- #Age of wonders planetfall or monster hunter iceborne upgrade#
- #Age of wonders planetfall or monster hunter iceborne full#
It took me longer than I would have liked to get my hands on these cool new toys, as most of the needed materials don’t arrive until much later. Every weapon tree has been extended, with the previous peak of Rarity 8 now potentially stretching all the way up to the ever-sparkling icons of Rarity 12.
However, the same level of courtesy isn’t offered to the new weapons. It’s a wonderfully self-aware decision, leaving the classic Monster Hunter equipment grind to the more interesting fights. Each piece of the Master Rank Jagras set, for example, only needs one of each of its required materials, acknowledging that you didn’t fly across the ocean to a snowy new land just to immediately go back to the Ancient Forest and hunt Great Jagras all day.
#Age of wonders planetfall or monster hunter iceborne upgrade#
Iceborne also clearly wants you to upgrade fast, as early armor can be hilariously cheap to craft.
This helps any Master Rank armor set offer more than just a numerical draw. One of these is on every piece of Beta armor, allowing you to easily use powerful new Decorations that can come with two different skills in one. In addition to the higher stats, new skill combinations to experiment with, and cool new armor aesthetics (most of which are fantastic, though some do look disappointingly identical to their High Rank counterparts), you’re also getting the new level 4 Decoration slots. It didn’t really feel like it was devaluing what I had earned in the base game because I was just too dang excited about what I was getting in return. Crucially, while it made me sad to leave my lovely Xeno’Jiiva wings behind, this reset was far more exciting than frustrating. I was able to stubbornly hold onto the High Rank armor I’d worked so hard to get for the first half-dozen quests or so, but when I finally decided to upgrade my total defense jumped more than 300 points in a single trip to the forge. Master Rank gear offers a jump in power that truly leaves High Rank in the dust.Īnd, just so it’s clear, that’s the worst armor in Iceborne. Enter Iceborne’s all-new Master Rank missions with an entirely new tier of equipment where Bone and Alloy Armor – the bottom-of-the-barrel basic stuff – has a whopping 114 base defense. Here’s a quick comparison for context: a typical piece of World’s best High Rank armor will give you 72 defense, which can then be bumped up to 92 if you augment and upgrade it to the max. It turns out the answer is by looking you square in the eye and saying, “That fancy augmented Gamma armor you like so much? Yeah, it’s trash now.” I’m exaggerating here.
#Age of wonders planetfall or monster hunter iceborne full#
This expansion picks up after the end of the base game’s main campaign, but I was curious how it would tempt me away from my High Rank armor and weapons, which were full of augments and synergistic skills I’d grown so used to. Out With the Old Gear, In With the Newīut let’s get into the meat and potatoes of Iceborne: the gear. Without spoilers, these characters have actual story arcs this time – they’re still pretty shallow, but it made the story more engaging and far less forgettable than the first. The excellent cutscene quality you already know is back, but now with more of a spotlight on existing side characters like the Tracker and the Field Team Leader (which does make it a little funny that they still don’t have real names). While the story is (once again) pretty much just there to pull you through the bulk of the new content, Iceborne adds a welcome new emphasis on its cast. Just like last time, you follow tracks, fight monsters, and try to figure out what’s causing all this commotion so you can promptly kill it and turn it into a sweet pair of pants – you know, for research. The story this time around is just as amusing and inconsequential as the original: monsters are behaving erratically, a dangerous new elder dragon has appeared, and an exciting snow-covered land unlike any of the others has been discovered. Couple that with innumerable quality-of-life improvements (plus a few exciting surprises along the way) and Iceborne manages to hit the high bar set by Monster Hunter: World no matter what you call it. While this is not an entirely new game in feel or structure when compared to Monster Hunter: World, it adds a new story nearly as large as the base game’s with almost as many new monsters to kill, carve, and wear like a celebratory tuxedo. The line between an expansion and a full-blown sequel is one Monster Hunter World: Iceborne comes close to blurring into oblivion.
0 kommentar(er)
