Recent reviews by Fleshly Delight

What's that?
Another cosmetic pack for me to purchase to support Ghost Ship Games?
And it looks sick as ♥♥♥♥ too?

Well, don't mind if I do.

EDIT:
As of Title 1's update, there's still plenty of issues; some fixed, but more new ones surfacing.
I advise to wait until the start of May before considering purchase.

------------------

Wait at least a month or two after release before purchasing.

The game has serious issues with both performance and crashing.
Optimization will come in the future, but this is unknown when that will take place.

Many users are currently suffering from being completely unable to play the game despite following all "known fixes;" the most often issue relating to the game crashing to a bug report before it even opens past the launcher.
From what I've read across many reviews and threads, if you are someone using an AMD hardware build or play in Ultra-wide, you're much more likely to have crashing take place.

Big suspects towards this disaster are likely related to both Denuvo and whatever the hell the other form of anti-tamper Capcom has running alongside it.
This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone why anti-tamper would be causing problems, especially when there's two of them running.

In the end, while the gameplay is seriously fun, the optimization is an issue enough that waiting on a $70 purchase is recommended by me.

I'll edit this review after a good amount of time has passed in order to reflect what changes, or lack there of, have been done to fix optimization.

While the gestures themselves are good, I cannot in good faith condone Capcom adding them as free DLC on the Steam DLC store instead of having them in the base game upon character creation.

Why?

Because this is Capcom's clear attempt at getting users to purchase paid DLC by taking you to the store to show off what the other content you could purchase is.
This is made significantly worse due to Capcom using beloved and iconic gestures dating all the way back to the start of the series in order to get both old fans and new fans to purchase more DLC.

I'd argue this is exactly why the most expensive version of the game is the one that gives you the Wyverian Ears.

I'm simply against business practices of this type that try to prey on certain types of consumers.

I had to buy this not because of the absolute sick drip you get, but because Ghost Ship's continued support with sublime content for the game makes them genuinely one of the best video game developers currently on this planet.

I got over 700+ hours by the time I made this review from a game I got gifted years and years ago; not buying the DLC would be an insult to the equivalent of if I walked into each of the devs houses, slapped their mothers, and then called them elves.

Keep on keeping on, Ghost Ship, you guys are what all game companies should aspire to be.

Did I mention how absolutely glorious the armor and paintjobs are?
Because holy hell, they are SPECTACULAR looking.

♪ TO SAVE OUR MOTHER EARTH FROM ANY ALIEN ATTACK ♪

The Corporation really did look at us and say, "some of you may die, but that is a sacrifice I am willing to make."
Thanks for the $2 bonus, boss, but all my friends are dead.

It's basically just "hey, remember all the good things we did in World? Yeah? Well, we're adding cooler monsters, more QoL, a better gathering hub, more event quests, harder difficulty—" etc. etc.
That's it boiled down towards the good side.

The new monsters are, for the most part, absolutely fantastic with some of them being more infuriating than enjoyable. I'm looking at YOU, Savage Jho and Black Veil.
Hard to give too much away without spoiling anything, but I don't personally find many instances where I genuinely don't want to fight the new monsters more than once.
The monsters added are quite varied in the gameplay they feature during a hunt.

The new area, the Hoarfrost Reach, is definitely more interesting than the others, imo.
There's certain areas with deep snow that causes difficult terrain which slows you down, it's design isn't convoluted but also not boring or empty, the areas to fight monsters in are mostly open with a few jumping spots for mounts, there's multiple types of environmental hazards and passive buffs, etc.
It's cold as hell, so you need a hot drink, but there's plenty of plants that will instantly give you hot drinks the moment you pick it up (assuming you have auto-craft on for it).

There are a lot of complaints about certain end-game monsters, but the majority of that complaining is genuinely just crying that translates to "skill issue."
Spoilers ahead, but the complaints are mostly attached to Alatreon, an elder dragon of many elements that requires you to deal enough elemental damage to stop him from doing his supernova. If you do not beat his DPS check, he will activate a fully-powered supernova called "Escaton Judgement" and let me tell you, you do NOT want to fail that DPS check. Why is this a bad thing made so controversial? Well, the monster IS hard, but that's not where the complaints come from, they come from people being genuinely pissed that they have to switch off their super death blast sword and use an elemental weapon. That's it. Yes, I'm not joking, that's about 90% of the complaints.


