Monster Hunter Wilds

(available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, and PC. PlayStation 5 version used for both reviews.)

Monster Hunter Wilds is the latest entry in the series from company CAPCOM, with this being the version that was made by the A team; the B team being responsible for the previously reviewed Monster Hunter Rise.

This game is made by the same team who made the Monster Hunter Worlds game, which I enjoyed but it didn’t really convince me of the franchise like I’m sure the team hoped it would, which was weird considering that Rise did achieve it- I became a massive fan of that game and while I think some aspects of the game weren’t improved upon even after all of the content updates, I still think that if you buy that now along with the DLC, you’re getting a lot of good content. That being said, you will be going into that game with just the singleplayer, because most players will be jumping into this game’s multiplayer if they don’t own a Switch.

Wilds sort of continues the open world aspect that Monster Hunter Worlds initially premiered, and they tried to expand it in several ways. Unlike Rise, where you’ll be picking a monster from a Wanted board, having a meal and then setting off, in this case, you can just go out into the world, pick a monster and get authorization from the head of the association to hunt it or capture it! Other than that, it’s your basic Monster Hunter. You’ll essentially be in a series of Boss Rushes with various monsters and you’ll have your trusted feline calico as your backup- as long as you don’t have loads of multiplayer help online, and to be fair, multiplayer is one of the biggest aspects of Monster Hunter.

I can say that the formula is kept well intact, the weapons are there from the previous games, the armour looks very similar though I did appreciate that there are multiple variants on them depending on what kind of character you created, and you may have to repeat boss fights and missions to complete pieces of armour or get a certain weapon.

If you enjoyed the previous Monster Hunter games, you’ll step into this one very easily, But if you’re a newcomer, the game does okay, it kind of does hold your hand early on, but I think that it does succeed in some ways of getting new players in. For one thing, because there are more cinematic experiences there are a lot more ‘on rail’ sequences which I think are newcomer friendly, and it does also have a quiz early on to see what weapon would suit your playstyle. Weirdly, the weapons that it suggested for me I wasn’t very good with, so I went back to my classic sword and shield.

PROS

• Environments

While there is a more open world aspect to the game, the environments do play similar to a traditional Monster Hunter game, they’re just a lot bigger and have multiple levels to them. To be honest, I really liked them! I think they went a little bit overboard with deserts and cave systems, I noticed that got repeated on a couple of occasions, but there were some interesting environments to explore, and I liked that there was a lot more variety with where the monsters appeared.

Normally, in other Monster Hunter games, the monsters only tend to appear in one or two of the environments, but in this one there are about three or four.

If there’s one thing I did notice that while the environments are pretty open, they’re not so open that they would confuse players that have previously played Monster Hunter Rise. They are basically themed around the vibe they’re going for, I think the forest one is my favourite, though there are some weird monster locations that I thought didn’t quite match. For example, Rathalos doesn’t feel like it belongs in the forest environment, but you had a very high chance of finding it there and not in the typical lava environment that you would expect.

• Combat

The combat is once again great! I think that this is helped by the fact that the game is immediately opened by picking the choice between Performance or Graphics Fidelity mode. But what’s great is that you can not only go for a higher framerate, but you can choose if you have the capable monitor for it to lock the game at 60 FPS, which I highly recommend because it really makes combat feel fast and fluid. It’s set up in a way that no matter your weapon choice, in a multiplayer situation, you can contribute in almost any way provided you’re not the guy who chose the Stat Buff weapon in that multiplayer session that me and my core viewer Reece where doing, who then chose to do bugger all and then kept all of the rewards by the end! Yes, I am still sore about that…

Now I do have to say that I miss the Wire bug Mechanic that was in Monster Hunter Rise, because I felt like it really added to the exploration and combat which I felt was missing in this one, especially considering the ways that you get to certain environments feel a bit more scripted now. But I can live without it, though I do miss using the Wire bug to have the monsters fight each other.

• Character Creation

This game has one of the strongest character creators of any game I’ve ever played! It’s really well handled. You’ll probably see a bunch of really cool creations online made using this game, for example I saw a post on Twitter with a bunch of pop culture character creations that were (in the tweet’s word) “Looked like a Fortnite Lobby”. I managed to create a character that looked so much like myself that it was almost frightening! There are great options too for the Palico creations.

This really needs to be the character creation that future Monster Hunter games use going forward.

