I really want to tell you to give rise a try because the sunbreak expansion is absolute peak monster hunter, but I agree that february 28th release date is creeping up way too fast…
That’s totally fair, Monster Hunter is infamous for its utterly terrible onboarding process. If you ever decide that you want to really figure out Monster Hunter, there’s two options I always recommend.
The first is incredibly simple: get someone who knows the game to play with you. They can walk you through what does and doesn’t matter, and help you get used to the game with someone there to keep you engaged.
The second option, if you don’t have a MH friend or don’t want to play with other people, is a simple process you can follow which I’ve found tends to work for getting people through the early game confusion:
First, ignore the constant tutorial popups. They’ll be there in the hunter notes in your menu at any time, and most of them don’t matter until after you figured out how to literally play the game at all.
Second, find your weapon. Every weapon type in Monster Hunter plays very differently. The weapon that sounds the best to you might not be the weapon that feels the best to you. Once you unlock the training area (I think it happens before your first quest even) just go in there and pick a weapon from your box and start slapping shit. If you don’t like that weapon, pick a different one and rinse and repeat until you’ve found the one that speaks to you.
Finally, just start playing! I find things make way more sense when you actually experience them rather than just reading about them or watching someone else experience them. Just start playing and eventually all those complicated systems will click and you’ll wonder why you ever had a problem!
A common joke in the Monster Hunter community is that everyone loves monster hunter, they just haven’t played it long enough to realize it yet! I hope you give the series another chance someday because it’s really something special!
Regarding the movie, as a terrible movie fan I agree, it was a fantastic watch! As a Monster Hunter fan however, ohhhhhh boy was I screaming at my TV! WHY did they give gore magala a beard?!?!?
lets goooooo, my favourite franchise of all time! Techbically, my first monster hunter game was tri on thr wii, when I was a wee bab. I say technically because I was a tiny idiot and I did not know how to do quests so I just spent hours wandering around moga woods in free roam, just hanging out. I still had an absolute blast doing it though!
The game that really got me into the franchise though, and my favourite game, would be world! I just love the incredible attention to detail, and the clear love that went into designing everything! I have more hours in rise because that’s the game my friends all play, and it’s a phenomenal game no doubt, but I always find myself creeping back to World.
The next game, Wilds, is looking like it will far surpass World for me though, the 2025 wait is killing me! The gamescom previews really showed that they have been listening to thr community, and are making the monster hunter game we’ve all dreamed of.
That’s one of my favourite things about the monster hunter teams in fact, that they clearly know how to learn from their previous works! I would readily argue that every generation has been an overall massive improvement over the previous one. I say generation rather than game, because comparing Rise and World is rather unfair. They’re two different games made by different teams for different hardware with different goals in mind, and if you ask me they both achieved their goals spectacularly, no matter what some nerds will say about Rise… Grouping them both into 5th gen and looking at the series by generation, each one has so far been an improvement in nearly every aspect, and I think that’s an amazing track record. That is why I am willing to put my wholehearted trust in the monster hunter teams that they will absolutely deliver with Wilds and any games after that.
I used to hate playstation controllers because they always felt really weird to hold. Even the PS4 controller was terrible for me. With the Dualsense PS5 controller though they just made it an xbox controller with playstation gimmicks and that was such a great move! It doesn’t look too ugly either, since it’s just the same basic shape as an xbox controller. It doesn’t have the nice weight that an xbox controller has and I definitely prefer the joystick layout on xbox, but the haptic triggers, the hd rumble, the trackpad, and the gyro sensor are all things I don’t think I can do without anymore!
I think it’s mostly nostalgia, and the fact that it was kind of the first iteration of the design all controllers use now. The 360 controller was good but it was really only the start. In my opinion each xbox controller has been a massive improvement over the last.
The series x controller is probably the most well refined controller I’ve used, and the only reason it’s not my pick for best controller is because I’m a sucker for all the fancy tricks of the dualsense.
seconding this! Crosscode is an insanely good game! IMPORTANTLY before you go in though! there are two main criticisms against the game, which to me are both incredibly strong positives, but it’s important to know what you’re getting in to!
First is that the dungeons are very long. we’re talking an hour minimum, often even longer. You are spending time in these locations.
Second is that there are a lot of puzzles, and they are not always baby easy action game puzzles. This game is an action/puzzle game and it does not slack in either regard. Expect to be utterly stumped sometimes. Also fights are puzzles too, and if you’re struggling on a fight try to see if you can figure out its puzzle, I promise it will make it a lot easier!
Super excited for the improved physics though! The physics traps were always my favourite and it sucked that they were almost never the optimal choice.
The Talos Principle 2 dropped an expansion out of nowhere. It hasn’t even been a year since the game released! The puzzles so far are really creative and cool, and of course it wouldn’t be The Talos Principle without a healthy dose of philosophizing about the human condition!
absolutely! Genshin is actually a surprisingly good game as a f2p player! If you’re having a lot of fun with it, I’d highly recommend checking Honkai: Star Rail! It’s somehow even more f2p friendly, and it’s clear they learned a LOT from Genshin when making it. It is a linear turn-based RPG though, so quite a different game from Genshin.
AI War 1 & 2 are both great and unique space RTS games. These games place you in the role of the last vestiges of humanity attempting to fight back against a galaxy spanning AI empire. You’re tasked with covertly taking down the rogue AI without letting them realize you’re a real threat, lest they bring the full might of their fleets down upon you.
Creeper World is a series of tower defense games with a unique twist: the enemy is a liquid! You’ll have to use a variety of weapons and tools to fight back against the literal tide of creeper. The third game is my personal favourite, though they’re all awesome.
Mosa Lina is self described as “a hostile interpretation of the immersive sim”. This game is chaos incarnate. Every level you are given a random set of tools and must touch or destroy all fruit and make it to the goal. Some levels will not be possible. Failure is expected. You can do some prettt cool things with a spear and a phaser though.
new rimworld DLC came out and that has taken up all my time. I’ve got to admit I had a few doubts about this one compared to the others, but sure enough they did it again and made an absolute banger of an expansion and now I have to sink another couple hundred hours…
I know the first game wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea but I loved it to bits! Seeing the little snippet of actual gameplay when the bridge was destroyed makes me think this will be just the first game but better, which is my favourite type of sequel, and I can’t wait! With MH Wilds and this 2025 is looking stacked already!