ZRaiyne

Strange. Reviewers say this game is awesome, but i would have to disagree. It is indeed solid, but nothing close to the experience and the polish MH4U had. If you are a veteran of older titles prior even to MH4U, then you'd know what i mean. From what I've played so far, the game takes two (2) steps forward in terms of gameplay, but takes three (3) steps backwards in everything else. I am no newbie to the title, but i am no extreme veteran either. My current record in this genre: MH2 - 90 hours MHFU - 550 hours MH3rdP - 320 hours MHTri - 200 hours MH4U - 470 hours (and counting) MHGenerations - 40 hours (and counting) Let's get down to it. Story: 3/10 - "What the hell is going on." What MH4U accomplished as a great narrative of a hunter traversing locations with NPC's that feel involved in your world and with monsters that fit into the context - MHGen completely erases. There is no story here. You are in a map. You are given quests, a butt load of dialogue with vague descriptions, minimal (recycled) cut scenes, and no milestones for progression aside from a text bubble here and there. Eg. I was given access to ALL towns on the get go and am given tons of filler dialogue that i just got tired of reading. Palicoes aren't even introduced properly. You wouldn't even know you had to hire a cat if you haven't played MH4U or the older games. Transitions are just too clunky. Graphics: 8/10 - "Looks awesome, but MH4U looks better and shows more creative effort/production value." Same graphics, but the new Jungle area feels abysmally generic. Those big Brontosauruses, in spite of their sheer size and armor plates, provide nothing but RAW meat. The towns from the older titles (which is accessible for all immediately) haven't been touched nor retouched, so they feel VERY out of place and provide nothing but nostalgia factor. The hunting areas from the previous game don't blend well with how the new content looks too. Textures though of higher quality now appear to be extremely generic and barren, not to mention if you look at cave walls it is impossible to miss the recurring patterns of bad texture maps. CAPCOM did not even make any attempts at re-texturing the old content to use the potential of the 3DS. Gameplay: 10/10 - "Hunter arts are awesome! No, really they are awesome." Hunter Arts are awesome. (period) The variety they provide in terms of gameplay feel fresh. However, you cannot configure the menu on the second screen for only two (2) arts. So if you only use two (2), you have a dead square that should've been used for other utilities. You could use one (1) tile but you have to switch it often to know if the arts are triggered. NO other more efficient notifications of charged arts. Interface: 7/10 - "What's up with the that bright glaring background on the 2nd screen?" When MH4U came out, i saw the potential of clearing your screen and move all distracting elements to the bar below. However, in MHGen despite being able to do that, you are faced with a BRIGHT background that is a pain for the eyes on dimly lit situations. Your second screen is brighter that your main screen for crying out load. Overall: 7/10 - "This game is good, but MH4U is awesome." MHGen gives too much homage to nostalgia. Content and polish are there, but are there on a selective basis. Game lacks a workable story and G-rank making it rather short. It seems they just stitched 35% of the older titles for no reason and that's it frankly. You as a hunter have no role in this world. Compared to MH4U, this game feels like a bridge to the future MH5 . No effort on immersion has been done unlike MH4U that introduces the genre to new players and veterans alike. In fact, if you are a new player, i would highly recommend you pick-up MH4U first before deciding to play this game. Killing monsters is always cool mind you, but I've been playing monster hunter for so long, a few tricks like moves and stuff don't impress me compared to polish, accessibility, and simply the quality that is present all throughout MH4U. Again, with this game out, Monster Hunter 5 should be just around the corner. Hopefully that game brings the same polish as MH4U has.

