Not Every Game is Like Dark Souls - Or, How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love Monster Hunter World
By: Kevin "Daikaiser" Yasutomi
Every day since its launch, Monster Hunter World has been hit by comparisons to Dark Souls, which as a bit of a Dark Souls idiot (and despite my idiocy) I found horribly wrong. You see, there are a handful of differences that would immediately dispel such comparisons...let's explore, shall we?
Anyone worth their salt knows that Dark Souls encourages a "Trial and Error" sort of gameplay with steep challenges that aim to punish the overconfident. You may be whittling down the big baddies' health bar and doing perfectly fine yourself, but a mis-timed dodge could mean the difference between life and a brutal death.
Monster Hunter World doesn't actually do that.
What it does instead is give you the set patterns, but it also throws a wrench in them and says "Here you go, Hunter! A NEW PLAY MATE!" and throws another angry monster at the one you're attacking only for both to eventually turn their attention to you if you're stupid enough to attack instead of watch while eating something enjoyable like popcorn, a rare steak (If you're a terrible user of the BBQ Spit), or a well-done steak. Sometimes the attacker walks away. Other times, they will see your face and decide they don't like it so you'll have to get out of there if you wish to keep your life. On the off chance they laze about after the brawl, you could probably resume your attack. Keyword being probably.
Now, we all are familiar with the whole "spam rolls to evade" that is often done in Dark Souls, yeah? In Monster Hunter, spamming rolls is way more punishing and you will need things to boost Evasion (basically give you more invincibility frames during the roll, which Dark Souls kinda gives you anyway) just to get a decent roll. Timing is way less friendly and that's why I like MHW so much, because you can't screw yourself over with a successful roll. You dodge and are still in range to retaliate. Dark Souls on the other hand will force you to dodge until you can find a safe spot, which makes sense of the better roll timing so that balances out. I would also like to note that previous training with Adept Style in Monster Hunter Cross/Generations has helped with my dodge timing and I couldn't be happier.
Dark Souls punishes falling off cliffs or any high surface with death. This much we all know. Monster Hunter doesn't. In fact, you can fall from heights enough to make you soil yourself if you looked down. It really is bad for your heart. In Monster Hunter, a fall could take somewhere between 5 to 20 seconds, which considering how heavy you should be with all that armor on is a lot of time. But do you die? No. You don't even take damage. Even so, it's still unnerving to look at and would be hilarious if you manage to mount a monster off of a huge dive. (If you do this, I would like to see that on YouTube!)
All in all, I'd like for every one of you who is making comparisons to shut up and please remember that Dark Souls and Monster Hunter are two different entities and shouldn't be compared because of their difficulty. Both harbor different ways of making you miserable yet angry enough to keep playing and eventually enjoy, but both are in such different ways you really can't compare with enough justification without having memes spread like wildfire about your idiocy. Good day, happy hunting and praise the sun!