• Post Game

Surprisingly, I think that Monster Hunter Wilds is better in its post-game than in its main game. It really opens the games up- there are more potions and weapons available, more armour, and a lot of monsters become available. Initially, the game introduces a new concept called Guardian Monsters, which tie into the narrative leading up to the finale and the post-game is the only place that you can get its non-guardian forms.

This is one where I really would say that if you’re not enjoying the main game and you want the typical Monster Hunter experience, you should wait until the post-game.

• Multiplayer

While I have had some connection issues, the multiplayer has been very functional overall. I think the biggest problem is the fact that because the multiplayer and singleplayer quests aren’t separated from one another, there are loads of incentives to only have multiplayer help in the later quests. In fact, despite sending out SOS flares on numerous occasions I was barely able to get anyone to join in on early quests, it was only in the later game I was able to get help in a major way.

In terms of teaming up with your friends, it’s really easy. Everyone has a Hunter ID and can link up that way. It’s also how you get the cross-play to work with players on different systems. We were planning to test out the cross-play mechanics with the PC version since our colleague Elliot will have purchased the PC version however this was unable to happen because Elliott was only able to play the game due to reasons that will come apparent later, so we can’t comment on the how good the cross-play is in this game.

Once you get a multiplayer match going, this is the same great Monster Hunter game that I’m used to. If you’re worried about getting multiplayer help, you can set the SOS flare to get help from AI partners- but I will stress that they aren’t a win button! I got to a stage where I didn’t want to use them since I think you get the most innovative play out of actual players, so you can set the SOS flare to be ONLY multiplayer help from actual players. And of course, you can join other lobby members’ quests on the Quest Board.

MIXED

• Monster Selection at Launch

The Monster Hunter games have often had a low monster count at launch which was supplemented by updates further on in the game’s life- in fact, before this game even came out, we found out that in April another Monster will be added to the game.

The problem, in my opinion, is that while the monster selection is good at the beginning of the game, I think it’s very small. The game starts off with 30, which sounds good, but not if you consider that Rise started with 15 more, and that in this game some monsters don’t have guardian versions. One of my favourites is Anjanath, the t-rex looking monster, and it doesn’t have any options at this time other than its guardian version!

What’s more, I think that they did a good ratio of new to old monsters, but the new ones are okay at best. I certainly felt that way with the cover monster, which to me didn’t feel as challenging as other cover monsters like Magnamalo. I think my favourite new monster was the Jin Dahaad; which made for one of the most interesting boss fights in the entire game and a really cool armour set as well!

Other than that, I would say that the monsters that were chose were pretty good options though they felt a little bit obvious at times, and I would insist that the game needs to bring back more monsters at a quicker rate- but I will say this this review was written two days before the first big trailer and presentation updates that are going to come out, and we can expect them to be a steady pace of updates alongside a massive expansion sometime next year, similar to what happened with the last two games

• Graphics

I played the game mostly in performance mode so I was expecting there to be some issues, and I was made aware that even in fidelity mode some of the issues that I was noticing like textures that don’t render quite well are still issues in the fidelity mode. I turned on this mode briefly to check this out and there is some truth to this, but I think that it has been exaggerated a little bit.

I think that the game looks really good, and they did a great job at making the world look and feel alive. It’s not the best-looking game amongst this generation of consoles, but I think it has really good points and despite its issues, it looks really good.

I would like to point out that we played this on base PS5s and so haven’t experienced this with any Pro enhancements.

• Story

Okay the good is that this is one of the most expansive stories that this team has done. It starts with a very basic premise, and most of these games do. It’s basically helping a kid named Nata get back to his tribe after he becomes part of a monster attack, and from there the game kind of expands into territory that the other games haven’t really gone into, apart from their spin-off series Monster Hunter Stories.

The problem is that it feels a bit superficial. While I like the characters in this game and I think that that is one of its strengths, it doesn’t feel like it has the same depth level as the games in this series. And as a result, I think it feels like an excuse as to why we’re hunting these characters. I know that the story just kind of exists to say why all of these hunters are coming to these locations, and it’s fair enough for them to try, but I was kind of glad for it to be over so I could get on with the post-game.

CONS

• Pamlico’s Debuffed

Palicos are one of the staples of the series, and while character creation has been improved for them, their actual state in battle is reduced. There’s not as much customisation with them and they don’t feel as helpful in battle. I did get some help from my Palico with random heals and status heals in the middle of battles, but they really didn’t feel like they added too much and I wasn’t too upset they were gone when they were kicked out because we had three or more players in the party. This definitely feels like a downgrade.

