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Love them. I see some of them a bit too often, but it’s amazing to be surprised by new or situational ones!

 

Yeah, it has the "how did I do it? Because I want to do that again" angle nailed - there's a brilliant one in Yakuza 6: You throw a guy head first into a microwave in a shop and get the shop guy to turn it on, with guy still in it!

 

I had a surprisingly good MHW session today. Turns out the canteen, in its new souped up form offers meals that give a major stat boost - so I went after a high rank Anjanath, for The Proving quest, that opens up the Aloy armour set, with a meal that boosted my health + stamina by 50%, upped attack and defence and buffed the Palico. Still not an easy fight, but it was easier. Managed to whack him down to the low health status, then he decided to put a last fight before giving in to leg it to sleep. Found, tranqed and trapped 'im. Got a good set of rewards, including 2 Nora Brave tickets, last time I only got 1. 4 are needed for the armour and this quest is only available until 26 July as part of the Summer Festival special they've got on.

I then went and, somehow, captured a Urugaan, while using a Jagras Hacker on it! This is not the kind of monster you really ought to try doing up close 'n' personal. On the other hand, it was in expedition mode which makes my character practically immortal! I have as long as until said monster decides to leg it out of there - by using every trick in the book, including other monsters and a lava geyser, took Urugaan far enough down that he had to sleep. I legged it after him, tranqed then shock trapped him. In a bid to get another lava nugget, tried another go at the bastard. This time he legged it, slept and recovered enough health to no longer display the skull icon - **** it, he's going down, tranqed, trapped, he woke up pissed, but paralysed, two more whacks of the blade got him back down to low enough and whammo! Another one captured.

The one disappointment that came out of this is that I finally got to create Urugaan Greaves, only to find its armour level is already maxed out - I can't upgrade it further, which is a pain in the arse. On the other hand, it is better armour than what I have, so maybe I can get the other couple of pieces to also grant the armour set skill, which is supposed to be pretty hefty.

So, despite that, I am a lot closer to achieving the two goals of getting the Urugaan and Aloy armours. I only need 1 more Nora Brave ticket, then it's all normal parts that I don't need that specific quest for.

 

Started playing Beyond Two Souls this past weekend. I honestly don't think it's as terrible as people have said it was. Ellen Page's character has an interesting story; and even though she's got those special powers she's still very vulnerable and shouldn't be counted as a "Mary Sue'.

 

Well I could play some of the games I picked up in the Playstation sale...




So yeah, time to conquer Scandinavia. Thorus vult!

 

yakuza 0

 

Even though I beat it, I'm still playing God of War (PS4) and attempting to 100% it.

 

Continuing the previous theme:




Selling out feels good.

 

Octopath Traveler.

 

Well, good and bad once more on the MHW front:

Good: I now have the four Nora Brave tickets I had to get before the quest disappears. Means I can get the rest of the stuff from normal Anjanaths. Also captured Urugaan, which allowed to craft two more pieces of his armour, getting serious fire fire resistance.

Bad: Tried Nerg again and while the lance + armour stops 90% of his hits, he has this attack that basically ignores the guard and takes out 65% of my health. And that, combined with the camera being awful, means he still has enough to take me out in two hits. It’s at the point where I’m not sure a give a damn about doing him because it’s just not fun. He somehow managed to hit me while I was beneath him by bounding forward, with guard up. There is no better gear to get, no better weaponry, so I’m blocked.

The biggest problem is that this was supposed to be an “accessible game”, not a super-bastard like Dark Souls and Nioh, but it absolutely is.

 

So, how to put this? Ah, yes:

I BLEW NERGIGANTE’S ARSE SKY-FECKIN’ HIGH!

I have wanted that bastard dead for the best part of a month. I’ve gone to the extent of crafting dedicated weaponry that took advantage of its weaknesses, armour to nullify it’s advantages - both involved a good deal of monster carnage - slayed Tziki-Ya-Ku, hunted and captured Toba-Kadichi, captured Anjanath, killed Dodogama, captured and killed Urugaan, captured and killed Radogaan - all in pursuit of one aim: Killing Nergigante. And it has to be killed, this ****er can’t be captured. Nor do traps work on him.

