Test - Monster Hunter Wilds: Test after 40 hours: a wild entry

The success story of Monster Hunter makes many other studio pale with envy. For the first few years, the action role-playing games existed, especially in Asian space, but with World they also made the leap into the West-and how! As of today, the title published in 2018 is the best-selling Capcom game ever. The expectations of the new offshoot are huge. This is what our intermediate conclusion looks like after over 40 hours!

The core principle of Monster Hunter is as simple as it is brilliant: you make hunt for beasts, then take it out and use its parts to build weapons and armor from them. These are more likely to fail, which in turn allows struggles against larger monsters, from which you craft even better objects. Grinding is part of the experience here, especially in this simple core there is also the genius of the series. In theory, the huge amount of equipment and elementary effects allows a separate build for every monster to be fought.

After the immense success ofCapcom now has huge paw prints. Wilds is not only the most ambitious series part, the monster spanking also offers a very varied ranks of beasts, gets beginners almost never on board and pretty much every weapon has a right to exist - but it is not all the sunshine in the country of the country Hunters.

A feathered friend

In Monster Hunter Rise, Capcom introduced a real, dedicated mount with the palamute, but the dog was already retired with Wilds. For this, the Saikrii has a brand new mount that has a few more tricks in store than the doggo.

First of all, the function of autonomous running is called. In contrast to the Palamute, you no longer have to control yourself, although the option of course exists. If you define a goal on the map, the Saikrii automatically searches the best route and always reliably transports you to the desired monster or otherwise got a target. This makes you sharpen time for important activities such as weapons, collect resources via slingshot and inventory administration.

So that you do not simply ride through the area on an 08/15 bird, you can adapt the Chocobo cut in a variety of ways. The fur color can be changed as well as the eyes and at the latest with a special dish, which of course is perfectly tailored to your armor, you win every fashion hunter duel. There is also a second weapon in his saddle bag, which makes the game much more dynamic. Large sword and double blades in their luggage allow fleet attacks and juicy wake-up hits, with the hunting horn, on the other hand, you play a few buffs for you and your team before changing on the bow and distributing a lot of damage yourself.

You can call the Saikrii at any time and this also proves to be huge help in view of the biomes of Monster Hunter Wilds. The areas are once again a good bit larger than in World, even after my numerous hours in the game it doesn't feel like I really know every corner.

In any case, it is worthwhile to just let your gaze wander. Because the biomes ofare among the most lively ecosystems that a video game ever presented to me. Despite their size, the carmine forest, ice splinter cliffs or oil source pools offer all credible details, something stimulates and moves everywhere. Small monsters are wedged with large, native beings go after their daily routine and the weather also plays a role.

Large monsters appear in herds, which are led by a particularly strong alpha copy, and some beasts only dare to find out under certain conditions, such as the Uth Duna during massive downpours in the carmine forest. However, I seemed to appear a little too cropped in the first few hours. However, during this time I rarely went on hunting on my own, but largely followed the given story quests. The free Saikrii rides through the areas in the endgame are likely to offer a much more dynamic experience.

A monster rarely comes alone

As is known, the monsters are the real stars of Monster Hunter, and times of rule, Capcom has reached deep into the trick box in the designs. It is really wild, which is presented to us here in different beasts. The electrifying Railgun-Wyvern Rey Dau still comes comparatively like a classic dragon, in the blatant opposite my personal favorite is my personal favorite Rompopolo. Somewhat settled between Lurch and insect, he makes life difficult with gas explosions in poisonous prises.

But apart from that, the Viewer-Feld is impressive. The Ajarakan flame monkey, especially in my memory, has so far remained wild with his chain-part arms around Arkveld, the fire octopus nu udra, even the first opponent is just super cool to look at. Because the amphibious chatacabra uses its sticky saliva to attach stones to its arms and then to cut them properly with them.

Of course you don't just meet complete newcomers, some old acquaintances also stand in your way. Rathalos and Rathian are not missing in any series part, the farting monkey Congalala fits perfectly into the carmine forest and for some reason the developers seem to love the fire-spitting Yian Kut-Ku very much. He even received his own trailer for your weapons.

With the sheer amount of monsters, the craftable equipment is almost strucking. Almost every cattle have several weapons and a separate armor set including skills, resistance and variations. Most weapons designs and clothes look incredibly cool and match the underlying beast. Variety is once more important, especially compared to World. There, the design team often simply clapped parts of monsters on a standard weapon model. With Wilds, on the other hand, more love flowed into the elaboration.

With the new skill system, however, I am currently still divided. Because Capcom now divides the decorations into offensive and defensive, accordingly, depending on the type, you can only use them in weapons or armor. The approach makes sense, because you now only pack quality-of-life skills on armor, while you optimize elementary effects and possibilities for maximizing damage through your weapons. In keeping with this, the swords, hammers and ranged weapons now also have predefined skills.

The right spanking for every monster

There are primarily changes in the weapons that are likely to notice long -term fans. Some movetets such as that of the major sword have been expanded by counterattack, the double blades are now rewarding perfectly, the hammer actually plays a little easier and the rifle lance approves well -timed blocks. Each of the 14 weapons plays differently, which again offers Monster Hunter Wilds a lot of reflection.

The focus mode further enhances your battles. This emphasizes soft -knocked parts of the critters, to which you can unleash devastating attacks in order to tear them down and make them more susceptible to great damage. For some weapons, the focus attacks also offer direct bonuses, for example the load level of the long sword increases.

Overall, the game feeling and pace is much more based on Monster Hunter: World, but it is a little faster. However, Rise's blatant arcade is missing, which marks the ideal sweet spot for me. Depending on the weapon chosen, I either go slowly and deliberately or rase in a monkey tooth around the monsters and deliberately accepts to infect more hits than necessary.

Overall, Monster Hunter Wilds is significantly more beginner -friendly, but this does not only hold advantages. Especially the fact that your Saikrii knows directly where the monsters are lurking eliminates a large part of the feeling of hunting. The spy beetles from World represent the ideal middle ground between laborious trace searches and the automatically driving poultry. Now I just start a quest and wait to land at the monster without really having trouble. Some fans may like this quick introduction to the fights, but for me there is no essential part of hunting.

The aid hunters, on the other hand, represent a welcome expansion. If you prefer to hunt alone without human teammates, but does not make a stab against the monsters, you can now call NPC companions. They act sensibly and use their respective weapons in a suitable manner. However, I would have liked to be able to select your equipment in order to simulate a team that is actually coordinated.

Small history hour

In addition to some features and relief for newcomers, Capcom deliberately focuses on the story at Monster Hunter Wilds. Even if this approach turns out to be very commendable, too much is simply overlooked, especially in the first 15 hours. After almost every quest, a ten -minute cutscene lurks, which repeatedly tears out of the game flow. Especially since the multiplayer-state remains that you can first break together for missions after all players have seen the cutscene separately.

The actual story about the unmissable boy Nata and a mysterious illness that monsters affects is nice, probably don't tear your stool. After all, the characters were granted a little more depth, but only expects a narrative masterpiece.

The presentation, on the other hand, is significantly more bombastic. All animations run smoothly but, each monster credibly moves to its physics and especially the music is again a real feast for the ears. Flash-on orchestral sounds combined with subtle synthesizer elements drive to new top performance, while the almost unreal screams of the beasts often let me flinch together.