• Palamute’s Replacements

So unlike Rise, which gave us the Palamute to increase the speed of travel and also would act like the dog equivalent of the Palicos to aid you in combat, we got a new creature which is like an ostrich raptor mixed called Seikrets. The controls for them are a lot more temperamental than the Palamute, and they don’t help you out in combat. And what’s more, you don’t have a choice for multiplayer, the Palico always disappears and so you are left with the Seikrets. I don’t get why they did this! Rise at least gave you the option of which one you would keep in a multiplayer game. Honestly, I can’t wait for the next entry just hoping that the Palamutes are back.

And the fact that they showed off them gliding in the trailer, they barely do that! They often wouldn’t even jump off some ledges, I had to jump off of them to get to certain parts of the map.

• PC Performance at Launch

Now, I heard that there have been updates that have improved this, but the PC version had a lot of issues at launch. To sum up, the PC version, while not unplayable, was not released in a good state. It feels once again that it’s a console game that was being rushed to port over to PC, which is a shame because I feel like the PC version of this would be the best version.

My advice would be to keep that version on your hard drive until a playable version comes out.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Monster Hunter Wilds is good, I want to stress that I really do enjoy this game, especially the post-game where I felt the gam really came alive. However, I have to review the game as it is at launch, and it feels like this game has significantly less content than Rise did at launch and that was done by the B team! I know that this will get a bunch of content and issue fixes as time goes on, but I don’t want this to be a blueprint for CAPCOM going forwards for Monster Hunter games to have less content at launch in the hopes that people will stick around.

I will stress that this is a great game to get into the series with the addition of the multiplayer. Combat is great and it plays brilliantly, and once you play in a multiplier match you will have some great experiences. I really did enjoy my time with this game, but I think it could have been better.

FINAL SCORE: 8.5/10

and now Reece’s review

Monster Hunter Wilds is the latest action RPG from Capcom in the now 20-year-old Monster Hunter franchise first starting in 2004 on PS2. This game is the Sixth generation start for the franchise and sees the player character embarking onto a mission to the Forbidden Lands after finding a lone child survivor after a Monster attack and unravelling the mystery of the Monsters and the biomes within.

Monster Hunter Wilds is only available on the current generation of consoles and PC without cross-gen support and my review was solely on the PlayStation 5.

Pros:

Seamless world.

For the first time in the franchise players can explore all the maps outside of quests allowing players to gather materials and hunt Monsters whenever they spawn in. This is like previous distinct open zones with spawning monsters like The Guiding Lands from Monster Hunter World or the Free Hunt in Moga Woods from Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate.

Frame rate.

Monster Hunter Wilds features three different modes for frame rate with Prioritise, Resolution, Framerate or Balanced. Resolution has 4K at 30fps, while Framerate sets it to 60fps and Balanced sets it to 40fps but has a resolution just under 2K. During my playthrough of 70 hours I never had any major fps drops or crashes when playing on Performance mode even when fighting against the final boss of Low Rank and later High Rank.

New Monsters.

Out of the 29 Monsters in Wilds there were 20 new Monsters introduced in this game. So, while the total amount of Monsters at launch is lower than both World and Rise there is still a good variety in the designs of the new Monsters with the return of the Leviathan class of Monsters that weren’t in World due to the developer team not being able to get the skeleton to work properly. We also see a fantastic final boss for Low Rank that brings back elements from a lot of prior Black Dragon bosses and Elder Dragons making it a great spectacle for fans who have played the franchise since the very first game. The new Monsters also have some great looking Weapons and Armour compared to World that had a lot of weapons sharing the same base design with some basic scales or shells attached to them. However thankfully the team took more inspiration from older titles and Rise to have distinct weapons, and they all look fantastic.

Cross play.

The first time in the franchise players on console can play with PC players. This is a huge improvement for players as it means it will be much easier to get full lobbies in the future instead of each player being isolated to their native system of playing. In my experience of playing on PS5 with other users I’ve not had that bad noticeable lag compared to other players who have also been on PS5, so the team did a great job making it pretty seamless when playing with others aside from the usual connection issues.

Story and cutscenes.

