I have opinions on Monster Hunter Wilds (HR 30)
And I think its important to preface them with a little story. Because I was dragged into MH3U kicking and screaming, by friends who didn't really explain the game and fed me hyper potions until I figured out what the cat farm was in that game.
I tried all the weapons. I settled into Long Sword because it had schmovement. It wasn't a lot of schmovement. Fade slash was just a little dip back. "Haha, I don't have to sheath my weapon to get out of harm's way, I just, move back." Most of the other weapons I kinda liked didn't really have that. It was just "Kill monster dodge roll if you're worried."
I mastered that little dip back until they decided to change how everything worked in MH4, and I've played all the flagship titles up until this point. I've always been a Longsword Main, but I do play other weapons now. I've continued LS into MHWilds.
Monster Hunter Wilds no longer feels like I'm playing monster hunter.
I feel like a monster that the guild has to handle.
The foresight whirlslash has such a such a forgiving invuln window, the special sheathe counter feels super easy to nail, I can pull traps out of the ceilings in different areas. After I've been a blender against the side of a monster for a while, I can literally stop their animations to do a wound attack animation that GIVES ME MY GAUGE BACK. My palico is every kind of palico from the past games at once. It does damage. It lays traps. It heals and cures me of ailments. It steals bonus mats. Its the perfect palico.
The monster is stuck here with me.
And for all this good feeling stuff
The story for Low Rank was filled with memorable characters like
Werner: "I'm a genius. Who are you? You don't matter. Now go away while I break things"
Nata: "I hate you, Arkveld. I love you, Arkveld. The real arkveld was the friends we made along the way."
Alma: "The guild authorizes you to do the thing you were going to do anyway. I don't have any actual power or agency here."
And I want to be able to talk about how cool it is to take elemental pick-ups in the map and shoot them at certain monsters creatively in a way that can turn their attacks back against them...
But they literally decided to call the shit Wyvern Milk.
Like, yeah. It's super cool that when the Guardian Wyverns use certain attacks, they spawn these crystalline deposits that can turn into elemental bombs when struck with an element, so your slinger can do some serious work.
But when I fire a puddle pod from my slinger and splash the wyvern in the face with its own re-hydrated wyvern milk
Something feels a little bit silly.
In the moment in the game, its *great.*
Free staggers abound.
But...Why did they name it "Wyvern Milk."
There's so many questionable choices they made with this game.
Not to say I'm not enjoying myself.
At the same time, if you're gonna be this silly and make the hunter so powerful, bring us the crazy weapons you're too cowardly to put in a flagship title.
