Goated

I recommend trying the game out to see if the vibe of the game is right for you. I am not feeling the vibe. I am a very big fan of arpgs like Path of Exile, Diablo and Last Epoch. This game is trying so hard to give a different take while missing the mark. It feels a bit more like Lost Ark, which I don't mind at all but they need to decide which path to take.

Early access, fine, but this feels more of a concept rather than a game soon to be released, which is also why I stopped playing after the tutorial and running through the town and first area.

Since I am an audio engineer myself, the first thing I noticed was the creative decision to keep the same music track playing constantly throughout my playthrough, which really did not add to the immersion. PoE2 has an excellent take on music and audio in general, where they focus a lot on the atmosphere of the areas, keeping a generally lowkey audio image except in high tension areas or boss areas where they crank up the music.

The assets in this game sometimes feel quite out of place, being low resolution, placed at seemingly random and thoughtless places and sometimes floating in the air. They do work well in general though, just wish there were less assets that actually clip into eachother creating immersion-breaking vibes.

I am not a big fan of the extremely curated camera, following you around and changing angles, zooming in and out constantly. In my experience I find that fixed cameras work better for me.

Abilities are too advanced for early levels and the game is too easy.

All that being said, I will be returning when the game is released to try it again later this year!

Good luck with the development.

My first MH game I've played. Overall a quite enjoyable experience!

Very mid story and awkward NPC interactions, but I did appreciate the very fast transitions from one boss fight to another, very seemless in that regard. As far as the monsters come, they are generally very easy and forgiving, although sometimes a bit tedious depending on your weapon/playstyle. There is no instakill mechanic, although there are a couple of them that disguise themselves as instakill mechanics without actually being one as you can literally face tank every single mechanic in the game. The monster variety is the best part of the game in my opinion, although there are many mechanics being reused for the monsters, which is not really an issue but it made most of the fights quite predictable.

Decent combat variety, altough I wish there were more abilities for the weapons, but to be fair I only played with the heavy bowgun so I cannot speak on the other weapons.

I haven't had any optimization issues and an overall smooth experience with a GTX 3080.

The price is completely whack though for such a short game as it took about 15 hours to complete it as a new player. But I do understand there is a lot of post-story gameplay to explore aswell.

My experience with the story and all the different monsters: 7/10

Better storytelling, better visuals, and better immersion than the original story. Absolute cinema 10/10. Got me about 25 hours of fun, more if I go for 100% complete.

Played it rather lightly modded with "Welcome to Night City 2.2" mod collection, and some upscaled graphic mods.

best game ever