Fun and addicting as ♥♥♥♥. I can't remember the last time I binged a game so hard and genuinely couldn't put it down. Rather than the comparisons to Monster Hunter I'd compare it more to something like Phantasy Star Online, Stranger of Paradise, and Toukiden - if you enjoyed those, you'll feel at home here. It kinda feels like an MMO-lite (complete with the hellish grind) action game but for 4 players, and I'm here for it.

The story was not for me, and is honestly some real generic anime garbage that was painful to wade through at times, but once you can finally play with friends - the gameplay loop is where it's at. Every time I'd start getting tired of the grind or how my character plays, I'd just play a different one and have a blast again. They all feel quite distinct and I haven't disliked any of them, when I normally do in similar games. Beyond just building for pure damage, there's a lot of room for goofy gimmick builds, which is always fun. There's just so many ways to consistently get a bit more powerful even in the endgame, it's an endless crack loop. But dear god, whoever decided it was a cool idea to have us kill Training Dummy Proto Bahamut hundreds of times to obtain all of the endgame weapons, especially when several fights before it were both more interesting and difficult, is a bit of a dunce.

Aside from the story and a mild annoyance with sigil management, the only other gripe I have with the game is (unfortunately a big one) - a lack of different enemies, and difficulty. There's not much challenge when you become so powerful so quickly in the endgame, that there comes a point where you can just faceroll most things without even bothering to pay attention to much. Sure, you can impose difficulty on yourself by going in undergeared or with certain sigils - but I honestly just wish there was an extra difficulty that was actually challenging with more going on and doesn't let you die 20 times in a fight with zero repercussions, especially when the combat is on the simple side. We need a G rank.

I hope that beyond the planned updates they consider doing a larger expansion one day, because the base here is so damn good, and I don't want this to be the end of it.

edit: Discovered that the game locks getting 100% achievements behind a $15 DLC with no content since it includes a weapon, that's ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ demonic. I still love the game, but damn that's sad. They fixed it, nice.

Fun and addicting as fuck. I can't remember the last time I binged a game so hard and genuinely couldn't put it down. Rather than the comparisons to Monster Hunter I'd compare it more to something like Phantasy Star Online, Stranger of Paradise, and Toukiden - if you enjoyed those, you'll feel at home here. It kinda feels like an MMO-lite (complete with the hellish grind) action game but for 4 players, and I'm here for it. The story was not for me, and is honestly some real generic anime garbage that was painful to wade through at times, but once you can finally play with friends - the gameplay loop is where it's at. Every time I'd start getting tired of the grind or how my character plays, I'd just play a different one and have a blast again. They all feel quite distinct and I haven't disliked any of them, when I normally do in similar games. Beyond just building for pure damage, there's a lot of room for goofy gimmick builds, which is always fun. There's just so many ways to consistently get a bit more powerful even in the endgame, it's an endless crack loop. But dear god, whoever decided it was a cool idea to have us kill [strike]Training Dummy[/strike] Proto Bahamut hundreds of times to obtain all of the endgame weapons, especially when several fights before it were both more interesting and difficult, is a bit of a dunce. Aside from the story and a mild annoyance with sigil management, the only other gripe I have with the game is (unfortunately a big one) - a lack of different enemies, and difficulty. There's not much challenge when you become so powerful so quickly in the endgame, that there comes a point where you can just faceroll most things without even bothering to pay attention to much. Sure, you can impose difficulty on yourself by going in undergeared or with certain sigils - but I honestly just wish there was an extra difficulty that was actually challenging with more going on and doesn't let you die 20 times in a fight with zero repercussions, especially when the combat is on the simple side. We need a G rank. I hope that beyond the planned updates they consider doing a larger expansion one day, because the base here is so damn good, and I don't want this to be the end of it. [strike]edit: Discovered that the game locks getting 100% achievements behind a $15 DLC with no content since it includes a weapon, that's fucking demonic. I still love the game, but damn that's sad.[/strike] They fixed it, nice.