My fellow fanatics, we are a short time away from the release of Monster Hunter World. The latest installment in one of my favorite series ever and one of Capcom’s most underrated and addictive franchises. Also this is the first installment of the series on modern HD hardware after over half a decade on handhelds like the PSP and the 3DS.
With any series that’s been around for almost twenty years it has its dedicated fans, but it can also feel almost impenetrable for new players. But thanks to the recent explosion of action-RPG classics like the Dark Souls series and imitators like The Surge and Nioh finding success, the bar to entry is as low as it is going to get for this franchise.
So in the spirit of helping newcomers to the hunting grounds, here are some helpful tips from a veteran to help you get started in Monster Hunter World.
Learn Which Weapon Is For You
There are fourteen different types of weapons in Monster Hunter. Pick them up and see which one fits your playstyle. Monster Hunter World even includes a practice are to help you get started.
In addition to each weapon having their own sets of special attacks and combos, they also play different roles in a hunt. Great Sword and Hammer is great for slow charged up blows that can break horns or armor on a creature. Light and Heavy Bowgun have long-range and are more versatile with multiple ammo types like lightning or crag shot. The Hunting Horn is a support weapon meant to buff and boost allies. The Insect Glaive is arguably the most complex since it has a guided ranged weapon and is used for aerial leaps, dives, and rapid combos.
Each weapon is full of secret tricks and combos as well that only seasoned players can bring out. It’s just a serious case of what you prefer.
Pace Yourself!
When fighting a monster in Monster Hunter, it will feel like a drawn out brawl. There’s a reason why you are given twenty or more minutes to hunt these things after all.
So many first-time Monster Hunter players will just run in against a starting beast, perform a super impressive combo for like two minute straight, and then got all mad because the thing didn’t just die from the shear brilliance of their MLG combo game. I have endless stories of this happening with newbies.
Dark Souls this game is not. A hunt is a marathon, not a sprint.
But that is what makes a hunt so exciting. It encourages you to have a plan. Just hammering away at a monster nonstop might work, but you will wear yourself out. Your stamina bar will drain to nothing unless you eat something. Your weapon’s sharpness will dull with repeated use. Unless you learn to back off and pick your battles, a hunt will become more taxing than challenging.
Have A Battle Plan
Which segues nicely to my next big tip: be prepared. The minute a hunt starts, every single camp has a place where you can sit down and order a meal. Do it, it boosts your stats. Collect rocks and materials. Use them to stockpile bombs, flashbangs, and more. All to prepare for your next hunt. Even if your plan is as simple as “eat before you start the hunt and pack some poison,” it will make things go a lot smoother.
Monster Hunter World even throws a bone to more melee focused hunters with a new item called a slinger. It can throw rocks, or certain ailment-causing plants, and even has a grapnel belt that can be used for traversal. Which means more possible strategies and plans for the more complex and demanding hunt.
Observation, Observation, Observation
Ever since its inception, every single enemy in Monster Hunter has never had a health bar or a stamina bar visible to the player. The reason for this is because the developers wanted these beasts to not feel like boss monsters but like they were a natural part of a cohesive ecosystem.
Every single installment in the franchise has perpetually built on this idea with distinct behavior like preferred environments, territorial confrontations, and even a food chain of sorts. All of this is conveyed through some highly expressive animations, both inside and outside a hunt. Monsters will enter enraged states, making their attacks hit harder, their movements faster, and might even unleash unexpected surprises like poisonous spines or explosive slime. They’ll also noticeably tire or start limping the closer they are to dying.
Monster Hunter World takes this concept and runs with it even further. Various areas will naturally trip up certain monsters, or if you run them into another creature’s territory a kaiju-style smackdown will happen. There is also some environmental control that more savvy players can utilize like destroying certain plants so they spill pools of poisonous goop on the ground, or collapsing a large boulder on an enemy’s head.
All of these tricks are just a matter of keeping your eyes peeled and seeing how something reacts to what.
Break Off Those Body Parts
This will save you a headache down the line. Building better armor and weapons is the only to progress in Monster Hunter World. This means a lot of resource gathering and hunting monsters for their body parts. The more complex and advanced the weapon, the more specific the monster parts needed. Breaking them off yourself is the quickest way to get them.
Horns, tails, armored limbs. Either have a weapon ready to slash or crush away and don’t let up until that part is gone. You get the part that you need and the monster loses some crucial defense for the rest of the hunt.
Those are some basic tips to help you get started in Monster Hunter World when it comes out this weekend. If you’re also a longtime fan of the series let us know what your tips are to newbies in the comments below.
