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Monster Hunter World Game Review

Monster Hunter World is a 2018 action role-playing game developed and published by Capcom. It’s an overly limited in appeal, difficult game that still has its strengths.

When this game was released, it was ranked among the best releases of the year and it is mostly regarded as the best entry in the Monster Hunter series. While I personally respect this game for everything that it did right, I was still left in the cold by the end product. I felt left out as the Japanese RPG elements proved to be overwhelming. The fact that this entry was the most accessible in this particular franchise is insane to me. I, thus, cannot imagine playing its predecessors as this one itself was too difficult for me.

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Monster Hunter World is an action RPG played from a third-person perspective. Your task is to roam the open area in search of monsters to either kill or capture to be further used as research. The player character has no distinctive qualities. Creating your character was a fun process that was seemingly intricate, but ultimately the avatar looked nothing like me, which was a shame.

Astera as the central hub was wonderful. This was actually my favorite part of the game and not the quests themselves. You can chat with NPC characters there, you can manage inventory, buy and sell goods and most importantly you can craft new equipment. This was all quite elaborate and overwhelmingly so, but giving so many options to the players was ultimately a solid move.

The plot itself was only serviceable. There is an expedition that leaves you in search of a huge monster to capture. Given that the world building was so expansive and that the 19^th century natural expedition angle was so intriguing, I expected a lot more than just the story concerned about this one monster and that’s it.

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But my biggest issue in terms of presentation and approach is the overwhelmingly gory violence. I do not intend to talk like an animal activist here, but this game depicting violence done on animals in such detailed manner really made me disturbed at times. You attack, butcher and injure animals before trapping or killing them and just seeing all these animals in pain and horror was so horrific as the visuals were so polished and detailed. It seemed too realistic for me, and thus I was taken out of it more often than not.

The skill system is too elaborate here, making for an overly difficult game. Grinding so many parts to then craft weapons and change weapons during battles to accommodate the monster’s weaknesses was way too complicated for me personally, making for a frustrating gaming experience. The fact that you also lose health and ability to run at all times was even more infuriating.

Too much of this game depends on the multiplayer component. On the one hand, getting to play with others and battle monsters together was quite exhilarating at times, but too often I found myself depending on others to finish quests on my behalf. Trapping and/or killing monsters was too difficult for the most part, so I ended up enjoying much more those side quests where you have to gather herbs or other material. That was by far the best part of this game and the part where you got to experience this gorgeous world the most.

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Graphically, Monster Hunter World is also somewhat of a mixed bag. Well, the monsters are beautifully designed and quite meticulously detailed as we see the feathers, the colors and scales in fantastic detail. They felt really believable in their behavior and movements as well. The world building is phenomenal and a lot of the times the imagery was quite gorgeous with impressive landscapes full of living flora and fauna present in each part of the screen. My problem was the brightness. It was too extreme, which rendered most of the game overly bright, garish and cheap-looking at times.

The game doesn’t control well as it has way too many buttons to remember, making for a convoluted gaming time. The voice acting was pretty good and I liked the characters, but they were underdeveloped for the most part, though the peppy female sidekick was quite endearing and so were various animal companions. This RPG has numerous side quests to go on, but the main campaign is surprisingly short. The sound is fantastic and the score is pretty good, though hardly truly memorable.

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