball game.
Thankfully there is a training area which you can go to and practise with various weapons. A big part of the combat would seem to be about mastering different combos you can perform. The training area is a great place to start learning these combos. I would imaging the training area will be in the first game, if you pick up Monster Hunter World I highly reccomend going there first.
Some of the weapons you can use are massive things, like a huge sword and a huge other sword but this sword looks like a gun. The bigger weapons like the aforementioned sword/gun thing made you move really slow when you had them drawn and I felt it was quite difficult to get some decent blows in to the monster.
There is other weapons that are smaller and you can move quicker with these but the big weapons are the ones that look the best.
The intermediate quest I found to be fairly challenging and there where two, even more difficult quests after that. When the quests starts, you spawn in to a camp and then you have to go to a specific area to hunt for clues that will lead you to where the monster is.
The clue hunting revolved around following some glowing flies that would lead you to footprints and piles of muck you had to inspect, eventually you would come across the monster.
I did find the combat a bit challenging, mainly due to how slow I felt I was moving with the massive sword, I’m sure the full game has a ton more weapons though and maybe upgrades to make the combat a bit less sluggish feeling.
It also didn’t help that the monster would occasionally drop a massive pile of dung which I would get stuck in.
I did eventually manage to kill the monster in the intermediate quest, not really sure how exactly but I did kill it.
Multiplayer
I did fair a bit better with the multiplayer quest in Monster Hunter World. The Monster Hunter World multiplayer allows you to do co-op quests with three friends and go hunt down monsters and generally have a bit of laugh while doing it.
I would say that multiplayer could possibly be the most fun part of Monster Hunter World, especially if you have friends to play it with.
There looks like there will be a good bit of grinding in Monster Hunter World, there is a ton of different plants and things you can collect out in the world which can be used for crafting different things. As long as the grinding is meaningful and progresses your character then it should be fine.
Conclusion
I found Monster Hunter World to be fairly enjoyable for the few hours a I played the beta. There does seem like there will be a huge learning curve and ually I like games that I can just pick up and get into quickly.
If you like Action-RPG, dealing with various character builds, grinding, crafting and hunting monsters with huge swords (the monsters don’t have huge swords, you do) then you’ll probably like Monster Hunter World. I’m going to site on the fence for the time being and see what the reviews say before I decide whethere to buy it or not.
If you do decide to buy it or pre-order Monster Hunter World it’s only £41.99 on Amazon and there’s also a steelbook version for £47.99.
