Monster Hunter: an evolutionary PS4 game

Many young kids dream to be heroes who go out from a village with equipment, kill monsters, and protect their world. In reality, we all know it’s just a dream, because we do not have monsters and we have no power. However, maybe now, we can experience how it feels to be a monster hunter.

“Monster Hunter: World” is an action role-playing game developed and published by Capcom in January as a part of the “Monster Hunter” series on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox.

“Monster Hunter: World” is a third-person perspective game, set in a unnamed world separated into two parts: the Old World and New World. Players control a hunter that they can design and name themselves who will go the Old World, which is filled with massive monsters they can fight with a weapon. Players can choose what kind of weapon they want to use, like a sword, knife, shield, hammer, bow, etc. Different weapons determine what kind of skills and abilities hunters can have, and sometimes the armor and the weapon match together, which can lead to beneficial abilities for hunters. Players need to craft these weapons and armors from the materials they have, which come from hunters’ biggest enemy: the monsters.

The part that amazed me the most is that there is actually a living ecosystem, which is unlike most of RPGs (role-playing games) I have played before. No matter how many monsters you kill, it won’t affect the game world. Instead, in “Monster Hunter: World,” if a massive Elder Dragon is killed in a specific area, players will see more of a weak monster in the area because there is no longer a powerful predator living there. Sometimes when they are running through the jungle, players might see a large dragon eating a smaller one, or two monsters fighting with each other. All of these additions makes the game feel more alive and like a real world.

So far, “Monster Hunter: World” is both the most discussed PS4 game of 2018, and most shared PS4 game of 2018. IGN has rated MHW as 9.5/10.

According to an IGN review wrote by Joe Skrebels, “It’s almost a shock, then, to discover how perfectly ‘ World ’ sums up Capcom’s achievements with the newest Monster Hunter…One of the most consistently exciting, satisfying, and gratifyingly absurd games I’ve played.”

Video game aggregator Metacritic rated the game 90/100 (PS4) and 91/100 (XBox). According to one reviewer of MHW, the evolution the series has been long awaited: “The giant creatures have never looked better, while the beautiful open world areas and the way Scout Flies assist your exploration have brought a newfound dynamism to every hunt.”

In my opinion, “Monster Hunter: World” is evolutionary for an RPG game. The creative environments, the artificial intelligence of the monsters, the action and movement performance, and the details of the view all make me deeply attracted to the game, especially the cat. For me, the best part of “Monster Hunter” series is always the cat, and the game makes the cat even better than previous series. As an old “Monster Hunter” game player, I really enjoy this game.