Heavy Steel and Immediate Input Feedback
Buttons respond instantly the second you press them. You feel the heft right away. Greatswords do not snap into place like plastic toys; they drag across the dirt, build momentum, and demand total commitment before your blade connects. When an overhead chop lands flush against a monster skull, the brief hitstop sells the impact with brutal clarity. Miss your mark, and the recovery leaves you completely exposed to a counter-strike.
Dodge windows are tight and honest. If a tail sweeps over your head, you duck under the actual model geometry rather than relying on an invisible safety bubble. I tested the side hops repeatedly against aggressive charges. When I timed the roll correctly, the wind whipped past without clipping me. When I got greedy with an extra swing, I took the blow straight to the ribs. That level of hitbox precision is rare, and it makes every clash feel earned.
Surviving the Weather Shifts of the Forbidden Lands
The story sends you out on a Guild expedition to investigate the Forbidden Lands alongside Nata, a young boy rescued after his village fell to an unknown beast. The narrative mostly stays out of the way to let the territory do the talking. The ground shifts beneath you. One minute you are stalking prey during Plenty when small game fills the brush, and the next minute an Inclemency storm sweeps in, turning the dirt to mud while lightning cracks across the ridges.
Monsters react directly to these environmental phases. In the dry Fallow periods, carnivores hunt in tight packs, snapping at your flanks and forcing you to manage camera angles constantly. You cannot just lock onto one target and tune out the surroundings. If two predators collide in a storm, their attacks clash with each other just as violently as they clash with you. You have to read body language on the fly or get trampled.
Performance Load and Clear Audio Direction
Running this on PC takes serious horsepower. During intense sandstorms with multiple large beasts trading blows, frame rates will dip if your settings are pushed too high. The clutter can get dense on screen when dust kicks up. Yet even when the visual chaos peaked, my dodge inputs never got eaten by the engine. The game registered my directional taps cleanly, which kept technical stumbles from feeling fatal.
Audio cues carry a lot of tactical weight here. English interface and English voice options are included out of the box, with spoken callouts warning you when a monster winds up for an unblockable smash. That clear vocal warning gives you just enough notice to sheath your blade and sprint clear. The crunch of shattered monster hide and the dull thud of heavy armor hitting stone provide all the physical feedback your ears need.
The Grind for Parts and Honest Weapon Mastery
Harvesting parts to craft new armor and upgrade your loadout remains the core engine driving your time. At $29.99 on Steam, the package offers a massive amount of pure action without padding its run with useless mini-games. You cut a tail, you carve the scale, and you bring it back to forge a blade that cuts slightly deeper on your next expedition. The upgrade path feels direct and rewarding because you see the exact difference in your attack recovery and stagger values.
The combat rewards patience over frantic button mashing. You spend hours learning when to commit to a multi-hit combo and when to settle for a single poke before retreating. More than two hundred thousand recommendations hit the Steam store page right away for a reason. Capcom trusted players to handle deliberate, punishing mechanics, and the end result is the sharpest action game on PC right now.
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ngl my stream chat lost it when a storm rolled in mid-fight and the whole pack went at once. frames tanked hard but honestly that added to the chaos, the english voice warnings saved me twice because i couldnt see the windup through all the lightning. chat had mixed feelings on this one but i think they're wrong, this game SLAPS.
love that the review mentions english voice warnings. makes me wonder if the monsters get voice warnings about me panicking and mashing buttons. also, am i bad at this or is the storm just an excuse for the game to run at 20 fps? asking for a friend who carted twice.
tbh the voice warnings sound nice but back then we had to read the monster's tells ourselves lol
tbh the frame dips in the storm are overblown lol. i played on a potato and still had fun. the recovery frames are the real boss, and they're fine if you don't mash. 9/10 is generous but not crazy. mid hype, solid game.
love that the review mentions english voice warnings. makes me wonder if the monsters get voice warnings about me panicking and mashing buttons. also, am i bad at this or is the storm just an excuse for the game to run at 20 fps? asking for a friend who carted twice.
ah yes, the classic 'weather turns the fps into a slideshow' difficulty spike. really takes me back to trying to run monster hunter on a laptop that could barely render a potion. the hitboxes are honest, the recovery frames are a relationship test, and i respect that. groundbreakin stuff, truly.