Let me open this review by stating that this game is NOT Supreme Commander (all iterations of it included). It might share some of it's looks and scale, but it is far from it. Before moving on with the review, it is good to keep an open mind that this game is different from any recent RTS'es that have come out. Different in a good way. At first i thought it needed a couple of months more of development before an actual release. It felt a bit lacking in polish in some aspects that i would expect to see in a modern RTS title. Seeing however the speed and dedication the developers put into these constant updates post launch (upon this review we are at 1.1), i have to retract my initial thoughts and say that these guys know what they're doing. Support them for they are an awesome company. Diving into the game, i found that this is a great game. A great, well-balanced, solid RTS game that will NOT be for everyone. Especially those who are do not like learning curves. It may share similarities to many well known RTS's like Supreme Commander FA and Supreme Commander 2, but still manages to be its own game by introducing unique mechanics that feel fresh. Again, it may look like Supcom, but it plays very differently. It's quite difficult to go into detail, because this is the first MACRO focused real-time strategy game out there in the wild. It focuses on the larger aspect of battles - aka wars - rather than micro managing units to win short skirmishes. Supreme commander is a big game too, however this game features units that behave according to their squad type, size, and overall composition. In this game, masses of units will move and fight accordingly in proper formation. When i say that armies go easily into the hundreds. This is an important aspect of the game that can either be good or bad depending on your expectations. Not to mention that your mileage on these experiences will vary depending on your history of RTS's played. This game is no Supreme Commander FA, no Starcraft, no Company of Heroes. It is it's own - and by experience i can say that this game pulls it off well. One of the best things about this game that is worth admiration is the development team behind it. As I've mentioned above, they provide CONSTANT updates and TRANSPARENCY on thepath the game will be taking in the coming weeks and even as far as months. The developers show that they have the best intentions for the customers and as such they are active in the forums. That alone earns "Three thumbs Up" in my book. (I had to grow another thumb, lol) Why does this deserve such praise? Simple. Many RTS's and even the newer batches, (I'm talking about you, Deserts of Kharak!) seem to run away with your hard earned money and purposely ignore the requests on their forums. Another thing that makes this game awesome? The AI. That glorious AI. So, what about it? It's brilliant, in the literal and figurative sense. It works magnificently and will adapt well with whatever you throw at it. You will get pummeled at NORMAL difficulty at first... or forever depending on how good you are at adapting. That is a pleasure no other modern RTS's can even hope of coming close to. In summary, for anyone looking for a challenge, massive wars, and a fresh approach to the lacking RTS genre, this game is the perfect package for you. Again, a word of warning; you will lose against a NORMAL AI that doesn't cheat. It is by far the best AI i have ever seen in a strategy game (aside from the latest iterations of Sorian AI). So come - and be baptized! ;)

The GOOD: 1. Graphics. It's realistic and furnished to perfection. 2. Atmosphere. It's great! Immersive story telling that bridges itself wonderfully with HW1. 3. Physics. It's definitely more polished compared to HW1 and HW2. 4. Combat. Combat looks and feels authentic (at first), much like HW1 and HW2. The BAD: 1. Interface. It's massively underwhelming. No escort patterns. No siege arrangement line-ups. No smart-formation movement and strategies. No firing distance preferences. No distance info when you press the move or even in the zoomed-out view. No ETA for units who are ordered to move from point A to point B. 2. Clipping. There are noticeable clipping issues with units and weapon line of sight firing. Eg. Harvesters stack with each other. No harvester docking animations. 3. Path-Finding. It's decent if you group similar smaller units together. Mixing them up however with slower heavier units then it gets pretty bad; horrendous even in tight spaces. 4. Units. Same unit types for both sides plus the fact that there are very few unit types present. It's like a demo. 5. Detail. No main-ship and carrier sub-system building. No specific unit part targeting, eg. Sub-system targeting to disable movement, weapons, or research. 6. AI (skirmish/MP). The AI is nothing but an auto-pilot attack everything rush type. It stops building units and harvesters midway even in the harder difficulty settings. Single player AI is mostly scripted. 7. Maps (skirmish/MP). It has what, 5 very uninteresting maps? really?! 8. HORRIBLE PERFORMANCE. For such a barren landscape with so few units, performance is horrendous. The latter missions plummet to single digits even when i turn off every video detail. I play the game at maxed everything and I have a good rig, mind you. I run Witcher 3 and every other game that's been released on ULTRA settings at 2560x1080 just fine. I'd give it a 6/10 for now, because it feels like a single player demo. Plus, it's unoptimized as fudge! Some missions run smoothly others take nose dive! It's definitely a step back from HW1 and HW2 when you look at it as a whole. Terrain height and line-of-sight gameplay isn't anything new in this genre. Company of Heroes, Dawn of War 2, Supreme Commander Forged Alliance/2, Ground Control 1/2, and even the classic Total Annihilation all have it. Company of Heroes and DoW2 do it better too as there is an angular projectile deflection modifier per shot that is taken into account. In this game, ballistics seem to perform like lasers. The game has... polish with its looks, most definitely, but so little content to be considered a true successor of the Homeworld franchise. (Until the paid DLC's come-out at least. LOL) It's way too expensive for its asking price with the content that's currently available in this initial release. I don't understand why such an old engine with updated textures taxes current generation gaming computers. I don't remember a game this unoptimized since Neverwinter Nights 2.