Monster Hunter: World Review

 One of the oldest franchises of computer boss-butlers has decided to move to the tabletop format. What came of it?

 MHW:TB has two game modes. In arena mode, a group of hunters (chosen by you, with pre-selected equipment) fight a selected monster once. But the main game mode is the campaign, during which you hunt a lot of monsters, and at the end you face a super boss. In other words, it's a boss battler like Kingdom Death: Monster, Townsfolk Tussle, etc. Up to 4 hunters in co-op fight card-controlled AI monsters, turning the best carcasses of the slain into gear to fight even stronger monsters. A base company lasts 25 days (longer if you add expansions or combine two bases), but one hunt usually takes just under an hour, so 2-3 game days can be played in 2 hours of play.

 The first thing you'll see in the box are the monster miniatures. The quality is excellent by board game standards; little detailed, with more or less hidden seams. It is nice to paint them, but even if you are not a fan of painting, you should at least paint them with a dark shade so that the details are more visible. In particularly large models (Rathalos in the Ancient Forest) the wings lie separately. I was skeptical at first and expected to have to resort to glue or magnets to keep the inserted wings in place, but surprisingly they hold up well. True, the pegs of the Rathalos stand had to be cut by half an inch so that the wings fit a little tighter to the body.

 There are other components under the loopholes. The hunter miniatures are not inferior in quality to the monster miniatures, although lime green is a strange color for the model (hunters are so easy to distinguish from monsters on the field). There's a stack of decks, rules and adventure books, a two-sided field, and forge memo cards for each hunter (including one for Wildspire Wastes in case you decide to combine the two bases).

 The organizer is a little disappointing: the cards in the protectors do not fit into the corresponding notches, there is only enough space to "save" the progress (in the campaign mode) of two hunters, and it is not very convenient to store the cards somewhere separate from the miniatures of the hunters lying in the organizer. And I don't like the vertical slots for the cards either - I would prefer the horizontal ones, considering that part of the deck is individual for each hunter. There is only one notch for many different tokens, which is also not pleasing. There are a lot of typographical errors on landmarks, cards and adventure books - not so much critical as frustrating. Fortunately, SFG is already releasing a pack with fixed cards.

 The campaign mechanics are quite simple and at the same time work well. You have 25 days in the base (the rules recommend spending at least 20 days hunting). With the addition of Elder Dragon or Kula Ya Ku, the limit increases by 5. It is also possible to combine both bases and get a large campaign lasting 45 days.

 Although each player has their own character progress sheet, there is fortunately little fiddling involved: you only need to count the number of available resources and keep an eye on potions. There is space on the sheet for equipment if you want to write it down, but since each item has its own card, it's easier to put the cards into their respective decks after the game. Although if you keep track of the equipment that was crafted in the forge, you can recreate the hunter from scratch. The pace of the campaign is quite strange. 25 days seems a little excessive (however, the rules suggest reducing the number of days if you want to increase the difficulty); players exchange resources and armor freely, and the campaign rewards you with resources fairly generously, so you rarely need to individually hunt down a monster specifically for the gear you want. It is also surprising that when combining the base, 20 days are added to the campaign. Equipment is divided into 4 tiers (5 if Elder Dragons are added to the game), each hunter in the base has two identical "trees" of equipment T1 and T2 - ore and bone. In the base, each hunter gets T3 and T4 weapons from two specific monsters, so when combining sets, your hunters will most likely only need 3-4 monsters out of a dozen available to max out, even if they decide to mix and match armor or want to get multiple weapons . from one shooting range (there are reasons for both). As a result, practically doubling the length of the campaign turns the game into a fairly easy walk, unless of course you are burning with the desire to hunt down all the monsters purely for the sake of the process.

 The actions available between hunts are also a bit disappointing. There are benefits to them - yes, you can exchange three common resources for one of your choice, get a resource for free if you're lucky with the dice, and most importantly, visit the monsterologist (Handler) to get the chance to re-quest - study of the monster (Investigation). But these actions are no different in both databases, except for the resource table, and are listed at the end of the adventure book, rather than in the core rules. I would like to see more elements of the computer game in this phase, for example, given by quest researchers. Although, perhaps, such a feature will appear with additions.

 Hunting is divided into two phases: preparation (Gathering) and battle. When you go on a quest, you build a deck of a certain number of Time Cards. These cards reflect the limited time available to find and kill a monster; if the time runs out, the quest is failed. As already mentioned, the hunt begins with a preparation phase, in which you are shown a piece of artistic text and given a choice of two options of what to do. This continues until you find the monster and the hunt begins. Moreover, during the preparation phase, you may have to add certain time cards to the deck (their effect can be both positive and negative) due to certain events or receive some bonuses or penalties. But most often you will be offered to spend time cards on gathering resources. Some types of resources can only be mined in this phase.

