Monster Hunter: World - Review @ RPG Site
 

RPG Site checked out the PC version of Monster Hunter: World:

More information.

"The somewhat aging MT Framework engine still manages to wow at times, especially with the detailed animation work on the monsters as they leap and tumble about during combat."

Umm… I think this "MT Framework" is just a bit of code to distribute CPU load between cores/threads. It's not the game engine. ANYWAY!

!!!

I was just looking at this game because a prominent YouTube games reviewer just reviewed it and gave it a good review. No steam reviews are up yet, releasing in a day or so there.

The negative reviews I looked at on Amazon say it is a game that is very repetitive and grindy, and takes a ton of time. The monster fights can sometimes last for 40 minutes plus, apparently.

That said, other people obviously love it, and leave 5 star enthusiastic reviews.

I dunno, but this might be a game you will either love or hate, depending on your personal preferences, play style, and tastes.

40-minute boss fights? Good Lord. No, thanks.

Yeah, sounds like dragons dogma where bosses would have multiple heath bars and you'd hack on them for what felt like forever.

I'm still on the fence with this game though, which is weird for me. I can usually tell if I'm going to buy a game or not based on very little information.

I hear stuff like repetitive gameplay and 40 min. boss fights and think no. Then I hear stuff like great combat system and DS difficulty and think sure, why not.

It's a very well crafted and fun game, but the grind killed me.

This makes me remember I still have to finish Dragon's Dogma.

Yikes, named fights taking forty minutes or so would simply kill the entire game for me. That sounds like the opposite of fun.

How long do you think it should take to kill THIS?! =)
https://i.imgur.com/yqkGHTQ.jpg
You know, you can climb on the monsters? :D

Hmm..climb the monsters back and use your giant bastard sword, and shove it in the Brain /Neck. If that fails cast your strongest magic possible & kiss your ass goodbye.

I think I heard that it's better to use cutting weapons, like greatswords, on the tail and using blunt weapons, which do more knock-out damage, on the head.

There's no magic, though, but there are lots of ranged weapon options!

If you're talking about ACG's review, he also noted in it that the grind is real. But, he qualified that by saying the game makes the grind payoff.

As for 40 minute boss fights; as I understand it, you are doing more than just trying to kill the thing. You also want to hack bits off for upgrades, etc. Anyway, how long did it take to kill some of the souls bosses? If you count repeated attempts, probably a good while.

Seems like an interesting game, but I'm still holding out for Pathfinder: Kingmaker.

I can live with an occasional 40 minute boss fight if it is intereesting but it sounds like the pc controls are shit. Most quality fps use the mouse to do more than move the camera but all it does in this foobar implementation is move the camera????????

Yes, that is the youtube review I was referring to.

As for long boss fights, personally I would only be able to deal with it if they had a save anywhere system. If the save system is not able to save at any time in the combat, as it should on the PC, that would be very frustrating to me. I can see scenarios where I almost have the boss monster dead, and then lose just short of the goal. And then have to redo the entire fight? No freakin' way. But that's me.

Forget a sword against a beastie like that, I'd prefer a Tiger tank with current armaments. At least it would be a fairer battle!

To be fair, that often seems to happen with me in boss fights, especially in JRPGs. I guess I suck.:P
I guess it's even worse if you have to deal with the possibility of that routinely in a game. :)

40 minutes of single-Boss grinding?

That's even more asian "let's-work-for-the-sake-of-work-and-honor" than I thought :)

That would be a biiiiiiig no no for me :)

WoW also has this.

Yes as optional content.

In this case, the option would seem to be play MHW or don't play MHW :)

I can play WoW without grinding a single boss for 40 minutes.

Not that I want to, as I'm sick of WoW.

The Gamespot review was a little encouraging.

If the narrative is strong - I might reconsider. Of course, I can't stand JRPG storytelling for the most part, so it would have to be reasonably "Westernized".

I'll need more feedback on that one.

Yeah don't play that game you won't like it. Repetition is the entire concept of it. Boss fights after boss fights after boss fights. If you don't like redoing, this game is gonna piss you off.
You sometime spend a entire afternoon defeating (or dying to) the same monster again and again. Once you have enough ingredients, you craft yourself an armor with it and go to hunt a stronger monster type…. until you have enough ingredients… Rinse and repeat.

It's not a RPG, there's not stats or skills, the story is a pretext. Just fights, exploration and crafting.

