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Monster Hunter Wilds Beta - Ep 92
34 Plays3 months ago
James had the chance to try the recent test for the new Monster Hunter game, so you know he's got some stuff to say about it.
Check us out online:
Allison: twitch.tv/pikapeww
James: twitch.tv/grantjam
Music is "Fork and Spoon" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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Transcript
Powerade Tastes Weird
00:00:04
Speaker
I forgot the Powerade tastes weird. Oh, I shouldn't have taken a big drink right before I hit the button. The weirdest Powerade you've ever eaten. It is Powerade Zero, so I don't know if that's on me or or how that works out, but um hey, it's as good as the material as any for us.
Resurrected by a Necromancer
00:00:22
Speaker
okay Hi, everyone. We're back. We're alive again. we Once more into the breach. and We've been resurrected by the powerful necromancer of the lands and are our back at it for another few weeks um before we get don't think that necromancer put my bones back in the right order. But honestly, I'm just happy to be back. Right. If I'm like, ah yeah, a couple of bits of my skeleton are not quite right. But if it means I can just chill and talk about games for a little bit, I'm happy to, you know, have a couple extra is scapula bone. i was I was getting ready to make a joke about scapulas, but I don't remember.
00:00:55
Speaker
Capula is a bone, yeah. I believe it is your collarbone. Oh, maybe they got that one right then. I don't know. That one might be right then.
Monster Hunter Wilds Beta Impressions
00:01:05
Speaker
But yes, my digits have been rearranged, but I'm here to talk about you're never going to believe this in a million years. I have more Monster Hunter to talk about. Oh, dude. Yeah, the new one, right?
00:01:16
Speaker
So, yeah, so it is not out yet. It won't be until February of twenty twenty five. What did just happen recently was the beta, the kind of open test for it. And it was an absolute blast. ah Monster Hunter Wilds is the the name of it. this This was the beta just came out um last weekend. Yeah, thereabouts.
00:01:36
Speaker
um It was running for a little bit. There was the PS5 had kind of early access version of not early access, but like you can get into it a day earlier and then the the next day or two after all the rest of the consoles opened up, your Xbox is your PCs, things like that. um And it was a good chance for everyone to kind of figure out, OK, what's this game actually going to play like? We've been hearing about, you know, um test runs and and demos and things at game conferences, stuff like that. We've been seeing all these trailers. I have been devouring these trailers like they're going out of style. So I was happy to finally get my hands on the dang thing. And
00:02:07
Speaker
Boy, howdy. There's a lot I want to talk about. It's almost all good. Some of it's not great, but even the not great parts I think are very interesting. um But yeah, it's it's very it's different in ah in a lot of good ways. Okay, okay. I'm excited to hear more.
00:02:26
Speaker
Yeah, it is. so Again, it was just for like the the weekend amount of time, and it was a very limited beta as well. It was just, as I understand it, kind of the first environment. um There were only, I believe, four large monsters, one, two, three, four, yeah, and then some smaller ones and side things and all that.
00:02:42
Speaker
Um, that you could hunt, but it was enough to kind of give you a taste of, okay, how do the weapons feel? How does the environment feel? How does, how does the game
Monster Hunter Wilds Sequel Insights
00:02:51
Speaker
run? And the answer to that is poorly, but that's a different topic for a little bit later. Um, I kind of the structure of it and and how different it is. Um, it is a direct sequel to monster hunter world.
00:03:02
Speaker
which if you'll recall that is not the most recent game in the series. I know I've talked previously about how these games kind of come out kind of staggered. There will be kind of the main series and then the the not side teams like the portable team, the somewhat more kind of experimental team. they'll They'll kind of go back and forth. A lot of their resources are shared and a lot of their design philosophies are shared, but there're there's different things that kind of make them more like one or the other from the the specific teams that work on them. So this came from the the team that gave them more kind of grounded, immersive Monster Hunter world style. And you can feel that a lot in this game. It's got a very diverse, very, very detailed environment with a lot of stuff going on, um as opposed to the more kind of arcadey, just kind of find some birds and then run where you're going, feel of Rise. But it did take some good cues from Rise in a lot of places. There is a little bit
00:03:51
Speaker
the The speed of of wilds, at least in the beta, um was kind of it was similar to world. It wasn't quite as you know snappy and and ah you're not the wirebug jumping and grappling like Spider-Man all around the place. But um you have a ah mountain now. I think oh it's pronoun pronounced pronounced sacred.
