Recent reviews by csillabu

Take your level 6 friend on a suicide mission against automatons. Just trust me bro.

I usually gets nauseous when playing 1st person games. I was convinced I'd have to refund this game in <2hrs, but the dev did something pretty huge for accessibility: added a virtual "nose" (well, mask) as a rest-frame.

I was able to play for hours and not feel sick at all!

Thank you Zeekerss - whether it was intentional or not, you made this game playable for me and my friends that suffer from motion sickness. We've had great fun so far.

I always neglect to write a review for Monster Hunter, because my mind automatically shifts to: "Why would I need to tell someone how great this game is? Can't they see it?!" and with my disingenuous looking (received this product for free) text I'm sure people will hesitate to read this anyway. The games have always been challenging and incomprehensible from the outside, with people asking me "Surely you don't JUST hunt monsters?" Monster Hunter: World bridged that gap though.

In previous games in the franchise, it was mainly just about hunting monsters and that was what I loved. Yet here we are, Capcom added features to Monster Hunter World to keep you hooked for months. On top of this, the Iceborne expansion is setting the standards for DLC in the industry. But why?

Firstly, I want to express that the game is designed near-perfectly to represent fantasy ecosystems. The engine has had a rough time before with my PC(s) but fortunately Capcom has fixed that. The reason it had a problem was probably because everything is living and breathing in this game. The attention to detail of the flora and fauna that live alongside the monsters is staggeringly good, as well as realistic. As a result, there are immersive environments and landscapes that enhance the experience, and as you become a better hunter you learn to use these areas to your advantage. It emulates a real learning curve of exploration and discovery, and that is why I love it. I cannot think of a single other game that does this at all, let alone to this extent and detail.

The hunting is great. Each monster boasts attack patterns that become increasingly more difficult as you scale the ranks, but all are possible to beat. When something isn't, the game forces you to reflect, to take a step back and go on an expedition to hunt other monsters, gather materials and build something to better defeat the hurdle you come across. This system is used widely in MMORPGs, but Monster Hunter: World still adds a touch to make it unique and engaging all throughout the game, into endgame, and somehow even beyond that. The monster designs are possibly my favourite of all Monster Hunter games, due to the attention the creators paid to emulate evolutionary traits. Finally, we can speculate how Elder Dragons might be related, the similarities within the monster "families" (for example, Brute wyverns sometimes have similar attacks, and once you learn how to defeat one you become more familiar with the others by default, even if they look completely different and have other moves).

There are in-depth reviews on the combat system so I won't divulge on that too much besides saying I love chargeblade and I can imagine my character sleeping with hers. Seriously, its an artform.

The issues I have had with this game aren't too bad, but I will warn others despite my bug reports usually being dealt with in patches. Firstly, the support for a PS4 controller's buttons aren't in game. It defaults to a microsoft controller, presumably because of Steam's integration, but I would like an option to change this. That being said, every controller I've tried gets input lag sometimes. The keyboard and mouse controls are great in this game, but I played about 200 hours on PS4 so I neglected to learn them, I do use them when I play ranged weapons though.
The game is CPU and GPU intensive for the reasons I described; it is a BIG game. There's shadows, v-ray reflections and complex lighting that used to mess with my framerate (they patched that, runs okay now). It still is completely intensive on my PCs though, despite them being high-end. Sometimes I think this causes the input lag, and on newer fights (with many particles), there is a very rare chance of lag. This could still cost you a whole hunt. But I digress.

With the introduction of Iceborne, most of the issues have been fixed and clearly there is work to keep fixing it. I have yet to see a game that has been ported to PC that patches as effectively as Monster Hunter: World, the dedication to the PC playerbase is great (despite the waiting time before launch). The PC version outscales PS4 pro and Xbox as the best platform due to the improved loading times, the far better graphics (even on a lower end PC) and the overall immersion.

I seriously recommend this game to new players, the community is amazing and you will inevitably make friends through this. There's a strong sense of community if you're struggling, and a lot of resources to help you both in-game and amongst other players. If you're a Monster Hunter boomer like me, you'll love it (if you're not nose-deep in it already). The odes to older players within the game are just brilliant. I hope other people love this game as much as I do, as it makes me happier than any other. Thanks for reading.