Dauntless: Impressions after 15 hours

When about Dauntless first became known, series Monster Hunter remained a Japanese exotic that visited neither home consoles nor personal computers. Developers from Phoenix Labs wanted to offer the world an alternative, to allow the owners of these platforms to play something similar. So that they get together with friends in groups, create equipment, hunt huge monsters. Then she came out Monster Hunter: World, Over time it became available on both PC and Dauntless since then almost nothing has been heard. We remembered about it only with the release of the release version, but is it worth spending time on it??

The hunt has begun

I will not claim that I have studied everything available in Dauntless content and I can give a final assessment. I spent about 15 hours in it, created dozens of types of weapons and armor sets, completed quests and saw a lot of monsters, which are called giants here. This text is more about whether the game is capable of keeping people glued to the screen after several evenings and what it can offer during this time. Although the action movie is distributed according to a shareware model and anyone can try it out if they want, it is unlikely that many people download all the free games to study them on their own.

It’s worth saying right away that Dauntless – really simplified version Monster Hunter, and this is both an advantage and a disadvantage. If World offered large locations inhabited by living creatures and dotted with vegetation, here everything is much more sparse. The maps are a kind of arenas where there is only your team and the giant. There are no tracks for you to track him, no lizards running here and there – just a zone in which nothing happens. You are looking for a monster, your squad is doing the same, then someone finds it, shoots into the sky, and everyone sees on the radar where to go. The giant is defeated, you can return back to the city.

The battles are also not as exciting as in World or even in previous parts Monster Hunter. For example, there is no “verticality” here, so you won’t be able to ride some dinosaur and chop its back. At the same time, the combat system is much more dynamic, even if you have a heavy hammer in your hands. My favorite weapon in Monster Hunter there has always been a “greatsword” – it seems terribly inconvenient, but when you master it, it becomes difficult to part with this sword. IN Dauntless there are no such heavy weapons, although

axes and hammers are still slower than blades and pikes.

There are weapons here for every taste: for those who prefer to stay away from the giant, and for those who like to run under the monster’s feet, beating his heels. In addition, the arsenal is not without surprises – you seem to be taking a hammer with you to deal damage up close, but it turns out that it can also shoot. And the sword, when the scale in the corner of the screen is filled after a couple of dozen blows, will begin to release energy waves. The same thing happens with pikes, axes, daggers and pistols – with the latter you can drop an amplifier on the ground that increases attack speed.

The design of the monsters https://talismaniacasino.co.uk/withdrawal/ is also more pleasing than disappointing. The first giant that you need to defeat in the tutorial does not pose any danger – it stands still and only occasionally attacks, forcing you to make a dash to the side, during which you do not take damage. But then more and more interesting individuals appear: a dinosaur flooding the ground with lava, a nimble fire-breathing monster, an owl ready to turn a hunter into an ice cube, a wasp that disappears for a few seconds – these are beautiful, well-animated creatures. They’re not as detailed as Rathalos and Nergigante, but they don’t feel boring or unoriginal either.

Need more tails

The only sad thing is that now most battles follow the same scenario: find a monster, deal damage to it for several minutes, fly to the base. So far, the fights lack the depth that can be found in Monster Hunter. You take five first aid kits with you on the expedition and fill three more slots with some useful items – these can be either potions created from the herbs you collect, or all sorts of bonus items like grenades. That’s it, nothing else can be used. You remember how the monster behaves and what to expect from it, dodge in time and hope that your partners will not get into trouble and waste their three resurrections.

However, in Dauntless for some reason you still want to come back, and after another hunt you start the next one in order to complete this or that quest and collect the materials needed for forging. When you defeat another monster and check the items from the merchants, you see that they sell new sets of armor, and at the same time new swords, axes and pikes become available. Here, as in the main source of inspiration for the developers, you hunt monsters solely in order to collect new equipment from their parts and use it to destroy increasingly dangerous giants. By the way, monsters’ tails, horns and scales fall off if you hit these places as often as possible.