00:04:10
Speaker
It's spelled like secret or sacred. And it's every time I hear someone say it, they say it a different way. But I'm pretty sure the official pronunciation is sacred. It's like a chocobob. It's a big like bird horse creature um that you hop on and it kind of takes you where you want to go. um i call it sacred that and that I don't think it's that one.
00:04:28
Speaker
secrete No, I, I truly don't think it's secreting anything. Okay. Are you sure? Cause it could like, it could have like pheromones or, you know, that's the thing where i musts do that. I'm pretty sure they do do that. It didn't look like that was happening. Okay.
00:04:44
Speaker
Yeah, I will say the there were a lot of moments in the beta where it was pretty low resolution, a little bit choppy, so it may have been happening and I just didn't clock it. But to my knowledge, lengths but yeah very, very possible. But to my knowledge, there were no secretions. um What there was, however,
00:05:00
Speaker
was more, um you can you can kind of call it to come pick you up and take you places. It'll automatically take you towards the monster. And while you're on it, you can kind of like look around the environment. You've got a like rope claw now that you can use to go like snatch items from a long distance away. So you don't have to run over to every individual thing, which saves a lot of time when you're gathering stuff like that. In in all previous games, a big part of it was you have to run around, you you find a plant that you want stuff from, you run to it, you press the button down, hold it down, you pick up some items, it takes a while and then, oh, I guess I have time to move on to the next thing.
00:05:28
Speaker
um With this, you can kind of just ah drive by, just latch onto it and grab it and not even have to to think about it. um But the that that isn't to say it's so like snappy and fast that it doesn't still feel grounded and heavy, and and yeah like but like a meteor monster hunter game, um because it absolutely does. um Another thing that was interesting too, we don't get a huge taste of it in the beta, but we get a a little kind of sample of it. And we've been getting even more of it in the trailers recently. There is a focus on story in this game, like never before. ah cool And whether that's good or bad, it changes depending on who you ask.
00:06:06
Speaker
Yeah, that's fair. It sounds like gamers. Exactly. I and nobody plays the games for the story, of course. um Yeah. But it is. It's interesting to see because far and away the most popular game up until this point was World, which did have a little bit more emphasis on story than other games. The previous games were just like, hey, there's this monster is going crazy. You got to beat him up. And that was it. That that was the whole thing. The world had a little bit more like kind of so a plot to it, even if it was not by any standards, like fully fleshed out or easy to to understand or or make work into a game. It was it was something more. And so that's a little bit of that is enough to keep people hooked, I think a little bit more mainstream to just have have it in there and and have, you know, kind of a a more important reason to keep going than just I want to fight the bigger monster in the next area. Although I will say that would be plenty for me. Yeah, that's fair.
00:07:02
Speaker
Yeah, but it was it was interesting to kind of see that and get a feel for it. Thankfully, the cutscenes are skippable. At least they were in the the beta, so if that's not your thing, you don't have to worry about it. um But the the the other thing going into it that I wasn't fully prepared for, i I'd heard that this was a thing and I kind of knew to expect, but I didn't know how it was going to feel.
00:07:20
Speaker
was how just fully open world and seamless this game was.
Open World Design in Monster Hunter Wilds
00:07:25
Speaker
um ah for For those of you who have played any Monster Hunter game before, even the more recent ones like World and Rise, um you'll know that when you when you go to do anything in the game, you start out in your little like hub world, your little village or or camp or whatever it is, you are given a quest or you go find a quest on your own um from a board and you you do all your preparation and then you say, okay, I'm ready to go. And there's a loading screen, there's a there's a place you run out of, there's a door or something like that. And then you have a moment and then you are out in the world and that's a disconnected section. um In this game, and without choosing a quest, without doing anything, without any loading screen, door, anything like that, you can just start running in a way that you haven't been able to do before. oh Yeah, it was interesting. It made it feel
00:08:11
Speaker
Honestly, i've I've seen a lot of people talk about the beta of this game feeling a little bit more like an MMO for a couple reasons. That to me was one of the reasons is that everything is just kind of interconnected. It's it's just like one huge environment. It's not like a segment in like different levels or anything like that, like it used to be.
