This is an embarrassing post. Last month I wrote about how much I was enjoying the confusing world of Monster Hunter World on PS4. I had fully expected to do a daily diary or chronicle of my adventures but something happened. Despite the game being excellent it has been traded in and is no longer in my collection. I’m just not that kind of gamer.
The problems started when I tried to play the game on my lunch break. I get 45-60 mins for a lunch break and this can be interrupted by connection issues and work-related problems. Monster Hunter World’s quests contain timers giving you a certain amount of time to do a task. What this meant for me practically was I would spend some time in the hub world then set off to hunt the monster. Often the lunch break would be ending and I was still trying to fight the Monster as it retreated across the map. Despite the fights being enjoyable the inability to save as you went along severely hampered my own personal circumstances meaning Monster Hunter World became a weekend game.
The problem with this is again personal. Monster Hunter World isn’t my idea of a weekend game. I like to play PUBG, Fortnite or try something new at weekends and concentrate on single-player progression during the week. I know none of this is the games fault but by failing to make the game playable in small 30 min chunks it became unplayable for me. Having a small child in the house means you need to be able to pause anything that isn’t a competitive multiplayer game. Unfortunately, Monster Hunter World doesn’t let you do this sufficiently.
Deeper in the game there is also one of my pet hates. Battle preparation. I can just about tolerate putting a special kind of oil on my blades in the Witcher 3 or cooking a special meal in Zelda Breath Of The Wild. Monster Hunter World. Monster Hunter World combines these two ideas. There’s just something annoying about all this prep beforehand. Again this is just a personal quibble. I love games where you explore and chase the beasts down but I don’t want to be hamstrung in relation to what I have eaten for breakfast that day. To me, it is a pet hate.
Lastly, the forced online hub of the game continues a trend where the pure single player is being ignored. It shouldn’t be a case where I have to go in and make my party private. I should be in a private game where I can choose to play multiplayer if the circumstances suit. Too many games now force the online aspects on you. I think back to GTAV and how the online option was selecting that character otherwise you were free to enjoy the single-player game.
Many people will enjoy Monster Hunter World and rightly so. Unfortunately, it just isn’t the game for me.
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