Monster Hunter World: Come For The Monsters, Stay For The Adventure

 The more I read about Monster Hunter World, the more I wanted to try it out. The day I got the game for the Playstation 4 I was excited to play. The character creation has a variety of options to choose from right down to the facial expressions. I spent quite a bit of time creating my character to the way I wanted it to look.

Designing my character.

Once you have your character design done, you can choose your default armor for the start of your adventure. Your options are leather, chainmail, or no armor. Don't worry about the armor not being so great, you do get to upgrade to better armor later.

I chose the leather armor to start. 

After that came my favorite part, designing my Palico. A Palico is your feline best friend who goes monster hunting with you and assists you with finding items, healing you, and using gadgets to distract the monster while you battle them. They are also such cute kitties! Naturally, I designed mine to look like our cat Loki and named him after Loki also. Loki remained unimpressed, but allowed it because he is a diva after all. 

My Palico, Loki.

The initial introduction to the main story introduces you to the game mechanics and gives you a few tutorials on how to choose weapons, how to train with them, and how to battle monsters. I enjoyed exploring everything. The different areas are beautiful and the real stars are the monsters themselves. There are no cookie cutter monsters here. Each one is unique and they really stand out. You also have a vast amount of wildlife ranging from insects to non aggressive monsters.

Exploring the Ancient Forest.

The game will not hold your hand completely. There will be things you have to look up or you will have to ask friends for help. Explore everything. Part of the monster hunts is tracking. The more tracking you do, the more information you will unlock about various monsters such as elements they're weak to and which parts of their bodies are breakable. You will also be able to craft weapons and armor with materials from the monsters you hunt which you get after successfully completing your quest.

You can earn armor and weapon materials from monster hunts.

This is where the main headquarters comes in. Here you will find things to help you on your monster hunts. This is the hub where you can get main and optional quests as well as events. There are vendors where you can buy items you need for crafting or ammo for weapons. There is also a botanist area where you can grow various plants for crafting items. In order to craft weapons and armor you need to visit the workshop. If you have enough of the materials needed, you can craft weapons, armor, and charms for yourself. You can also craft armor and weapons for your Palico. The workshop is also where you can upgrade your equipment to make it stronger and even add elemental strengths to it.

Build all the things in the workshop. 

Another useful thing is the canteen. An adorable team of Palicoes will cook meals for you. Eating meals before you go on your monster hunts gives you and your Palico a boost to different stats depending on the type of meal you eat like a boost to your health and stamina. You can pay for your meals with money, points, or vouchers from your daily log in bonus. Protip: If you use the vouchers everyone on your session can get a meal cooked for them for free. It's a nice way to help out your buddies.

Enjoy a stat boosting meal courtesy of the adorable Palicoes!

Choosing weapons may seem like a daunting task, but you can test them out in the training area which is accessed from your room to see how they work and decide if it's a weapon you want to use. Weapons range from light bowguns to heavy axes and more. You can change your equipment before going on quests according to which monster you're hunting. For weapons like the bowgun you can craft ammo for it. You can also craft traps, bombs, and healing items with materials you find and from the monsters you hunt. 

Using a light bowgun to hunt a monster.

You do need an internet connection to play Monster Hunter World. This game strongly encourages you to play with your friends and other players and to work as a team hunting monsters. That's not to say you can't play solo at all because you can. You can make the session private or switch the number of players on a quest to 1 and passcode it if you wish. If you're not a subscriber to Playstation Plus or Xbox Live you will be pushed to offline mode and single player as well. Personally, I like doing the monster hunts with my friends. We all have fun together, help each other out, crack jokes, and have a great time exploring and hunting monsters. This is also where the SOS flare comes in handy. If you're finding a monster hunt to be challenging, you can fire the SOS flare and other players can join your quest and help you out. To me, that's a win win.

Hunting a dragon with my good friend Sol. 

More friends means more buddies to help you out with monster hunts and vice versa. You can exchange guild cards with other players. You can edit the greeting on your guild card, choose a background setting, and choose a pose for you and your Palico. The guild cards show your hunter rank, stats, and achievements. They do more than that though. First of all, if you play with a buddy you've exchanged guild cards with you gain unity which is how much you play together. The longer you play together the higher the unity. The second thing which is pretty cool is the guild cards you have from your friends allows you to hire their Palicoes to help with monster hunts or you can hire them for Tailraider Safaris which has them going out and gathering resources for you. The current number of guild cards you can receive is set at 100. 

My guild card is humorous. 

You don't always have to go monster hunting. You can go on expeditions which aren't timed and allow you to explore to your heart's content. You can gather crafting resources, take in the view, or go fishing. There are gathering quests where you need to get certain materials in order to upgrade camps and headquarters. Expeditions are perfect for doing these. I enjoyed taking breaks here and there just to do some fishing.

Fishing time!

While the main story itself is rather light, it is interesting. The big thing about Monster Hunter World is the thrill of hunting all these monsters that are unpredictable and challenging and creating an exciting sense of adventure. Going on these adventures with your friends makes it even better. Sure it can be challenging, but it is a lot of fun rising to those challenges and exploring the incredible world that this game has created. It's worth visiting again and again.

If you're playing the game on Playstation 4, I'm on there as Pirotess. I look forward to enjoying the game with everyone!