00:08:30
Speaker
um And you can kind of go straight from I from the very limited experience I have with MMOs a lot of the time what I've seen is there will be like You know your your town that you kind of start in but you can just kind of wander outside of it into the starting area and just Kind of start beating up monsters or or cutting down trees or what have you? um This this felt a little bit more like that where you can just be in the central area do all your preparing things like that However much you want to and then without any other steps you just start walking um which you know, is not much of a novel thing in video games in the year of our Lord 2024, but it is a novel thing for this series. Yeah, I mean, like, ah that is kind of common for a lot of games of like, and without any barriers or limitations or loading screens, just being able to go somewhere is like, it's becoming more of the norm, but it hasn't always been and some games are taking longer, longer to evolve past that. You have to redefine a gameplay loop, you have to redefine systems,
00:09:22
Speaker
for a kind of a long standing game to really make that work. And especially Monster Hunter's case where it's like you really do kind of depend on this like hub world almost. So being able to just like, not you have like a hub, but you're still able to just like interact with the rest of the world really does like bring that world together. um That's kind of interesting. That's really cool. I'm glad that they're like making at least some change. I hope that that's like being well received. I i hope it's going well.
00:09:47
Speaker
Yeah, I think so. I don't think I've seen anyone upset about that. It it seems pretty convenient to me. And it's, um, but, but yeah, to your point, it was very much as much as it was a technical limitation of the games for awhile. It ended up also being just a design element of the games, that quest structure that like you're here, you're preparing, and then you, you find a quest and that's what you're, that's what you're going to be doing for the next like 30 minutes or so.
00:10:10
Speaker
um it's It's changed up just a little bit. Now you can run out. you It is still mostly quest-based. When you go out into the world, there will be these large monsters, like four or five of them, roaming around in this big open section. And you can go and find them, either find them in the world or you can look for them on the map.
00:10:26
Speaker
And then you can select them and say, okay, I want to choose this one to hunt now. And you can start a quest from there and just kind of like keep going like immediately in media res. But you don't, um you don't necessarily have to. They will automatically start one if you just find one in the wild and you start beating up on it for a little bit and be like, Oh, okay, you want to hunt this one, then let's make a quick quest out of this. And then this is your goal now.
00:10:46
Speaker
Um, so it's much more free form if you want it to be that old style is still there There is still a quest giver at the the main hub world at the the main base that you have Where if you want to choose more dedicated quests you can but you you don't necessarily have to that's really neat Yeah, it's but yeah, like you said, it's a it's a change to the structure again the philosophy behind it yeah um in a Somewhat minor way but one that has a big impact on just how it feels to to get started Yeah, for sure. like I do think that that's quite interesting and quite neat to see an evolution on such a system. like ah It feels like such a small thing, but it does change so many different like ways of interacting with the world of this game. And I think that that's really unique and kind of interesting to see that development.
00:11:29
Speaker
Exactly. Yeah. And I think that's a big part of the reason they had this open beta as well, because it was described as sort of a server stress test, things like that, um to kind of test a lot of the aspects of this game and the the online functionality of it was a big part
Multiplayer Systems Explained
00:11:43
Speaker
of it. um One other thing that's changed about this game is, and one other thing that makes it seem more like an MMO, is now there are 100 players in a lobby or a maximum of 100 players in a lobby. um And if you I believe if you play it kind of by default and go through the recommended settings and and lobby joining and all that, those hundred people will all be there in the world with you or or some amount of that will be. um And you you still have the standard like four people per quest. you you have One of the things that did get more confusing with the beta and I don't know if it's going to be different in the final game or not is so you have your lobby, but then you have your link party and your link party is the group of people who you're going on a quest with and that'll be up to four.
00:12:23
Speaker
But then there's your link party, but then there's also the environment link, which is not the same as the lobby. But to my knowledge, the environment link is what actually shows different people as being in the same game space. So it's on yeah, it's weird and complicated. um I played the beta with a um ah couple of friends of mine.
00:12:45
Speaker
And it was a little bit of a chore kind of finding out, OK, what do we need to actually join to see each other and then to to ah hunt a monster with each other? So it took a little more time than I would have liked to kind of wrap our heads around that. But once we did, it was fairly straightforward. So hopefully it's it's just a matter of there's a little bit of a learning curve to like, OK, how do we actually approach this? And then it'll be fine from there. Yeah, that's a lot.
00:13:11
Speaker
But it's still really neat. And I i do feel like once you like play through it a little bit, you you will get a better angle of it. Exactly. It does seem like one of those things that with a little hands on, it just makes better sense. Yeah. um And while we're talking about slight but grievances with the um the the system as well, one of the other big things, in fact, the the other main pillar that I have here that makes it feel more like an MMO is the incredibly, inconveniently and frustratingly crowded UI.
Criticism and Feedback on UI
00:13:39
Speaker
And I know I know that MMO players are going to come at me with, oh, it's not that bad. I challenge that on a fundamental level. I get anxiety every time I look at a world of Warcraft screen. um I know it's all palatable if you take the time to learn it, but I haven't. And so I don't.