So, started off better than anticipated then he he somehow got close so all his moves ignored guard - yeah, you can guess how that ended. Still, the kit was able to reduce his hits significantly - albeit with a full Chef’s Choice platter, Mega Armourskin and Mega Demondrug - which accrue to a significant stats boost. Believe me, you need it. Had a second faint, bugger - went on the third and final time, hit him a few times, blocked a lot of his crap and then, up it came, skull icon.

OK then, cue the Cheating Bastard Plan - hey, the game screws around six ways to Sunday, anything is permitted in return. Up to and including placing two super barrel bombs near his head, while he sleeps and detonating them! Once the bombs go up, leg it back to the camp and grab two more bombs. Make sure he’s gone back to sleep, give him a loud awakening. I did this several times and after the sixth or seventh pair of bombs went up, he died - and I carved all kinds of material off of his corpse!

After this, it turns out you get tasked with hunting three proper Elder Dragons. Thing is though, I don’t feel the drive to immediately annihilate this trio in the way I did Nergigante. In terms of MHW’s story, it’s fair to say Nergigante is the end boss of it in truth. It turns up in the opening cinematic, it turns up in each of the Zorah missions that follow and then, in the endgame, you have to kill this thing that has been shadowing you the entire time. It feels far, far more significant than the dragon trio, thus when you finally kill the bastard, it feels like a big deal.

Did I try that trio out? Of course I did. One thing that irritates is, on a first hunt, they do this introductory cut scene for each monster - but that also works against the point of the game. Would any hunter, as soon as they see their prey, go: Yoohoo! Over here! Because that’s what practically happens in this cutscenes. Second time around? You have full leeway to track and engage.

• Kushala Daora - Looks the hardest, flies around more and relies on air attacks - which suggest an obvious counter, if you but have the gear.
  
  
• Teostra - Likes to get up to close and personal, did better on this one, got a few hits in, avoided his instant kill supernova move a few times too. This one requires heat and flame or blast resistance, along with high-level evade enhancements, if I can get them.
  
  
• Vaal Hazak - Seriously guys, a zombie dragon? Ok, fine, I’ll whup its undead arse. Turns out he has a health debuff ability, think I can counter that too. Did manage to knock a couple of pieces off and grab the material. So, easily the best one by far.
  

Will they fall? Well, with a bit of luck and Batman-level preparations, a whole lot of preparation, probably. Each of the big fights exists, in part, to get you to understand the tools available to you and how they can work together. Nergigante is primarily a physical adversary that hits hard and hits often, this lot rely far more on flight and elemental damage in contrast.

Next? Well, next is probably playing some other games! I’ve put in around 120 hours into this thing at this point and it feels like a good time to take a break before it sucks me back in. The game is fiendishly addictive. You have a fight, have an idea of what makes it easier, craft the gear and go again and it plays differently. Zorah, this time? With 13 fire resist? Significantly easier. And that’s how it gets you, what if you used this weapon, with this enhancement, in combination with this armour and those stat-boosts and special skills? You keep running ideas through your head. It even allows you to save specific combinations! I haven’t done that as I wanted to kill Nerg kill but I’ll probably get around to it.

And there is that little matter of completing the hitlist for the Aloy armour set…

Even so, game world is now more-or-less totally opened up, save for the final boss, who gets their own, special custom arena for that battle.

Would I recommend this?

It is absolutely a love-and-hate game. While there, technically, is a difficulty curve, the criticism that you’re either doing comfortable fights or in-over-your-head duel to the death / capture is accurate. In this respect they could have made it far better. The game system would be very open to difficulty levels. It’d be easy to do - the difficulty level determines the gear and upgrade ability for it you have available.