Taking a break in my room. See you at the next adventure!

*Monster Hunter World is playable on the following platforms: Playstation 4 and Xbox One

*Author's Note: Monster Hunter World will be coming to PC in Fall of 2018

The Adventures Of Pirotess: Valentione's Day Event

 The Valentione's Day event is in full swing and if you haven't done it yet, there is still a couple of days left to get all the event items. To be able to participate in the event you must be at least level 15 and have completed the quest It's Probably Pirates. To start the event you need to head to Gridania and go to Mih Khetto's Amphitheater. Everything is decorated for the event looking pretty and festive. After you're done admiring the scenery, you need to talk to the NPC Lisette de Valentione to start the first part of the quest called Lessons In Love.

Pirotess checks out the Valentione's Day celebration.

The Lessons In Love quest is pretty easy. All you have to do is find some missing Moogles whose locations are marked on your map. Once you turn this quest in, you receive your choice of mount: the broken heart pendant left or the broken heart pendant right. You can now do the optional repeatable quest In Fortune With The Times. To participate in this one, you should team up with a friend because it is a two man duty that requires a lot of communication and teamwork. 

Pirotess ready to participate in the event. 

The duty has two tests. The first is a maze which was frankly, a frustrating pain and definitely tested your patience a bit. You and your partner are linked by a magic chain and you have to run side by side in separate maze paths. This requires a lot of communication because if you stray too far from each other or miss a gate switch your affinity drops. Basically you have to sync your movements with your partner and make sure you talk to them all the time. You also have to dodge the Moogles who try to attack you as much as you can because if they hit you, your luck and affinity drop drastically. Luckily my friend and I were just having fun with it so there was no rush. Thank you to my friend Kat for helping me do the event after I mentioned I needed a partner to do this so I could write about it in my blog. You are awesome!

Pirotess and Kat listen to the Moogle explain the maze rules. 

The second part of the test is essentially a game of Memory with giant cards. Again this requires a lot of communicating and teamwork. You are shown only five of the cards for about one minute and you have to do your best to remember what they were and their location. You have to select a card and your partner must select another one. This is where saying which card you see helps a lot especially if it's not a match. If it is a match you get good fortune. If not, you get bad fortune and an affinity drop.

At the end of this duty, your fortune gets told about whether or not you and your partner are a Valentione's Day match. Kat and I were in the middle something we giggled about a lot. 

Pick a card, any card....

When you're done with this duty, you can turn the quest in and receive Valentione's chocolate hearts. These you can spend at the NPC vendor nearby for Valentione event items. The items you can get are: Rose Wagon, Valentione's Day Balloons, Valentione's Day Advertisement, Prismatic Heart (left), and Prismatic Heart (right). 

I always enjoy the holiday events in Eorzea because it gives everyone a nice break from adventuring and allows everybody to have fun with their friends. The Valentione's Day event this year was a lot of fun and the themed items from it are pretty nice. The event is going until February 15 so check it out and have a good time. See you at the next adventure!

Pirotess shows off her Valentione's Day poster. 

*Final Fantasy XIV is available to play on the following platforms: PC and Playstation 4

Assassin's Creed Origins Hidden Ones DLC Review

I had been eagerly anticipating the Hidden Ones DLC for Assassin's Creed Origins. As soon as it was released I started playing. There are some new side quests in the main story areas in order to help you level because the new level cap goes up to 55. This also gives you an introduction to the Hidden Ones story which is set four years after the events of the main story. When you start this series of quests titled Incoming Threat it opens up the story and sets the scene for the events in Hidden Ones.

There are some new armor sets such as the Horus outfit and the assassin Edward Kenway's outfit. Bayek gets his own unique outfit as well. The world map now has check marks next to completed quest location and exploration areas so you can easily keep track of them. There is also a fun new mount, the unicorn camel. I found this really amusing and had fun exploring everywhere while riding it.

Behold! The unicorn camel!

There is also an interesting Final Fantasy crossover quest, Gift From The Gods. Once you complete the quest you receive the following Fantasy items; the Ultima Blade, Zeidrich Shield, and the Kweh mount. The Kweh mount looks pretty real and rather terrifying.

Terrify your enemies with the Kweh mount.

Bayek now gets to travel to Sinai for the story of Hidden Ones. While the DLC itself is short, about 3 hours of game play the story is interesting and the battles are great. There are some side quests along the way also and you get to explore all of Sinai. 

Bayek seems a little calmer here and there is less rage in him. It has been four years after all. He is smart, brave, and ready to help his allies. Aya now Amunet makes a brief appearance as well and I was thrilled because she was Bayek's equal in every way and he treated her as an equal. The bond between the two characters is so strong and it was nice to see it again even if it was brief. 

Bayek exploring Sinai and with new armor. 

The controls in Hidden Ones are still well done so battles are fun and easy to navigate. There's plenty to see and do and it builds on the main story really well while having its own small story that sets things up for the next DLC Curse Of The Pharaohs which will be released in March.

I had fun playing Hidden Ones. I loved playing as Bayek again and getting to explore more of Egypt. Hidden Ones DLC is great with more things to do and see as well as an interesting story. I am looking forward to playing Bayek's next chapter in March.

Bayek overlooking Sinai.

*Assassin's Creed Origins is available to play on the following platforms: PC, Playstation 4, and XboxOne