In addition, there is a “Mastery” associated with each monster and weapon – in a separate menu you can see what tests are proposed to be completed to increase the overall level of the hunter. Defeat a creature so many times and in a certain time, cause several bleedings with a pike, chop off so many body parts with a sword – there are a huge number of such tasks, and for completing them they give useful bonuses like loot boxes with improvements for armor and weapons or an increased chance of dropping a rare part. The more challenges are completed, the sooner the character’s level increases, and then health will increase, and titles will be unlocked, and stamina will increase.

At the same time, a full-fledged story campaign in Dauntless no, and the texts in the quests given by the characters are worthy of attention to about the same extent as in Korean MMOs. You don’t want to read them, because the characters don’t tell you anything interesting about the universe or their own lives – you just scroll through these windows and get to the essence of the conversation. The quests also don’t shine with originality and are more reminiscent of tests from the “Mastery” section: go kill three creatures, deal damage with strong attacks, put on high-level armor. There are no screensavers (except for the very first one), and they are unlikely to appear later. So Dauntless – a game exclusively about gameplay, farming and battles.

Fast and convenient

Perhaps that is why it is so easy to understand. If the series Monster Hunter is quite unfriendly towards beginners and forces them to either spend too much time studying on their own or look for tips on the Internet, then Dauntless you pick up almost everything on the fly. You always know what materials are needed for forging. You can open the list of available hunts, and they will show you which quests require defeating this or that giant. Or you need to go on patrol – there you will meet a random monster, and at the same time you will receive upgrade materials that are not given out during regular hunts.

Before you start tracking down the monster, everyone must click on the “Ready” button, but before that the game will kindly tell you whether you are well dressed for the upcoming fight. Monsters here are divided into several elements, and how effective you will be in battle depends on the armor you wear and the weapon you choose. If the giant is fiery, going to him in the armor of an owl from a snowy region is stupid, but in the attire of another fiery monster you will be able to withstand significantly more blows. With weapons, everything works in the opposite direction – in a frosty arena, your red-hot sword will be more useful than a weak piece of ice. If necessary, you can change clothes in the same menu, but it’s a pity that it’s not yet possible to select several sets and quickly switch between them – everything has to be done separately.

For every convenience, there is sure to be a sloppily made element. Either you have to queue for 10 minutes before starting the game, or you can’t take on a new quest, and you need to exit the dialogue and start it again. Matching random players also works strangely – if there are two or three of you in the lobby, the game will not start the hunt for two minutes, even if everyone is ready. But the room will not be filled with anyone in the end, and you will go with the same company. During the hunt itself, no one joined me. Perhaps this is due to barely breathing servers.

It is possible that because of them, performance on a regular PlayStation 4 sometimes leaves much to be desired. Or is the game just poorly optimized?. In the city where you are engaged in forging and picking up quests, the frame rate drops by almost half, and the same thing often happens during a hunt, especially if the giant likes to call on small assistants or sets the ground on fire. In May, the game visited consoles for the first time, so you can still forgive the developers for such an oversight. The main thing is that they fix it as soon as possible.

For what Dauntless What’s really worth praising is the support for full cross-play between the three platforms. It is enabled by default, so in every second session you find yourself in the same group with PC and console owners, seeing the corresponding icons next to their names. At these moments you begin to understand that such multiplayer is the future – any patrol and any hunt can be launched in a matter of seconds, and if your friends are not playing on the same device, there are no barriers between you. Eh, this would happen in all other multiplayer games..

Generally Dauntless turned out to be a good shareware game, which at this stage does not cause me any complaints in terms of monetization. Basically, they ask you to pay for cosmetic items, and every time you start you are reminded of the existence of a paid “Hunting Pass” in the spirit of Fortnite And Paladins with all sorts of consumables, costumes, emotes and currency, thanks to which you will be able to return the money spent and purchase the next pass for free.

This is really a simplified version Monster Hunter, lacking some of its advantages, but still worthy of attention. If you like to hunt monsters, collect armor from them, forge weapons and complete challenges while watching the checkmarks appear on a huge list, it will be difficult to tear yourself away from the game.