Monster Hunter Wilds

I've been playing monhon since the ps2 and only skipped the Wii U era, though had to wait for quite a while until Steam Machine before grabbing this entry. It's good overall, but has its problems here and there as well. Some map layouts are pretty bad, some sidequests just don't respect your time at all, the weapons feel a little dumbed down and simplified, and most egregious of all... the main story. Monhon doesn't often cover itself in glory when it comes to the main plot of the games. But, this might be the worst of all of them. Just about every character is actively bad - especially Nata. They even somehow managed to fumble Gemma, making her more annoying than endearing when she has her little bit of limelight midway into the narrative. The Handler is boring. The side characters are bland. I never skip as a policy, but I've never been more tempted. When the first arc of the story finished, I groaned to find Nata still in my camp instead of back with his people where he belongs. They must hate him as much as I do, quickly sending him off to be a liaison rather than take him back as they should. God, I wish they'd take him back. And now we get to look forward to him as a Hunter all grown up in the DLC? Ugh. I half expected him to some back in an Arkveld fursuit after all of that cringe. The plus? Gameplay is excellent generally - it's monhon and you know what you're getting. Prepare to lose a few hundred hours of your life grinding away for talismans and decorations. It runs great on Steam Machine. The wounds and focus mode gimmick is interesting enough (though, all that free damage feels a bit like cheating sometimes, especially if you ever manage to chain 4-5 instances of the focus strike attacks). Everyone who's a monhun fan and wanted this game probably has it already by now, so this review feels a little pointless. But I just had to get it off my chest. This story is so bad. Even for monhun, it's bad. Do yourself a favour and hold down that skip button. I regretted not doing it. Also, shoutout to the two other Lance mains that exist out there somewhere.

good game the best game