Recent reviews by Blank

I'll write a better review later but wanted to put a positive review as I'm having a huge amount of fun.

However buyer beware if you read this and looking for positive reviews to inform a purchase; I have a high end rig that is doing okay with this game, the games performance however is bad for a lot of people and it's co-op system is woeful.

A lot of the comments about difficulty are from people who have mostly played low rank and have yet to go past the story and introduction parts of the game, as a veteran player i think it's a good curve for new players who have never played monster hunter, so if this is potentially your first mh game or you thought world was too hard, this might be much better for you to introduce yourself into mh.

Don't try and play the campaign with a friend.
Wait to see if they fix the performance issues.
Ultrawide has weird grey bars (why capcom??)

Rest of the game is good.

Played for an hour and half, refunded, not a great game despite the reviews.

Cons:
No uw support in 2024/5.
Games art style is visually very cluttered.
Platforming isn't that well put together, despite many reviewers acclaiming as such; massively pales to other platformers / metroidvanias from this prospective and is biggest let down overall.
A few mechanics that just aren't fun to play around.

Pros:
Provides a real sense of exploration
Despite a few mechanics that i found in my short play through being fairly annoying, 1 of them was really cool, throw a disk and land on it to progress some areas.

I don't understand the hype around this, visually its a mess, gameplay wise it's lacking and so the only thing its got left is its exploration and puzzling which doesn't elevate it to its current review score.

It's a 5/10.

Finally got round to playing this at the start of 2025.

I don't really want to write too much other than to say it's a masterpiece and well worth your time.

Like any game it has a few flaws; but overall it's a solid 9/10.

Thanks for the experience cd projekt red :)

Worthy of the praise this game gets.
A true modern masterpiece of a title.

Great core gameplay loop.
Bit arcadey.
Buy it on sale, don't pay full price unless you really like monster hunter.. but you would have already played it by now so.

*SPOILERS IN THIS EDIT BLURB* Edit: After completion, I still feel this review stands. While the game introduces a little bit of QoL in the last 1/4 of the game (SPOILER: flight), it just makes me think that the game could have had some better pacing on top of my other critiques. This QOL makes grinding and powering up so much easier and I think my frustrations around combat and player power would have been alleviated had I been able to go off and farm components easier, earlier in the game.

***ORIGINAL REVIEW***
I've played this for 82 hours and I think it's time for a review. I'm still not done with the game but I've made my mind up on it enough to post a review; I don't think the last part of the game will sway how i feel about it.

I played the first game, and loved it so thought this would be a no brainer, which is why it sucks to be posting a negative review about a game I can tell had a lot of love put into it.

***Let's talk about what's good first.

-The graphics
really well done, beautiful game, I've taken so many screenshots and really enjoyed some of the exploration around forbidden west.

-The story
Like I said, i'm not done with the game but i've enjoyed the story so far, I'll update my review should I feel this will change but given where the story is headed, I can safely say this is a positive aspect of the game.

- Things to see and do
the game has lots of different side missions, quests, mini games, puzzles, etc and I feel they are spread out enough to make the game interesting.

- The stamina system
Love the ability to swap different firing modes for my weapon and having that controlled by stamina, this just felt like a better version of the valor system.

- Quality of life features
Infinite inventory, things going to stash when my inventory is full. Nice quality of life feature.

- The map
The way the map looks and displays information is better than any video game I've ever played, the little 3d effect and uncovering parts of the map was super cool.

***So why a negative review? What was so bad that graphics and good story drove a thumbs down?

- The combat
I don't know what happened between this game and the first one but something dramatically changed in the combat cycle. I went back to try out the first game to see if it was just me, but no, the machines feel have so much more armor.

The game leans on much larger machines, that are much tankier and difficult to deal with, the machines move faster and are overall much more aggressive.

Many more AOE knockdown mechanics, or machines screaming to make your character dazed, you spend much more time on your butt than in the first game.

The melee combat in this game and the melee fights was just... horrible. Learn this entire system to do a handful of fights, you'll never use this against machines because they'll constantly stun you if you get into melee with them.

- The weapons
For some reason, the weapons in this game don't feel as impactful as the first, for example the ropecaster in the original game felt like it was useful enough to tie one machine down, however in this game it feels like i need double the shots to get the machine into a tied down state and then have only half as long to shoot before the effect wears off.

Status effects expire much quicker meaning you have less of a window to do things in.

Bolt blaster vs rattler is feels like a downgrade.
Warrior bow is terrible. RIP War bow which was great for elemental infliction.
Blast sing feels all around less effective.
Shredder gauntlet is fun but hard to use well against the large machines.
Spike thrower is pretty neat but is really hard to use against larger machines.

So where does that leave you? Hunter bow, hunter bow, hunter bow, hunter bow. The first games weapons felt impactful and strong, but if you're not using a bow like a lot of the combat guides on youtube show up - you're gunna have a bad time.

- The skill tree
Just like the first game, the skill system is definitely the worst part of the game. I think the game would have been so much better if aloys overall ability was higher without the need to invest skill points.

There are so many options, so many choices that as a player, I feel overwhelmed with choice but when i actually get into the talents, they aren't that interesting that it could have just been baked into the characters core power rather than this bad talent system.

The trap skill tree sucks btw.

- The valor system
I really dislike the valor system, investing skill points unlocks these power up modes that make Aloy do more damage, have better tear damage or whatever but honestly, having to see a cut scene for a quick power up is so so immersion breaking. This is honestly the worst thing in the game, again - why do I need yet another button to press.

- The notebook
Wading through a giant notebook for a quest objective was infuriating - why make me look through this junk to tap in some code when you could literally say "aloy knows the code now, when the player goes to the door she taps it in" why do i have to sift through a bad menu system to find some junk code to punch it in, not an interesting gameplay mechanism, just annoying.

- The game lacks "soul"
I don't know how to put this and the first game was a little bit guilty of this too, but sometimes zero dawn feels like it's missing that little something that makes it special. This is probably a me problem because I think the new Zelda games have the same problem despite them being acclaimed games.

*** Overall
A game with many cool things about it but the core combat loop system lets it down, I find myself being frustrated with having to fight machines and than my weapons often suck and I need to lookup a youtube video to figure out where to go and get some better equipment.

The game is bloated and gets in its own way with way too much random stuff to do that feels mandatory as I'm constantly underpowered for the task at hand. My talents don't feel impactful nor do my decisions.

5/10. Sometimes less is more.

pay2win

its good, buy it >:(

Meh.

A truly unique experience that make this one of my favourite games to play in recent years.

--A few caveats to anyone buying--
play it with your friends, it sucks solo.
there are cheaters
there are a lot toxic people
the game can be frustrating
some of the mechanics (like collecting loot) are clunky
You will be bullied by older players, be ready to invest time to git gud

--why buy?--
There is nothing like this out there
Treasure, everyone loves treasure especially other peoples treasure
Combat is simple but nuanced and will take a long time to master
sometimes you find really nice people who make the game special
the game feels very rewarding to play

so if you're looking for something fun to do that's different with your friends, check this out, don't play with randoms or on your own though.