Daemon X Machina

[Stanshall]

Having played for five or six hours now, it's fundamentally a Monster Hunter game with mechs and it's damn good fun at its best.

When you're in a little online team of four against this colossal writhing mechanical eel or massive hulking robot with a great sword or caterpillar tank spraying homing missiles, it's glorious. One guy pins the beast with stun laser as you unload acid bazooka rounds at its weak point and some other nutter is going up close with a laser sword and your last Japanese pal is defending the gang from a swarm of turret drones with heat seeking missiles. When it all comes together like that, it does remind me of the best moments I've had with old-school Monster Hunter.

Equally exciting are the 4-on-4 battles against other mechs. This is only PvE co-op for now but I'm sure they'll bring in a PvP mode and I can imagine it being brilliant if they balance the weapons right. As it is, the PvE still makes for some great fights as you work in a team to pick off one at a time but it inevitably falls into a chaotic slugfest of 1v1 fights tumbling into each other. That's always quality.

Unfortunately, the game makes a terrible first impression. The intro missions are boring, there's so much exposition to bookend them and dreadful characters are introduced every few minutes. This stuff is just completely unnecessary and works against the game's strengths. It works way too hard to make you intrigued by what's going on but it's far too much and is off-putting. After a dozen or so missions, you figure out the storytelling rhythm and start to get a handle on the various factions and broad characters and it's slightly less obnoxious. That's not what you're here for, though.

Graphically, it's kind of posterised cel-shaded anime with a touch of No Man's Sky. The palette is fantastical and bold, smoke effects, lasers and explosions look superb. When it's all in full flow, it's pretty impressive. The music is generic Japanese videogame metal, which is perfect for this kind of thing.

In short, story mode is crap. The fundamental MH Mech game is awesome.

[Stanshall]

Checked my playtime. Twelve hours. Went out Friday night...Busy yesterday...Watched cricket today...How did...This game has quite the alluring feedback loop.

[KSubzero1000]

I hope I don't sound like a jerk when saying this, but honestly, your post made me less interested in the game than I might have been beforehand. I've never clicked with a single PvE co-op based game in my life and I'm getting too grumpy for PvP, so good old rock solid singleplayer is basically the only kind of game I'm into these days. I thought the initial trailers looked promising when the game seemed more like a Z.O.E. or (flying) Vanquish type proposal, but I simply can't muster any excitement for the MH gameplay structure.

Glad to know you're having fun, though. One gem after the other for you recently on Switch!

[Stanshall]

Not at all, I totally get it.

Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate on the Switch is one of the best games I've ever played, a tour de force of singular design commitment. It says 'this is is Monster Hunter, take it or leave it'. Every so often, probably every three months, I'll have a couple of hours and I'll adore every minute of it but that will sate me until next time; it's just too much 'investment' for so little 'progress'. After a hundred hours or so across the Switch and 3DS, it feels too starkly 'pointless' for me beyond the fundamental pleasure of playing it. I suppose that's one of my recurring thoughts or concerns about games. Why do some games feel pointless? Why do some games feel engaging and enjoyable at the time but later I regret the time spent on them? Why do some games feel great at the time and continue to resonate years later? Anyway...

This is definitely not one to carry you along with an engaging single-player narrative or clever subversion of the form or nuanced characters or tight pacing or basically anything at all except from zipping around firing acid bazooka rounds and gravity beams at massive robots with some Japanese randoms. For me, though, at the moment, this is feeling great. I might look back and see a gigantic void but it's the most interesting game I own at this moment. Definitely not one I'd recommend without the above reservations, though. It's probably going to be a bit of an overlooked fan fave, like ARMS.

[Suits]

I’ve turned the background music off .

I like it, it feels naff in the right sort of way.

I’m only a few hours in but it already feels like the sort of game StarLink was, for me anyway.

A game to throw on, put a podcast on and chew through it. Games like this are important I think, they are to me anyway.

Sometimes I just want something to put on, zone out to and relax with.

Looking forward to exploring more of it .

More than happy to hook up for some Co-Op stuff dude if you fancy it .