As for the 40 minutes long fights that everybody seems to freak about, those are very rare.
It's only occurs when you go hunting the beta final giant bad-ass monster in multiplayer (monster's health and damages scales with the number of hunters he faces).
In solo, most fights last 10-15 minutes.

The game is awesome, but the grind is real. But it's awesome! But that grind, though…

What's the story like? How does it compare with other stories?

I played the demo of this game on PS4 for 40 minutes and gave up. I found the controls to be very clunky. Maybe they were going for realist sword swing animation or what not but the whole thing felt like swing massive gigantic sword so I gave up on the game!

From what I read, its "there is big bad over there so go kill it" :) There is no story, its about the mechanics.

Not according to Gamespot :)

But you've only played 40 minutes. Winterfart seems he might actually know the story ;)

Story is a pretext. Basically, you play a hunter in a hunters camp who go on hunts :lol:
Every problem is solve with a hunt, every "quest" is the same : "go there and kill that". It's the same level of depth than a story mode in a fighting game.
I think precedent opus were completly storyless, but they had to put something for western audiences in this one. They didn't go out of their way , though…

If you played Dragon's Dogma, don't think both games are similar ( like I did). DD is an aRPG with a story, Monster Hunter is not. It's a fighting/crafting game.

Strange that Gamespot would find the narrative so interesting, in that case.

But thank you for the information.

The more I hear about this game, the more I feel certain it's not for me.

My comment about the story was based on what I read and not what I played but it seems even Winterfart agrees :)

PCgamer wrote a bit about the grind.
https://www.pcgamer.com/how-monster-…-grinding-fun/

Reminds me of this! :)

Yes and I was looking for someone who actually played enough to actually know :)

This game will unlock in approximately 1 day and 5 hours!!

Does the PCgamer article help alleviate worry about the grind?

I don't think it will have a very good story. Capcom is more known around here for their Arcade games.

MHW is Capcoms best selling game ever and they've been making games AND hardware to stuff in cabinets for 40 years, so it's just gotta be good. Reviews look good, user reviews look good. I think it'll be a real winner for me.

There is a story in dragon dogma? O_O
Never noticed. Quit after killing 87563886534876438746th rabbit for some quest which were course in company of respawned trashmobs all over the place that needed to be grinded.

You're doing it wrong. Dont quit the game; quit that rubbish quest and go find something fun to kill.

Head to the end of of the pier at night time in the starting town and catch a ride to the DLC area. That's where the game gets good!

It should take as much as needed to think about your tactics, to position your grop, to cooperate and execute your plan in TURN BASED or RTwP TACTICAL COMBAT, not in generic action 20+ minutes long grind.

Exactly. There is literally nothing interesting about prolonging a real-time fight with a single entity for more than a few minutes.

It's terrible game design 101.

Well, in my opinion.

I've played this on and off on the PS4. Overall, I can't recommend it. Some of the mechanics are great. The weapons are all available at the start and are different and interesting to use. But ultimately, "kill X, then kill Y, then kill Z…" just gets tiring.

I haven't got near to the endgame 40+ minute boss hunts. But an interesting thing it does is that monsters will run away when you start hurting them bad… so some of those long fights are about pursuit and tracking your prey vs. doing DPS for 10-20 minutes. So it feels more like a hunt versus just swinging a sword over and over.

It's really not an RPG, but it has swords so people are lumping it into RPG category.

Edit- also, graphics and animations are great but… the whole thing looks drab and under saturated, and the contrast is so low it just feels foggy and dull. After playing in gorgeous 3-D lush rainforests in Horizon Zero Dawn, this game feels like I'm watching gameplay from an old 1980s camcorder. Seriously, if they just upped the contrast, the visuals would be so much better. Everything looks gray and dull.

I'm sure Reshade with Lumasharpen, Vibrance and Tonemapping can fix that.

Already stated this MH will be the last on the series true to the franchise. Afterwards, they will need to modify the game to suit tastes of customers.

Players desire time sinks and drain content. Progression must be thought to flow without vexing players.

Basically, the progression must adapt to the skill levels of players and not players adapt to the ingame progression.

It is all about draining content without being hindered.

40 minutes hunts, players have it wrong somewhere during their playthrough because the whole thing in MH is to get able in the hunts.

This is the best selling MH game ever. I doubt they are going to make any drastic changes going forward.

Too many complaints about the core gameplay. Players obviously reject base principles.

It sold well because it was somewhat new to western players. Now the same keep complaining and will not buy the next without changes.