ShogunRok

@EfYI Just to let you know, your Star Letter prize has been sent via email. Always best to write a comment just in case it ends up in your spam folder!

Thanks!

@AhmadSumadi Just wanted to say, this is pretty much the key problem with reviews these days: most people who actually interact with them only do so to confirm their own biases.

If you made your mind up months ago about disliking Shadows, you're going to seek out negative reviews and give them a thumbs up. "Ah, I knew it!" And it works both ways, obviously.

So if the critical consensus doesn't match your opinion (an opinion that was formed before even playing the game, it should be pointed out) you end up pointing to different factors.

"Can't trust paid reviewers."

"Will wait for the user reviews."

Logic gets thrown out the window, which is the frustrating thing. But we also need to remember that the vast majority of people who do read or watch these reviews simply do so and move on.

@lazarus11 The Animus menu is tied into the cosmetics shop, basically. There's a section where you get seasonal rewards for just playing the game, and there's a section that sells cosmetics for either in-game currency or real money (credits or whatever).

@Uromastryx It's around 102GB.

The hub is basically just a menu. Right now it's quite barebones, with nothing to really do outside of launching your game. The Animus trials — which reward you with points you can spend in the store — are pretty standard, but they can have you fight strong enemies which is fairly fun.

There's also a battle pass-like thing where you can unlock a series of rewards through playing.

All in all, the 'live service' stuff is better implemented than it was in Valhalla.

@djlard There are some important pieces of information that are shared through the modern day Animus stuff, but it's never a focus. It reminds me a bit of the modern day sections in Black Flag — largely inconsequential but they they did still tie the game into the larger modern narrative.

@BleedingDreamer Yep, loads of exploration and the map is much bigger than the one in Ghost.

As someone who also loves roaming around big open worlds and just taking in the sights, I think Shadows' open world is outstanding. Quite possibly the best one Ubisoft has ever made.

@puddinggirl Ehhhh, kind of. For me, they're both 8s but for different reasons (and I'd probably say Veilguard just hits an 8, whereas Shadows is almost the definition of an 8 — maybe we should start using decimals!).

@Zuljaras Now that's a tough one!

Honestly, it's so hard to say. I think the marketing push behind Shadows has been (and will be) huge, and that'll sell a lot of copies by itself. It also feels like the release date is in a good spot.

For what it's worth, Ubisoft 100% made the right decision to delay Shadows not once, but twice. It's a very polished game and that'll help its cause.

I think it'll be a hit for Ubisoft. Whether that's enough to turn their financials around... I wouldn't like to say!

@Tsushima Personally, I think Ghost of Tsushima is still the better game overall, but there are some aspects of open world design and systems that Shadows does better.

And I haven't finished Ronin, but I prefer Shadows based purely on the strength of its open world. Ronin's got better combat because that's clearly the focus, but for me, that game falls apart in terms of structure.

@Ravix I think the easy answer for gameplay improvements is the stealth. This is the first open world RPG instalment that actually lets you go full stealth and it's really effective. And the game does this without sacrificing what made the combat systems in previous games fun. You get the best of both, basically.

I think if you're kind of burned out on the previous games, Shadows may not do enough to restore your enthusiasm — at least in terms of gameplay. Although like the review says, the fact you can swap between stealth and combat makes the whole gameplay loop much less repetitive. The dual protagonists approach works really well in that sense.

Story-wise, I think there are actually a handful of emotional moments. I thought parts of Yasuke's story were genuinely heartfelt, and Naoe has some great scenes as well.

And that's the crux, really — the characters in Shadows are generally just much better than what's come before. I'm not saying the secondary cast are Mass Effect level or anything, but they're all likeable and feel like they have a place in the story / world.

@Vovander Yep, there are four difficulty settings, which are basically super easy, easy, normal, and hard.

Normal is actually quite tricky to begin with because you don't have many options for fighting back effectively. But the difficulty curve evens out as you unlock more abilities and better equipment.