There is a much stronger focus on narrative in this game compared to games prior where even World characters didn’t have names and instead titles e.g. Handler, Commander and The Huntsman. Now in Wilds these characters have more actual character and personality compared to just being there to say exposition. With also a lot of returning characters from games like Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate with Gemma being Little Miss Forge and Fabius being the Ace Lancer from that game. These returning characters also bring back up plotlines from prior games like Gore Magala and The Frenzy in High Rank, but even just in this game we see the expansion of older topics like the Ancient Civilization who built the old ancient technology and Tower arenas. Even the plotline of this game feels more personal with a focus on Nata a survivor of his family who were wiped out by a Monster and sees the Hunter and crew journeying across the new biomes trying to track to down. The best part about these new cutscenes too is that the player character has more personality with a lot more spoken lines and showing up in cutscenes with the current player’s armour set to help with immersion.

New battle mechanics.

Compared to World and Rise there were a lot more new mechanics brought into Wilds to advance the series with some of these being very useful. The Wound mechanic is the big new important one for this game and has it so when players are attacking the same spot on a Monster for a while it would generate a physical wound on the Monster. This Wound when hit enough will be destroyed and cause a Monster material to be deposited into the players bag, this helps speed up collecting materials for weapons and armour. The Focus mechanic is a new way to attack and is made to be used with the Wound mechanic. By holding down the L2 button it puts the player into a new gameplay style like the old Hunting Styles from Monster Hunter Generations. For Greatsword it allows players to now aim their True Charge Slash compared to older games where it was easy to miss a Monster if they moved when charging.

Focus attacks are also used to destroy Monster Wounds for bonus damage and a stun, allowing more follow-up attacks making hunts go past a lot faster, but players don’t need to use these mechanics and just fight in the traditional senses to make fights last longer.

Perfect Block is a new inclusion that comes up more depending on which weapon you are using and now allows players to block just before they are hit to trigger the Perfect Block. This allows players to take less stamina cost for the block, also save sharpness if blocking with a weapon like the Greatsword for my playthrough and most importantly negates any damage from the block. Then if the player perfect guards against certain monsters and certain attacks they can trigger the Power Clash which puts the player into a Quick Time Event with the Monster and if successful will knock down the Monster for a prolonged period of time.

Offset attacks are the last new combat mechanic added to this game and allows certain weapons to interrupt Monster attacks in the form of a parry. I didn’t use this mechanic much since it was more difficult to use with the Greatsword due to the big delay on the Rising Slash so players have to commit to using the move before the Monster attacks otherwise the move won’t connect in time and the player will get hit.

Gender neutral armour sets.

This is a great quality of life update where now players can equip armour sets previously locked to the opposite gender. The biggest upside of this is the new possibility for “Fashion Hunters” where players recreate other famous videogame characters using available armour and customisation like Illidan from World of Warcraft or even Angewomon from Digimon being shared online.

Weather cycles.

One of the major selling points of Wilds was the focus on the ever-shifting weather across all 5 maps. There are three main types of weather with Plenty, Fallow and Inclemency and will trigger at random during gameplay or when players rest in their camp and can manually select which weather and time of day they want to spawn at the cost of some Guild Points.

Plenty is the weather normally chosen when wanting to gather plant materials or herbivores as they spawn due to rain causing vegetation to grow.

Fallow is the opposite of Plenty and has vegetation dying out and becoming barren, but this weather has the carnivores becoming more aggressive and abundant. Hunting during Fallow is more of a challenge compared to the other weathers due to the reduction of Endemic Life in the biomes.

Inclemency is the final state of weather and occurs between Fallow and Plenty. This weather is also accompanied usually by the spawning of the 4 main Apex Monsters and is very useful endgame farming for rare materials and raising Hunter Rank quickly so I would recommend players save any investigations with the Apex’s especially if they are Tempered.

Return of special state monster.

(Tempered & Frenzy)

As hinted at before is the return of Monsters with special conditions. Tempered Monsters see their return from World and has almost all of the main cast of Monsters being able to be fought in a Tempered state where Monsters have more health and deal a lot more damage especially on 5* versions of the quests. These hunts are also important to help farm decorations and Artian weapons since they require random Relic drops from these Tempered Monsters or by trading in various materials for random Relic drops.

Frenzy Monsters feel more thrown in to add a bit of extra story in High Rank since some of the prominent characters from Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate and the Frenzy was a big plotline in that game.

Unfortunately, only 5 Monsters can have the Frenzy so about ~17% of the roster can be fought in this condition making it feel thrown in at the last minute to pad out the story, to give players more to do during High Rank.

Investigations return.

