| Monster Hunter Wilds | |||
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| Release Date | Gameplay & Story | Pre-Order & DLC | Review |
Monster Hunter Wilds dropped yet another beta test! Read on to see what the new features have to offer, the new monsters you get to hunt, our review of the new monsters, and more!
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Monster Hunter Wilds Beta 2 Review
An Even Bigger Tease
Capcom decided to tease the fans with yet another beta test, primarily focusing on lobby functionalities, additional monsters, and crossplay. However, they warned fans that the second beta would continue to run the first beta build. This means that the performance issues in the previous release will still be present, as well as the other weapon changes and fixes that were revealed before.
Solo Lobby, Crossplay, and More
One of the biggest issues in the first beta was the forced online-only lobbies. Players were experiencing lag in the Base Camp alone, mainly because of the number of players that were loading in. This current beta tested out the Offline Only Lobby and the Private Lobby functionality so that they could stress test this feature. In my experience, I was able to smoothly play through the given quests in the comfort of my private lobby. Here’s hoping that no one experienced any game-breaking or network issues with this feature, and if they did, hope that Capcom can fix these issues quickly.
The new beta also allowed for crossplay between PC, PlayStation, and Xbox. On my end, there were no network issues that plagued me during my playthrough, so that’s a good sign on PlayStation, at least. It’s amazing that the game finally has a synchronized release across all platforms with crossplay enabled, especially since this is its first time doing so.
Another big addition to the beta was the Training Room. It has all of the essentials a Hunter needs to practice a weapon of their choosing. Similar to Monster Hunter Rise, it has training dummies to help you practice perfect parries, dodges, and other similar timing-specific skills
Other than these lobby features and the existing features that were included in the previous beta, the current beta includes two new monsters to slay: the Strange Bird, Gypceros, and the White Wraith itself, Arkveld. Let’s go over the returning monster first before tackling the flagship.
The Strange Wyvern Returns
After going through the first part of the demo where you slay Doshaguma, you’ll gain access to the quest to slay the Gypceros. To the uninitiated, it’s a returning monster part of the first game that didn’t make it in the newer games; a strange bird wyvern that has a lot of tricks up its sleeve. The Gypceros is capable of inflicting many status ailments and faking out Hunters with its attacks, making it an annoying monster to deal with. Additionally, its skin is made of rubber, meaning that Thunder element weapons and Shock Traps are useless against it.
Having had the privilege to play the past games, however, I was already familiar with its trickery and attacks enough to be able to know what was coming.
In addition, it has a unique ability to blind its prey and predators with the use of the crest on its head, where the wyvern strikes it and emits a blinding light, leaving its enemies dazed. It can also use poison; one of its moves involves charging toward you while spewing venomous spit. Lastly, it’s ace up its sleeve is playing dead before faking you out with an attack if you get close. This attack does a significant amount of damage and can knock you out if you’re not careful.
It’s great that the Gypceros is back to annoy players who have yet to encounter it, especially since the newer generation has yet to see what it’s capable of. Also, it’s great that they’ve announced even more returning monsters like the Congalala, Yian Kut-Ku, Nerscylla, and more. Each of them is still memorable with their unique traits, attacks, and appearances. Examples of these are the Congalala’s fart attack, the Yian Kut-Ku’s beak attack, and more.
Fighting the White Wraith
As explained earlier, the beta gives you a sneak peek at what it’s like to fight Wild’s flagship monster. After defeating the Gypceros, players can finally fight the Arkveld. However, it comes with a tough stipulation: the quest has a limited time of twenty minutes. In comparison, the game’s standard is usually fifty minutes per quest. Granted, you’re not expected to take that much time to finish a quest, but it does give you a lot of leeway to avoid rushing the hunt. With a short amount of time provided, you don’t want to waste it on anything else other than dealing as much damage as you can.
Heading into the quest, I was already under the impression that you’re supposed to be undergeared. However, the game does provide you with enough tools and items like traps, ammunition, curatives, and the like to slightly level the playing field.
My expectations were already shattered by how smoothly it moved around the battlefield and how the storm didn’t affect it one bit. It was a unique wyvern, and its appearance and movements made it all the more intimidating, with how it used its chain-like appendages and limbs similar to Ivy Valentine from Soul Calibur. Additionally, it can also channel explosive energy on its appendages, which effectively makes its attacks even more threatening than it already is.
While this can be called recency bias, the Arkveld has already become one of my favorite flagship monsters only after a short time. The combination of its intimidating appearance, smooth animations, flashy attacks, and visual design makes it worthy of its flagship status, much like the Tigrex, Nergigante, and the like. Wish I could say the same about its music, though, since I could barely hear it during the quest.
Admittedly, it kicked my ass more times than I would like to admit. Despite having a forgiving amount of lives, I failed the quest a few times since I was still learning its attack patterns. Additionally, there were instances where I failed the quest by timing out. The monster tends to change areas frequently, and by doing so, wastes a lot of time. Granted, I could’ve stopped it in its tracks by using a flash bomb, but I used the time to heal myself or sharpen my weapon instead.
Failure after failure, I was learning. I learned how to maximize my damage in certain segments, as well as how to dodge certain attacks. The latter is especially important since my weapon of choice, the Dual Blades, has a damage buff that activates after dodging an attack in Demon Mode. I also made use of the natural traps that the terrain provided to deal as much damage as I could.
After a grueling amount of attempts, I was able to take it down—but not without help from other like-minded Hunters in the same boat. While I’m certainly going to try and take a crack at fighting it with the goal of taking it down solo, I’ll settle for this small victory first.
The 28th Can’t Arrive Any Sooner
With the promise of weapon changes, better performance, and more, I wish the game would come out sooner rather than the 28th. Performance issues aside, it’s already looking like the game will be an instant hit and that Monster Hunter is truly back. With three weeks left of waiting and more features and monsters to reveal, Monster Hunter Wilds might make an even bigger splash than World and Rise did, maybe even combined.
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