Try the game on your own before judging by utilizing Steam's (under 2 hour) refund policy , because I almost missed this gem because of the negative reviews.

+Never experienced any crashes and I played on Medium-High settings and didn't have any noticeable issues.
I've completed the game using the Bladed Wagasa as my main weapon, which is a unique parry weapon and there are many more fun weapons to use with their own unique gimmicks.

+Game was fun although a bit janky at times, The Karakuri Fusion system was the most incredibly distinctive part of this game which sets it apart from its competitors. You can utilize and cheese fights with it, or choose to play without it according to your playstyle.

-Camera angle can ruin some fights, especially when some of the enemies (which are called Kemono) are massive, taking up your entire screen.

-Not enough variety of Kemono and most them are just slightly reskinned with unfair gimmick attacks, but the Title Update did add a few new Kemono with completely new movesets. They were quite challenging but fun and rewarding to fight.

Co-Op with the few remaining players (Including Crossplay) made the game a bit more livelier and with the added interest from new players because of the Switch 2 port announcement, Koei Tecmo hopefully makes a sequel. The story while quite minimal and barely fleshed out, was quite nice and interesting.

Still hands down the best Monster Hunter (genre) game <3

I wish EA would bring it back. Fingers crossed the release of Wilds Hearts S can reignite Wild Hearts (The game and/or the franchise) for PC aswell :/

It's kinda weird seeing people post their PC's specs that can run circles around my PC and then complain how the game doesn't run. This game looks pretty and runs great on high graphic settings. Hands down, the worst thing is that you have to use the EA launcher.

That aside, this game is "what if Monster Hunter, but also with Nioh?" You start off with the most garbage weapon in the game: the katana. You have your basic "hit square" combo and "hit triangle" combo; then you learn about "hit RT/R2 during either combo" technique and... that's it. The weapon is like 90% mastered. The last 10% is filling up a meter to activate a super mode where... you do the same thing but you do more damage now. Yawn. Throw the boring sharp stick in the trash and use other weapons.

How about trying the Umbrella? It allows you to use floaty air combos that transition to and from the ground easily and you can specifically aim at a monster's part to destroy it (like a tail or horn or something). It also comes with a parry feature that powers up the umbrella (on top of negating the monster's attack) with some amazing follow ups. The parry is the highlight of this weapon and enemy attacks are telegraphed pretty clearly so if this is your jam, then try it.

Don't wanna parry? How about a HAMMER! I started with this weapon and I thought "oh okay, press RT/R2 and spin to win." That is certainly an option, but here's a better one: learn your RT/R2 timings to extend the hammer (to also do more damage) and press triangle, then do it again. You will still spin to win, but you're spinning *VERTICALLY* which is just amazing, especially since you can decently aim at the enemy's weakpoints (face, tail, etc). Then you can hold down RT/R2 to spin to win even harder.

Two more weapons I want to discuss: first is the Clawblade which kinda lets you go all Attack on Titan against the monsters. You attack to fill up a meter then you press RT/R2 for a claw attack that anchors you to the monster. With this, you can fly around the monster really quickly to easily avoid attacks then press R2 to home-in on the monster to attack them. As you attack them during this, you charge up a super finisher that does A TON of damage and certainly cuts off any monster part near where-ever you landed that claw attack.

The last weapon is the staff. I say "staff" but it is actually five-weapons-in-one. As you attack with square or triangle, you will glow orange, press RT/R2 during this time (timing is lenient) and you swap to the other with an attack (which can immediately glow orange). Every swap attack you land fills a meter -> consume the meter for a MASSIVELY DAMAGING ATTACK! It's so strong that I've outright killed some monsters before they enraged (I got a weapon that boosts the massive attack's damage by 40% and I just go brrrrrrrrrrrrrr).

Note: there are other weapons beyond the ones I talked about, including a hand cannon with a heat-up feature for big damage and a bow that has two types of attacks, one to "plant" arrows on the monster and another to detonate the planted arrows for big damage.

The game has a "training bear" that you can practice with and I highly recommend it. It comes with a tutorial that is really nice and it includes a bit of "how to use karakuri" too.

There's so much more to talk about but I am limited in this steam review, but I do need to talk about the karakuri stuff. Early game, you'll probably ignore the karakuri, but once you learn the game properly, you won't stop using them. Every single basic karakuri has methods that help you a ton in battle. No joke, you will destroy the monsters so much better and suffer a lot less with proper usage of the karakuri. You start off just putting a box down, jumping off of it to do a special air attack and as you learn more about the game, you'll realize "This isn't a newbie move; this is ol' reliable." Personally, I always immediately put down an anchor and run into it, allowing me to instantly cancel anything (including combos and taking damage) into a "GET ME OUT OF HERE" jump. It costs 3 threads but it is 100% worth it. If I use it all up, I just pop down another one and run into it to equip it; takes maybe a second. Also, it is worth noting that you can attack out of the anchor's jump, allowing it to double up for offensive use too.

I got this game for $10 and it was totally worth it. The environments are beautiful and nice to explore; combat against the big monsters is fun; and the grind is Monster Hunter. There is no meme here: this is a monster hunter game so the usual memes of "oh great, I fought this same monster three times and didn't get the one drop I needed" is here too. This is what people want from their monster hunter games so I have to view it as a "pro" instead of a "con" lol.