Recent reviews by Ass Bandit

Incredibly good and addicting.

I do not recommend Monster Hunter Wilds at this moment, especially for the price tag it's at. If you are a new player, I'd recommend you try World. And if you are a veteran player, like me, chances are you might not enjoy this game at all(though not necessarily). The game has a few glaring issues that are responsible for the situation, and no amount of strawmanning or defending this game can erase them, as they are objectively present and must be either addressed or tweaked by the developers in order for them to be fixed. The issues, as reported and felt by many players and myself, can be summed up to these points:

1. Content problem/not enough content

2. Difficulty problem/the game is too easy

3. Technical issues (crashing, lags, framerate, etc.)

4. Overall gamedesign problems (pacing, progression, monster presentation, etc.)

5. Story(somewhat subjective)

I'll try and address each point in detail now, while trying to keep the review spoiler-free.


The game, at the moment, has 29 large monsters in the roster, some of which can only be fought once(like Zoh Shia and Guardian Arkveld ), while others are reskins/slight modifications of already existing monsters(like Guardian Doshaguma and Guardian Rathalos ). And yes, more monsters will be added in the future updates, but if we are comparing the game at release, it is proper to take this exact amount for comparison. This whole situation is slightly offset by the fact that the monsters are somewhat more diversified in their type, although by how much exactly is debatable.
Now, the armor sets and weapons. The amount and visual design of weapons is solid. However, there is once again a certain "endgame" mechanic(I'm using endgame in quotation marks because, as it stands, there is de-facto no endgame in Monster Hunter Wilds) that makes most of other weapons obsolete ( Artian Weapons ). With no available layered weapon mechanic, at the moment, this is not that good. The armor sets are, for the most part, underwhelming. And not because of the visual part. Many sets from new monsters, as well as redesigns from returning monsters, are quite good. The issue is in the fact that the beta sets in high rank look absolutely the same as the alpha sets, except for coloration, which was not the case in World for the overwhelming majority of armor sets from large monsters. But wait, you might say, there are male and female sets that are now available to everyone! Which, yes, does negate the aforementioned issue somewhat. But still, the TOTAL amount of armor sets is less than available before, as female and male-specific armors were in the Monster Hunter games before already, although they were restricted. So, in World, we had x2 amount of sets for most armors, male and female(because of beta sets), and now we got less, talking visuals. The essence of this is that while the aforementioned change is nice and welcome, I can't shake the feeling that this is an elaborate ploy to cut development costs, as a similar thing did happen once already, when gunner and blademaster-specific sets were abolished, which was very convenient, but we lost a humongous amount of cool-looking armor sets because of this. So, the TOTAL amount of armor sets available to players has diminished. Which is a shame.


This problem, along with content, is probably the most notorious part of the discussion around the game that you may have come across. And rightfully so. My friends and I, wearing random armor, without significant (or none at all in my case) damage bonuses, steamrolled the entire roster of both low and high rank without wiping once. We did not even upgrade the armor or farmed specific strong or "meta" sets. There's simply no need to farm all of this, unless you are a speedrunner or for the sake of collection. Most of our hunts lasted around 6 minutes, with exceptionally long being 10, and many being completed under 5 minutes easily. This seems to be consistent with the experience of many other players, judging from waht I've read. The all-new wounding mechanic, as well as focus mode, leaves little-to-no opportunities for the monsters to fight back at hunters, as the monsters are mainly preoccupied with laying on the ground and rolling in mud while being absolutely annihilated. This is especially exacerbated in parties of more than 3 at least somewhat competent hunters. This is all compounded with the fact that the health pool of monsters is too low. It's almost like the developers forgot to adjust the health pool in accordance with all the damage windows presented to the players. This leaves encounters underwhelming, the monsters forgettable, and zero challenge to be overcome, hence, little to no desire to farm anything, as every monster can already be easily beaten.


Here I'll only note that my friends and I have all experienced crashes at random occasions, while also having completely different PC specs, with all of them above the recommended ones. Hopefully, the devs will fix this, as random crashes are simply not fun. The various fps problems are to be expected, as the game is quite heavy, though I don't have any particular complaints in this regard.