00:13:55
Speaker
yeah that's honestly fully fair as someone who has gotten used to some of it yes but also i i do understand like as you keep adding things it's just like are you sure we need that on the screen like can we put that like somewhere else or can condense this or and and i do i do feel that i wish there were a better way Yeah, absolutely. and this This game lean it gets a little bit more of that now because with the the large interconnected world and the openness of it and how monsters now will just kind of appear and disappear more frequently and on a more like on a grander scale, that's been a thing in in some past games. like You could go out on expeditions without having to choose a monster to hunt in
00:14:39
Speaker
the the more recent previous games but it still like had you in this dedicated area and it still had a limited it was like oh there are going to be three monsters here at a time period um but with i think maybe some special exceptions um but it is it's It's different now. There are cycles, kind of not quite day and night, but more um seasons and like environmental states. um the then The names for them I could never remember. I know one of them was fallow, but then that that was the kind of time of of plenty where it's like all all golden and bright and and nature is is very bountiful.
00:15:13
Speaker
um there was a name for the kind of more downtrodden period of time. And then there's like the actual thunderstorm, which is where the big thunder monster shows up. It's so cool right now is my favorite monster in the new game ah so far. um That it let's side side notes for later that the monster design remains absolutely incredible.
00:15:31
Speaker
Um, so there are, there are now season changes and day and night changes and monsters showing up and, uh, going away. And now there are special events that used to just be tied to, um, oh, this is just a property of the quest you're going on, but now it is a timed thing that can kind of be independent instead.
00:15:48
Speaker
um then So so with all of that comes a huge amount of like map information that you have to digest now. There's a there's an environment kind of readout that you can cycle through. um And then when things change when you're in game, it'll pop up a little menu on the side that says, hey, by the way, this is happening now. This is appeared or is going away or something. And it's just kind of an extra frustrating layer of menus and alerts and UI that isn't too big of a deal. Honestly, all things considered, it it's fine to be able to to get used to, but it's just it's a little bit more than I was looking for out of the the formula. James, are you getting into an MMO? Absolutely not. I'll die before I do so. What if it's a Monster Hunter MMO and it's really good and it's super cool and everyone likes it? ah Fun fact, that did already happen and it was before my time and I think it's shut down now.
00:16:38
Speaker
I might be wrong. Round two, baby. I think there might have been. Oh, i I feel like a fake fan now because I don't know the full history of there was Monster Hunter frontiers, but then there was one either before or after that and they they had unique weapons and they but one of them is shut down, but the other one I think is still around, but in a very limited way.
00:16:57
Speaker
i don't know I don't know. I couldn't tell you. Anyway. From what I hear, you might be interested in playing a Monster Hunter MMO if that were to happen again, and it sounds like it's getting closer. They're going in the formula. They might be getting there. It's perhaps edging a little bit closer. um I will say if an MMO feels as fun to play as a Monster Hunter game does, sure, I'll take it.
00:17:19
Speaker
There are several that have really good action and are very fun to play, so I wouldn't put it past it. I would love to see more of Monster Hunter, though. I'd like to see more of where this is headed. This sounds really cool, especially for an open beta. Yeah, for sure. It's like a quick test. I do look forward to seeing more in February.
00:17:37
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And that's the thing, too, is keeping in mind all of this was a basically just a network test. All of this that I'm describing here, I experienced in like version zero point zero zero one zero zero, a bunch of other numbers like test build of the game.
00:17:52
Speaker
um which is, I think, another important thing to remember too.
Beta Performance Issues and Feedback
00:17:56
Speaker
um All of this is subject to change. um All of this is hopefully going to be polished just a little bit, especially things like performance issues and stuff like that. ah We already have confirmation that a lot of the performance ah things that were going on and some like graphical just full bugs as well. A lot of people were getting this um this kind of corruption where all of the the models or at least a lot of the models in the game would revert to this like really low poly like scuffed version of what they were looking at. It was it was either like a low ah like an LOD distance version of like whatever they were looking at or it was just like their drivers corrupted so bad that it just looked like they were playing the original PS2 Monster Hunter.
00:18:36
Speaker
um it's It's early days. They're still figuring some stuff out. That's the whole point of doing this like early beta thing. So I do applaud them for doing that instead of making it like a paid like, oh, if you get the premium version, you can play it two days early. And then we're going to use that as a beta test to make the day one patch. And it's like.