My only real complaints are:

1. The number of microtransactions
   
2. The Clutch Claw

1.
The ever-increasing number of microtransactions is just INSANE.
Really, Capcom, character edit vouchers? Palico edit vouchers? That's just wrong to lock a feature like editing my character fully behind a paywall like that in a full-price game and expansion.
Hell, there's over 200 DLC by the time Iceborne was finished getting updates.
Absolutely just wrong.

2.
The Clutch Claw was a good idea on paper, but a terrible feature with how it was implemented.
Essentially, it's a harpoon with a tether connected to your arm that allows you to, at any point during the hunt, target a specific spot of a monster and latch on.
From there you have three options:

1. Claw attack
   
2. Flinch Shot
   
3. Weapon attack

What do these mean?

Well, the claw attack is pretty worthless UNLESS you are attached to the left or right side of the head of a monster.
If you are on the left side of the head, using a claw attack will force the monster to turn about 50° to the right, vice versa.
However, if you hit three times, the monster will become enraged and you will no longer be able to redirect them with the claw attack.
If you are latched onto a part of the monster that it is using as part of an attack, you are hit and thrown off.
The only way to avoid this is by wearing either the Temporal Mantle or by not being hit in the first place.
"What's the point of that?? That sounds useless," I hear you say and, yes, you could consider it "useless" in a way, but that's where the Flinch Shot comes in later.


The Flinch Shot fires a burst of whatever you have currently in your slinger into the grabbed spot on the head of the monster.
This causes the monster to throw itself forward a good distance (as any normal creature would after being shot in the eyes with a shotgun of rocks) and it will either:

• Slam into a wall/hazard/other monster
  
• Miss a wall/hazard and either fall down or recover

If it hits, the monster will take a ton of damage and fall over.
If it misses, you basically did nothing but piss it off.
However, the monster must NOT be enraged for you to be able to Flinch Shot. If you attempt to do it while it's having a fit, the monster won't be shot forward. So you probably shouldn't try that, but who am I to tell you what to do, I'm not your mom.


Weapon Attacking is the thing that was REALLY badly implemented.
If you Weapon Attack a monster on that specific part you're latched onto—that the game has already determined as specific locations you could choose—it will "wound" or "tenderize" the monster, same thing, different term.
Wounding the monster makes that part of the monster SIGNIFICANTLY weaker to being hit with weapons, so much so that even the hardest parts of the monster will almost always no longer make a weapon bounce and those parts will take A LOT more damage especially when paired with Weakness Exploit.

Not only this, but there's a difference between the Light and Heavy weapon types.
Light weapons (Longsword, Dual Blades, Sword and Shield, Gunlance, etc.) take two Weapon Attacks on a part to Wound/Tenderize it, but they drop pods when they Weapon Attack. They also Weapon Attack fast. If you have a certain skill, it will reduce it to one Weapon Attack.
Heavy weapons (Greatsword, Hammer, Heavy Bowgun, Lance, etc.) will Wound/Tenderize in a single Weapon Attack, but not drop pods. They also take MUCH longer to do.


Problem? The game really wants you to use the Wound system.
So much so, that I'd go as far as to say that certain monsters would be brutally difficult if you didn't Wound them several times during a hunt.
For the most part, Wounding a monster isn't difficult and requires only good timing or by just simply using the Temporal Mantle to stop yourself from being injured and thrown off.
I find it fairly uninteresting with how it is given that a hunt boils down to this:
Find Monster > put on Temporal Mantle > Wound parts > hunt until parts needing Wounding again > Wound parts that are hard > repeat until monster is dead
You don't have to do this to kill the majority of the monster roster without issue, but not doing so is a huge detriment to the smoothness of your hunts.

It's also fairly... janky.
Many times have I launched towards a part I wanted, only to be latched directly onto the other side of the monster.
Definitely not a great thing when you REALLY need to Wound or Flinch Shot a certain monster quickly and you keep getting sent to the wrong location.

