Monster Hunter Wilds

I don’t know why I did it. I knew I was going to react to Monster Hunter Wilds in the exact same way that I did to Monster Hunter World and Monster Hunter Rise: A perplexed face and a burning curiosity about why these games are so popular.

But I was looking for something to play on the PS5 now and then and it’s a good game for that. I don’t feel bad about not recording it or not finishing it. (Although I am hitting the “save last 30 minutes of gameplay” button after every monster fight anyway.)

For context, as of this writing, according to the PS5, I’ve played 11 hours and completed 30% of the game.

I also need to make it clear that, following my standard video game practice, I haven’t looked up any guides on the Internet on how to play the game. So there’s a good chance I’m doing everything wrong. (Actually I did look up how to find endemic life for those side quests where you’re supposed to capture them, because the game doesn’t give you a marker for where they are. I just wanted to confirm that the expected game loop was to wander around in the world until you stumbled on them, like a cave man playing a game from the 90s. For other side quests, the game auto-runs you right to where you’re supposed to go, but this one thing it doesn’t.)

Here are the last several monsters I killed in the main story. I think they are “large monsters” in game parlance, or what the rest of the world calls “bosses.” (All the ones before this were really easy.)

There was an Alpha Doshaguma, which looked kind of like a big bear. It seemed like it was inevitable that I would win the fight, even though I “fainted” twice. It was the first time I fainted in the game, but it was no big deal–I just ran back to the boss and continued where I left off. (Reminding me of later Guild Wars 2 boss fights, where it was impossible to fail no matter how many times you died.)

Then I killed something called an Uth Duma, and I’m sure those two words instantly conjure up a vivid image of what it looks like (a gigantic seal with a snake head and gossamer flaps). This has been the hardest one so far for me, and the first monster that I actually failed to kill, because I fainted three times (mostly from bad luck, imo), so it took two tries to complete that kill. The second time I called in a “Support Hunter” Rosso (a bot, I assume) but it didn’t really seem to help much, other than yelling encouragement now and then in that “we can win with the power of friendship!” way that all anime stuff has. However, I did kill it with only one fainting spell the second time so maybe it was doing more than I thought. (It’s hard to tell because the bosses don’t have health bars.) This was the boss that I discovered you can jump on top of the monster’s back and hit them in the top of the head, a feat I don’t fully understand how I did, but I somehow managed to do it a couple of times.

Then it was a Rompopolo, a fairly easy monster that I described as a T-Rex with a crow face, covered with ballooning airbags. I just hit it repeatedly until it died, no fainting required. I had the ranged Support Hunter Rosso for this one too (because I forgot to turn that feature off), but it also didn’t seem to help much.

The last monster I killed was a Rey Dau, which at first I thought looked like a copy-paste of the Fallingstar Beasts in Elden Ring, but it has wings (with pretty strong arms attached somehow–Darwin sure would be interested in how these creatures evolved) and lightning breath. It was tougher, but not that much. I fainted once, and when I got up and rode back, I hit the beast exactly one time and killed it. (I had Rosso the ranged Support Hunter for this one, too. After this I finally remembered to turn them off… the setting is in a very obscure location so it’s easy to miss it.)

The fighting seems to go faster than the previous games, which I like a lot. I remember timing out a few times on quests in Monster Hunter World. I still don’t like it much when the boss runs away to a new location, because it just feels like it’s dragging the fight out for no particular reason. It doesn’t feel like I’m solving any game problems by simply following a monster to its new location. The only question the game is asking there is: Will you remember to sharpen your blade or not?

For the record I use the big sword thingy that you start with. After this last fight I’m Hunter Rank 4, and upgraded my armor to Rompopolo gear (which looks ridonkulous), and my sword to a Hope Blade III. (Previously I think it was a Bone Blade II.)

The story is telling me there is something called a White Wraith coming up, which is, for some reason, highlighted with purple. All the characters were awestruck on viewing it for the first time before it flew away, so I guess I’m supposed to be terrified of it too. But so far I don’t see any reason to change my complex go-to strategy of running straight up to things and hitting the triangle button until they’re dead.

As for the story, I haven’t been paying any attention and have skipped large portions of the dialog, so I don’t know why any of the characters in the game, especially me, are out wandering around killing big monsters. There’s something about a kid from a long-lost village who’s really mad at the White Wraith or something. I don’t know.

The music seems pretty generic. And the voice work. Most characters do a breathy exhale at the end of every line delivery, which nobody does in real life but is fairly common in the anime style. Once I hear it, I can’t un-hear it and it completely undermines any attempt at serious dialog because it makes me chuckle. Otherwise nobody seems to have any personality and I feel nothing for any of the NPCs. It’s pretty clear the story is only there because AAA games are expected to have stories, so they have to check that box.

I have two theories on why these games are popular.

One is that maybe the game changes into a completely different experience if you play co-op with other people, and that’s really the thing that people like. I have a feeling that a lot of mediocre games disguise themselves as really fun when you play them with your friends, because what you’re feeling is the enjoyment of hanging out with your friends, rather than anything intrinsically fun about the game. Which is fine, but when I play that game by myself I’m left wondering what all the fuss is about.

My second theory is that these Monster Hunter games are made for people who only like to do dungeons and raids in MMORPGs, because you can sort of skip right to the boss fights. There is a pretty strong MMORPG vibe to the game in general, especially if you like resource-gathering.

But the boss fights… aren’t that great. To me, at least. They’re faster than previous games, which is awesome, but they’re still pretty tedious, and there isn’t much tactical thinking involved, at least in the first 30% of the game. (Which is another reminder of MMORPG boss fights where “difficulty” is achieved by giving every boss a million hit points so that the biggest challenge is paying attention while you’re dying of boredom inside, like it’s an office presentation or something.) I haven’t had to do anything special to prepare for these boss fights yet, other than eating some food now and then. I haven’t had to learn any new combat skills or anything. I just run up and hit the big thing over and over until it’s dead or I’m dead.

The animations are kind of cool, though, and the scenery is nice. There’s a nice “feel” and “weight” to landing a blow with a huge sword on a monster, which I like. (I do tend to prefer heavy weighty weapons in games, rather than fast lightweight weapons that defy physics.) But it doesn’t feel like I’ve done anything particularly noteworthy when I kill monsters. It seems like literally anyone could do this.

Maybe these are the kind of games that only get good when you reach some arbitrary “endgame” point, which is another thing that reminds me of MMORPGs. World of Warcraft, for example, where so many people speedrun through the leveling process to reach the endgame, where the fun actually begins for them.

tl;dr

In conclusion, I’ll say that I’m liking Monster Hunter Wilds more than the previous two games, so I feel like they’ve successfully tweaked the formula for the better. It seems more streamlined and less clunky than previous games. It gets more fun the longer I play. With each new monster you kill in the main story, it unlocks a few more options you can explore. I think I just unlocked Armor Spheres. I also see there’s a bunch of Weapon Skills displayed on a page somewhere but I haven’t interacted with that system at all yet. It’s kind of fun to do the optional side missions so you can gather resources to make different kinds of armor and weapons.

Still, I don’t think this franchise is ever going to reach game-of-the-year material for me because I feel like I could leave the game at any time and not feel like I’m missing anything.

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