00:18:53
Speaker
ah Why are you charging me more to QA your game? At least this one. They're just like, yeah, come, come check it out and see what happens. Right. Right. 100 percent. This beta was free. They had a survey that you could go and fill out and be like, hey, here's what happened during my time with it. Here was my experience. Here's what I liked and here's what I disliked. And I think you all fix this. um A lot of it we have confirmation has been fixed either from the developers or just from like the logic of, OK, well, this kind of thing is is inherent to a beta, that kind of thing. Yeah. um The one thing I do hope that they address that I don't know too much about if this is a feature or if this is something that they are still fine tuning, um the weapons feel a little less impactful. Yeah. Yeah. And there's a specific reason for this. I don't know if you've been hearing people talk about this recently online because this is the one concept going back to like every once in a while, I know I have an episode where it's like, oh, this is a conversation starter for a specific game design phrase or concept or or idea.
00:19:50
Speaker
um Yeah, the one in this case, it what it ends up boiling down to, the the weapons and the combat in this game have a in some cases reduced, but in some cases removed completely um amount of hit stop. um If you are familiar with action or fighting games, things like that, you may not know exactly what hit stop is, but you will feel it.
00:20:13
Speaker
It is the the phenomenon where when you hit someone with ah a really strong punch or a kick or a big weapon impact, especially something that's like really heavy, takes a long amount of time, is is you're trying to convey that it shows a large amount of damage.
00:20:28
Speaker
the game or just the character themselves will freeze for just a few frames, maybe like ah just a part of a second. Not enough for you to notice it in most cases. Some some games will do it noticeably as like a real stylistic choice. But a lot of the time you won't necessarily notice that your your game is freezing, but you will notice, oh, this hit really hard, hard enough to like kind of pause the action for a little bit and then keep moving. That really sells this feeling of impact. Like I'm hitting something physical and it's taking time and effort to kind of push through it. um One of the the most classic, I think, examples of this recently is actually in ah the the newest Super Smash Bros game, Ultimate. When you land the finishing blow on someone, you'll see that red lightning shootout and they'll like freeze for a moment. that That is one of the more stylistic. You will notice that when it happens because the action all stops for a little bit and then you know it cuts back in and they fly off the edge and explode and all that. um
00:21:18
Speaker
But it's it's that feeling of like, oh, I've I've hit with something hard. This is this feels weighty. This feels solid. um Yeah, it makes me think of like Jujutsu Kaisen or in um The Matrix where like you've hit something and like you see the impact and like you see like the ripples out and then like a beat later, the person flies back. It's not like an instant reaction to the punch. You see the punch impact and like the ripples from it. And then the the actual damage is dealt essentially.
00:21:47
Speaker
Absolutely. Yeah. It's a very anime thing. It's a very stylistic thing. It's a very video game thing, too, which is yeah surprising because not only is so Capcom, of course, the company that makes Monster Hunter also makes, you know, Street Fighter. They're no who is stranger to fighting games, to having that very tactile, very, very punchy feeling. um But not only that, but the Monster Hunter games themselves have a significant amount of that. um It changes depending on the game. But even games like Rise,
00:22:15
Speaker
um people have been Since this has come up in this game, people have been going back and like doing the math and editing videos and pointing this out, even in the the more fast-paced games. The biggest, heaviest attacks, like when you swing your great sword to work for like this huge downward chop, where you smack a monster in the head with a hammer, big old like swing of ah ah an axe or something like that.
00:22:35
Speaker
it will it'll pause the game. It'll make it feel that punchy. um And in this wild beta that is in a lot of cases just sort of reduced. It's still there. But for this the same attacks that exist, you know, in previous games, they've measured like, oh, how much of a second does it actually take up or how many frames does it take up? And in every case, it's like half the amount of time, if not lower. But then in some cases, it's just decreased completely.
00:22:59
Speaker
I really wonder if the reason for this, or at least the logic behind it for the reason doing it like on the dev side, is a due to how largely multiplayer this is, with with such large lobbies and stuff like that, does it make it easier or feel smoother to play alongside other people with a little bit less of this? Because you're playing with so many people.
00:23:19
Speaker
Yeah, that that's fair and that thought crossed my mind too. yeah Right, exactly. I don't know that I buy that necessarily because Monster Hunter, as much as it is and you know more massively online now, you has it has been online multiplayer for a while and you're still doing what four people per quest, the flow of the gameplay itself shouldn't be all that significantly that's fair different.