One of the best features of Monster Hunter World was the ability to create investigations which are mini quests created by the player after encountering a Monster on the map. These are very useful since they often have great extra rewards in addition to the usual craves, and these include being able to get the rarest materials from Monsters like their specific Gem or decorations and Relics drops. In the endgame now I only use investigations and never do the basic optional quests anymore as the targeted rewards are always worth the extra conditions added to the

quest like a shorter quest timer or Monsters being stronger than the basic quests.

Con:

Low Monster Count.

Wilds launched with the least number of Monsters in a new game since Monster Hunter Tri on the Nintendo Wii in 2007 that had 18 on release, apart from that every title since has had at least 30+ (39+ minimum if you exclude World that only had 30) Monsters to fight during Low Rank and High Rank to then even more during the G rank portion of games with Ice borne and Sunbreak having over 70 each.

This makes Wilds feel more anaemic in comparison to the other titles in the franchise and feels like the game needed at least a couple more during High Rank rather than relying on repeats with slight modifiers like being Tempered or infected with the Frenzy virus.

There are also 0 Elder Dragons in Wilds at launch even though every game had multiple Elder Dragons including the very first game launching with three, being Lao Shan Lung, Kirin and Fatalis back in 2004. However, the closest now is Gore Magala which only becomes a true Elder Dragon in their final form. As without these typical Elder Dragons the final Monsters feel a bit too easy with proper builds and setups, as players then have to rely on the optional star system along with the Monsters being Tempered for more of a challenge for no bonus rewards only extra challenge.

Weapon variety balance.

Speaking only from the perspective of a Greatsword there is a weird imbalance with the weapons with a big abundance of Raw and Fire weapons in comparison to all other elements and status weapons.

In total there were 6 Raw only weapons, 5 Fire weapons, 3 Dragon, 2 Ice, 1 Water, 1 Thunder, 2 Poison, 1 Paralysis and 1 Sleep weapon. However, there are 0 Blast status Greatsword and instead if a player wants a Blast Greatsword they have to rely on the Artian system only.

In prior games there was usually a few different weapons of every element

compared to Wilds where half of the available weapons are either Raw or Fire only damage. This lack of variety really hurts as it means if players want to use another element or status for their weapon then they don’t have a multiple choice. They then have to wait for Artian weapons to get a weapon with that element or status they want but powerful. However, the player has to relay on the randomness of the Relic drops to build it so

players can’t guarantee a strong Artian weapon with the Element or Status they want.

No siege combat.

A feature that has been in every generation of Monster Hunter was the ability to have siege combat against a large Monster either solo or in multiplayer. However, in Wilds there isn’t an option for that as the largest Monster like Jin Dahaad is fought like any conventional Monster using the Leviathan skeleton like Agnaktor on land without siege equipment. As the closest part is chasing it through multiple zones during the course of the fight until the final zone but even then, Proof of a Hero doesn’t play during the fight at all.

Generation one has the original Lao Shan Lung as a giant walking mountain that players fight to make to leave a fortress alone.

Generation two has the Shen Gaoren the giant crab that uses a Lao skull as it’s shell and attack its legs.

Generation three has the Jhen Mohran acting as giant sand whale that players have to fight on a moving boat to defend a city being flattened.

Generation four had the Dah’ren Mohran and that was an evolution of the Jhen fight with more complex mechanics.

Then finally was the Generation 5 fight in Monster Hunter World against the Zorah Magdaros that the entire story was building towards.

It’s really disappointing that the flagship title for Generation six breaks the 20 yearlong trend of not having a siege battle for a pivotal fight in the story.

Endgame grind.

When players get to the end of the game, they will be hunting the same Monsters on loop since they drop the most decorations and relic pieces along with the most guild points to raise their Hunter Tank the fastest. To this end players only hunt either the Tempered Gore Magala and Arkveld since any other Monster would not give out the same level of rewards. This makes endgame hunts very boring when not crown hunting for achievements as most lobbies are just those two Monsters on loop.

It would add more variety to the endgame if Capcom elevated the other four Apex Monsters to have the same number of rewards as Gore and Arkveld when tempered.

Artian weapons.

