Monster Hunter Wilds - Review
Monster Hunter, first released back in 2004 on the PlayStation 2, has been one of the most successful franchises in developer Capcoms history, that alone should speak volumes given just how many great franchises Capcom has in its vast portfolio. Spanning more than ten releases over several generations of consoles, a cartoon series, a movie and let’s not forget the massive amounts of merchandise, Monster Hunter is the type of juggernaut franchise that is insanely popular in Japan, but that popularity has also crossed over to the Western World. Personally, I am a bit of a noob to the Monster Hunter franchise, I have been aware of its popularity over the years but I really only started getting into the series with the incredibly successful Monster Hunter World back in 2018, I enjoyed World immensely and this led to me also spending hundreds of hours in the next instalment Monster Hunter Rise in 2021, ever since then I have been practically salivating to get my hands on Monster Hunter Wilds since its announcement, can Capcom build on their massively popular franchise? Let’s go on a hunt and find out!
The game opens up straight into the character creator, and it is one of the best character creators I have ever had the pleasure using. It is purely cosmetic in nature as your characters stats are modified by your equipment choices in game, but the number of options on display to customise not only yourself but your trusty sidekick Palico companion is truly staggering, A lot of other developers of RPGs, and even sports games, should take note here as Capcom is doing things right.
As opposed to previous games in the series, Monster Hunter Wilds is much more story focused and sees you as the hunter sent off on a mission to escort a young boy named Nata that was recently rescued by the guild back to his home. Nata claims to hail from an uncharted area known as The Forbidden Lands, and that the village and his people, The Seekers, were attacked by a monster known as The White Wraith, a creature that the guild previously thought was extinct. You are joined by a support crew from the guild consisting of Gemma who acts as your smithy and helps with weapon and armour upgrades, Alma who for all intents and purposes is a walking and talking quest board, Olivia a veteran hunter, Werner the engineer and Erik who serves as a botanist. I won’t go much further into the actual storyline as I don’t want to spoil it for anyone who hasn’t yet played the game. Relying on a narrative to drive players through the early parts of the game through to the end game is a bit of a double edged sword in the case of Monster Hunter Wilds.
On one hand being more story driven is great for new players to the series as it offers a space to do some hand holding and provide some tutorials and tips whilst also introducing some of the lore from the series as a whole, the problem is Capcom hasn’t really used the story to do this, sure tutorials and tips flash up on the screen in rapid succession to the point it almost becomes overwhelming but they don’t really give you a chance to put what they are telling you into practice before you are hit with yet another tip or game mechanic. The story rolls along at a pretty fast pace taking you through the various areas and biomes in the game and the flora, fauna and monsters that inhabit these areas, it took me around 17 hours to get through the main story of the game, this was without completing any side missions, the story is interesting enough to keep you pushing through to the end game but after a while the early gameplay loop of cutscene, prepare to go hunt, cutscene, monster battle, cutscene….rinse repeat about 20 or so times starts to get a bit tedious and predictable and towards the end of the story I started to wish I could just skip it all and get into the end game as this is where the real meat of Monster Hunter Wilds lies as you then have the ability to roam around freely and decide which monsters you will hunt and quests you will take on rather than following a linear storyline.
Speaking of roaming freely Monster Hunter Wilds gives you a mount called a Seikret (kind of a cross between a raptor and a bird) very early on in the game and it is an amazing tool for traversing the diverse terrain you will find in the game, you can basically set a waypoint on the map and your Seikret will automatically run to that place which gives you time to study your surroundings and farm materials while you are heading to your destination, if you don’t like the autopilot though you can turn this off in settings and have full control over your mount. Your Seikret also acts as a weapon holder and allows you to switch between a primary and secondary weapon as long as you are riding it at the time, this allows you to switch from melee to long range in the middle of a monster fight simply by mounting your Seikret and choosing to switch weapons, this opens up a vast array of choices when it comes to choosing exactly how you are going to handle each fight against the roster of 40+ monsters in the game.
For those new to Monster Hunter one of the best and most dynamic parts about the series is the way it handles classes and builds, there are basically no classes in the game at all and you customise your attacks, skills and attributes by the weapons and armour you equip, and in Monster Hunter Wilds you can equip two weapons to take with you on a hunt which adds even more diversity to how you want to customise and build your hunter in accordance with the style of gameplay you like, even if you get halfway through the game and realise you don’t like the weapon you are using there is no need to restart, you can simply pick another weapon and use that instead. There are 14 different weapon types in Wilds ranging from up close and personal melee like the great sword, sword and shield and dual blades through to ranged options like the light and heavy bowgun and straight up weird options like the hunting horn and insect glaive, there are so many varying styles of weapons and attacks here that it will take you a while for you to truly find the weapon that suits you, I played through the game with the longsword and found that this gives you the advantage of reach, surprisingly quick combos as well as a good output of damage, you do get a chance at the start of the game to try out all the weapons but this opportunity doesn’t really give you an idea of how they perform during a real monster fight.
