(Time played and finish date are are counting Iceborne)
While World is a fun game, there are a number of things about it that didn't sit very well with me. In particular, the story, music and weapon designs.
I won't include any spoilers in this review, but the story just felt intrusive to me. I don't mind that the series wanted to take a shot at a more compelling story structure, but that's honestly not the reason why I play Monster Hunter. And it would be fine, IF the option to skip cutscenes was there. It's not.
It only gets worse when the game prohibits friends from joining your quests if they haven't watched the cutscene for that specific quest yet.
Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate, which came out years before on the 3DS had the decency of including your friends alongside you during cutscenes. Why the hell couldn't World do the same?
The music is a huge downgrade from previous games, especially Generations Ultimate. A couple of tracks are better than the rest, mostly the calm village/hub themes, but most of the battle tracks sound like a generic jurassic action movie.
And the weapon designs are just fucking atrocious. Nothing more to say. Just google MHW Brachydios Dual Blades and have fun.
Gameplay is the one thing I can't complain about, basically eliminating all the stiffness from previous games, but considering all the other things that irked me during my playthrough, I can't say World is one of my favorites. I don't care about the story, the huge sprawling environments are annoying to traverse especially when compared to the instanced arena-like maps of previous games, and I don't really give a shit about monsters being more docile and immersive.
World is fine, but it chose to focus on things that I don't particularly think matter that much to Monster Hunter. Games like MH4U had a perfect balance of lore and environment detail while not sacrificing the pace and structure the series is known for.
While World is a fun game, there are a number of things about it that didn't sit very well with me. In particular, the story, music and weapon designs.
I won't include any spoilers in this review, but the story just felt intrusive to me. I don't mind that the series wanted to take a shot at a more compelling story structure, but that's honestly not the reason why I play Monster Hunter. And it would be fine, IF the option to skip cutscenes was there. It's not.
It only gets worse when the game prohibits friends from joining your quests if they haven't watched the cutscene for that specific quest yet.
Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate, which came out years before on the 3DS had the decency of including your friends alongside you during cutscenes. Why the hell couldn't World do the same?
The music is a huge downgrade from previous games, especially Generations Ultimate. A couple of tracks are better than the rest, mostly the calm village/hub themes, but most of the battle tracks sound like a generic jurassic action movie.
And the weapon designs are just fucking atrocious. Nothing more to say. Just google MHW Brachydios Dual Blades and have fun.
Gameplay is the one thing I can't complain about, basically eliminating all the stiffness from previous games, but considering all the other things that irked me during my playthrough, I can't say World is one of my favorites. I don't care about the story, the huge sprawling environments are annoying to traverse especially when compared to the instanced arena-like maps of previous games, and I don't really give a shit about monsters being more docile and immersive.
World is fine, but it chose to focus on things that I don't particularly think matter that much to Monster Hunter. Games like MH4U had a perfect balance of lore and environment detail while not sacrificing the pace and structure the series is known for.