Artian weapons are the main endgame mechanic that players will be grinding for after they have gathered all the decorations they need and hit Hunter Rank 100 as endgame Tempered Monsters will drop randomised relic pieces. To assemble an Artian weapon the player needs to collect three specific pieces like Greatsword requires two large blades and one crushed tube. Then after gathering these pieces the player can then choose the ones with the bonuses they want since every single piece either adds a status or damage type either Affinity or Attack. So, when the player forges their preferred pieces together, they then get the option to reinforce it for bonus buffs like extra damage, affinity or sharpness leading to an incredibly strong, when that is guaranteed to have three decoration slots with two 3- Slots and one 1-Slot for decoration. All these added together means that on average the proper built Artian weapon is way more powerful than any Monster based weapon on the roster and limits

creativity when players are just rerolling all their Artians for hours at a time until they get the perfect five attack boosts for the weapon rather than hunting Monsters and building a weapon with drops step by step.

Palico mechanics.

The Palico took a massive step back in Wilds compared to Rise, as now players are stuck with just the one Palico instead of potentially 30 to choose from in Rise. The Wilds team also simplified the Palico as now it gets access to every gadget and support move at once instead of the Hunter deciding which one was best for the situation. Palico also do not get any skills now or even the ability to specialise anymore like with the Gathering Palico or Support, instead the Palico now has every specialisation like being able to set Shock Traps or gather distant materials.

This really feels more like hand holding than letting the player make more complex decisions and have more autonomy as now when the Palico hits level 30 that’s it as it can’t progress anymore unless Capcom increase the level cap when it comes to the title updates or the G Rank expansion.

Seikret Vs Palamutes.

The Seikret serve as the replacement for the Palamutes from Monster Hunter Rise but feel like a pale imitation without the same depth for their mechanics. In Rise the player could choose weapons, skills and armour. However, in Wilds the Seikret is only used as transportation and to hold a 2nd weapon that most players don’t use. It feels like a step back in game design and mechanics due to the simplification like the new version of the Palico compared to the big step forward that Rise made for the franchise.

Players also only get the one Seikret compared to the Palamutes where they could get a variety for them making them feel even more limited and less useful aside for being a taxi directly to the Monster with its auto tracking in Wilds, but when then it would frequently get stuck on geometry.

High Rank story.

The story in Wilds really falls off in High Rank with only having a couple of cutscenes focusing on the return of Frenzy with Gore Magala and seeing Fabius suit back up in his Ace Lancer equipment from Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate. In previous games they all had a lot more story during High Rank with games with dialogue for the characters but in Wilds it’s only a cutscene for the returning Kut-Ku, introduction for Tempered Monsters, introduction for Gore Magala and then for Arkveld as the final boss. Even the chapters get shorter for chapter 4-6 as Chapter 1 has 5 episodes, Chapter 2 has 4 episodes and Chapter 3 has 5 episodes. In comparison Chapter 4 has 3 episodes, Chapter 5 has 3 episodes and Chapter 6 only has the one main episode of talking to Nata and then fighting the final boss of the story.

Event quests online only.

For some reason the event quests in Wilds are only available for about a week at a time before becoming unavailable to run. This is in stark contrast to World and Rise but even the classic titles where I can boot up my PSP and play the old saved event quests even now. Having event quests be time exclusive is a bad move since it means players can miss out on event armour or rewards for no particular reason compared to older titles.

Online connection.

During my play through I would have constant disconnects every couple of hours which would kick me into offline mode and would have to talk to Alma to reconnect.

The error code I got on PS5 was C1081-0-0 and sometimes would happen after 10 minutes or a couple of hours without much explanation. There should be an option on the menu to reconnect automatically since the game relies on online connectivity with multiplayer, event quests and even the weekly missions. As all of these require the player to be online in the game.

User interface.

A minor issue that really only affected me was that with the new user interface Capcom decided to make the health bar into a pulsating bar. In all other past games instead it was a static bar and now it makes it so difficult to look at in a moment’s notice and judge how much health the player has left because it’s hard to tell when the bar won’t stop moving during combat. I would use a toggle option to return it back to the classic version as that cleans up the user interface so much more.

Conclusion:

A step up from the base release of Monster Hunter World that was not that feature rich until it’s expanse of Ice borne, but I still prefer the base package of Monster Hunter Rise with its larger roster and more in-depth battle mechanics of the Wire bugs.

I would recommend players to hold off a couple of months since Monster Hunter always gives out free title updates with new Monsters and Event Quests for about a year. So, players will be able to pick up the game for a cheaper price down the line. and with more content for free if they hold off purchasing if there isn’t enough content in the base game for new players.

For veterans I would absolutely recommend Monster Hunter Wilds as it expands on the formula established in World and has a new variety of Monsters to hunt that players will be able to do for dozens of hours.

Score: 9.0