After the success of Monster Hunter World, Wilds had big shoes to fill. While Capcom clearly has a problem with optimizing its games, I still think Wilds is one of the best entries in the series, and I've been here since the very beginning.

The core gameplay is the best its ever been, at least to my tastes. The wound system is so much better than the clutch claw and just adds another layer to combat that feels great. The game is faster paced and more forgiving, for better or worse. Monsters take less time to kill and generally have easier mechanics, you have a ton of mobility in combat, you get locked into animations less, you get stunned less, not to mention the mobility the seikret gives. For new players this is great, but I understand why veterans are disappointed the series seems to keep moving away from its roots as a game where every decision in combat matters and I can agree to some extent. I would say it is just a different approach, and I can't deny that it is just super fun to play. You don't feel like you are fighting against the game itself as much as older titles, it's much less frustrating, and I appreciate that approach, especially as the older I get the more casual I become. As far as I'm concerned, this is the best combat in a Monster Hunter game.

Finally having a true open world is a dream come true for Monster Hunter. Its something that always made sense for the series and clearly has been what the devs have wanted to do for a long time. Having mounts is also just a perfect fit for this series and offsets problems caused by such a big map. Wilds feels like a natural evolution of the series finally enabled by modern technology, and I think it's a good thing they keep trying to push the game forward instead of relying too much on the formula. There is also a ton of love and care put into the smallest details. If you just stop and watch you will see so many detailed animations and sound effects and monsters living their lives. They set out to make a living, breathing world and have realized that vision more than ever before, and the game is a genuine work of art at times. Of course, there are performance consequences to this.. but I'll get to that later.

Wilds is also their first foray into genuinely trying to make the story a centerpiece of the game's design. I think they still have some growing to do there to be honest, but I can appreciate the attempt. I would still consider the story one of the weaker parts of the game, as has always been the case. The story sections take away control too much, there is a bit too much forced slow walking, following slow npcs, with a forced camera view that lingers for awkwardly long, and there are a few too many times where you are allowed to walk but not walk too far which just feels annoying. The pacing would feel fine otherwise. The writing is a bit cringe at times, with typical bad millennial humor and bad puns. To be fair that kind of humor has been a part of monster hunter for a while now whether I like it or not, and it didn't detract from the experience TOO much. It at least did feel like they were trying to flesh out their characters. Being authorized to hunt by Alma does feel badass though, that's easily my favorite part. And the broad strokes of Nata's character development are alright even if I mostly didn't care for him. Of course the worldbuilding is always solid and has been a strength of Monster Hunter's writing for a long time, there are some pretty cool implications for the series the story brings up. Not to be the friend that's too woke but I did honestly find it weird that we are the ones teaching the locals how to deal with monsters that they have lived right next to forever. They never invented weapons in a world full of giant monsters? How are they alive?

Low rank has essentially been the extended tutorial for a while and wilds just doubles down on that idea, the actual story focused section is pretty short, around 10 hours for low rank, of course the story continues in high rank but the game opens up a lot more and you are less constrained, so if it feels a bit slow at first don't worry.

Wilds definitely does feel a bit too easy for most of the game, but I have to remind myself we don't have master rank yet which tends to be the bulk of my playtime in any monster hunter game, and I think people comparing the base game of Wilds to the fully fleshed out years worth of updates in World with dlc is stupid. Wilds in fact has way more content than World did at the same point in its lifespan, and as they have added new content to high rank it has been funny seeing complaints change from the game being too easy to the game being too hard lol. But most of low rank and high rank is definitely too easy and sets up new players to not actually learn the game mechanics properly which then does make the late game harder for them. You don't really need to prepare for hunts that much any more or go back to town to restock that often, which I do think is a bit of a step backwards. Preparing and restocking were a good part of the gameplay loop that made hunts feel like a bigger deal and also were usually a good gauge of how well you were playing. I think having supplies teleported straight to your seikret mid battle in particular is a bit much. You're also just handed a lot of stuff to the point where you don't really need to go out of your way to stock up on anything until the very end, and without being actually taught this it just makes the endgame frustrating for the new players that never had to learn the importance of actual preparation. On top of this with the fights being easier and most monsters not really having armor or stunning you or having really debilitating effects, you never really need to learn to specifically counter a monster's design, you can pretty much just facetank most of the game with whatever build you want until you suddenly hit a wall. I think this is why people simultaneously think the game is too easy and too hard.

I do also kinda miss tracking from world. It's a bit weird we just automatically track monsters now, though it does make gameplay smoother and faster, tracking was a cool way of gradually being rewarded for grinding a monster and it felt Immersive. Now paintballs feel pretty much useless. Your seikret is just autopilot to take you where you need to go and it can lead to you not really needing to get a proper feel for the map design as well. Despite the open world being so large, the automatic and fast movement actually can make the game feel smaller.

Obviously the biggest issue with the game is the performance. I'm lucky to have a pretty good pc, so I haven't had huge problems, but even I have had annoying stuttering and have to rely on framegen to get good fps at max graphics which still causes visual artifacts, and texture pop in has completely ruined the immersion of a few big moments. I don't know what is going on with Capcom but they need to confront this because their games keep getting review bombed for running like ♥♥♥♥ on the average person's hardware regardless of how good the actual game is. Capcom is still putting out great games but their reputation is falling and its their own fault. But, I don't blame the developers as much as I blame the suits. Wilds was clearly released too early for the sake of quarterly earning number going up. I think the developers are doing a good job and the game should be appreciated for its strengths. I really hope the performance is addressed before master rank arrives, they have taken too long as it is.