Graphically, it is a masterpiece. At one point, I was fighting Nergigante on a damn lava field! As he was pounding the ground, lava came out in response, splashed everywhere - it looked amazing! Also, really, really distracting when you’re fighting a six-limbed dragon demon! For all its takes time to understand the maps - and yes, it is very frustrating when you don’t - they do fit together very well indeed. They’ve gone for quality, not quantity. When I walked into Teostra’s lair, the graphics went up another notch.

Gameplay - Can be massively frustrating on a regular basis due to how nerfed your “hunter” is and the litany of ways the game has to stun you. Monster roars? Stun. Get hit too often? Stun. Earth tremor? Stun. Mini-tornado? Stun. Blinding flash? Stun. Similarly, your character, unless they have the specific speed-up skill, does things slowly - this includes healing and dealing with status effects. You have to draw and sheathe your weapon and the camera will not be your friend. And yet… And yet… That central loop is bloody addictive and the monster fights all feel suitably epic.

Is it mainstream and for everyone? No. No way at all. It belongs in the super-bastard category to me, but they’re selling it as this mainstream, accessible game - it really isn’t. You can call a game that I had a 45 minute boss fight in accessible - no, this is for a certain gamer only. If you think that’s you, you might end up having quite a time but don’t do what I did. Unless you’re really confident in your skills, don’t buy digital.

 

Still playing Beyond Two Souls and I've gotta say I like the storyline. The PS4 remaster gives you the option of playing the game in its original order or chronologically; I chose the original order. The controls are someone suspect but overall Jodie's character and the people she's interacted with are interesting. Can't complain about Willem Dafoe nor Ellen Page; that's for sure.

 

Well, managed to nab the exclusive armours before MHW’s Summer Festival ends on Thursday. Though, it seems likely they’ll do this on a seasonal basis having done Spring and now Summer. And the exclusive? It actually made up for the bastard fight I had with the Tzitki Trio - and yes, all three of them went at me. It was a messed-up, bastard of a fight - but they all eventually went down. Also got the Shadow Bandage from the Shamos quest.

The only potential target left, if I think I can take out Low Rank versions of Rathalos and Paolomu in the arena - which might be easier, as their freedom of movement is far more restricted in that environment - I get the blueprints for a rocket-powered greatsword! Yeah, going to have to give that a go now. Especially as the Shadow Shades armour I got tonight allows up to 3 decorations, which means three skill additions - opens the door to all kinds of combinations.

The other point to mention is that it gives a very different picture to how “games as a service” can work. Generally, the concept has been linked to all manner of dodgy corporate activity, including microtransactions and loot boxes. MHW hasn’t done this for anything major, I know they charge for some cosmetic aspects, but you can’t pay to win. Instead, every time they’ve added a new monster, they have added quests for it, armour for it, probably low or high rank or both and 14 weapon variants - all free of charge. The next addition is Behemoth from FFXIV. The only problem with some of the additions is they are locked behind high hunter rank requirements, where you have to be at the endgame or have beaten, which is the one flaw in this. But even so, they’re still not charging for it.

 

So:

I Swore I Was Gonna Quit This Goddamn Game But Failed - Part 1

Damn, I thought I was out. The Summer Festival was over, all the special quests gone - I can take it easy and play something else, right?

Er… Well, about that…

There was the hanging matter of crafting the Aloy armour, yes as in HZD Aloy - which was one of the smarter exclusive deals going on the PS4 version of MHW.

I had also, in the last days of the Summer Festival, had a number of unexpected wins:

• I nabbed the Black Crystal shades, with 3 gem slots, which is major. Most armour only has 1-2 slots.
• I got the Black Eyepatch, which amps up Fire Resist.
• I nabbed the Azure Star Longsword
• I got the Shooting Star lance.
• I took on Anjanath enough times to get the 7 Nora Brave trophies for both Aloy’s armour and bow.
• I took on both a low-rank Rathalos and Paolomu and actually won!

