Now Playing: Danganronpa - TriggerHappyHavoc

 Alright, alright

 I'm running on borrowed time, seeing how I've a test in a few hours and ANOTHER one on Saturday, so I could only put a few minutes into the game. I'll be honest, I've watched a few videos about it, but I never understood much what it was, it seemed like a Phoenix Wrigh-ish game? Ah well.

 The art isn't particularly good, but after a while it grows endearing, I'm also liking the diverse cast of characters, hopefully they aren't as stereotypical as they look as they look at first glance.

 All in all, the few minutes I played, I got interested. So... yeah.

Month Overview: April 2016

 Tally:
Senran Kagura - Estival Vs                          6.0
Metal Gear Rising - Revengeance                     8.0
Valkyrie Profile - Lenneth                          7.0
Silent Hill 0rigins                                 7.5
Silent Hill Downpour                                7.0
Silent Hill - Book of Memories                      3.0
Toukiden Kiwami                                     9.0
Samurai Warriors 4-II                               8.0


 It was an interesting month. A lot of Silent Hill, which was really neat, except for Book of Memories. I also started Mass Effect, but tests started as well, so... Yeah, it'll be a while.


 Game of April:

 Toukiden Kiwami is badass. As a matter of fact, I'm still playing it, instead of studying, to this very day. And it looks as if I might spend a chunk o' May playing it as well. It's hard to sell a Monster Hunter clone to somebody who isn't into the series, I mean, let's be honest; they are games about defeating the same 5is-30ish minute long bosses over and over again, in order to carve their parts, and make new equipment pieces, only to get to the new Boss and do the same things all over again. But part of the excitement comes from the fact that the biggest deciding factor in these fights is skill and not your equipment. This game is a lot easier than Monster Hunter, so the feeling isn't as pronounced, but it feels so good when you defeat a Monster by the skin of your teeth, and then on subsequent hunts, you, the player, learn to defeat them more efficiently. It's incredibly rewarding, both thanks to how badass the new armor pieces and weapons are and how good it feels to get good. Althoughbattlesinthisgamereallyaren'tthathardbutstill.

 Runner-up:

 I may have scored a few games higher than this one, heck, I think even Silent Hill 0rigins was a better game. Buuuut, on hindsight, after getting to digest this game a bit... I think it was really good. I've learned to appreciate the mechanics, like having Silent Hill open for you to explore, filled with sidequests to finish. It's definitely a different take on Survival Horror, and I don't think I quite appreciated it when I first played it. I helps that the game places a heavy emphasis on water, particularly rain, and I decided to play the game when it was raining, so the parallels between the game and when I played it made it all the more... delicious.
 Bottom line is: I think I've learned to like it more after finishing it. As a Silent Hill game, it leaves a little to be desired, particularly in monster design, but it has a few interesting ideas that were executed well enough

Review #323: Samurai Warriors 4-II

 And now, for an actually decent Musou game...

 After Ken's Rage 2's poor showing, I was scared; was I finally getting tired of the Musou genre? I mean, I've probably played more of these games than most people on the west, and while they are not as similar between each other as people make them out to be, the basics are the same: Mash that square button, with the occasional triangle tap, and mow down hundreds upon hundreds of runts. Well, Samurai Warriors 4-II has its fair share of new ideas, and they work out pretty well.

 The game's story is... if you care about story, you're better of playing vanilla Samurai Warriors 4. 4-II's story is divided in 13 campaigns, made out of 5 missions each, although there's a few repeats here and there, some being identical repeats at that. These stories seem to be noncanonical, with a few even contradicting each other, so I must insist, if you care about a more faithful representation of the Sengoku period's history, you'r better off with vanilla SW4. Speaking of vanilla, I didn't play the original release, so this is my first, and only, taste of SW4 and.... some of the character designs are atrocious. Naotora Li in particular is unbearable, with one of the worst personalities in a Warriors game EVER, and Koshosho.... what... what the beep where they thinking? Another thin to keep in mind, is that there are no alternate costumes or colors, barring towell outfits for Naotora and Chokosho, because Japan and Fanservice go hand in hand, god forbid they forget about pandering.

