I could tell you a lot about Monster Hunter World from the hours I played in its Ancient Forest map (the name of the area we first saw upon the game’s E3 reveal). I could tell you how it’s adhering to Monster Hunter’s excellent template, laying the foundations for an even more satisfying feedback loop of combat and crafting. But we’ve done that already. I could tell you about each of its 14 returning weapons in extreme detail. But Capcom’s done that already.
Instead, I’m going to tell you about something more important. The monsters of monsters of Monster Hunter. From tiny toads to T-rex facsimiles, this will be an exhaustive list of everything I’ve hunted, and how I hunted it using the game’s many interlocking ideas, all accented with a worrying glee at my spree. Enjoy!
The headline act of all of our Monster Hunter World demos so far has been this new beast, a T-Rex with cute little hidden wings and a less-cute puffy nose extension that lets it snort fire. Getting a chance to reacquaint myself with my favourite MonHun weapon, the Charge Blade (a sword and shield that can transform into an exploding axe), it quickly became clear that Monster Hunter’s promise that the game world itself will become part of your arsenal wasn’t unfounded.
The Charge Blade is a fairly slow weapon at the best of times, and Anjanath is surprisingly agile, preferring sudden lunges, huge wing-assisted leaps and sneaky scuffing back-kicks to those who try and get behind it. As such, it helped to take advantage of more than just my blade’s skills.
The new Slinger item can be stocked up purely with things you find lying around, which can then be fired at targets: Red Pit helps simply get a monster’s attention and lure it where you want to, Scatternuts deal explosive damage, and monster dung can even make monsters run away from the stench. There are more grand-scale environmental takedowns - the Ancient Forest map lets you burst a dam with bombs, washing you and your prey away - although I missed out on that delight.
Perhaps the most useful, however, are the interactions in the middle ground between them. The ability to fire my Slinger at vine-snared rocks and drop them on Anjanath’s head, then wailing on it unimpeded as it was dazed became pretty handy. Better were the vine-covered trees - watch for an attack, dodge behind one (the Charge Blade has a new dodging slash move that immediately showed its worth here) and watch as your target smashes it over and gets tangled in the debris. I managed to finish off one Anjanath before it could start fleeing by doing this a couple of times - it makes you feel very efficient, and very mean.
Perhaps the most unsure I felt about Monster Hunter World’s changes to weaponry before getting to play the game were those to its new Bowguns, which looked to have switched from slow, considered long rangers, rich with tactical nuance, to straight-up monstrous machine guns. I’m happy to report that, in my experience, they’re both.
The Great Jagras became an excellent test case. This iguana-like monster will only attack when attacked first, and is easily the weakest of the large monsters on this map - perfect for a newly unfamiliar weapon. More practically, while stocky and powerful, it’s almost exclusively short-ranged, too, making the Bowgun a good fit for fighting it as it is.
The beauty of the Bowguns is that while most weapons come with only a single bonus effect, you can stock these up with multiple ammo types, allowing for specific elemental attacks, status effects, or simply heavy damage. The payoff is that you’re very slow, and vulnerable to more agile monsters. None of this has changed. I took out a Heavy Bowgun, pre-stocked with about a dozen ammo types (which you’d usually have to make and equip yourself) to offer up a good idea of how it’s going to work in practice.
The results are what I’d hoped, it’s still as slow as it is powerful, and puts a premium on incapacitating an enemy, dealing damage with ammo so powerful you have to plant yourself on the ground, and back again. The difference is that it feels absolutely incredible to use. The sheer force of some of these shots, and the particle-heavy lightshows that go with them, are probably one of the best adverts for MonHun’s move to home console.
Before long, the Great Jagras was dripping poison from its mouth, feeling timed explosive Slicing Ammo ammo go off on its tail, shivering with paralysis and, pummelled with mortar-like cluster bombs and, finally, having its quill-covered mane blown to bits by a shotgun blast, before collapsing in defeat. I’m very heavily considering swapping main from my beloved Charge Blade - a weapon I have put quite literally hundreds of hours into across the last couple of games - on the strength of that fight.
There exists a long tradition in Monster Hunter, that the first major monster you come across is the largest version of a pack it leads. Great Jaggis come with little Jaggis. Great Maccaos have little Maccaos. And now come the Jagras, the lithe, swarming children of the Great Jagras who you may remember from “me blowing it to Kingdom Come with a big gun” fame. The tradition is that they become the cannon fodder for your first proper set of armour, so you slaughter them en masse.