00:23:39
Speaker
Um, but it's, it's possible, you know, I'm, I'm not there working on the game. I don't know the the stress that would put the network under in, in my mind. I don't see that making a big difference, but I'm, I'm not an expert. I, um, I am a a podcast co-host. I am not a senior developer at Capcom. So yeah, that's fair. If you were a senior developer at Capcom, would you hire me? Not heartbeat, yes. Hell yeah. I know my way and I just got to get James hired at Capcom. Exactly. Step one, become a senior developer at one of the most well-known game development companies in the world. Step two, profit. Hell yeah. ah Honestly, step two, cry into my desk. um Well, okay. Step three, profit. There's room for step two. Yeah. ah But you know, like that's that's a little disappointing to hear. I hope that they take the feedback and see the people like literally frame analyzing and peaking and being like, all right, cool. like
00:24:30
Speaker
what's the difference? Why doesn't this feel so punchy and take that as like feedback of, oh, we need to like punch it up. Yeah, for for sure. And I think I mean, even worst case scenario, if they don't address that, if they don't address um some of the performance issues, if a lot of the stays the same, it's still going to be a game worth playing. I still had an absolute ton of fun. It's just little nitpicks and things here and there that's like, okay, at this point, this is this has become, I believe, their best-selling series after being kind of niche for a little while. It has skyrocketed up to the top of their their charts. um So, it it feels like there are some of these things they could put a little bit more love into, but that's, again, they had a survey at the end. I did my part. I filled out. i i
00:25:10
Speaker
ah um I made my my opinion known to them he yeah um as as much as that matters. so yeah that's said Every single one of those has taken to ah into account at least somewhat. Exactly. That's the thing. and It's not so much about one individual person, but I have seen large groups of people online now talking about like, hey, this kind of was noticeable and sucked a little bit.
00:25:32
Speaker
um So hopefully that's that's something that'll be addressed. But at the end of the day, very, very fun game. I know I've talked a lot about the the rough parts of this this game, but there is a lot of truly very good and interesting stuff added.
Gameplay Improvements in Monster Hunter Wilds
00:25:45
Speaker
um I mentioned earlier that the the speed of the game was a little bit increased kind of with some of the um the the mounts and things like that.
00:25:51
Speaker
um Along with that comes a lot of like quality of life features. There's now an optimize um instead of having to pick out what um potion or status clearing thing you want to dig out of your pockets. There's just one um quick select option for like optimum healing or optimum status clearing.
00:26:07
Speaker
Um, which helps save some time. And that is stuff like that. Um, loadouts and things are are easier to access and and do on a regular basis, things like that. You can eat from more places without it being an issue, um which, yeah, which eating gives you like a little bit of ah a buff for most of your hunt, things like that. It is, um, it's improved in a lot of ways and the, the actual meat and potatoes of the dang game, the weapons feel incredible. All of them have new moves or have been reworked a little bit, changed up a little bit. Um,
00:26:36
Speaker
every Every once in a while, you'll come across a move that's been either replaced or just straight up removed, and that's sometimes a little bit of a bummer. The insect glaive feels at first like it's been a little bit gutted, but then you spend some time with it, and it's still a ton of fun. um But shout out to my insect glaive mains. It is a very fun weapon.
00:26:53
Speaker
Yeah, the aerial bounce has not been forgotten, although it is gone. um You can no longer just jump in helicopters, swing your blade around, hit the monster and just be automatically thrown back up into the air, which is fine. And i'm on i'm I'm fine with that. And I'm over it. And I'm not sad about it at all, because there's a cool new attack that comes with it. The flow of the weapons a little bit different.
00:27:12
Speaker
But it's fundamentally still the same. You still get to throw yourself up in the air. You have cool aerial attacks. You have just kind of a different way that you ah have to use them now. um Same thing with a lot of the other weapons. There's there's different ways that the the weapon kind of flow chart of like, OK, well, in this case, this is the attack I want to use versus in this case, this is how I want to space myself, things like that. Those have been kind of shaken up a little bit, but they're still fundamentally they feel like the same weapons, just with a brush breath of fresh air, a fresh fresh fresh fresh fresh fresh fresh fresh fresh fresh fresh
00:27:44
Speaker
they've They've been renewed. they've They've been reborn, if you will. i I cannot speak, but I can play video games, and I really enjoyed doing that with this. um yeah Yeah, and it's it's very fun to to see the new life that's been breathed into these weapons.