The frame drops when multiple monsters fight are worrying me. Does the game eat your inputs when the screen starts lagging, or do dodges still register fine? In a game where one mistimed roll gets you killed, sluggish controls would ruin it.
@denver_mattthe stutter doesnt eat inputs, it just makes you buffer the dodge way early. if you wait for the tell you might as well cart. and the recovery frames are there to punish mashing, not a bug. you clearly didnt play it.
nice tip but dont forget hte voice warning comes before the windup so you can start positioning early. one clean hit then roll out is better than two sloppy ones.
Glad this reviewer actually appreciates slow, heavy combat instead of just crying that they can't mash through attacks. Sucks about the bad frame drops during storms though.
tbh i play to chill so a sudden slideshow just feels like a pause to me lol
tbh the voice warnings sound nice but back then we had to read the monster's tells ourselves lol
y'all are fixin to be real mad about this one. the hitboxes are honest, but those recovery frames on the heavy weapons are like sipping sweet tea that's turned sour. you know it's coming, yet you still get caught out every time.
weather turning monsters feral just as my fps turns into a slideshow is a bold difficulty option, i'll give it that. i could handle the recovery frames if i could see the follow-up coming, but the game skips a few frames right when it matters. maybe the real monster was the performance all along. not all bad, the hitboxes are honest.
The combat qualities praised in the review are well noted, but my principal concern is whether I would actually own this title. If there is no offline installer and the game cannot be launched outside Steam, then $29.99 is not a purchase; it is a revocable rental. The frame drops during storms would trouble me less than that. I await confirmation before spending money.
Look, the combat sounds heaps good, but $29.99 is a lot for something that drops frames whenever the weather kicks off. You need clean hitboxes when the pack shows up, not a slideshow. Not paying full price for that, heaps too steep. I'll grab it on a decent sale.
@frodos left shoeFrames dropping in a combat game is an instant refund. Total letdown.
stoked to see a good monster hunter on pc, but $29.99 still feels a bit steep for a launch with dodgy performance. the review admits the frames drop when storms hit and the whole screen is full of death, so i'll probably wait for a sale. not saying it's bad, just not a day one buy for me.
strewth, the way those monsters telegraph their big hits reminds me of year 8s trying to fake a punch in the playground. you can see it coming from a mile away but it still gets you if you press too hard. fair dinkum gave me a fright when the weather changed mid-quest and the whole pack went feral. good review though, spot on about the greedy inputs.
@pjh81that playground bit is dead on lol. glad the review called out how much you have to slow down instead of just mashing attacks. weather rolling in completely changes how careful you have to play around packs, and having the english voice callouts when something winds up off screen is actually super handy.
ngl my stream chat lost it when a storm rolled in mid-fight and the whole pack went at once. frames tanked hard but honestly that added to the chaos, the english voice warnings saved me twice because i couldnt see the windup through all the lightning. chat had mixed feelings on this one but i think they're wrong, this game SLAPS.
@chimneyframe drops in the storm are almost chill. i play to decompress, so a sudden slideshow just gives me extra time to think before i eat a hit and cart. no stress either way, just my two cents
Pixel tight hitboxes are no joke. Tip: dont mash when the monster is enraged. Wait for the windup, dodge late, then start your combo. The recovery on heavy weapons is brutal but it feels like a rhythm game if you time it right. Hit the beat on the upbeat not the downbeat.
@flintoh that is a good tip. has anyone tried doing this the slow way? like waiting one full extra beat before dodging just to see if the monster's second swing catches you? i always panic and roll too early.
@flintThat rhythm point is proper spot on, mate. Fights like this used to be all about pattern learning, and now we get English voice warnings on top. Reckon the old manuals would have had a full page of windup diagrams if they had to explain it. Feels proper classic to me, nailing that heavy hit after reading the telegraph. Just ignore the frame drops and enjoy the old school patience.