Upgrading and forging new weapons and armour remains mostly the same as it is in Worlds and Rise, meaning that you use the materials you gather from defeating monsters as components to upgrade your gear and therefore your attack power, strengths and skills in the process, even further customisation comes into player later in the game when decorations are introduced, you can slot these into your armour and weapons to boost your damage, defences and resistances which gives you even greater choice when it comes to how you want to build your character.
Combat is the most important part of any Monster Hunter game, and I am happy to say that features added in Wilds are great additions to the game, the biggest one of these being focus mode. When using focus mode your attacks will be directed to where the camera is facing rather than facing the risk of swinging away and being locked into animations that have you missing your target for several swings, you also now have the ability to cause wounds on monsters which show up as glowing sections on their body and use focus mode to destroy these wounds for a damage boost. With the addition of being able to swap between weapons and the numerous environmental features that you can use to your advantage to damage your foes, combat in Monster Hunter Wilds is a thrilling and addictive experience. What is not thrilling, nor addictive is the horrible UI, I know that weird interfaces are an endemic thing to Eastern games, but this one really takes the cake, even with the improvements they have added to Wilds. Monster Hunter Wilds has an item wheel (that you can customise if you want) where you can add various tools such as healing potions and antidotes to quick select them during gameplay but it is so laggy and clunky that I often found my self swearing in frustration trying to use it in the heat of battle, the item wheel is also coupled with an item bar where you can select other items to activate during the game, why have two item selection systems? It just ends up being confusing and counterintuitive. The worst part of the UI is when you try to pick up something when your bags are full, as soon as you do so an massive pop up covers most of your screen and it takes four inputs to get rid of the popup and send the items to your item box, after this happened in the middle of a battle a few times I was pulling my hair out in frustration, why punish players for trying to pick something up with an intrusive popup? What not just automatically send the items to storage?
Multiplayer has seen some improvements; I do for instance love the way you can see other players walking around in towns as it gives you a good chance to check out other players armour and fashion and generally makes the game world feel much more alive. but it still has a long way to go in terms of playing with your friends, it seems like Capcom have challenged themselves to make playing with friends much more complicated that it needs to be. The main problem is trying to play through the story in co-op as you can only really play with your friends during the actual monster fights and are instantly teleported back to town after fights end, you can’t even roam the actual world together (at least I couldn’t find a way to do this) and all cut scenes are a solo experience, you don’t see your friends hunter during any of these, which just feels very strange and breaks immersion. Playing with randoms seems like it requires you to jump through far less hoops than playing with friends, you can easily shoot out an SOS flare if you are having trouble with a monster and other hunters can answer your call, if your call is not answered then AI hunters will come to your aid if you so desire. You can post quests and join quests at the click of a button and it just feels so much more intuitive and easy to do this than it is to actually form a party up with some of your friends.
Graphically and performance wise Monster Hunter Wilds is an extremely mixed bag, at times the game can be so beautiful it can nearly take your breath away, the next minute you are a victim of ugly flickering and slow loading textures that look hideous and seriously take away from the other graphically outstanding parts of the game. Performance is also a problem, I played in balance mode on a base PS5 and frame drops happen regularly, especially in the middle of fights which can become extremely annoying, especially when they happen to the extent where the game feels like it has massive input lag when you are trying to heal, lay traps, mount your Seikret or interact with the environment. Hopefully some of these issues can be addressed in future updates as the design of the environment, monsters, armour, weapons and characters is top notch and it’s sad to see it tainted by some of these issues.
I really enjoyed my time with Monster Hunter Wilds, especially once I got through the story and experienced the freedom of the end game, I enjoyed meeting and playing with other people whether it was through posted quests or SOS calls. Despite the games issues with graphics and performance the combat is addictive and extremely enjoyable, and I can easily see myself spending hundreds of hours grinding away and improving my character in order to fight some of the tougher monsters in the game. Being more story based has the potential to bring a lot of new players to the series however if you did not enjoy Worlds or Rise it is safe to say you probably won’t enjoy Wilds either, veterans on the other hand will most likely take to the game like a duck does to water.
The Score
7.5
Review code provided by Capcom
The Pros
Combat, when you are not fighting the UI, feels fantastic especially the variety of weapons and styles of fighting and how easily you can switch between them, combat is thrilling and addictive.
The art design in the game is excellent from the weapons and armour through to the characters and monsters you fight in the game.
The number of systems and mechanics in the game can feel overwhelming but it also leads to extremely deep end game replicability.
The Cons
Tutorial is lacking, especially with the potential the game has to bring in new players with its more focused story.
Performance can be terrible at times with texture loading and pop in and low frame rates breaking immersion and causing gameplay to become frustrating.
UI design is terrible, players should never have to fight the game for control or have to deal with frustrating pop ups taking over half of their screen.
Multiplayer systems are confusing and unnecessarily complicated when trying to play with your friends.
