Y'know, I don't understand things sometimes. Various kinds of things. Things like, why are certain games massively popular. In the case of Monster Hunter: World, why was it one of the more popular games in the world for a whole two years or so after launch. I mean, even now, 4 years after release, it's got a very respectable player count. But I can try to make my guesses...
What are the first things I'd notice about the game? Well, it's developed by Capcom. So it's a AAA game, which would definitely contribute to its popularity. But also, it's a Japanese game. Normally that would mean that you could attribute some of the popularity to the anime artstyle being popular, but that's not the case here, as Monster Hunter has a much more realistic style, despite the oversized monsters and weapons. On a personal level, Japanese AAA developer = red flag. With a couple of exceptions, games from large developers from Japan (and Korea, although that's mostly "MMOs") tend to have many similar traits, and most of them are not so good. Continuing with remarks about artstyle, I would say that that's usually the strongest point of games from that region. Be it anime or not, I think some of the best looking games have come from Japan (but actually maybe mostly Korea). Sadly, Monster Hunter's characters look absolutely fucking abysmal. I think some of the facial expression are meme levels of terrible, and the overall visual fidelity just doesn't strike me as high at all for a 2018 AAA game. Okay, but, I've never been one to let the art dictate my feelings for a game, so what else is there?
Of definite note is that Monster Hunter is a franchise. Most definitely many people who picked it up already liked the series, so that increases both popularity and the positivity of the reception. I have not played any of the previous games, so that bias doesn't apply to me.
The last reason that might explain the popularity is that it's a multiplayer game. Your friends have a party of 2 or 3 together, and they need to fill out their group, so they try to persuade you to play. Multiplayer always increases the popularity, and from what I heard a couple of years back, friends inviting them was definitely a big reason people were playing. What strikes me as odd though, is that this game has vertical progression, meaning more experienced players couldn't really play together with newer ones. Cooperation is not necessary either, and I definitely wouldn't want someone with hundreds of hours of experience stepping into my game and trivializing my combat, so unless both I and my friends would play only with each other and never alone, I don't see how the multiplayer aspect could be sustained. Maybe I'm just missing something.
Okay, but I've rambled long enough about things that aren't important. Torn, what's game like?
Well, as I said, it's a big Japanese game, and that means it has lots of complexity, and (probably) not enough depth. I can vouch for the complexity bit, as the game did not ease me into its mechanics at all. The tutorials were largely unhelpful, and there were so many things to do from the get-go that I was completely overwhelmed. This time, I didn't put in the tens of hours needed to understand and assess all the systems, but from my previous experiences with system overloaded games just like this, they were not all necessary. Sure, each system, stat, option, whatever, does something, but unlike well designed systems, they were not all useful to care about. The real knowledge is knowing what's good, what's bad, and which is the 10% of the game's features that you should care about and invest into. And I don't know about you, but I consider that piss-poor game design.
Finally, the combat, which I thought would be the bread and butter of a game about fighting giant monsters... Is one of the worse ones I've experienced in an action RPG. Perhaps a more subjective problem was that it was slow. Even the fastest weapons took a good second or two to finish their attack animation, and you generally couldn't animation-cancel either. Sure, you could argue that this is a design choice that encourages committing to your attacks instead of just spamming them and then pressing dodge when the enemy is about to attack you. It's prediction-based, not reaction-based, you say. It's valid if you feel that way. But I don't. And I think that with the way games have been going, most people would agree that they prefer reaction-based too. It just feels bad to see an attack coming, or an enemy moving out of the way, and you being locked into an animation that you don't want to be in.
But what I found completely unexcusable was how you could not change your attack direction mid-combo. It just felt so miserable doing my attack string, the enemy moving out of the way, and my character not being able to turn their body unless I got my weapon into a neutral position first. The combat just felt so unsatisfying. Let me attack, or let me dodge/block. Don't make me do this song and dance where I attack, reset, then I get to attack again, then I gotta manually sheathe my weapon to pick something up, and ugh, it was the furthest thing from fluid.
Long post, let me conclude fast. Monster Hunter: World feels like a pretty standard, if perhaps sub-par action JRPG. While the idea of the game just being about killing large monsters instead of mostly trash mobs like most games is somewhat interesting, I found no gameplay aspect or game system actually worthy of praise. Despite the many flaws I listed, the baseline was well enough made (even on combat) that none of the systems were bad either, but a whole load of mediocrity does not add up to a good experience. I can somewhat understand the popularity, but I would not recommend it regardless.
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