 The first, and best, new addition is the Hyper Attacks. Warriors games always give you a single chain of attacks, done by pressing square, while you can use triangle to finish these combos in different ways, which is why I like to call the triangle the 'modifier button'. Well, Hyper attacks are dashing, high-speed attacks chained by tapping triangle, with square giving you different ways to end the hyper attack combos depending on when you press it. Hyper attacks are a blast to pull off, and allow you to cover a lot of terrain, quickly, while scoring dozens of kills. That said, enemy generals(The enemies that have proper names instead of being cannon fodder) will reflect hyper attacks, and trying to use them in high-morale enemy areas(Areas displayed in red in the minimap) will result in them doing less damage. It makes sense, they are rather overpowered, but the thing about the morale system... is that characters are divided into types: Power-oriented characters get multi-triangle finishers, Normal-oriented characters get longer square chains, Special-oriented characters get different unique skills, while Hyper-oriented characters get longer Hyper attack chains. The problem lies with the morale system.

 Y'see, sub-missions are back. These absolutely ruined Samurai Warriors on the 3DS for me, since they kept bringing the game to a halt. Luckily, now you can turn off the game-pausing notifications n the options menu. Anyways, successfully clearing them will lower the enemy morale, and thus decrease their red areas. Problem being that it's rather easy to screw yourself out of these missions. Maybe you killed someone right before the mission told you not to. Maybe you went in a different direction and you are now too far away to complete it. In these cases you will have to deal with red areas, which can really handicap Hyper oriented characters. Yeah, I'm not much of a fan of sub-missions, since I don't like being told how to tackle the stage, but it's downright annoying having to deal with red areas just because you decided to venture too far away from the next objective. For what it's worth, on the easier difficulties, red areas aren't too bad.

 The other big change comes in the game allowing you to pick two different characters for each stage, and you can change characters on the fly by tapping the select button. And you can also give them simple orders by tapping up on the directional pad. They work well, and it's fun being able to cover more ground at the tap of the button, just keep in mind that if either character dies, it's game over. Musou Attacks have been changed as well, previously(At least in SW3 and Chronicles), you had to hold the Musou Button to pull of the attack, now you simply tap it and the character executes it... but there's also a Rage mode. There's a 5 tier gauge that can be used to dodge certain attacks, break enemy guards, or when filled, activate rage mode. You do more damage, and you get a different, stronger, Musou attack. Lastly, defeated generals may drop weapons, horses or tomes. Weapons and Horses are enhanced by 'fusing' them with other weapons or horses of their type, but tomes are used to enhance your character, by spending them on a grid. There's a ton of different passive and active skills to earn, and I actually really liked the grid system.

 Lastly, after you are are done with Story Mode, or replaying stages in Free Mode, there's a new mode, Survival. Survival is made up of two different towers, which you must climb in order to gain loot, unlock a few characters and... bragging rights. I rather liked the mode, each tower has different 'challenges' or goals, and it gets harder as you go along, and dying means losing your loot, which is why after clearing every floor you get the option to turn tail and keep your spoils. There's also a fairly decent create a character mode, although you can only use your character in Free and Survival Modes.

 The Vita port runs surprisingly well. When there's a ton of units on the screen, a few may disappear, but it's not too bad, and the framerate is decent. It can struggle a bit in stages with water, but it's fairly consistent 30 fps or so most of the time. I mean, it's not perfect, but it's playable, and it's great to finally have a decent Warriors game on the go, after Chronicles left such a sour taste on my mouth.

 Samurai Warriors 4-II takes a lot of steps in the right direction for the franchise. It's a fun game to play when all you want is mindless action. That said... what's up with some of the character designs? And what's up with Naotora? Do we really need waifus in Samurai Warriors? I guess the poor story is excusable considering this is a side game.
 8.0 out of 10

Now Playing: Samurai Warriors 4-II

 What the Japan happened to the characters?

 So I finished Naomasa's campaign and played the first one in the Yukimura brothers', so I've more or a less a clear idea on where I stand with this one.

 What I did like was the gameplay. Hyper attacks? 10/10. It's a fantastic, satisfying way to traverse the battlegrounds while shredding away through normal enemy troops.
 I hated how Samurai Warriors 3DS worked, stopping the action every single time a sub objective popped up. It really ruined the overall experience for me. They are still here, but you can turn off the game-stopping notifications on the options menu. Thank god.
 I've played with a few of the new characters, and I like the new movesets. It never ceases to amaze me how Koei can keep up pumping new movesets for every single Warriors iterations. Sure, they are not particularly deep or extensive, but they manage to feel different. Well, they Hyper Attacks are a bit more homogeneous across the board, but it feels nice to use them, and the square strings are still unique, so it's forgivable.