 In addition to resources, you may also encounter Scout Flies. They allow you to randomly draw several face-down tokens from the pool, which can have positive or negative numbers. Once you discover a monster, you reveal those tokens, count the amount, and shuffle one of the three cards into the monster deck accordingly.

 In my opinion, this is the weakest element of the game. Not that the preparation phase is terrible; it flows much more smoothly than, say, the hunting phase in Kingdom Death: Monster. Also, when you're bumping into resources and guessing how many time cards you'll risk removing from the deck (given that you have to defeat the monster in the remaining time) for the resources needed to craft the next shooting range's gear, there's tension and it's gratifying. Especially when it turns out that Roar or Rampage went to reset (or not very happy when A Brief Respite goes to reset). The problem is that this phase is the weakest developed.

 Take, for example, resources. Some types of ores can be mined only in the preparation phase. There are also special resources (say, Firecell or Coral Crystals) that are required for crafting weapons and are obtained mainly during the preparation phase. This works great in a computer game, as ores and special resources are only found in a specific area, usually a specific deposit, and you can always revisit that deposit when you visit the map. Not so in a board game, of course. If you want, say, a Winged Drake Hide, all you have to do is wait for a card that gives you a Winged Drake Hide. Moreover, it is not indicated anywhere that these items are mined during the preparation phase, so those unfamiliar with the franchise can only wonder if it is a typographical error that the weapon requires, say, Coral Crystal - because it is not listed in the table of trophies of any monster.

 What's even more annoying is that you only get one chance to attempt each quest, and even if you come across Coral Crystals in the second Tobi Kadachi study quest, you'll only be able to use those resources if you remember exactly what you did path , spend a day visiting the monsterologist to get the chance to do this quest again, and repeat the path. It would be better to indicate at the start of each quest what resources can be obtained here. Not necessarily exact numbers, just roughly so that the player knows that Tobi quests #3 and 4 or Anjanath quests #1 and 2 are required to get the Winged Drake, and not have to wander around hoping to stumble upon the right one, and not wondered why he did not find what he needed: because he made the wrong decisions in the preparation phase, or in this quest, there is no such resource in principle.

 Artistic descriptions are also not always thought out. Yes, while hunting for Anjanath, we ended up in a cave, then in a forest, then in a cave again. Not that it's completely unrealistic, but it's a bit strange. We had to go through the previous paragraphs several times to make sure we didn't make a mistake.

 The mechanics of scout flies are stitched with white threads. Yes, it's part of the franchise, so it should be present in the game, but the only point they make is to generate a random number that dictates which of the three cards to add to the II deck. The system is quite frozen with minimal exhaust, so chasing these flies doesn't make much sense. I would like their effect to be more tangible, for example, to return useful time cards from reset.

 And here is the main part of the game, where you will spend the most time: the battles. This is where the game unfolds in full. The mechanics are quite simple, but at the same time quite deep and interesting.

 The battle takes place on a field of 6×6 cells. What the field looks like is described in detail at the beginning of the quest: the location of the monster, the tokens of the terrain elements and the spawn points of the hunter. Terrain effects are simple, there are three types: ponds, when hit, in which the hunter discards a loss card, rocks, from which you can push off and get additional ones. movement, and bushes that lower your threat level. Monsters generally ignore terrain, though some interact with it in some special way; yes, Barroth heals injury tokens when it enters the pond.

 The monster's behavior is dictated by the second card drawn from the deck. He always chooses either the nearest or the farthest hunter as his target (in case of a tie, the one with the most threat tokens — numbered tokens that are randomly distributed at the start of the hunt and are also used as a turn counter). The card shows a certain combination of attack points and movement. The monster moves to the target and either attacks all the hunters in the specified arc, or the specific cell on which the hunter is standing (or there can be several hunters on the same cell). Hunters can spend stamina to dodge or simply take the hit if they have strong enough armor. Also on the card it is indicated how many hunters will have time to be similar to the next II card and how many cards can be played this turn. A nice little tidbit: the back of a monster's card indicates who it's targeting and which body part, giving players a chance to predict the monster's next move (the longer the campaign goes on, the more important this element becomes as the monsters get stronger).

 The hunter has two options for the move. A combat move allows you to play attack cards that are drawn from a deck unique to his weapon to attack a monster or move. The alternative is the preparation phase: the hunter drinks a healing potion, sharpens his weapon, and generally prepares (but does not play attacking cards).

