After putting 310 hours into Monster Hunter Wilds, I felt it appropriate to write a one-man review of this little number in the Monster Hunter franchise. Those who know me are fully aware that I am a Monster Hunter fanatic, and to a lesser extent a fan of Capcom. (Capcom staff, if you’re reading this, I have not forgotten the on-disk DLC debacle of Marvel versus Capcom 3, but I am choosing to move past it.)
Why Monster Hunter Wilds is the same as any other Monster Hunter title
I have depending on how you want to slice the title versioning, I have played five or six games in the series. Given that tidbit of information about my experience with the franchise, I think I can tell what flies and what doesn’t fly.
Monster Hunter Wilds features all the action-arcade intensity that we know and love from the previous titles. All the weapons are there, albeit continuously tweaked and different from Monster Hunter World and Monster Hunter Rise respectively. The Greatsword is still slow as hell, you still need an academic degree to play a Charge Blade, the Gunlance still makes big explosions and the Insect Glaive still turns you into a helicopter.
One of the many beloved features of the game is the diverse and beautiful environments, natural regions and the incredibly impressions of a real wilderness. Graphical fidelity is higher than ever, and the fantastical nature of Monster Hunter environments remains on full display.
Why Monster Hunter Wilds is different from any other Monster Hunter title
Of course, no Monster Hunter game is complete without each new entry being a natural evolution in the series. In the case of Monster Hunter, sadly, this comes down mostly to natural selection removing the most challenging and interesting parts of the game. Monster Hunter 3 for the Wii was my introduction to the series, and for all accounts, I found the game a devastatingly beautiful piece of programming.
Monster Hunter 4, however, removed underwater combat. Fine, I thought. Then Monster Hunter World removed paintball tracking. Monster Hunter Rise made every area so much smaller by adding too much mobility. And now, Monster Hunter Worlds removed something else, something I can hardly tell what it is anymore. The end-game doesn’t feel the same as the other games in the series, mostly because I breezed through Low Rank and most of High Rank without a care in the world.
Finally, with the addition of some monster in the Free Title Updates, the game gained some real replay value. But for me, the damage was already done. This entry has this bad taste in my mouth of feeling like a game for babies, even though the new Tempered monsters in High Rank are actually a challenge again. I can imagine getting something out of the Event Quests and Arena Quests as well, but I could not tell in advance what I’d be doing those for. After all, new items and equipment only unlock -after- completing the quest, so there is little drive beforehand to try out every quest.
The long and short of it
Monster Hunter Wilds right now, in its current state, is gearing up to be a fine successor to the Monster Hunter line. The new monsters are adding real content to the game, and if an expansion is on the way, this might be a new blaze of glory for Monster Hunter fans worldwide.
I can only suggest Monster Hunter for new and veteran players equally, but really? Monster Hunter World should still be the go-to game for complete newbies. While Monster Hunter Wilds is great for the story lore, arcade action and graphical fidelity, this game does not sit at the top of the Monster Hunter quality pyramid.
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