Turns out if you do Arena event quests, you do get to use your own gear which isn’t so for Arena quests generally. What it doesn’t tell you is, on these quests, you will be in a restricted location with multiple monsters! So, over the last week I took on 3 Tzitki-Ya-Ku at once, all high-rank, but with 100% stun resistance. Took on Paolumu and Rathian, with poison immunity and high fire resist. Even so, the fights were insane.

The other thing that irked is I’d kill one of them and figure I can carve the corpse later. I mean, it’s a corpse, it’s not going anywhere, right? Wrong. Corpses can and will vanish in the arena, which is sodding irritating. Still, the big gain from the Paolumu and Rathian fights were I got the 5 Master Craftsman Blueprints for a, no joke, rocket-propelled Greatsword. Went and forged that and yeah, it lived up to its rep as being an insanely good weapon.

Also did a quest in the Special Arena, the difference? More confined still, but it has weaponry! So, took on Yaku and Tziki and had a cannon loaded and aligned. Got a good line on them going at it - whammo, 5 cannon shots hit 'em both. It also has a Dragonator but, compared to the one on the Zorah quest, it was about a fifth of the power. Also tried high rank Anjanath and I’m certain they upped it, because by now I’ve done this guy over a lot - this one hit a damn sight harder. So, stuff that.

Still, got all the stuff, so nothing to draw me back, yes? No. I didn’t have the Aloy armour, still had to duff up Anjanath for the materials. I did that this morning, 3 quests, 3 captures - finally, I can get the set. Not only that, but you can seriously upgrade it too - if you but take the time to do so. You can see where this is going.

Not only that, but the Aloy armour is not weapon-restricted! I thought it might be, but it isn’t. So, for the last couple of hours, Aloy has been running around the world of Monster Hunter wielding that rocket-propelled greatsword!

Now, with the festival gone, there’s new, replacement quests - one of them gives a higher drop chance of decorations, but that drop chance is not restricted to the specific quest. No, instead it applies to hunting any of the set creatures, in optional quest or investigation, as well as event quest. So, for the hell of it, Aloy bashed the crap out of Great Jagras - from just 2 quests, I got 5 decorations, which is way, way up. Which specific gem you get is random, but I got some really, really good ones - including a Miasma gem, which if I get more, could really help on one of the Elder Dragon fights. So, it’s now, for the next week, until Thursday, open season on Great Jagras, Great Girros and Dodogama!

Just when I thought it couldn’t get more mad, I upgrade the rocket greatsword. The result was off-the-scale - I charged up a big hit on Great Jagras, he got hit for 500 damage! That is far greater than any hit I have done to date. So, ran around in expedition mode and killed it twice more, but no gems. Suffice to say I really like this new sword.

 

Been playing this old Bungie classic on my PC most recently

 

Still playing Persona 5 though sometimes it’s only for mere moments a day. Only on 2nd major dungeon. I’m glad I didn’t stop playing. Haven’t turned my Scorpio on in months now. Need to try to get back into MHW and Halo 5. This console has honestly just been a huge waste of $553.

 

I Swore I Was Gonna Quit This Goddamn Game But Failed - Part 2

So, did a succession of quests tonight, some kills, some captures - the kills with this nuts Greatsword were faster than expected, as were the captures.

The gem drops? Were quite random - on the other hand though, I’m up to 3 Antipara gems - so giving full Paralysis protection if equipped and 2 Poison Immunity, just one to get Poison Immunity left, if I get lucky.

The big win was taking on a Great Jagras, Great Girros and Dodogama in the restricted space of the Special Arena and winning! At some points it was frantic chaos with all three trying to whack me and each other. Other times Girros was stunning the other two, or Dodogama was doing flaming boulder bombardment while I was healing or sword sharpening. Got just two gems out of all that! So yeah, it really is random luck.

And yeah, the corpses vanished very quick too.

Still, a good run, got more gems than I had, some that aren’t that useful but can be used to create ones that are.

