Just Around the Corner

 

            Hello. I’ve been in a mood lately. I’m technically on vacation as of writing but as is typical for me, I’ve also been sick. I feel much better right now but being home, sick and not to motivated to do anything makes me a little depressed. Could just be the state of mind I’m in right now but the reason for this rant/post is a discussion Rurikhan had with FightinCowboy about Armored Core 6.

            So in the video there were many things brought up that I have issues with or hmm, things that just bother me personally and it’s not the video or the people in the video that bother me, it’s just the things they talked about… That sounds confusing… Example: They were talking about different “builds” you can do in Armored Core, essentially. In most games that have stats and perks and what not you have different builds depending on the playstyle you’re going for, you want to max out certain stats. In my earlier years this was never anything I thought of or even knew about. The internet wasn’t around when I was a kid so finding “builds” for games I played just wasn’t a thing I could do. I just found out recently that the earlier Armored Cores had a buff, I guess you’d call it, called Human PLUS. From the sounds of how you go about getting it, it seems like something someone who was having a hard time with the game would get to make it easier for them because this “Human PLUS” had lots of buffs. Of course once people found out about it they would get it and get all these cool benefits. I never knew about this, granted it seemed like it was only in two games that I played then in AC3 it was an optional part you would get as a reward at some point. I do remember getting this optional part but just the fact that I played AC2 and Another Age in a harder state then others really just blew my mind. So, what’s my problem? My problem isn’t with builds or that games center around builds or that it’s the developer’s intent to have us experiment with builds, it’s that I never used to think about that sort of stuff and was able to do just fine in my games. I might’ve worked harder than others or harder than I needed to but I got the job done, I was having fun. Playing Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate for the first time; all I did was get armor that I liked the looks of that had good resistance to the monster I was fighting. Fighting a water monster, Nibelsnarf armor, fighting a lightning monster, Zinogre armor, that’s as far as my thought process went and I did fairly well I think. Now I’ll have a set for the insect glaive but it might actually be weak to lightning but I’m still using it to fight lightning monsters because it has skills that are helpful for insect glaive so who’s really having a hard time here? Past me or present me? Cause it’s feeling like present me is and it’s like “why don’t I just do what I want to do?” and I try to but then I get it in my head that I’m supposed to be doing a certain build because that’s all the internet talks about but why do I care? I’m not trying to speed run or something, I just want to survive and essentially win the fight. It’s a vicious cycle of “I’ll do what I want -> but this seems cool or helpful -> but why? I’ll just do what I want -> but…” Something one of the guys said in the video was like in Souls games if you can’t do a boss or something then you might just have to go out and grind some more, maybe use magic, but in Armored Core there’s none of that. If you keep failing a mission then you actually have to “git gud” and I’ll hold the thought that I was able to play those early Armored Core games and was able to finish them without Human PLUS with pride.

            Another thing they started talking about in the video was Wild Hearts and their audience, to an extent, and how Rurikhan was checking out Dauntless at one time and his chat would be like “imagine playing Dauntless when Monster Hunter World is a thing.” That shit bothers me too and will also worm it’s way into my brain. I was saying in my last post how I’m in the mood to play MH but I don’t really want to play Sunbreak because of my own mental blocks I’m putting up and I cringe when I think about World so I’ve been playing Dauntless a bit and it’s alright. But, again, I start thinking “well I SHOULD be playing the latest and greatest thing right??” So I end up stopped in my tracks because I feel like I’m not getting anywhere with Dauntless (there’s no where to get to really) or that there’s even a point to play it but I have no real motivation to play Sunbreak and I just sit here going back and forth with my thoughts until the day is over and I’ve done nothing. So again, the internet just makes me feel bad for any decision I make, any decision is the wrong decision.