All that aside, it works for what it is and isn't bad enough to warrant any kind of negative review in the slightest.
It is, however, a big downside towards what I would say is the perfect Monster Hunter game released by this point.



tl;dr the Clutch Claw mechanic sucks, but it's in an otherwise a fantastic expansion worth the money.

9/10 DLC.

THERE'S WONDERFUL POWER IN THE BLOOD!

To start: I have genuinely no idea why this DLC is sitting at a Mostly Negative 35% at the time of writing this review.
After beating it with a friend, we found it to be not only interesting with its new (or some returning from Steeltown, the other DLC) gameplay mechanics (I'll get to that), but also with the characters, encounters, and items.
The only thing I can say is: skill issue.

As for the review, I'll do my best to keep this spoiler free...

With the new DLC comes instances multiple times where you'll be experiencing things unlike the base WL3 campaign offers.

• Stealth is ACTUALLY useful for something that isn't just 'shoot enemy for more damage' or 'disable single turret generator.' While it's not required it does make particular sections significantly easier and is a different kind of experience than you'd be used to in Wasteland 3's content before this.
  If you want to shoot through them, you can, but it looks like it would be much harder to do so, but if you like combat, then go for it.
  
  
• Objectives that require the user to put in effort and take the time to THINK about their actions and what consequences will occur once those actions complete. 90% of WL3's content with enemy encounters can be boiled down to 'shoot enemy until all enemy dead.' With the Cult of the Holy Detonation, you're going to need to prioritize focusing on objectives, avoiding terrain hazards (of which there are plenty,) and killing enemies in a quick fashion as to not be overrun.
  Your inputs matter. Your preparation matters. Your understanding of the game's mechanics matters.
  You will suffer if you think you can just move, shoot an enemy, and end your turn; many of the reviews are written from the perspective of someone that cannot comprehend more than this.
  
  
• There is an entire new system involving the enemies being capable of buffing themselves—very often quite heavily—because you decided to kill them. You NEED to pick and choose your targets, use skills that can break armor, stun, or slow; and pay attention to the penetration your weapon is capable of doing. Precision Strikes and explosive rounds are KING for being capable of handling this with ease while Fire just says "lmao, perish."
  If you have a guy that can do those often (you're hitting level 17+ by now, you better have a guy who can do that) you won't have to worry about this too much.
  There is one major bit I see negative reviews talk about that shows just how inept they really are.
  A bit spoiler-y, but it essentially involves an effect that happens once certain enemies die.
  For a single turn, they are capable of being immune to fully dying for, again, ONE turn alongside gaining HUGE buffs for dealing damage, but debuffs to speed, hit chance, and AP.
  So, what do you do about this?
  Well, it's simple: Precision Strikes to lower hit chance/speed, Suppress to slow, Frozen to lower AP, Demoralize to lower hit chance and crit chance, Stunned to COMPLETELY make them USELESS with their -20 AP, etc.
  There are so many ways to deal with this.
  Those complaining about it makes me wonder if DarksydePhil is their idol with that level of missing brain cells.
  
  
• A new type of debuff/buff has been added specifically to this DLC and ONLY in the areas taking place within it.
  To explain this without some spoilers: it slowly builds up from 1 to 10 and is given by stepping into terrain hazards, being hit by certain enemies, and standing near certain objects that can be detonated (of which also leave behind some terrain hazard). You can also remove it quite easily as long as you do NOT spend your time walking directly into it, as that is the way you're mostly going to have that happen, or if you don't take notice of notes/characters that tell you "hey, be careful about this." The effect is actually a buff and debuff, but the debuff can be significantly worse on certain character classes. This buff/debuff also has more significance in some other parts of the DLC, but I'll leave you to see them for yourself.
  The effect can be removed/reduced through certain items.
  As for a bit more of a spoiler-y bit: The effect grants you a bonus to Con and Healing, but decreases your hit chance, speed, and crit chance; the buff and debuff both increase heavily with each point in it. On a melee tank, you can buff him with medipacks/darts before/during combat and make him a nightmare to deal with. Personally, I prefer none of it over some of it.

From what we saw, many of the characters had very interesting things to not only say, but also to do.
While we went with the more... how you say... "Vic and Fish-Lips approach' for choices, we could see just how many ways you can choose what you want to do to affect the finale.