This could be a very long section but I'll try to keep it short. The fact that most monsters, including apexes, are introduced AND FOUGHT in low rank leaves little-to-no excitement for new content upon reaching high rank, as these are the exact monsters(with few exceptions) that you'll meet there. And the sets look the same, yes. So not enough diversification between ranks.
The combat system is much more limber and controlled by the player, which means that attacks that may have missed often in previous installments will almost always hit in Wilds, as you can literally rotate most of them mid-hit. This feels nice and fresh, but the monsters simply HAVE to be adjusted to remain challenging. It is not fun to beat up a helpless rolling punching bag, at least, not for me. The wounding is too powerful too, perhaps even more powerful than the clutch claw in World(and remember that clutch claw was not a thing in World at release, only slinger shot). All of this combined makes for an experience with little challenge(as stated above), and no, it's not because "you are just better as players", as one can easily go into the earlier games and see the obvious differences, while finding older titles challenging still. Player experience is a factor, but blaming players for obvious and drastic changes in core game mechanics is simply a strawman and a flimsy one at that. I still miss the feeling of being smacked by a monster so hard that I simply HAD to farm better armor and better weapons. But you won't find such an experience in Wilds, and that is a big part as to why the gameplay in general, while feeling fresh, ends up being much less rewarding than in previous titles.


I left it for the last because it is the most minor point of all. I, personally, didn't have big problems with the game's writing. The hunter is a badass, and that is cool enough. Some characters are cheesy, yes, the writing itself isn't particularly original too. This could've been easily overlooked by most players if not for the aforementioned points. My problem with the story though, is how it introduces you to literally almost EVERY monster in the game. There's nearly nothing left to discover by yourself.

In conclusion, from 1 to 10 I'd give this game a 7 at most, probably even a 6, because of the cost-to-result ratio. I'd recommend waiting for more content to drop and/or waiting for a sale.

A masterpiece.

The endings feel a bit rushed at the moment, just as the last part of the third act, but in general a very good game. The patches fixed some fps problems and locked out character lines, so that's a bonus. Still, I feel like the third act requires some additional polish. Also the level cap is kinda low, in my opinion.

Awesome immersive sandbox.

A game similar to Terraria in gameplay and progression, with the elements of town magement borrowed from games like Rimworld. The latter elements are simplified, although not to their detriment, and are a nice activity to do when not focusing on progression. The bosses are interesting and unique, some harder, some easier, they always managed to surprise me, but of course you can find traces of bosses from other games in them. A nice experience for both solo and coop, I very much enjoyed the game and will eagerly look forward to new features and further development.

Simply great. Good optimization, Awesome music, Excellent map design. A solid combat system. A lot to explore and do in this game. Server is easy to set up and run. And mods are great. Most importantly though, this game perfectly captures the feeling of the world of Conan, of adventure, of achievement and of being a barbarian. 10/10 for me.

Play this game. Understand, that it is a pathetic and negative experience, that is not worth your time. Discard this game and cut it out from your life. Go outside, take a walk. Breath the fresh air deeply, look at the sky and realize the beauty of this world. Forget about this game, and move on with your new, free, happy life.

I hope the day shall come when this game is once again relisted and open for new players, for it is truly glorius and unique.

To start the review, I wanted to say that this game has one of the best dev teams that I've ever seen. They regularly support the game, add everything that they promise and that the community requests(such as the gun and natural disasters update), and release frequent bugfixes and optimization updates. The game's community also has incredibly talented creators, and I've seen many seemingly impossible things in the workshop that are incredible. The mechanics and modularity of the building system truly allows for many variants of different crafts, or perhaps of something entirely different. I do wish though that the campaign had some more preferable goals to do, as currently it is somewhat lost in terms of its design, perhaps, the devs could introduce a system of fixed levels that are carefully crafted with unique tasks? That would be a fun addition and a good alternative to sandbox. Anyway, the game is great, is constantly updated, and certainly deserves your support if you like building planes, cars, ships(especially), and submarines. Or sometimes all of this at once.