 

I Swore I Was Gonna Quit This Goddamn Game But Failed - Part 3

Had an amazing go on MHW this afternoon.

Having found my Wyvern Ignition greatsword to be excellent at killing just about everything that walks in Monster Hunter World, for the hell of it I decided to try it on super-bastard Nergigante.

At first, it didn’t go too well - got carted, went back to it, he managed to cart me with his supermove, though I was able to successfully block it - still a hit, yes but not a one-hit KO.

So it all came down to the last run - managed to whack him down to skull icon, legged it to his lair, blocked super move and, at this point, I’m going full offence, whacking him as often as I can. Then, he died! First time ever. Sure, killed him before, but that by the bomb sneak method, this was a full-on, greatsword stand-up scrap. And it turns out I still don’t quite have the parts for his armour, but am closer and do know he can die now. With better evasion and protection, it might become easier still - just have to get the gems to enable that or charm parts.

After this, I then went and smashed the crap out of Jyuradoctus, twice - which got the parts I was after, but I still need to get a load of low rank parts to get the weapons through the upgrade tree.

 

There's a new Stardew Valley update so I'm checking that out. I guess it adds this strange thing called "multiplayer," but that's a secondary feature as the main focus is obviously on giving my horse a cute hat.

 

Planet of the Apes: Last Frontier. Got it got about £6 in the sale and it is basically an interactive movie where you make choices and these affect the outcome later (I suppose). So far so good, on Chapter 3, the graphics are a little slow to render (I am playing on ps4), but that might be because it is hot out so the PS4 is working overtime trying to keep cool!

 

Monster Hunter World: The Elder Dragon Chronicles - Part 1

If we’re going to do this, let’s do it - full Klingon-style intro: Warriors all, gather round and harkon to a tale of glorious battle, terrible beasts and death!

Stuff it, can’t keep that going Martok-style, it’s exhausting.

So, had quite a time today.

First, Teostra - this hot bastard, literally for he be a fire dragon, I had a plan for. Stack up fire and blast resistance as much as possible, attack/defence boost, ancient and max potions in addition to the usual set, have heat guard armour for the environment, evade or block - for full Urugaan armour allows blocking of unblockable supremoves, like Teostra’s supernova - and the game is not kidding about that. I also went and recruited Galajaka support and then went after him.

Even with all this, it was still one almighty scrap, but a lot of his hits were blunted from what they were doing before. The flame resistance was particularly useful in nullifying his fire aura hits, though there was still blast damage to watch out for. The strategy was simple: Hit and run, along with legging it when he went nova - though I did block a couple of those. Not easy, still a huge hit, but I was still standing after it.

After a sustained span of whacking him over multiple locations, skull icon came up! This was unexpected, so I pursue to his lair. What followed was utterly ****ing insane, with the lair having lava cracks that explode with flames all over the place and this is where the fight had to be finished. By this time, it’s into full “one shall stand, one shall fall” territory and it wasn’t going to be me falling, cue full offence, he kept taking it, I kept giving it and, after he had received much of “the gift”, he finally died.

Then on the results page, it turned out I’d killed him one go. No faints, no carts - just whacked his arse good.

Following this, I decided to see what effect the sole Miasma gem would be against Vaal Hazak’s cheap crap health debuff move. The answer is some but nowhere near enough. There is armour that has health debuff protection, but it requires Vaal materials. This is MHW Catch-22: In order to kill enemy, you need resistance perk you can only get from having killed said enemy. Or can you? Turns out there is a Palico gadget called the Plunderblade and it allows your Palico to grab monster parts in battle, which you get to keep even if you loose! Now I had a plan, did one run, lost, but got some stuff.

Reviewed the charms I had and noticed I could upgrade the Blessing charm, which does damage reduction on attacks, first to 15%, then 30% then 50%. So went and whupped the hell out of Paolomu, upgraded the charm and then found I could get it to the max - 50% damage reduction from attacks. Right, that ought to give me a good chance to kite Vaal while my Palico harvests his organs! That was the plan. The plan didn’t work because…

I killed Vaal.