I'd say there's a good mix between "silly" and "serious."
There's even points where the game will bring up your past and heckle you for your choices.
We were doing an evil playthrough... yeah, we got taunted quite a bit.


There are A LOT of encounters that WILL take you a very long time to complete.

This can be very annoying to players, but we found it not only refreshing but also compelling.
Why?
Because those combats not only had bangers for music, but also consisted of fights that weren't 'shoot enemy, win fight;' you have objectives to complete if you want to win.
You have to think turns ahead, not just in the present.
Things like Deployables can make a huge difference when used correctly..

Most of the time in the base game, we just walked in, shot whoever disagreed with us, and moved on.

There are some returning features of Steeltown's gameplay mechanics and they work just fine here.

The ending of the DLC feels fantastic if you liked the features you meet before that.
It's engaging and pushes you to use everything you not only learned from earlier encounters, but also to use your own consumable buffs, deployables, and various items you most likely have been hoarding.
It's another "no, idiot, think smarter" situation.

While we didn't really use much of the weaponry (yet,) they are VERY strong if we decided to.
We simply have highly-upgraded guns already.
There is a new ammo type associated with the majority of these weapons.

Certain armor pieces can help mitigate the effects that'll be thrown at you, but can even do special actions that are disgustingly (pun intended) helpful and powerful.
By this point in the game, you'll most likely be using them.

The DLC is nowhere near a 35% and people are heavily overreacting and exaggerating the features they dislike.
If you like and understand WL3's mechanics, new content different than the old, and don't mind much longer combat, then buy this for the $7 or you can wait for a sale for less.

I'd give the DLC a good 8.5/10.

I would prefer taking the place of Abel and being beaten to death with a rock than use this terrible voice pack.

!!READ FULL REVIEW TO UNDERSTAND THE NEGATIVE RECOMMENDATION!!


Bonk the Dino: Halloween Fun House Edition ft. Ninjas and Knights

It's basically what you expect from base Rise:
You kill monsters, you get the loot, you make the cool stuff, you kill the bigger monster with the stronger, cool stuff for STRONGER, cool stuff. Rinse and Repeat.
In short, it's good, but for a further explanation:

However, the biggest differences being the addition of being able to switch your entire Wirebug Skills on the fly with two separate loadouts. This is a pretty HUGE game changer with the mix-and-match you can get and you can switch between them whenever you want while on the hunt. You are also given more skills for Palicos and Palamutes and can even increase their effectiveness with a new item used to upgrade their memory.
Pro tip: If you're getting annoyed with the Switch Skill menu being on the screen, you can turn it off in the hud settings in the menu.

The second being the additional of Follower Quests. You get to bring along an NPC to hunt a monster. They're pretty helpful and aren't as dumb as you would expect them to be. Unfortunately, they won't shut the hell up on default settings.

The third is the Master Rank (or G-Rank, if you're a returning player from older games), monsters can be significantly more difficult. There isn't exactly too much of a change compared to High Rank, but you are going to run into plenty of new monsters, get new armor and weapons, and go to new locations. The total amount of monsters is quite sizable.


!!!!!!!HOWEVER,!!!!!!!
The current endgame... hooooboy, is it awfully designed.

To explain it simply:
You now have anomaly quests where random monsters have randomized levels as investigations. These monster levels increase if you do them or you can randomly receive them after doing an afflicted monster hunt.
When you do these hunts, you see your research level increase, which caps out at 300. The higher the research level, the higher level quests you're going to be getting.

You are given a specific afflicted monster and/or a required level to be at or above to hunt by Bahari. You will keep that hunt for the next 3 or so hunts, whether you do it or not, to build up a punch card that, when you reach 10 hunts of the specified monster, you receive a number of coins that varies depending on your research level. The monsters and required levels will change after the 3 or so hunts to another random one.
You also receive crafting materials and a small amount of coins for completing these hunts.


There are many problems with this system:

1. You level slower than my grandfather moves and he's been dead long before Rise came out.
It takes far too long to level and it only gets worse the higher you get as you need to fight harder and harder monsters to continue.
Not only this, but you will be fighting a smaller list of options of monsters the higher you get. When you get to about 220, you'll be fighting nothing but the same 4 monsters. By 245, you'll be fighting only two monsters.
You can still choose to fight the lower tier monsters, but you will receive significantly less exp towards leveling to a higher anomaly level.
It doesn't help that these late-level monsters are simply not fun to fight.