New Monster Designs
00:28:01
Speaker
um And the the monsters on the the flip side of that same coin are a lot of fun to fight. There are new like hordes of monsters that you have to deal with now, different ways that they move around, um really incredibly irritating sandworms that will duck in and out and slither all around that are kind of and a new fight experience that's very fun and not irritating at all. um
00:28:20
Speaker
But um also just really cool like that the the apex monster the apex predator in the area in the beta Is this big like electric kind of rail gun monster? Um ray dao, I believe it's pronounced re y space dau So if i'm pronouncing that wrong, let me know in the comments. Um, but absolutely incredible design, very fun to fight against, very imposing figure. um the the The boys at R and&D are back at it again. um They're just knocking it out of the park with this one. um And from what I've seen from the the trailers for the rest of the game, that does not stop. the The monsters are incredible, and they're probably going to sell some great action figures in addition to being fun things to fight.
00:29:00
Speaker
Heck yeah, that's that's really cool. I love to hear that the monsters design is still peak because the monsters in Monster Hunter have always been, I mean like that's that's half the title, um and they've always been really cool. I like the like crazy tiger looking ones, I like the giant T-Rex looking ones, I love that stupid dodo looking one.
00:29:17
Speaker
kuluaku I will yeah curb stomp him until the the sun goes it ah explodes in a ah brilliant ball of light that envelops the universe. um He's so dumb looking. I i like i just love it. um I've seen some good things about ah like the Palico interactions. how like If it's like thundering outside, they get really scared and like cuddle up next to you and stuff. it's It's really cute. I've seen little bits here and there, but I'm really happy to hear that like they're still like keeping true to form and keeping keeping the game looking good.
Palicos' New Feature
00:29:47
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. um One quick thing, I know I'm trying to end on a positive note here and it it is overall a very positive game. Because you brought up the the Palicos, I do want to mention real quick, they do speak full sentences now and I don't love that. Oh. um Yeah, it's it's jarring to say the least. oh But the good news is you can turn that off if you want them to just make the cat sounds that they used to make instead of like talking at you and you looking around trying to figure out where there's another character here, what's happening.
00:30:13
Speaker
Um, and sounding like a, just a bratty child hanging out with you. Um, is kind of interesting to me. Well, it's, it's less of that because they still have like the dialogue. They'll still, if you go talk to them, they'll have text and things like that. They've done that previous games too. yeah You just don't have to hear it with your ears, which I'm a fan of.
00:30:33
Speaker
Because my previous, yeah, my my earlier understanding of that was like, oh, they're speaking their cat language, but you can understand it because you're a trained hunter and that's the relationship between these these roles. yeah um And now they've fully made the transition just into like, no, these cats, like cat sized cats speak full English sentences. yeah um yeah And i I choose to ignore that um for the for the sake of my own health. Jesse and James will never forgive you, but that's fine. Well, they were the villains now, weren't they?
00:31:01
Speaker
Uh, debatable actually. Right. i know There's like a whole thing with like, they kind of were, but not really, but that yeah says they're good people at the end of the day who are just trying to steal one child's.
00:31:14
Speaker
that. Right. That doesn't excuse theft. They never did it. Well, I'm pretty sure Meowth has also committed tax fraud. So probably, you know, almost certainly. Yeah, there's no chance he accurately reports his income. But um that's that's a ah a different issue for a different cat. ah These cats, I can choose to silence them so they don't ah bother me, which is Jesse would support that. And exactly would support whatever Jesse supports. So if you're right. You're right. You're right to say it.
00:31:43
Speaker
And in that way, it turns out I was James Rocket all along. He was the gamer all along, you guys. That's the grand reveal episode. what i would join The show. Grand twist at the end of season one. He really was the video James inside us all. ah Executive producer Dick Wolf.
00:32:09
Speaker
ti and If only we could afford, I had Chris Tingle or what what's that Chuck Tingle. Chuck Tingle, yeah. we got Oh no. Executive writer Chuck Tingle. Just because my life is a Chuck Tingle book doesn't mean this podcast has to be one, but i thought you know, if we could get it. I'd take it.
00:32:26
Speaker
um This game does sound really interesting. I am really excited to see when it comes out. And honestly, it sounds really neat that it's like a fully open world. I think that's one of the bigger selling points for me is that you can just kind of like a run around, start smacking on a monster. It's like, oh, you want a question on this? Let's let's let's do that, I guess.
