monster hunter

AggroChat #115 – Murder Hobo: The Video Game

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This week Ashgar, Belghast, Grace, Kodra, Tam, Thalen discuss a bunch of stuff, some of it not Pokemon Go

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This marks the second week of the majority of our cast being completely enthralled by the apparent phenomenon that is Pokemon Go.  So as you would expect this weeks episode is a hefty bit of our hosts recounting their recent experiences.  Pokemon Go is a story engine, and we have many stories to tell as a result.  Additionally we talk a bit about Augmented Reality gaming in general, and whether or not Pokemon Go is the “Everquest” or the “World of Warcraft” of this genre.  This week also saw us “getting the band back together” as it were and raiding for the first time in months in Final Fantasy XIV.  We discuss our feeling about raiding again and the hopes of what we might accomplish in the coming months.

Grace and Bel made their way into the Legion Beta finally for World of Warcraft so we discuss a bit in the way of the set up for that expansion.  Bel talks at length about his experiences playing a Demon Hunter and why he thinks this might be a class Tam would actually like.  Tam deftly deflects and turns the discussion back around to the story of Final Fantasy XIV and our feelings about what seems to be the wrapping of this expansion.  In other news we discuss two similar gaming experiences in Necropolis and the brand new chapter of the Monster Hunter saga.  Finally we get into a length discussion about the ramifications of Pokemon Go and what it might mean for Nintendo and accepting that the mobile platform is actually viable.

Topics:  Pokemon Go, Augmented Reality Gaming, Everquest or World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy XIV Raiding, Legion Beta, Demon Hunter, Final Fantasy Story, Necropolis, Monster Hunter, Nintendo Mobile Gaming, Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow.

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On Triple-Carting

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If you’re aware of Monster Hunter, you’re probably also aware of Dauntless, a very similar PC game that’s coming “soon”. Dauntless was on display at PAX South, where I got a chance to try it.

Unfortunately, my first chance was pretty short. Like Monster Hunter, too many defeats for your team means your hunt can come to a premature end. This number seems to be 5, which sounds less punishing than Monster Hunter’s 3, but came extremely quickly. When you lose all of your health in Monster Hunter, you get a nice long while to think about your mistakes as you get sent back to base camp (in a cart, hence, “carting”) and have to run back to the party. Dauntless allows you to revive teammates on the spot, which leads to two problems: you can go down while attempting this revive, and the newly-revived, not-at-full-health teammate can go down again almost immediately. It sounds like getting back into the action faster is an improvement, but it doesn’t go well with the game as currently structured.

On Triple-Carting

It’s not all bad. Areas seem to be a lot more open than Monster Hunter, the hunt area is contiguous instead of divided into subzones. Weapon selection is very limited right now (the demo only had 3 options), but more are on the way. The dodge roll has a lot more invulnerability, so it’s easier to use aggressively. Monster design is excellent, which is probably one of the most important parts.

I think Dauntless has the potential to be a good game, but in a demo setting with absolute beginners it didn’t feel great. I’m curious to see if they stick with this format, or adopt something like Monster Hunter Online, where downs only count against you personally (you get kicked out of the hunt if you go down 3 times). We’ll see what develops.