            Something that’s been bothering me about Monster Hunter Rise is that a lot of the weapons seem to be able to do everything. What I mean by that is that a lot, I can’t say “all” because I don’t actually use all of them, seem to do KO damage. Obviously the hammer and hunting horn still do the most KO but sword and shield, great sword and even the insect glaive all can do KO damage and there are certain skills that will add KO to any weapon such as punishing draw. It kind of bothers me because it makes the actual KO weapons less needed. Don’t get me wrong, I loved doing the repeated great sword slap in Generations, it was one of my favorite things to do but it’s one of those things of “if everything is special than nothing is.” It became the same thing in Heroes of the Storm and even World of WarCraft, everyone started to get their own healing move so it made being a healer less needed or even being in a 1v1 fight as a healer impossible to win. I just would like it more if roles still actually meant something. It can be harder to find people to fulfill those roles but oh well, too bad, if someone isn’t filling in the role then step up and do it yourself.

            What I like about Dauntless is you can just go on an island and keep hunting for as long as you want and the game just sets you up with a group of people. You can do a private hunt if you want with just yourself or some friends but it’s nice to just pick a hunt and the game does the rest for you. Another thing I like is that the weapons do things, they have their own special abilities depending on what behemoth they come from. Charrogg weapons will send out a cone of lava every so often, Pangar weapons will put an ice ball on a part of the behemoth and explode after a while. In waiting for Armored Core I decided to play Daemon X Machina, since I got it for free at some point from Epic, but it’s not quite what I want. The thing I noticed though is that the character customization is better than Rise/Sunbreak as far as I’m concerned. There are better hair options and much better face paint options and it baffles me. Once again, I don’t understand why Monster Hunter has such crappy face paint. In a game where you’re basically a warrior, a “hunter,” I would think we would have some cool war paint. When I was looking into playing World on Steam I saw a skin for the handler (one of the reasons I don’t want to play World) but she had some really cool hair. It’s like a “demon” skin or something but her bangs hang over eyes and I’m like “This is cool! Can I have this?” Of course not, idiot! Why would you even think that? STUPID! (I just remembered mods are a thing~ Seems like the modder upset at the hair options in these games also.)

            I want to play the next Monster Hunter but now that Capcom has put Rise/Sunbreak on everything I feel like it’s going to be longer than I thought for the next game. I’ve been on the fence about Wild Hearts but now I’m going to give it an honest look and a fair chance. I like what Kyle Bosman said in is last video: “Capcom stated that Monster Hunter World is the best selling game in the entire Capcom history and then just this year EA was like 'Okay, hey Koei Tecmo, can you make us one of those?' and they were like 'Yea.'” It put the game in a new light for me cause I didn’t think of it like that and if that is in fact the case then hopefully Koei will see what worked in World and what didn’t. On the other side of this post; In the original video I was talking about, Rurikhan and Cowboy guy were talking about the possible release window for Armored Core 6. I guess a lot of the FromSoftware games came out in February or March so that could be promising. Apparently they’ve been working on AC6 since 2017ish, according to IGN, so if that’s the case then I can totally see the game coming out soon. I never really gave AC5 a chance. I remember there not being back weapons like the previous games. Instead, the back parts are basically storage for a different primary hand weapon so that bothered me. In the video the two guys were talking about how the boosting sucked. You couldn’t really fly, you’d have to go to a tall building and basically jump up the building in order to glide back down. That along with not having normal back weapons would’ve been enough for me to call it quits. I’m hopeful about AC6, from the trailer it almost looks like they’ve got everything in it whether you liked the older games or 5 but I’m assuming it’ll be faster than 5.

            I hope that’s coherent enough for you and doesn’t just make sense in my illness riddled head. I want to play Monster Hunter but I want something different so Wild Hearts and their odd weapons might be what I’m looking for. I'm hoping Wild Hearts proofs me wrong with my initial take of it and hoping AC6 is worth getting into. What do you think? What are your thoughts on Wild Hearts? Are you familiar with the Armored Core series? Thoughts on AC6? Let me know below and I’ll catch you around later. Bye bye.

                @AztecSauce