00:32:42
Speaker
Yeah, that absolutely. really neat I like that it gives me the agency to go out and beat the shit out of an animal. Exactly. Yeah. At the end of the day, it is about violence against large animals, which is the goal, um except in real life. Don't do that. But no, um in video games, when it's designed that way and you have the sort of very loose plot structure behind it of, oh, these are all animals that are doing damage to the natural ecosystem. So you're being assigned to kind of call them to maintain nature's balance. Then at that point, sure, it's fine. We can kind of brush that under the rug and just go back to smacking a big old dragon with a lance that fires cannon shells out of it. he yeah Absolutely. It's good stuff. I cannot wait for the full game.
Streaming Plans
00:33:21
Speaker
Um, I know I keep taking this, this cheap way out of like, Oh, I I'm talking about this game, but I've really only ever played the beta or the early release or something like that of it. Um, in fact, I'm thinking I may want to
00:33:31
Speaker
put a little disclaimer at the beginning of this episode or in the title or something like that to kind of make it clear. This game's not out yet, but I'm very, very excited for when it is. I look forward to it. I really, really do. If you're streaming it, I will watch. If you're not, I will bug you to stream it so that I can watch. Oh, absolutely. When it when it fully releases, I believe February 28th, so like the last day of February eight um is when it's coming out in 2025. I will be streaming it as soon as I am physically capable of it. Heck yeah. My birthday is February 25th, so I will be right there watching.
00:34:02
Speaker
Yeah, that's right. Yeah. All right. Well, yeah, good, good stuff. You'll you'll get to experience Monster Hunter as a post-birthday event. Yeah. Yes. Great. Absolutely. um But yeah, ah in the the meantime, I suppose I i still am not streaming very frequently, but now that I have streamed at least once with you for an episode of the show, I'll go ahead and plug i our our our Twitch channels because we exist outside of this specific context.
00:34:32
Speaker
Um, I myself am grant jam. Uh, grant is in my last name and then jam is in the first part of my first name, but also it was delicious strawberry. Yeah, exactly. So go, go check it out. And you are Pika P with two W is correct. Yeah. p i k a p e w w I stream pretty much every Sunday. I've been working through the new Silent Hill 2. It's been a blast. I'm actually hoping to finish that up here relatively soon. I will be off this next Sunday, so i some ah ah if this episode goes up when I think it does, the the upcoming Sunday, the 10th of November, I will be streaming. um Come and hang out. I'd love to love to chat. I'd love to see you. I'd love to have some goofs and some gas and watch me scream my head off as
00:35:16
Speaker
a giant crazy monster jumps out after I'm like, yeah, this room's clear. that's usually how it goes Or dude, I have one the other day where I was like. Because Silent Hill, you have the radio. It crackles. You you can hear the monsters like around you. And i there's like ah cockroaches, which aren't. They don't do much damage. They're only there to set the radio off and to like obfuscate other things. So I'm like, oh, there's a cockroach. There's probably something nearby. I killed the cockroach. The radio went silent. I'm like, all right, cool. Still can be something nearby. It might just not be active, because the radio only goes off when the enemy enemy is like walking around and moving and active. If they're like resting or hiding, it doesn't do that. I actually have a lot to say about Silent Hill, too, game. It's hits phenomenal.
00:35:53
Speaker
but um I like fully was like, yeah, this is probably a ruse, this is a red herring, there's something else here. I walk around, I go around one corner, completely forget that I said that, turn my back to a different corner, and then immediately get eaten. It was great.
00:36:07
Speaker
Just start screaming and firing half of a clip into a wall. It was it was it was phenomenal. but Yeah. Come in. Come check me out. It's a lot of fun. Very cool. Yeah. I think that's a different kind of monster than the one I can handle. I can. handle This is more my speed, what we've been talking about here. But absolutely. Yeah. Go go check us out. Go check her out. And and the once every two weeks that I stream, come check me out, too, I guess. um That's that's all I feel like plugging. I don't know if you feel differently.
00:36:34
Speaker
Give us a rating on Apple podcast. That's always really nice. We do appreciate that. um Ask us questions. I think we have like a Q and A thing on Spotify. Yes, Spotify. We actually have a little set up that automatically after each episode will ask you a little, Oh, what do you want us to talk about next? um I went and caught up with some of those recently. So we've got a couple more things coming down the pipeline soon. um not Not as active. It's not a full social media process there, but it's a good way to to hear kind of how you you felt about the episode and what you want to see next.
00:37:01
Speaker
For sure. We'd love to hear any feedback, any of reviews or ratings. we We really appreciate it. Yeah, absolutely. um And we'll be looking forward to that. Looking forward to getting this all ready to go here. um But until next episode, I've been James. I've been Allison. And we'll we'll catch you on the flippity flip.