@unastrike and @janman: Idk if it changes your mind or makes you feel less bad about the wirebug count, but the "shared pool" feature of it is definitely because of game balance. The fact that the wirefall recovery move is so SO powerful of a tool means that if you had a separation between the mobility and attack skills, you would literally never be in danger of carting.... and that 100% goes against what MH as a series has been doing in terms of their action and difficulty.
Also, you really wouldn't be using the mobility wirebug actions other than wirefall during combat, which is when you would want to be using the combat wirebug actions, other than in some limited situations (e.g. shaking off the hellfire blight).
Yeah I'm really thankful that there's at least someone that reps MH on this site, but Jason is absolutely terrible at showing off how the game works, despite claiming to be a big fan.
Like... I get it if you hate the tower defense minigame (I'm not a big fan either), but way to color people's opinions by going into it by groaning and moaning. Not to mention... Of course it's going to look dull as hell and the area would look smaller if you're only using the back half of the area. It's a kind of unsolvable problem with personality-driven reviews, but it's frustrating knowing that some people are going to rely on a misinformed reviewer to make a decision on a game.
I really appreciate the passion Jason has for MH, but his explanations just seems so rambling and off-point... it really feels like he needs someone to bounce his thoughts off of first.
Some thoughts:
Isn't the food (the dango) capable of extending health and stamina just like the rest of the games, and the spiribirds are more like optional powerups to make the hunt easier if you wish?
The multiplayer system won't be an issue since they separated out story quests and multiplayer quests again. The only reason it was cumbersome in World was because of the "story" cutscenes (which I feel that people should have been doing solo anyways).
Yes, the MH series has multiple teams of devs. Rise started development before World even released, IIRC.
Said this before, but no, Rise isn't a "mix of old and new MH". Pretty much every system that matters to gameplay is similar to World (aside from the completely new stuff of course), and the only thing that people can point out being "like the old MH games" is the graphics and cheerful aesthetics. The former is a hardware limitation, and the latter is merely an aesthetic choice.
Also an opinion, but the wirebugs being a shared resource is a perfectly fine decision. The "recovery" move after being knocked down is WAY too powerful of a tool for it to be always available, and the actual traversal uses won't be something you'd think about a lot during combat. Even if you do (like when shaking off Magnamalo's fire), it works to balance the risk and reward of that choice.
I've heard the whole Harvest Moon vs. Story of Seasons thing before, but man this looks dreadful. Considering the new Story of Seasons game doesn't look all that great graphically either, it's a real shame that such a classic franchise is being looked after so poorly...
Ys8 is what I like to call a "fastfood game"... It doesn't do anything too special or revolutionary, but sometimes, that super simple, tried and true format reminiscent of PS2 era games is very comforting and addicting. A game designer type probably wouldn't care for it much since it provides nothing in terms of nutritional value (i.e. game design ideas), but for the common folk consumer like me, it's surprisingly pleasant to experience once in a while.
Not to mention Ys8 is probably one of the more refined entries in the recent Falcom catalogue. I've heard not too great things about the writing quality in recent Trails games, but Ys is much less story heavy compared to Trails, and has been actually fairly decent with what it does have... at least to where I've played of it. (I was actually running a blog series on this site where I play through the Trails in the Sky trilogy, but I hit a THICK wall near the end of Sky 2 due to god awful writing... and if the recent ones are worse than that.... Sheesh. I'm on a multi-month pause because of it, but I do intend to finish the series eventually, as I still think there's something that shines underneath.)
Sad to see you go Ben! I think I started listening to the bombcast right before you joined, so it feels particularly wild seeing the entirety of someone's career at a site and how they influenced and shaped the content coming out of it. Best of luck with wherever you're headed to next in life!
As for the MH Rise stuff: I've been playing these games for what... a decade now? and have poured hundreds of hours in every entry I've played, so I think I can claim some level of credibility when talking about it, but... Seeing Jan and Jeff's reactions is exactly why the fanbase, and particularly older fans that call themselves "veterans" (always hated how that became a thing, reeks of elitism and self-importance), NEED to stop talking about "old style MH" as if it's something entirely different from where the game is now. It's true that World looked very different from the previous games, but the real core of it never changed; It is still and always has been a game that shined through its unique depth of combat and gear crafting, and surface level things like "segmented vs open maps" and "standing vs walking while healing" doesn't make it into a different game. If anything, it was clear that the devs always wanted to take the games into the direction it's headed in now. Little by little, we got small QoL improvements that made the game systems get less in the way of the player, letting them enjoy the actual meat of the game. Different "styles" of MH isn't a thing... What happened in World was just the natural (and admittedly large) incremental improvement on a long running series. Hell, when the "veterans" were claiming that Rise was a mix of "old" and "new" MH when the first trailers came out, all they could point out was the portable-level graphics and the flatter terrain. (The latter of which is a dubious observation anyways, since it's just that the map has large flat areas embedded within a very complex and not flat map) Like I said, I love all these games, but this whole obsession with the "old" games is detrimental to the series and just confuses new players.