 What I didn't like were the character designs. W... where do I start? Character designs in Musou games have always been anachronistic, but they still felt as if they belonged together while feeling feudal in nature. Now we have this:
                                        
 What. The. Flying. Beep. Is. This. Thing? No, seriously, explain that thing to me. It'd be one thing if it were an alternate DLC costume, but it's her main costume. I'm... I'm at a loss for words. And then there's Naotora Li, and she's a mess. He design is fine the way it is, but it's her personality where it falls apart. She's the clumsy, shy waifu type. In real life, she was supposed one of the very, very few women who rose in power in feudal Japan, she was a woman to be respected. Here she is a laughingstock of ridiculousness. Every single time she opens her mouth makes me want to drive my head against a granite column. And let's not even get into the fact that she looks way, waaaay younger than her son, Naomasa Li, and more immature than him. For a Japanese developer, the Musou games have never been too pandering, a few designs might've been a bit questionable, but nothing too ridiculous, but it seems they went full Japan with this game. And then there's Kiyomasa Kato, he was my favorite character in Samurai Warriors 3, but for this game he went Super Saiyan, and he looks stupid. I can't stand to use him because of how dumb he looks. At least there's a character creator.

 All that said, thankfully, I don't really care that much about character designs here. I never cared much for the Samurai Warriors/Sengoku Musou characters, since I never found a character that I really liked. As long as these type of designs don't find their way into the Sangoku Musuo/Dynasty Warriors, we're going to be just fine.

 Basically, I like the game a lot. I dislike most of the character designs, yes, but at the end of the day, it doesn't affect the gameplay, where some of the changes they made I felt were fantastic. I wan the Hyper attacks on Dynasty Warriors, because it feels so good to charge around mowing down dozens upon dozens of enemies.

Review #322: Toukiden Kiwami

 Playstation's answer to Monster Hunter.

 Capcom may have brought, exclusively, the Monster Hunter series to Nintendo, but Playstation fans have now got a substitute in Toukiden. Soul Sacrifice was a nice alternative to MH, it was the same type of game, but with relatively different mechanics, Toukiden, on the other hand, is as close to Monster Hunter as you can get without being a rip-off.

 If there's one field every Monster Hunter clone has bested Monster Hunter in is on the story, and this game is no exception. Basically, a few years ago the 'Awakening' happened, which brought demons, or Oni, into the world, and now humans fight for survival. You play as a new arrival, a created character of your choice, to the Utakata Village, and quickly prove your worth as an Slayer. And y'know, being one of these games, your character actually has some particular abilities unique to himself that quickly make him stand out from the rest. On the hunt you'll be joined by 7 other hunters, each one having their own story arc to go through, and while they are not mindblowing, they are interesting at the very least. I absolutely loved the Japanese art direction they took, Oni are clearly inspired in Japanese folklore and ancient art, while the armor pieces are very, very Japanese,

 I've seen this game described as 'Monster Hunter meets Dynasty Warriors', and as someone who has invested quite some time on the Warriors games, I can safely say that they are wrong. This game isn't even remotely similar to Dynasty Warriors, except, maybe, on the armor designs. The game follows a very simple formula: Go out with up to three CPUs, or players, hunt a big bad boss, get its drops, forge armor and weapons for said parts, slay the boss again and again until you finish your set, and move onward towards a new boss. You don't really need to complete the armor sets, but you get special bonuses for full sets. Plus, most of them look really cool. On the game's defense, the grind seemed much more lenient than on Monster Hunter, bosses don't have as many different drops, and the drop rate for even the rarer drops wasn't too low. That said, you are bound to come across the lack of certain rare drops from rare small enemy spawns that are gonna drive you insane, but there's enough, although not a lot, of information online regarding enemy drops, rare enemy spawns and shiny pickups from each environment. And, if what I've said already didn't make it clear, Monster Hunter clones like this require a hefty time investment, while boss battles start relatively easy when compared to its peers, as soon as you hit Chapter 6, missions will get longer, and some drops will get rarer. As for the game itself, Chapters 1-7 took me about 30 plus hours, and then there's the Kiwami content(8-15) that lasts just as much, and then there's the Online missions, that can be played offline with CPU allies, which are another 15 phases. There's a lot to do in here.