I didn’t expect to kill Vaal because I was without the Palico vigorwasps that I tend to rely on. It also saw me go through my entire stock of Nulberries, potions and Megapotions, plus a couple of Max potions and an ancient potion, plus a recrafted new set of Megapotions. Anybody would think I was fighting a zombie dragon with a huge health debuff… Wait… I was.

Turned out afterwards that Vaal had a major weakness to fire and I had fire attack as an extra gem on my rocket greatsword! Well, how about that? I’m not complaining.

After this, I did a handful of small, easy quests to get armour spheres and restock my now blasted supplies.

So, to my surprise, two of three elder dragons are down. The one left is Kushala, who, save for plunderblading, I don’t have a plan in the same way as Teostra and Vaal, but it’s probably going to involve using that max protection charm, full stun resist and evasion, with evade window included - that specific combination might work. I don’t yet have it, but know how to get it so that’ll be next.

Today’s run showed up a bit more subtlety of the game, in that you can get parts from enemies you haven’t killed in order to have a better chance against them. Similarly it shows how if you work out a good combination of interlocking skills, it helps far more on the toughest beasts. I didn’t ever expect to do both dragons in one go, as I’d had huge difficulties with Nergigante. I certainly didn’t expect to pull it off with less than total protection against Vaal’s moves and lacing Palico health regen.

So yeah, quite the run on this today.

 

Monster Hunter World: The Elder Dragon Chronicles - Part 2

So, I went and took on Kushala Daora, the last Elder Dragon and quickly resorted to the cheapest method possible to win - flash pods. Why? Because the thing is a pain in the arse. Vaal you can find a way to negate his ability at least partly, if not all, similarly Teostra with high blast, heat and flame resistance but there is no corresponding skill to deal with this bastard’s tornadoes. In the final part I was running around, pulling a flash pod, running up to hit it and then trying avoid being hit while not being able to see much. Graphically, the tornadoes were superb to look at but a total pain as a tactic. In the end he nearly got me, I legged it off the cliff, I healed and climbed back up, she was back to snoozing so I hit her in the head fir 300 damage, she woke up pissed, another hit and she was dead.

After that it was weird, I was hoping for a new armour upgrade tier - didn’t get it. New optional quests? Very, very few. The game pretty much funnels you into doing the final story quest straight away as there’s nowt else to do.

So, the final boss - utterly massive dragon, but somehow remains incredibly agile! While you can mostly avoid its attacks, its amazing how frequently something so massive goes off the camera completely. Did I try it? Yeah. Did a strategy of hit and run, heal, sharpen, hit again work? Yes. Eventually. The criticism of this fight is that your enemy is MHW’s version of a bullet sponge, you keep hitting, he keeps going. One thing is for sure - for all that it was a pain to get, I can’t see myself having been able to take out the Elder Dragons without the upgraded Wyvern Ignition broadsword. A couple of times it hit this thing for +500 damage, which increased the odds in my favour.

This did open up a new armour tier, quite a pricey one and new meld options, but it consumes material and I’m not sure how I obtain it again. Hopefully, not by having to duff up Xeno’Jiva.

When I got back and went to the Workshop, it was quite satisfying seeing all the weapon upgrades now named and exceedingly few ??? ones. There’s a couple due to DLC content but that’s fine. Plus some of those quests will likely return for the Autumn festival in a short while.

So, the DLC? I already have Deviljho open. To open up Kulve requires being online, so that’s out. Getting to Lunastra requires taking out a Teostra and, having done four elder dragons in two days, I really can’t be arsed. Maybe in a week or so. The aim is only to identify and get it registered.

