Monster Hunter: World Xbox One X Review

Monster Hunter: World isn't about having the strongest sword or the best armor, it's about planning, strategy, and proper timing. In this world monsters reign supreme and anyone who wishes to challenge them will have to plan accordingly if they hope to survive. Monster Hunter: World has a steep learning curve and even after completing the 50-hour main campaign there was plenty of reasons to come back for more. From start to finish, Monster Hunter: World shallows you whole with its dense open-world and doesn't let go.

Monster Hunter: World mixes together a core story with the choice to integrate with a Guild and VIllage. Your goal is to chase after an Elder Dragon who's migrating to a new continent and you're given a clear separation between optional objectives and those paramount to the campaign. The game is tuned to play alone or with other hunters online, allowing you to customize the experience base on your preference.

Speaking of preference the character customization in Monster Hunter: World is large. You can easily spend hours here creating the prefer avatar to play with. With varying types faces, colorations, and other details those skilled in this field will find clever ways to put their favorite character in the game. This extends to your Palico, a cat-like creature who aids you in your journey.

What Monster Hunter: World does very well is slowly introducing the complicated nature of the world. This game is complex, and as a newcomer, I was immediately intimidated but instead of flooding my screen with text or having to comb through tutorials in the menu a Handler provides significant information as you travel through zones. The assistance stops once you start fighting High-Rank monsters but the small pieces of information during the earlier sections helped me better understand what to look out for when the training wheels came off.

Monster Hunter: World's environments are separated, similar to the Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, with each region offering unique landscapes and ecology based on its location. Each area is brilliantly decorated and designed with incredible vertically. Scoutflies serve as a helpful way to track specific monsters and objectives so you don't get lost.

This navigation tool is fantastic. Once you gather enough evidence to locate a monster's path the Scoutflies provide a route to the general location. This prevents from feeling like everything is automated but gives you a general idea of where to look. It makes you feel like a real hunter, understanding your prey, tracking it, and preparing yourself for combat. However, Monster Hunter: World punishes those who rush into battle.

Much of Monster Hunter: World focuses on preparation. Understanding the creature you're about to engage and using the proper tools. Each of the 14 weapon types changes up the gameplay from the ammo-switching Bowgun to the heavy Hunting Horn. You can't use just one and the labyrinthine update tree makes getting new variations of weapons a long quest, but one worth undertaking. Unlike other action RPG games, no one weapon can do everything. Instead, when you earn a powerful weapon through quests you can be assured there's something out in the world worth using it on.

Capcom has done a brilliant job of making the world feel alive. Monsters alone are intricate but they share the space with other creatures. Some monsters are territorial, attacking invaders on site. Some monsters are less hostile and won't attack unless provoked while others will go after monsters higher up on the food chain when threatened. This complex ecosystem is a commendable feat that led to a lot of unexpected encounters such as ambushes in the middle of battle.

Multiplayer is a seamless experience. Players can choose to enter into groups or play the game alone. When starting a quest you can open an online session and wait for hunters to appear or seek out other hunters for cooperative play. The only requirement for story-focused content is that everyone must watch the cutscene or discover a specific monster before others can join. 

Capcom has made the entire multiplayer experience feel like an open community. Players don't need to have the same quests to join each others session, you can partake in minigames such as arm wrestling challenges, or even call on other players during hunts with an SOS flare. When launched other players can come to the aid of the player.

Multiplayer doesn't make the game easier, it's the opposite in fact. More players increase the difficulty of the game but add more thrill as monsters will have more enemies to target. This can lead to unpredictable movements as players now have to watch each other's back instead of just taking care of themselves. Going into a private multiplayer match is a bit more complicated. Players must use a 12-digit friend code before connecting to their game and hopefully, Capcom will provide an easier option in the future.

Monster Hunter: World offers a huge fantasy full of challenging creatures to fight either alone or with other players. The intimidating monsters, meaningful upgrades, and diverse biomes require a lot of commitment to fully understand. Capcom does offer enough learning tools to give newcomers a basic understanding of the necessary mechanics but much of the work has to be done by the player. Once you gain your footing Monster Hunter: World is an all-consuming adventure that'll eat up your time and keep you coming back for more.

Adam Siddiqui, NoobFeed
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