 The game offers a more than decent amount of different weapons, and they each have different styles: The twin knives allow for easy aerial combos, fists allow you to deal extra damage if you time button presses, and rifles allow for distant combat, to name a few. There's bound to be at least one type of weapons that suits your style. Regardless, none of the movesets felt as... deep as movesets in Monster Hunter, but the game plays much, much faster which I liked a lot. The game also offers a ton of customization thanks to Mitama, orbs that grant the player passive effects, as well as different 'spell' set ups. And there's a ton of different spells, and once you get high tier weapons, you can carry more than one Mitama, which allows for a bigger spell pool, of up to four, and even more passive skills, up to three per Mitama. And these allow you to heal yourself, enhance your strength or even temporarily allowing you to leech life off enemies. It's also a lot easier, not only do you have 3 useful CPU allies that can revive you, but you can send your Tenko, a foxy creature of sorts, before each mission to gather materials from the environment, and if you send him to the stage the mission takes place, you may run across him and he'll aid you in battle! And, later on, you will also be able to send party members on previously cleared missions from previous chapters to gather even more materials, including boss materials.

 What sets it apart from Monster Hunter and its ilk is the Purifying system. You can't just damage a boss, not outright, instead you have to sever the physical manifestations of their body and purify them. You can use your mind's eye(Select button) to see what can be severed and how close to the fact it is. But once you sever a limb, you have to purify it, by standing over it and holding the R button until a gauge is depleted. If you take too long, the boss may absorb it back to their body! Dealing damage will increase a weapon gauge, CPUs have their own shared gauge as well, and once filled allow for powerful Destroyer attacks that will instantly cut off whichever limb they hate, but if you miss your target, you have to fill the gauge back up again. Regardless, once a part is purified, you will finally be allowed to damage the boss by hitting that body part. Bosses also have 'rage' meters, and when filled they glow purple, and any attack, anywhere, will hurt them directly. Lastly, bosses have alternate forms that they access after fulfilling certain conditions, some just require them hitting a certain HP percentage, while others will do it after losing all their limbs. It's fun, as some forms can be widely different from their normal form. What's not so fun are the subspecies, for the uninitiated, these games tend to have color variations of the bosses, and they usually have different patterns or attacks... here, they don't. They are exactly like their normal versions, but with different elemental attributes, and maybe more health and damage output.

 I think I may like Toukiden more than Monster Hunter. I think the Mitama system is better than having to produce and buy items, like potions, or whatever. It's more convenient and less time consuming. time better spent hunting monsters. While on Monster Hunter you have to catch bugs, with a net, minerals, with a pick-axe, fish, with a rod AND be on the look out for shiny spots on the ground, here you need only look for the shiny spots on the ground. Sending Tenko to the different environments, and party members on missions for even more materials help alleviate a lot of the unnecessary grinding, which I also found both convenient and smart. I like having actually useful party members, as opposed to silly little critters with limited damage output and uselessness of deciding to cure me after I healed me myself. And if you want to go oldschool, you can simply leave your party members behind. That said, I wasn't a big fan of the purifying system, however, the CPUs are relatively smart, so you can just focus on hacking and slashing away while some of them go stand over them and purify them for you,

 Toukiden Kiwami makes Toukiden - Age of Demons obsolete. The one immutable law of Monster Hunter clones is: It will have an enhanced remake, and this is that. It's got the entire vanilla game included, but it's also got more mission(Twice as many), more monsters(I think twice as well), more weapon types, and alongside the new bosses, new armor sets and weapons to craft from each. And you can carryover your AoD save. Basically, there's no reason as to why you shouldn't get Kiwami over vanilla Toukiden.

 Toukiden Kiwami is a fantastic game, it just might be my favorite Monster Hunter clone yet. It's probably the easiest one as well until you get into the latter chapters, some of the optional missions can be downright brutal. However, as much as I liked the game, these games are very, very repetitive, and as much as the game tries to alleviate the grind, you will eventually have to fight a boss more than once to craft that shiny new piece of armor, which is something to keep in mind. Regardless, for Monster Hunter fans that like the genre not exclusively for the challenge would do well to give it a look.
9.0 out of 10

My Favorite Playstation 3 Games

 Here's the gist of it, in this world there's only one constant I'm entirely subjected to: Change. I am a person, and right now I'm not the same man that I was when I first began writing, heck, that guy wasn't even the same guy that wanted to write this in the first place! What I want to get to, once I stop digressing, is that this list is how I feel right now, at this very moment, so when and if I feel like making this list again, and knowing myself I probably will, it might change.