Honestly, this lot presented so small a problem to me that I barely remember killing one. I do however remember watching my Palico, the feline - sorry, Felyne - warrior that stands in as an AI co-op partner when playing alone, absolutely wade through Jagras. I strongly suspect that the Internet will go into meltdown when they see what Palicoes look like in an HD world. Even I, a ‘dog person’, borderline melted when I first equipped mine with some goggles. There’s no sign as yet that we’ll get to control Palicoes as we did in Monster Hunter Generations, but their abilities seem strong even in the early stages, with a choice to blind or provoke large monsters, or send out a healing wasp(!) to attend to you. Oh, and there’s one extra ability, too, aptly demonstrated on our next victim…
Kestodon are brutish herbivores that look closest to a Pachycephalosaurus - they won’t attack unless provoked, but can do some serious damage when they are. The males are particularly large but, crucially, all of them are classed as “small monsters” (essentially, not a boss). These days, Palicoes can do something very interesting to small monsters.
I’m unclear on how it’s triggered, or whether all Palicoes can perform the trick, but as I fought a Kestodon, my Palico somehow charmed a female into joining my side, jumped on its back like it was a scaly car, and got it to headbutt its mate to death. Besides the benefit of a distraction, I’m not entirely sure how beneficial this will be against major monsters, but one thing's for sure - it’s cool as hell.
As I fought the male Kestodon, the day-night cycle hit sunset, and the beach I was standing on was suddenly bathed in a beautiful, burnished orange hue. As I finished the fight and looked out to sea, I realised this would make great B-roll for a video, so I started panning across the horizon. At that moment, my new friend barged into shot, and in a prolonged fit of creative fury, I waited for the spell to wear off and smashed it in the face with my Hunting Horn - a weapon that’s part stat-buffing bagpipe and part hammer (I strongly recommend looking it up). Sorry, Kestodon.
Aptonoth are perhaps Monster Hunter’s most tragic figure. These stegosaurus-like chaps have roamed in herds since the very first game in the series, and have served more or less a single purpose - to be killed for food. More often than almost any other creature, they’ll offer up a hunk of raw meat when carved, which can be cooked into a stamina-buffing steak. Somehow, World offers them an even sadder fate.
Perhaps the biggest change this game makes is in turning the disjointed maps of old into massive, seamless hunting grounds, which means every monster is active and reactive at all times. You can use that fact to your advantage. Plonking down a piece of meat can attract the attention of a hungry Great Jagras, for instance - you can use that to attract it into attacking another large monster or, as in my case, draw it into the middle of an Aptonoth herd, where it will unhook its jaw and swallow one whole, before waddling back it nest to regurgitate undigested pieces for its children.
Paratoads are named in utilitarian fashion - they’re toads, and they paralyse things. They’re not technically monsters in the strict sense that Monster Hunter classifies things, but this was too good to pass up. Chubby, yellow and fairly well camouflaged, you’ll come across them hopping through the Ancient Forest’s floor and, a little unfamiliar with how things had changed in the new game, first time I came across one, I tried to pick it up and accidentally kicked it to death.
Paratoads are part of a new class of item that works immediately upon contact. Certain plants, rather than being stored in your inventory, now heal you as soon as you press the activation button, and, as it turns out, certain toads now explode with paralysing gas when you do that too. I would have felt sorry about that fact, except it turns out to be really useful, so now I kick every toad I see when in battle. The real monster is me.
Mernos are blue, pterodactyl-like flying creatures, and they seem to be something like Monster Hunter World’s version of taxis. Not only do you arrive on the map with your grappling hook tied around one, even better, if you spot some in the wild, you can grapple onto them and enjoy an airborne lift to somewhere else on the seamless map.
It’s not yet clear to me if their route is fixed (making them a useful tool for potentially getting to a monster’s nest before it does), or a crazed, random attempt to get you to stop hanging off their thin legs (just a bit funny), but the entertainment factor is too high for me to stop either way right now. Honestly, I can’t guarantee it died because of this, but I just can’t imagine that I didn't break at least one crucial bone while it lugged me around, so it’s going on the list.
The wonder of Monster Hunter is that there’s always something bigger to beat. A conspicuous absence from my time playing was the Rathalos, a flying, firebreathing tank of a thing, and one of Monster Hunter’s most recognisable foes. I know it lives in the Ancient Forest, and I know it eats Anjanaths like picnic-sized food, but I simply couldn’t tempt one out. But, as I crouched over that Great Jagras I murdered, a giant, winged shadow crossed my screen. I looked up into the sun but couldn’t see anything. It’s somewhere out there, I just need to get good enough to find it - and therein lies the compulsive beauty of Monster Hunter.
Next time, Rathalos. Next time.
Joe Skrebels is IGN's UK News Editor, and he will kill that Rathalos. You just wait. Follow him on Twitter.
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire