I’m taking a break from Sword for Hire. I will finish it. I know everything I need to do. I just need a break.
I have a pile of unfinished games I could be playing, but there were two recent games that I kinda really wanted to play — Assassins Creed Shadows, and Monster Hunter Wilds. When Kasul said that he’d love to play MHWilds with me, that sealed the deal.
My last Monster Hunter game was Monster Hunter World, five years ago. All the MH games center around you, the player, wielding comically oversized weapons against larger and larger creatures, until you’re clambering around some cloud-shrouded monster, trying to encourage it to stop stepping on humans and other creatures that it’s not even really aware of. Either by killing it or driving it away, you’re carving off bits to use for new armor and weapons.
We use every bit of the monster.
There was a story by Jack Vance (no relation to J.D.) called “The Dragon Masters”. It’s a story of a world where humans have bred dragon-like lizards for riding, battle, etc. — just totally integrated into normal life. Then they are invaded by dragons, who have bred human-like creatures for riding, battle, etc. And they all have a fight. It’s glorious and hilarious. Some of the dragons are human sized. Some of the monster humans are dragon sized.
Not sure where I’m going with this. I guess I just imagine tiny monsters ganging up to take me on, when I’m just trying to walk down the street or something.
Anyway. Weapons. Monster Hunter has a variety of signature weapons that carry over from game to game. I remember going through quite a number of different kinds of weapons in Monster Hunter World before finally settling on the bow.
In Monster Hunter Wilds, I went through quite a number of different kinds of weapons before eventually settling on the bow.
I guess I have a type. I found this time that I have trouble keeping track of what’s happening when I am forced too close to the monster I am hunting; bows let me get the necessary distance. And bonus: I can even shoot while riding on my chocobo.
Where World had a little pterosaur you could fly around on, in Wilds, you get… a chocobo. And I am totally there for it. I love a world where Final Fantasy, Monster Hunter, Pokemon and so on turn out to just be games all set in the same world. Games set in Japan, Switzerland, Antarctica and, say, the Amazon jungle would just be different perspectives on the same world, Earth.
I definitely believe that we’re just killing giant, dangerous Pokemon here. There’s plenty of precedent, even in the games, for huge, dangerous Pokemon. The finale for Pokemon Sword and Shield was literally gigantic, kaiju-sized Pokemon wreaking havoc.
As for Final Fantasy and Monster Hunter, well, just take a look at the weapons available for FFXIV and those in Monster Hunter. These are the same games.
Kasul and I are still very near the start of the game. We understand the real game starts once the main plot is done, and all the new monsters begin to show up, probably once we deal with the “White Wraith” that triggered the plot.
I really do like a lot of the new systems — I like that you can have NPC support hunters take part. I prefer them so that I can have plenty of time to harvest stuff on the way to the hunt; human players would be impatiently waiting for me to arrive.
That said, playing with humans is very easy. It’s no trouble at all to just start a mission, get to the place, then call for help — players will be there in seconds. It’s equally easy to just bring up a list of people asking for help and to pop in and help them take it down, getting some crafting materials and guild points along the way. It’s almost like an arcade game. Put your virtual quarter in, fight a monster, up to you if you wanna spend another quarter on another ride.
You can’t assist on a monster you haven’t already fought, it seems. Not sure how I like that. It ends with Kasul or I having to advance the plot first before we can assist with the other’s fight. I would like it if we could explore together, but so far, I haven’t gotten the impression that’s how the game is meant to be played.
Well, time to go to work. My player ID is in the screen shot above if you want to look me up in game sometime.
I always want to like Monster Hunter games but invariably I wind up feeling bad for the monsters. The animators just do too dang good a job of showing them in distress!
But I wager I’ll still give this one a go at some point!
In the last one I played, we were actually protecting the big kaiju from attack by predators as it migrated. All the games use “environmentalism” as the issue; we are taking down, in Wilds, unusual monsters — like one that is turning previously solitary monsters into a rampaging mob. The ask for that was to take down this one monster so that the others in the pack would return to normal.
But, the name of the game is Monster Hunter, and despite the justification, we are hunting them and carving them up for bits. For the greater good.
Shadow of the Colossus was a bit worse; the colossi you killed were holding back the evil, but you, the protagonist, had made a bargain with evil to rez a girl. And everyone LOVED that game!