 So, what is that list? These are the games I liked the most on each particular system, this time around the Playstation 3. These are not necessarily the games I consider best, but the ones I liked the most and the ones I have the fondest memories of. For these lists I tried to stay away from multiplatform games, or from ports. I tried to, but in a few cases it was impossible to.

 As a matter of fact, avoiding multiplatform games was nigh impossible when discussing my favorite games on this system, since it seems most games are multiplatform nowadays... which is not necessarily a bad thing, since more people can play more games!



10) Assassin's Creed 2

 Assassin's Creed 1 was... underwhelming, to say the least, but Assassin's Creed 2? Hot damn! The parkour system was perfected, feeling smoother than ever, there was a ton of game to explore, and a lot of sidequests to fulfill and a ton of things collect. And this is a personal preference of mine, but I loved seeing the different armors reflected on Ezio. The story and presentation were pretty good as well, sure character models were a bit lacking, but the environments were gorgeous, which is all the better considering the huge amounts of exploring you were going to do.

9) Infamous 2

 I'm not sure about what I was expecting when I played Infamous 2. Infamous 1 was a fun game, with an excellent plot twist, but a mediocre story. Infamous 2 not only has a better story, but made the gameplay much more fun. Differences between 'Evil' and 'Good' powers were much more pronounced, and now you even got to experiment with Ice and Fire. I remember doing the 'Good' playthrough, so I got stuck with the lame Ice powers... and then I earned the 'Ice Shotgun', which not only was pretty damn effective, it also felt amazing to use. And that's one of the game's better strength: How good it feels to play it. Just moving around using all your various powers feels amazing by itself, but the combat moves are just as fun to use and experiment with.

8) Deadly Premonition

 If you were to take apart the game and dissect it piece by piece you'd end up with... with a mess of broken pieces. At face value, you wouldn't be wrong in saying that the game is pretty bad. And it is, but it's the 'so bad it's good' kind of game. Clearly inspired by Twin Peaks, it takes the insanity of its citizens to 11. Every character is memorable thanks to their quirks and storylines, and the game itself is just so damn endearing, with Francis York Morgan being among my favorite characters ever. Ever. I'm a huge advocate of gameplay over story, but this game has mediocre, if not terrible, gameplay with an insane story full of personality and memorable moments. And not everyone will 'get' the game, and that's alright because it's not a game for everyone, either you'll end up hating it for being so bad, or you'll learn to love its craziness.

7) Killer is Dead

 Disclaimer: Suda 51 is my favorite director ever, his crazy style is something I simply adore, and just as with Swery 65's masterpiece, Deadly Premonition, his games are not for everyone. That aside, I don't know if Suda 51 set out to do it on purpose, but with Killer is Dead he managed to mix elements from both No More Heroes and Killer7 on an entirely different product. It has the artstyle and some of the themes from Killer7, but with gameplay more akin to No More Heroes, Killer is Dead is like most Suda 51 games: Incomprehensible and shallow on the outer surface, but if you are willing to look deeper, you'll be rewarded with a fantastic story, and I do recommend going out of your way to find some of the explanations people have written about it, there was this piece about how the story was related to chess... as well as a decently deep combat system that encourages avoiding damage in order to get stronger attacks.

6) Journey

 I said it before, and I'll say it again: The three hours I spent on Journey were some of the best hours I ever spent on a game. A very minimalist game, but one that is a joy to experience. It's so minimalist that there really isn't a lot to say about the game, it's fun, it's interesting, it's engaging, it's gorgeous and it's even a little emotional. It's phenomenal.

5) Uncharted 3

 Assassin's Creed 1 was alrightish, but Uncharted 1 was vomit inducing. Then came Uncharted 2 and holy chipotle, it was great. And then came Uncharted 3. A lot of people argue that Uncharted 2 is a better game, often citing the story, and it's true, Uncharted 2 has a better story, no in small part because, when it came to Uncharted 3, they though of scenes and set pieces and built the game around them. But y'know, when it comes to videogame's, in my book, gameplay triumphs over story almost every time. So I don't care that the story isn't as good, all I care about is that this game has some of the most exciting scenes I've ever played in a videogame, period. If I wanted a good story I'd read a book, or watch a movie, but when I game I want exciting gameplay, and this delivers in spades.

