Recent reviews by Just Dawn

It feels like a step back in nearly every way from Rise. The Seikrets feel worse to control than the palamutes, the areas feel emptier, the charm of the hub areas is gone, and the multiplayer is near nonexistant.

The Seikrets are a great tool to get rid of Monster Hunters most annoying parts: actually finding the monster and tracking it down! It will slowly waddle its way towards the monster for you! You literally dont have to do any exploring, as they will take you directly on the fastest path to the monster at the push of a button! How convenient! It just plays the game for you! After you hit the button to ride it ten times! It just works!
I do understand why MonHun has gone the way of open world, and while I do think it CAN work, I'm not sure if it does here. Don't get me wrong, the game, just like World and Rise before it, is absolutely gorgeous, but the thing I can say about those two that I cant about Wilds is that theyre dense. These areas can feel a little too large, with not much in them, especially when you are waiting for your NPC companions to slowly walk to the next destination.
THE CHEFS ARE GONE FOR SOME REASON! WHY LEAVE THEM OUT??? Also, the MonHun games have always had some sort of gathering hall, or even just some sort of place to sit down, do some winding down and armwrestling. This game has none, which makes it feel... More gamey? Colder? Like it doesn't want you to see it as a place to hang out with other hunters? Even the music feels, blander. I cannot remember any of the music from the game, where every other MH game has incredibly iconic music!
And that last point is exemplified by the fact THE GAME DOES NOT WANT YOU TO PLAY WITH YOUR FRIENDS. At least doing the story at the same time is essentially impossible for some reason. I'm ten hours in and I STILL cant start an environment link for us to run around the open world together, and actually playing the story together? The reason we got this game? Yeah that's not happening. Even joining a quest together can be a chore if you dont want randos hopping in. Honestly, it took us several hours to figure out how to actually play with each other because it is just that unintuitive.

Rise is overall the better game, AND your computer can run it, has better controlling Seikrets, and Wirebugs, which let every weapon take to the skies like the insect glaive (and they never need to touch the ground!). But thats mostly because you can much more easily play it with your friends.

Also you have to pay money to change both your character AND your palico, which is just about the greediest thing I could imagine. Also this game has multiple giant spiders which the arachnaphobia setting doesnt help with at all.

Edit: With the first major update they completely deoptimized the game, I used to get over 100 fps at ultra, now I cant stop stuttering.

Actually insane that you are forced to pay for character customization. Modders, please fix this *insane* corpo decision.

The game that captures the CEO grindset the best.

But not as good as Gorbino's quest

Easily one of my GOTY for 2024. Hopefully chapter 2 can come out in 2025 so it can also be my game of the year.

Think about this as F.E.A.R. but in the doom engine with cooler guns (I know that sounds difficult because of the penetrator, but dont worry, Selaco manages just fine:)). Great level design with a lot of complex secrets. Incredible gunfights that organically get harder throughout the game, and are very creative even with the limited number of enemies, and a lot of great weapons AND weapon mods.

Also, works great on steam deck.

Maybe the best feeling platform fighter ive played yet, even if theres isnt a character ive completely clicked with yet.

Its like Risk of Rain,

BUT YOU CAN PET THE CAT

Cute, short, funny little mystery game.

Surprisingly good build inspired shooter, like despite all the poop and fart jokes, its an actually good shooter. Like if I got this as a WAD for a game for free a few decades ago I'd be recommending it to everyone. And it is a sequel to Hypnospace outlaw and does a good job with the meta-narrative. If you liked HO but haven't played an old school shooter, this is a good place to start.

And you get Nightmare Reaper's titular powerup as a main weapon. That lets you fly, with extreme jank, but fly nonetheless. And physics. And more of Zane. All of which are great.

Also RIP Stefanie, best videogame almost-GF. Both a warewolf, AND had a triple barreled rocket launcher.

Knowing Gearbox is their publisher, well, it doesn't make me hopeful for this game's future, and makes me wonder why this was released as a full release instead of an update or as DLC to an already perfectly playable game. I really dont get remakes/remasters for games that are still playable, like ROR.

Definitely didnt need this remake, as ROR is still playable on steam, and this is just ROR, again.

And if youre gonna remake ROR, why keep the drowning whorls achievement?

Might be one of the grindiest jrpgs ive ever played. first quest? grind. and the first boss is so much more powerful than a full team that you need to grind.
and i know its weird, but the controls are oddly clunky, especially in menus.