Hard makes it so enemies are noticeably more aggressive and can attack in groups — but even then, most enemies tend to wait there turn. It's just how the combat is balanced, I suppose.

@12AngryCats Shadows is a fine place to jump in, I think. The older AC games had a modern day storyline that continued between titles, but that side of the series has been gradually phased out, to the point where any modern day stuff barely exists in Shadows.

And the feudal Japan storyline is completely standalone, so yeah, I think you could start here and not have any problems.

@wildcat_kickz That's a good question — I don't think you can (and this is one of those games that seems to have an option for everything). I'll double check when I get a chance.

@RoomWithaMoose Yeah Ubisoft said this was a smaller game than past open world RPG entries in the series, and while that might technically be true, it certainly doesn't feel much shorter.

You could easily play Shadows for over 100 hours if you take your time and try to do absolutely everything. It's still a massive game.

@lazarus11 So I played on PS5 Pro and the game looks great — I believe all three modes (resolution, performance, and balanced) use ray tracing, with resolution going for the full suite of visual effects.

That's the one where ray tracing really stands out — the lighting is immaculate. It's definitely not as noticeable in performance mode, but it still makes a difference compared to the standard PS5 version, from what I can tell.

Side quests typically involve hunting down targets, although there are a few ally-related side quests that are more in-depth and interesting.

I wouldn't say any of the quests are on the same level as say... The Witcher 3, but those ally ones I mentioned are pretty good.

@WolfyTn Nope, the modern day stuff is almost exclusively kept inside the new Animus system.

As you play through the game, you unlock memories and records of events that you can watch / read in the Animus menu. There's also a kind of overarching Animus storyline, but it's very much kept in the background — there are no modern day characters or anything.

If anyone's got any questions about the game or the review, let me know and I'll try to answer them.

I spent around 80 hours playing Shadows and really enjoyed it overall. It's up there with my favourite Assassin's Creed games, although I've always liked the open world RPG entries — and I'm obviously a massive weeb, so the feudal Japan setting is right up my street.

And this shouldn't really need saying, but can we please try to be respectful of one another in the comments. We don't want to be removing posts for the rest of the week — it's a waste of everyone's time (including yours!).

Thanks!

Sorry that this Mailbox is a bit late — we've been absolutely buried in other stuff. We got there in the end!

We really do read every letter we get sent, so thanks to everyone who takes the time to write something, no matter how big or small.

@AndroidBango Your comment had me desperately checking the article for a typo!

@Ralizah We just have to start convincing publishers to delay their games not once, but twice.

@JAMes-BroWWWn The goal is to do them every month from now on. The previous format was just a lot of work, so we've tried to simplify it and keep it ticking this year.

@rjejr Yep it's on every platform that Kakarot is on, as far as I can tell.

Social media's so often a cesspool that I'd recommend never taking it seriously, but I also get Harada's frustration. The entitlement over video game characters is crazy.

Like he says in another post, you've always got to remind yourself that so much negativity comes from a very vocal minority.

@Ralizah I know it gets said a lot, but it is getting harder and harder to argue against buying games at a later date.

Cost less, they've been patched up, and you're probably getting some kind of DLC thrown into the mix.

The only real upside of buying a game at launch is to experience it alongside other players — which for some will be a big part of Monster Hunter games in particular.

@Rich33 Thanks for pointing this out, I've given the DF article a read myself and it seems totally in-line with my own experience on the Pro.

We'll be covering their findings in an article tonight if all goes to plan!

@rjejr Yep, quests still have time limits but they're very generous given how quickly you can kill monsters in this game (partly thanks to the wound system allowing you to do much more damage in a short space of time).

And yeah, you'll often see other monsters wander into the battle and start causing chaos. The game's very dynamic like this — sometimes it helps, sometimes it makes things trickier!

You're right about Rise by the way, there was a dog-like mount. In this you've got a dinosaur-like mount that can glide. Functionality is largely the same, though.

