- [David] If you strip Monster Hunter down,
to its core components,
and redesigned it as a free-to-play online only game,
you get something very close to Dauntless.
It takes most of the best parts of Capcom's
iconic franchise, and redeploys them in a way
that's accessible, and fun with a whole lot less baggage.
(trap beat music)
Slaying is basically all you do.
There's not much by way of story, so when you're
not customizing things,
you're out in the wild chopping off tails,
dodging fireballs,
and slaying enormous beasts.
The excellent moment to moment gameplay is
focused on constant progression through a
hunt, craft, repeated loop.
Every monster you kill lead to a bunch of
crafting materials, like hides, and feathers, and scales,
that are used to back in town to craft weapons and armor,
based on those very same monsters.
You need to harvest fire based creatures to craft
fiery weapons that will help you take down ice monsters,
and you need to harvest the ice monsters to make armor
good enough to withstand the ice-based attacks
of the even stronger ones.
You also progress just by doing things.
The more you use a type of weapon, or slay a type of beast,
the higher your mastery rank increases in a specific field.
The higher your mastery level is,
the better gear you can make,
the better upgrades you can unlock, and so on.
It's a system that rewards commitment and refreshingly,
it doesn't punish you for not spending money
on the optional and mostly cosmetic, micro-transactions.
(trap beat music)
Each of Dauntless' six weapon types feel unique
and powerful, and they can be upgraded
and customized to your taste.
The sword is nice and balanced as a good entry weapon,
but the flashiness of the war-pike makes it an
exciting wield for extended combos.
The only dual wielding melee option
are the chain blades, they're extremely fast and efficient,
where as the repeaters offer a mid-range hand gun style,
to mix things up.
Hammers are the slowest of the bunch,
but inflict huge damage, and the Axe is somewhere between
the sword and hammer as a massage bladed weapon,
that's fined tuned for slicing and dicing.
(monster grunting)
Of all the weapon types my favorite was the war pike,
because it feels the most distinctive.
It's got good range for a melee weapon,
and can attack either very quickly,
to build up your special meter,
or slowly for strong slashing attacks,
to break off monster parts.
Its combos and combat style are the most nuanced
and tricky of the weapon options,
but it feels great once you get the hang of it,
it also just looks really cool to use.
(soft music)
(monster groaning)
Monster designs are often a mix between fantastical
creatures, and more grounded real world animals hybrids.
Well not quite otherworldly as the bombastic beasts
from God-Eater, nor as realistic designed
as Monster Hunter's dinosaur-esque creatures,
Dauntless has a striking style all its own that
really grew on me over time.
Learning attack patterns, and perfecting your doge rolling,
is just as important as knowing your weapon combos.
When your dodge you're invulnerable for a brief time,
so you can actually roll towards, in through enemies,
mid fight.
But since so many weapons are huge, with deliberate
wind-ups, timing things so that you don't get
stuck in a attack animation right as a behemoth is
barreling towards you is key.
Its got a great rhythm of planning an execution
in each fight.
(trap beat music)
Multiplayer is a blast,
and even works cross-platform between Play-station,
X-Box, and PC.
Working together to slay a behemoth is rewarding,
and between the variety of weapons and armor,
plus color dyes, it's nearly impossible to see
two players that look the same.
Whenever I logged into Dauntless,
I'd often jump right into matchmaking for a hunt
and get dropped into one of the three fairly,
straight-forward biomes in under a minute.
Most last ten minutes total, and then your right back
to the hub, to quickly craft before going out again.
Hard core Monster Hunter fans will likely miss the
complications they've grown to love
such as tracking monsters, capturing them,
and exploring multiple zones across each hunt
to find the right beasts in the wild.
But having a more stream lined experience removed a ton
of the friction, that would otherwise slow me down,
which made enjoying the genre that much easier.
(monster growling)
Technically, you can play Dauntless privately without
matchmaking, but you'll still need to be online.
And I really wouldn't recommend it anyway.
If you get downed, or die during a hunt even once
with no one to revive you, then your rewards are
dramatically reduced, so other than torturing yourself
with artificially inflated difficultly
that makes every fight take three times as long,
there's not really anything to gain.
(trap beat music)
Dauntless is a surprising achievement,
not only for its intensively fun
and accessible monster hunting action,
but also for its seamless cross-platform
multiplayer, and non-intrusive free-to-play mechanics.
Removing much of the supporting systems complexity
from games like Monster Hunter,
leaves a core that's immensely fun to dive into
for quick sessions, or hours on end.
Even if the depth and amount of activities outside of combat
and crafting are lacking.
For more, check out some Dauntless gameplay,
and look at the character creator,
or watch our review of Monster Hunter World.
And for everything else, stick with IGN.