I did try the new crossover FFXIV content. Just about managed to do the first quest, involving a powered up Kulu-Ya-Ku, which’d be fine except they gave the thing the ability to leap through solid rock! And amped up its attacks far too much. I get the clear sense I shouldn’t have been trying it, but still killed it. Then I got introduced to the walking pile of bull**** that was Behemoth. They’ve set it so this thing casts high-level FF spells, along with major physical hits. It also appears to have major health regen, as a couple of hits somehow hit it for 1000-1100, hits that should have made a dent and the quest was only to drive it off. Instead I get killed 8 times by meteors, tornadoes, lightning and other crap - it feels like a quest designed for multiplayer because unless you’ve got mad skillz - I don’t - solo you have no chance to even drive it off.

I sort of expected the DLC to be full of crap and lo and behold it was. Do I care much about not completing it? Nope. I got far, far further than I ever expected to. Took out enemies I never expected to. All save DLC armour / weapon options are available and identified, all regions opened up, the main story complete - yeah, I’m content with that.

I probably have some canteen quests to do, some camps to still find and build and there’s various weapons and armour I haven’t developed but want to. Of the 14 weapons, I’ve only used a bare handful - bow, longsword, greatsword, lance, that leaves 10 for whenever I like. Still got Aloy’s bow and armour to upgrade, for the bow I need the quest to return. So, no shortage of optional stuff.

There is a long, grind of an endgame which doesn’t appeal to me. It involves going after Tempered Monsters, which is the next rank after High Rank. But in order to go after them, you have to find traces of them in the world and these traces may open up an investigation for you to take them on. If you are successful in taking out this bigger, badder version it might drop gemstone(s) and a streamstone, but nothing’s guaranteed. Gemstones, when appraised, randomly become a decoration, it’s entirely luck of the draw as to what you get, if anything. I don’t know about you, but I like more definite rewards for taking out bigger, badder monsters.

Then there is the next quest that involves taking out two, yes two, Tempered Bazelgeuse! I haven’t even taken out the normal version, never mind a pair of its steroid-overloaded buddies. So, yeah, stuff that too.

And if you spend loads of time getting used to the Tempered Monsters, which will likely see OHKO and other cheap crap, guess what follows? Yes, you guessed it, Arch-Tempered Monsters. Yeah, stuff that lot as well.

What impressed me about the transition of Low to High rank was the way the environments changed, as did the monster patterns. The new armour system was far deeper and more intricate. In contrast, this feels a far lesser transition to bigger monsters but a reward system based on even more random luck. Rumour is Capcom is working on a new area DLC, which given the quality of those done, both micro - for core quests - and the five world locations, is of far more interest to me.

So, some stuff still to do sure, but on the whole, after just under 150 hours of play that ran the entire emotional gauntlet from hugely satisfying to screams of frustration? Yeah, I’m done with it for now. Will keep an eye on the exclusive timed quests and drop in on those weeks they are active.

 

So, the MHW maths:

• Started playing just before the end of April
• Have just hit a really good end point start of August
• Just over 150 hours on the game clock
• (Though you can’t ever pause this game so some of that 150 hours is needing to take a crap before starting a long hunt fight)
• Even so, this means, roughly, 50 hours per month for three months straight.

Sure, I knew the game was addictive. It’s been years since I’ve been so hooked by a game, that central gameplay loop is quite something and that’s before it really starts building on it with gusto, which only amps up the addictive, but 50 hours a month? Even allowing for the short evening session and big weekend plays, the figure looks like overkill - and my to-read pile of trades proves that it is!

It’s also the hardest game I’ve done in years. After my experience with the Behemoth quest, I’ve looked online for answers - for which there are few because that quest is literally two days old. The DLC launched 2 August. Turns out I also found some posters raging about the Kulu quest being next to goddamn impossible, which makes me feel quite satisfied as I just did that bastard, it was very close, but it died.

The last well-known hard bastard game I did? Has to be Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 on Easy, which was nothing of the kind. Before that? Probably Killzone 2, on easy - again, nothing of the kind.

 

Jesus, I thought my 50 hours in Persona 3 was a lot.

 

How the hell did you beat P3 in only 50 hours?