You can call your mount at any time and it'll come and pick you up, making it great for dodging huge attacks or getting out of a particularly chaotic situation. These new mounts even have a kind of automatic dodge that can really save your skin as you're running away.

@throwmeaname Yeah, you'll need PS Plus to play online. Free-to-play games and things like betas are the only things you don't need PS Plus for.

@thefourfoldroot1 That's a good question. Generally speaking, Monster Hunter isn't anywhere near as punishing as something like Elden Ring, or a comparative Souls-like.

Becoming familiar with attack patterns is crucial to success, but you're given a lot of room for error. Fights tend to be quite slowly paced, and attacks are clearly telegraphed for the most part. As long as you're paying attention, you can learn a monster's behaviour while you fight it, and you'll have plenty of time to adapt.

You also have a wealth of healing items to take into battle, and Wilds introduces a mount that can get you out of hairy situations very quickly. Plus, you always have three lives; getting KO'd just sends you back to your nearest camp, and there's no additional downside (the enemy's remaining health stays the same, etc.).

There's no levelling as such — all of your strength is derived from the equipment that you have (weapons and armour), so the whole gameplay loop revolves around hunting, slaying, and then using the monster's materials to craft better stuff.

In short, you can definitely force your way through some encounters. Your first fight with a new monster will inevitably throw up some surprises, but the game's designed around repeated hunts of the same opponents, so you gradually get better and better at killing them.

The only sticking point for some players might be the one-hit kill, unblockable attacks that very few monsters have (usually the big bosses). These attacks require some kind of environmental manipulation to survive, like hiding behind a fallen rock. Bound to take you by surprise at some point, but again, the learning curve is more than reasonable.

@rjejr Inevitably, someone will do the maths and work this out.

@bowzoid Wilds definitely looks and runs better on the Pro, but there's still no ideal solution, which is annoying. If you want a smooth 60fps, you need to sacrifice ray tracing and image quality, just like on the base console (except not quite as bad, as far as we can tell).

We did a performance overview article here that goes into more detail (and has tables on how the game runs on Pro and PS5): https://www.pushsquare.com/previews/hands-on-monster-hunter-wilds-performance-certainly-isnt-perfect-on-ps5-ps5-pro

Hopefully that helps!

@Cerny We've done similar articles for games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Dragon's Dogma 2 in the past — games that have had issues running on PlayStation.

But we can certainly cover more games like this if people want to see it.

@carlos82 From everything I've read, Wilds suffers from the same CPU-related stress as Dragon's Dogma 2 — and that's where the engine's really starting to stumble.

Basically, both games are doing a lot of stuff with dynamic interactions, animations, and AI routines. They're just really busy, and asking a lot of the hardware's CPU.

Capcom did manage to optimise DD2's CPU usage through updates, but it's still not perfect. I'd argue Wilds is in a slightly better state overall, but it's clearly got similar issues (and looks noticeably worse than DD2 from a graphical standpoint).

It'll be interesting to see how Capcom tries to improve Wilds, especially since I'm sure there'll be a lot more complaints on release.

@ORO_ERICIUS Yeah, we're not quite sure about PSSR here. We think that the game looks sharper on the Pro — particularly in the performance mode — which could be PSSR's doing.

But there's no mention of PSSR in the game's graphics settings, so we can't be 100%.

@Rich33 That's some good feedback, thanks! You're right, a more general description of overall image quality would probably serve most people better.

I enjoyed this, might play it again since it's only an hour long or so!

We're not quite Digital Foundry (maybe one day, you never know), but we wanted to put a quick article together on how Wilds runs on PS5 and PS5 Pro. We've played it extensively on both, so it seemed like a worthwhile effort.

For what it's worth, the game's performance didn't impact my experience too negatively (as evidenced by the positive review), but I can see it being a bit of sticking point for some people, especially on base PS5.

I mostly played on the Prioritize Framerate setting, which provides the smoothest frame rate by some distance.