4) The Evil Within

 I've mentioned in a previous list just how much I adored Resident Evil 4. Well, take Resident Evil 4 and make it even better and you get The Evil Within. The story is interesting, the environments are creepy, ammo is relatively scarce, but when the actions begins, it doesn't let up. I've seen a lot of people saying that the game isn't proper horror, but personally, I thought that it had enough horror elements and enough action elements as to properly work. But then again, this year I've been playing tons of Survival Horror games, and spoilers, I always ended up with my inventories full of ammo, heck, I'd argue I had more ammo problems in this game than in any Resident Evil or Silent Hill I played this year.
 But I digress, as per usual, I enjoyed the hell out of The Evil Within, it was one of the best games I played this year, and of the best I've on the console.

3) Darksiders

 Man, Darksiders... Darksiders was something special. It didn't have a single original thing to its name, but every thing it borrowed, it worked fantastically, and it meshed with the other elements perfectly. I loved the story, the settings, the characters and Joe Madureira's badass art helped a lot in bringing its world to life. As for the gameplay, it's God of War meets The Legend of Zelda, and it works surprisingly well, earning new tools to access new places was fun, as was traversing the various different settings of a post apocalyptic(Literally!) world. The combat wasn't as combo heavy or as deep as other hack and slash games, but it didn't really need to, it's as deep as this game required. It also received a sequel, that added a ton of welcome mechanics, like deeper RPG elements and even loot, but the setting wasn't as interesting, and a ton of the sidequests were a bit too vague. Regardless, it was a quality game, and regardless, they still owe us two games, at least.

2) Mobile Suit Gundam Extreme VS Full Boost

 I've talked about these games, nay, about this franchise a lot in my blog, because I really do love it. Heck, I've even made posts describing how I felt about each unit on vanilla Full Boost and Gundam Vs Gundam Final Plus, because I have a blast trying every unit. And the reason I love this games so much is that they feel as if they had been made for me. I love the arcadey, fast paced action with the emphasis on 2 on 2 fighting over all kinds of terrains. It helps that I've always liked Gundam designs, and these games have(Usually... cough Extreme Force cough) an enormous amount of different units to play. I adore this franchise, and I'm still waiting for a console port of Maxi Boost.

1) Borderlands 2
                                         
 The other franchise I praise a lot in my blog: Borderlands. I'm not particularly fond of first person shooters, but somehow, somehow, fusing it with Diablo was a genius idea. Millions of different guns, interesting skill trees and classes, a fantastic art direction and a whole lotta game to go through make it one of my choice games. And one of the things that really do it for me, is the excellent multiplayer mode, and what makes it so good are the many different skills that are meant exclusively for this mode, like healing bullets. You heal your teammate by shooting at him. You shoot at your partner to heal him. Genius. Oh, and the co-op? It's local.

Now Playing: Toukiden Kiwami

 I guess Omega Force wanted a break from the Warriors series?

 There's an spoken rule when it comes to Monster Hunter games: If thee are worth thy salt, thee shall haveth an upgradedeth rerelease', which is sort of appropriate considering Capcom, Kings of the Updated Rerelease, more or less created the genre. And no, I'm not even gonna get into the PSO VS MH debate, because it's not worth it. Regardless, Toukiden Kiwami is Toukiden's updated rerealese, and considering I didn't own a Vita during the original release, I have not, and will not, played the original release.

 Anyways, I just did the first two missions and these are my initial impressions:

 - It's really fast, feels more like Gods Eater Burst than Monster Hunter, when it comes to speed.
 - I seem to be missing my attacks a lot. This didn't happen in GEB or even in Monster Hunter. Hopefully it's only an issue with the small, fodder enemies.
 - I love the eastern setting, what I've seen of the armors look straight out of their better Samurai Warriors designs, like Mitsunari. It's like everyone is a different variation of Mitsunari, and I love it.

 All that said, I'd lie if I said that I liked it, missing my attacks all the time isn't very fun. I mean, let's be honest, the objective in these games are the big, bad monsters, but so far, it hasn't made a good impression. I was also a bit let down seeing that it's gonna be a gathering game when it comes to upgrading, and I understand how hypocritical it is of me to complain about that when I praise Monster Hunter so much, but I think it has to do with the fact that I actually enjoy Monster Hunter, sure, hunting 10+ Lagiacruses waiting for that random drop was a bit of a pain, but having each hunt being easier and easier, since I was learning how to fight it, made it rewarding. Regardless, the game hasn't hooked me yet, so maybe, and if it hooks me, I won't see it so negatively!