For the sake of covering my bases: The armor skills and how that system was completely overhauled is the one thing that I think can be qualified as "old and new styles", with clear benefits and demerits to both. The devs have said they are aiming for something that takes from both implementations, so I'm very excited to see what they come up with.
Edit: Oh also Jason, you might want to stop short of flat out saying "MH Rise will come out on PC" just yet. Yes, it's 99.99% going to happen, considering the Capcom leaks, but they're still leaks, and not confirmed by Capcom. I think it's fair to say it's better to phrase it as "it's most likely coming to PC."
@stanek1:As someone that is only a handful of months away from 29, getting my suspicion confirmed that there's a visible difference between 23 and 28 is... more depressing than I thought lol
Ohhhh yeah baby, I was waiting for someone to stream some MH ever since quarantine started. There's already some good advice out there, so I'll just point out a few things I noticed in the stream:
Make a habit of gathering the resources you run across, especially the mining spots. Those ores are very important for upgrading equipment, and you'll thank yourself later when you think "Oh hey I want to try out this new weapon/updgrade tree... And I need 5 malachite ores for one of the early upgrades! Good thing I have 100 of those!"
Those plants or rocks that turn into items like "--- pods" aren't items you keep on you; They're just ammo for your Slinger. There's not much point in picking up more and swapping them out unless you have a specific Slinger pod you want to use (e.g. swapping out rocks for scatternuts because they can flinch the monster reliably). You can see which ammo type you have equipped at the bottom right of your screen. Also, important tip: Slinger ammo you bring with you as items, like flashpods, can be equipped without dropping the "natural" ammo you have, such as rocks. You can equip/unequip these "item" Slinger ammo whenever.
You can carve most large monsters 3 times, and sometimes more if they're "Elder Dragons" or other particularly large types of monsters.
Look into using the radial menu item shortcuts. It's very handy!
You're going to hear this over and over, but you should go look for weapon tutorials on Youtube; You were having a lot of fun with the CB there, but you've only scratched the surface of what it can do!
Also, here are some basic systems tips that I like to tell people, mostly about the options menu:
Under "Game Settings", you can adjust how your character shows up when obscured, whether to show your headgear or not (gotta flaunt that pompadour), and whether you want your Scout Flies to snap your neck around every time they acquire a target.
Under "Controls", you can turn on/off "auto-sheathing" (I like turning it off). But more importantly, change the "radial menu settings" to Type2. This means you use items in your radial menu by pressing in R3 instead of when it flicks back to neutral. I have no idea why they made the latter the default, but it's SO PRONE TO ERRORS.
Under "Camera", change the camera style to "Target Camera". The default, Focus Camera, is absolute garbage for this game. When you lock on to a monster with R3, Focus Camera will automatically keep it in the center of the screen, which mean you get to have your orientation f*ed up every time the monster lunges. Which is to say, VERY OFTEN. Target Camera means your camera can be snapped back to the locked on monster by pressing L1. On a related note, I suggest you change the "Target Settings" to "Large Monsters Only", which will only let you lock on to large monsters, and setting the "Camera Distance" to "Far", which will zoom out the camera a bit and let you see more of your surroundings.
Bonus: Under "Audio", I suggest setting the voice and sound effects a smidge lower, and bumping up the BGM relatively (and set the Dynamic Range to Wide). This might only be good for your personal enjoyment since you have to set most of the volume pretty low for streams; But I think the music in this game is top notch, and letting it get a little more breathing room from the sound effects makes the fights feel SO good, IMO.
Sorry for the wall of text... Hope you have fun with the game Jan! It's hands down my favorite game of the past few years.
Ooo if I'm not mistaken, the Japanese actors for Jin and his uncle are the actors for Zoro (onepiece) and Snake (MGS) respectively. I know Jason and Alex probably wouldn't have much familiarity with those voices, but that's pretty cool that they have such high profile talent in there. Makes it an even bigger shame that the animation and presentation apparently don't accommodate for it.
@rvone@ripelivejam: Yeah I agree with RV there that Sekiro isn't as difficult as people made it seem (Though it still is on the more difficult side of character action games). I doubt the whole "Sekiro needed an easy mode" discussion would have been as prominent if the game spent more time trying to get people to use the shinobi prosthetic tools more often. Maybe it's because I like those kinds of games, but Sekiro very masterfully rode close to that super fine line between unfair and satisfyingly hard, in the best way possible.
The conversation about actually using consumables is something I thought about recently when playing Sekiro. The soulsborne genre (though I hesitate to call Sekiro a part of that) has that feeling that nothing is permanent/infinite, so players (or at least I) tend to hold on to consumables and rely on the one thing they infinitely have, i.e. their swords. But actually using them makes the difficulty of those games MUCH more manageable, especially in the case of Sekiro.
Honestly, the whole "Sekiro needed an easy mode" conversation probably wouldn't have happened, or at least wouldn't have been as big, if it convinced players to use their spirit emblems much more liberally.
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