I can try to answer some more specific questions if anyone's got them.

@Nepp67 I'd say reasonably easy, with some tougher fights here and there where I had to really concentrate.

But like I said in an earlier comment, I put about 1,000 hours into World, and Monster Hunter games do tend to feel easier when you already have a lot of experience with past titles.

I think if you're totally new, there are mechanics in Wilds that probably make it easier than previous instalments, but it's hard to say whether it's truly an easier game without it being in the hands of more people.

@ThomasHL From what I can tell, co-op progression works similarly to World. You can join someone else's main story quest only if you've already completed it, or if you're up to that same point yourself.

Co-op is available early, just a couple of hours in if I'm remembering right. Basically once the first few main quests are over, and you've established a dedicated hub.

I'm not totally sure about being able to play co-op only. There are some story quests where you're automatically joined by a companion NPC, and I don't know whether that blocks other players.

I should also clarify that only the quests are co-op. You can't join a friend's game and walk around with them between missions, or watch story cutscenes with them as they happen.

@WanderingBullet They're solid, I think I've only ever seen a Support Hunter get KO'd two or three times across tens of missions (I've been playing with them in the endgame, but did the whole campaign solo).

I don't think their equipment changes as you progress, but their stats probably do — otherwise they'd be getting one-shot by the stronger monsters in the endgame.

@Loamy Yeah, we've tried out all the modes. We've got a more detailed Hands On article coming soon that covers the graphics options.

@bowzoid We got access to the patch early.

@Loamy Yeah I played on Pro and Stephen played on the base PS5.

The game definitely runs better on Pro, but like the review says, it's still not perfect. The performance mode hits a smooth 60fps, and we think it's got a higher resolution, but the other modes suffer from fluctuating frame rates (although you can cap them).

@VaultGuy415 I never noticed any disjointed wound animations while playing, so I suspect it was some kind of beta-only issue.

It's hard to say whether the game's too easy. I didn't run into any serious problems, but then I played about 1,000 hours of World, and I used the same weapon (which now seems to be even better) in Wilds.

We'll have to wait and see what the broader playerbase thinks!

@Cerny We played it on both.

@Hapless I'm pretty sure you can hide the chat through the options menu. You can also just host a private or single-player session and just have people join through your SOS flares instead of being in a lobby with them.

If anyone's got any questions about the game or the review, let me know and I'll try to answer them.

I've spent around 80 hours with Wilds. Finished the whole campaign, all the side missions, and hunted every monster. Still grinding for the best possible equipment, and I'm still loving the core gameplay loop. Just never gets old for me.

While the game is already long and robust at launch, I do think this is one where Capcom can make it better and better and better through updates, which is an exciting prospect. I'm expecting even better support than what World and Rise got.

Thanks for reading!

@johncalmc Yeah don't get me wrong, Yakuza's always had moments where you've had to suspend your disbelief (your Kiwami 2 example is perfect really), but purely from an onlooker's standpoint, a game where amnesiac Majima becomes a pirate captain sounds like total madcap fanfiction.

I adore Yakuza and I'll likely really enjoy this when I get around to it, but there's a growing absurdity to the latest games that's just starting to rub me the wrong way. Or maybe I just got burned out by Infinite Wealth being so long!

Part of me is a bit worried that Like a Dragon's jumped the shark with this one — especially since it's considered fully canon. But you could argue the series has been going in this kind of insane direction for a while.

Like the review says, I'm sure it's still good fun. But I'd be lying if I said part of me wasn't missing the more... 'grounded' drama of the older Yakuza games.

@Pandalulz Yeah the fact that things like AI play such an important role now is crazy. But I suppose it's credit to Falcom's worldbuilding that you mostly suspend your disbelief.

@Areus I think it's quite interesting in how diverse it is. I feel like Erebonia was more consistent, though, but maybe that was because the technology wasn't as advanced.

That said, I do think the cities in Calvard are a step forward. They feel big and full of life compared to the older games.