 Most attack cards are attack, which is not surprising. When you hit a monster, you draw several cards from the damage deck, add up their value, subtract the monster's armor indicated on the attacked body parts and reduce the monster's HP by the resulting amount. It seems that everything is simple, but not quite, because each hunter has a tablet of stamina consisting of 5 slots. Most attacking cards are placed on this board, and if there are no free slots left, you cannot play them. In addition, the most powerful attacks require combos: there must be enough face-up cards on the board to be played. Why face up? Because when you dodge an attack or move further than the default 1 cell available, you also pay for it with cards and put them on the stamina tablet face up. The cool thing is that you can discard one card per turn from the Stamina Tablet (and each weapon provides its own unique way to further clear the tablet). This is the essence of the game - in the intriguing puzzle of how to dispose of limited resources so that the hunter can fight effectively. Moreover, the puzzle for different weapons is slightly different; yes, the sword and shield fighter has cards that boost defense and reset themselves off the board if the hunter is hit by a monster. And the dual swordsman has a bunch of cards with high dexterity that allows you to dodge the monster's attacks cheaply, and also gets bonuses if you put them in certain slots on the board. The result is an endless stream of important decisions that must be made almost constantly. Should I try to avoid the attack? You may have to discard your best attack card. Or play a weaker attack and try to free up a slot to turn that three-card combo next turn? But what if I need to dodge or run fast?

 It is clear that everything is not limited to this. When attacking, you target a certain part of the monster's body. Some attacks are hung by her injury tokens (Break Tokens). If the number of these tokens exceeds the limit of that body part, it is considered injured. This guarantees you an extra reward if you win and, more importantly, often affects the behavior of the monster. Also in the game there are various elemental attacks that inflict additional. damage to a monster vulnerable to their element, as well as status effects like paralysis and poison. Of course, monsters can also apply them to you.

 At the end of his turn, the hunter draws a time card from the deck, discards an attack card from the stamina board, flips over his threat token (to show that your turn is over; players choose turn order), and draws a random event that can either help or hurt . Recently annoying; sometimes you have to discard all but two cards from your hand because of one bad event (although the other event allows you to imprison the weapon for free, so they probably make up for each other). This is my only complaint about the combat phase: I wish players had more control over this randomness.

 Once you've defeated the monster, players get a reward for the injured body parts, then roll the dice and check the trophy table on the back of the monster card. The rewards are generous; you roll quite a few dice depending on the number of players and level of the quest, and you can combine them to achieve a higher value or get certain desired trophies. These trophies, along with other collected resources, can be spent on weapon upgrades or better.

CONCLUSIONS

 If you are a fan of the Monster Hunter franchise, I highly recommend the game. Steamforged has managed to perfectly bring the essence of Monster Hunter to the table. Yes, there are some quirks (yes, the Insect Glaive can't spin a propeller), but it's essentially the same thing: kill a monster, upgrade gear, kill monsters harder, and get even cooler gear. Moreover, the monsters are well transferred to the table: Jagras rolls over on its stomach, Tobi jumps like an electric ninja, and hunting Jyuratodus will not please anyone. Overall, the desktop version turned out great.

 If you're not a Monster Hunter fan, I still recommend the game because even if you look at it separately from the franchise, the deck is still great. The rules are mostly simple, but primitive. The game perfectly conveys the most fan-favorite elements of boss battlers and does not overwhelm players with fiddling, long layout-assembly, etc., unlike most representatives of this genre. If you are already a fan of boss battlers, then pay attention to the endurance tablet - an interesting new mechanic for the genre. Hunts usually take less than an hour, so while Monster Hunter: World isn't as brutal or epic as Kingdom Death, the campaign will take weeks, not months.

 For those unfamiliar with boss battlers, Monster Hunter: World is a great starting point: the rules are fairly simple and beginner-friendly. Since the hunters are made different by their weapons and equipment, it is easy to introduce new players and remove old ones during the campaign. And non-random fans will like that there are few dice rolls; attacks always hit the target and damage is calculated on cards. Just like in Bleak Harbor, you know you're going to get hit, but you don't know exactly how much damage you'll do.

 Among the cons, I can single out the amount of content. Unlike Horizon Zero Dawn, here there is enough content in the base so that you don't have to buy add-ons for replayability, even if there are only four hunters. The problem is which supplements to take. If you combine the two bases, you get a lot of variety, however, as I mentioned, it is not a full expansion of the game; you're unlikely to want to hunt all 10 monsters in one campaign, so while the second base will allow you to switch hunters and monsters, it doesn't really add much new. And other expansions (both Hunter's Arsenal, which adds 6 new hunters, and Elder Dragons, which adds a final super boss) contain content for both bases. So if you don't have both bases yet, you'll only get half the content in the add-on.

 PS Only the content of the Nergigante and Kushala Daora subs is evenly distributed across both bases. Kula Ya Ku and Teostra only have upgrades for certain types of weapons, and some hunters in Hunter's Arsenal are better suited to one base or another (usually they get some upgrades from one monster in one base, and some from three monsters to another base).