2. The armor upgrading gacha is all sorts of messed up
You use the essence from quests to upgrade your armor to add armor skills from other armors.
You, again, might be saying "well, that sounds pretty good," unfortunately it is random.
You are playing the gacha of a lifetime to get skills that work with your builds.
Not only is it randomized on what skills you get, BUT, you also can receive things such as:
Defense +10 and then lose — Yes, you heard me right, LOSE — an armor skill with the only way back being to roll again and get something else.
The amount of times I've rolled on a GL armor piece and gotten a roll for a simple addition of a small amount of defense for losing ALL of my Guard or Artillery or Guard Up or Offensive Guard is just AWFUL.
Defending this as a good late-game "feature" is terrible.

3. Multiplayer without a dedicated group is practically impossible.
Not only do you need to grab the afflicted monster you want to hunt, but you also need to be within twenty levels of each quest to even join.
What does that mean?
Well, if you're level 1 and someone hosts a level 22 Arzuros, you will not be able to join in any way. The level must be dropped to 20. You will then proceed to be stuck at 20 quests into you raise your level to 21 of which you now have access to quests up to 40.
It's a terrible system that pulls the playerbase apart too much to keep it alive from all levels.
Add on that the game is also region locked and you've got yourself a whole list of problems.

4. Afflicted monsters are boring
Afflicted monsters are different by only a small amount and for an entire end-game feature, it's depressing.
As they level higher, they only get more damage and health while moving slightly faster while also giving you bloodblight if you get hit.
During their Qurio enraged state, they have these glowing bulbs on random parts of their body that, when hit enough with significant damage, will blow up and deal 1% of the monster's health. These are EXTREMELY important if you want to keep the hunt going well.
There is one specific feature to afflicted monsters that promotes doing as much damage as humanly possible: the DPS check to stop their qurio explosion ability.
It's just slapped on every afflicted monster.


However, the WEAPON CRAFTING is GOOD and straight forward.
You use a small amount of materials from the anomaly quests to slap on more upgrades.
These upgrades are small, such as spending 3 of the 7 slots to add 5% affinity, BUT, once you craft it, you can take it out and put it back in as much as you please.

Want a LS with the level 8 slot Attack for +20 attack to fill in the 8 of 10 anomaly slots you are given? Great. However, you want to change it up and add the 3 slot Affinity +5% one and then the 2 slot status % one? Sure, go ahead, but you need to take out the Attack 8 slot first.
Don't like the new ones? Take them out and put the Attack 8 slot back in at any time.
This is PERFECTLY designed. No gacha, simple use, and can be changed and shifted around at a moment's notice.


Now let's talk about the next giant problem: Microtransactions.
There are over 200 Steam DLC across Rise and Sunbreak.
200. For a paid game and paid expansion.

Capcom has, once again, released ANOTHER paid layered weapon set. The first set (Lost Code) was $35 total. This new Plush one? You guessed it, $35.
We used to get all of this kind of stuff through event quests, now? Just spend $35.
This isn't money going into the hands of the overworked devs that made these weapons, it's going to the overpaid execs.
Now that all the events are completed, the players were given zero weapons, layered or otherwise, during Sunbreak. As for Rise, players were given a total of two: both of which are from the USJ quest and are LS and Bow.

This is just abhorrent of Capcom to treat their players like this.

It looks like MH6 might go down the road to even have worse MTX... paid armor with skills incoming.
"But, idiot," I hear you say, "they would NEVER sell armor with skills!"
Sure, it was never done in a MAIN game, but it was done in Frontier.
With how much of the Frontier team came to Capcom, how the majority of the event items were from Frontier, and how many paid DLC was release?
It reeks of a terrible future for Monster Hunter.


TL;DR:
Yes, I know this is a lot to take in, but I'm trying to be as thorough as possible.
If you want to skim it, that's fine. I'm only writing this because I want the people who are attempting to purchase this to understand what they are truly getting themselves into.