The game starts off with you, the main character who you can fully customize and give a name aboard an airship with your fellow hunters. After creating your character, you go through a session of poorly dubbed and acted dialogue as you travel to your destination, a continent chock full of monsters. Enter the first scene where I got to see the awesome anime looking dude I have created, I noticed one big thing that really ticked me off..no voice. My character has no voice.
Seeing as other hunters in the opening scene who all talk and when they asked my guy a direct question, he would just shrug his shoulders or nods his head yes or no. At first, I thought ok maybe the main character will say something in the next scene which is when a big dragon is attacking the airship but he never does. This may not be a big issue for some, but personally I think it’s BS that in 2018 main game characters do not speak. In the Legend of Zelda series, Link may not have a speaking voice either, but those games are some of the very best in gaming so that can be overlooked but not here with Monster Hunter. There was even an option to choose the type of voice I wanted my character to have, but it appears that the only time you get to hear your character is when their grunting in agony when they get slammed by a Kestodon whose giving you shit when all your trying to do is track down that Borath.
As for the voiceover work for this game, it’s certainly not going to win any awards, but it is funny just to listen to the generic dialogue that ensues. Although most Japanese games don’t translate well in terms of English dubbing so this is to be expected at this point. Besides the voiceless main character, the visuals of the game are pretty good. Not the environments so much, but of the monsters themselves. I genuinely get as giddy as a kid in a room full of stuffed animals whenever I see a large predator.
The gameplay in this game is a mixed bag, much like the rest of Monster Hunter World. You have the option to follow the main quests, go on bounties or join a quest already in progress with other players via online co-op play. Whenever I would go to help out a fellow player, their would usually be two or three other players at the scene fighting a large beast. Yet whenever I send out an SOS requesting aid on a tough monster, most of the time none bothers to answer my cry for help. I admit that I’m not much for online multiplayer games, but come on people.
The ability to customize your armor, weapons and forge new equipment for you and your Palico walking cat companion is a plus. And trust me, you’ll need to frequent the smithy every chance you get if you wanna be ready for what’s out there. You have the option to capture or kill in which you get bonus points for capturing. But honestly, I had trouble with the capture net, probably because it’s so small or because the controls are a little clunky here.
The thing I liked most though is tracking down my prey and finally finding and getting to kill it. I used a chain gun which is a light bow gun so I can be mobile. But the trade off seems to be that my attacks weren’t so strong as a battle-axe or sword would be up close. Even though the combat was fun, it is often frustrating trying to kill something even with the most powerful ammo I have and having the timer for the hunt reaching zero, because my SOS flare was ignored. Guess I need more friends.
Overall, this game didn’t completely suck, but has much that could be improved on. The game was fun for a while, but soon got repetitive. The story and sound were both mediocre, where as the graphics were decent, just not enough for me to wanna pick up and play this one ever again.
Nerdish Rating
3 out of 5
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