Game Over: Monster Hunter World

Monster Hunter means a lot to me. Ever since my older brother bought Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate out of the blue and gave me a copy, I didn’t expect to become so obsessed with it and become one of my favourite game series to play, up there with Kingdom Hearts, Persona, and Pokémon. Across all the games I’ve played, I have around 2500+ hours, which is… crazy and likely a problem, but it just went to show how much I love playing the games.

I may have mistaken the release dates of World and Iceborne when writing this article.

So, when Monster Hunter Wilds got announced and revealed that you’d get cool little trinkets for having saved data from previous games, I decided to play through Monster Hunter: World and Iceborne because my save is trapped on my PlayStation 4 and I’m getting Wilds on Steam (curse you Sony for no cross saves). I also decided not to take shortcuts, which meant playing without using the Defender weapons and equipment to speedrun all the way to Master Rank. Essentially, I was starting again from scratch and playing as if I didn’t have 900+ hours. At least this time, I don’t have to pay for a PlayStation Plus subscription to hunt with others.

After going through the tutorial, meeting my Handler (she’s great, fight me) and nearly getting killed by a Great Jagras, I was reintroduced to Astera… and man, this place sucks. Astera is big, having all its important points of interest being far apart from each other. It takes 10 seconds to get from the Canteen to the Smithy, which isn’t a long time but it definitely builds up over hundreds of quests. There is fast travel, but that in itself is a pain as you need to run over to the various lift chains to use it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s functional and I got used to it, but I was sorely missing Seliana for its more compact design.

You gotta love rotating events.

Anyways, once I went through all the tutorials, I got to choose my weapon. Once again, I chose the Great Sword as my main and only weapon. Despite wanting to play other weapons, like Hammer or one of the Bowguns, I stuck to what I was most comfortable with. I admit, back on my first playthrough, I was stunned by how different GS felt from when I played Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate. It felt smoother, with the tackle allowing me to ignore attacks and skip charge states to get to the True Charge Slash: the most powerful single attack in the game. I definitely remember how they needed to nerf it, requiring the first hit to connect to make the second hit stronger. It was still slow and weighty but I felt more in control.

After playing so much Monster Hunter Rise, I was used to having a lot more movement tools and special moves that would help subvert Great Sword’s sluggish speed, so it took a little time to get used to not having those at my beck-and-call. Still, I was playing as if I hadn’t stopped since 2020. I just had to remember and research some of the mechanics that didn’t make a return, such as mounting and tenderisation, and I was pretty much back to clearing quests like it was nothing. Heck, I even noticed how much I improved since playing World the first time. Monsters I needed SOS Flares to help deal with were going down much easier when I was playing by myself. Nergigante, my old nemesis, was dealt with without a sweat. It was kind of cool to realise that all my time with the games has turned me into a better hunter.

From greenhorn to a veteran hunter.

When I reached Monster Hunter World: Iceborne and got to Seliana, I felt like I was back home. This was the place where I left behind all those years ago, where I hung out and met some amazing hunters, fighting and helping them conquer sieges and complete whatever killer quest they might have. It’s where I spent a ton of my time, sometimes just relaxing to the music or hanging out in my room, listening to “Saudude” from the Resident Evil collab. I didn’t need to go any further… but I’m more than willing to do just that. I still want to clear all the optional quests and event quests before I truly move onto Master Rank and, eventually, beat the monster that made me stop playing: Alatreon. From there, I can finally overcome the final challenge Monster Hunter World has to offer.

Bring on the hunts.

I can’t wait to repeat all that in Monster Hunter Wilds and re-experience why I love this series so much. It’s the hunters I meet along the way, the unique monsters I fight, and the many, many carts dumping me back at camp. It’s the effort put into every fight and the reward for sticking with it until the end.