One of my favorite games of all time!
Gameplay-10/10
Uniqueness- 10/10
Combat- 10/10
Crafting- 10/10
Weapons and Armor- 10/10
Once in a great while does a game come around and makes my jaw drop to the ground. This is one of them. I started to play this game and became hooked after just 5 minutes of playing. The active combat alone had me wanting to keep playing.
-The graphics are something that i thought would be worse, but were really decent on the wii. If they made this game for the xbox360 its all i would play.
-Gameplay was great all around. Characters are unique and memorable. Environment take a little while to get used to, but it makes the game better since your still figuring things out even after hours of playing. Picking up items out in the world is extremely fun, since you never know if a big monster is going to appear and attack you while you try to gather honey lol. Later in the game you will have boats to send out and hunt for treasure or for fish that you can sell or use in combat. You will also have full access to the farm that will allow you to grow mushrooms, plants, and insects that come in handy with combat and healing. There is fishing in the game as well which i love! The best part is using the frog to catch the big flounder looking monster that sucks you inside him. Took me 20 minutes of just standing there, but its so awsome when you catch him and fling him up onto shore and start attacking him.
-Combat is amazing. Its all real time and animated. If you do a certain combination to make your character charge and thrust his lance it takes time. So you have to time it right or you will miss the monsters a lot and get knocked to the ground. This combat system makes it very fun and challenging especially on the bigger and harder monsters. Also the different weapons in the game do different attacks and do different things to enemies. Like a lance will pierce enemies and has a shield to block with. I used only the lance because it fit my play style. The 2 handed hammer would knock enemies down and you could slam it on them while they were down. Each has its advantages and disadvantages and really comes down to how you want to fight.
-Crafting is a really nice added bonus. There are many different weapon trees for each weapon type that do different types of damage. From water, to fire, to nothing. Certain monsters are weak against certain things. So making a weapon for a certain monster is cool, but it seemed best to just go with a weapon with nothing on it with the highest damage stats. You have to collect special items from monsters in order to make certain weapons or armor. This was really fun chasing down monsters for items. Its even better since you have to try and attack certain parts of the monster to get better items from them. Attacking the tail over and over until it falls off to get a higher chance of getting a specific monster item was really fun. This goes for all monsters and they all have 3 or more areas to attack like head, tail, hands, feet, neck. Which do different things to the monster, but also cause parts to fall off.
-Weapons and Armor are great in the game. Each has a totally unique look and feel and do different things. Add certain stats to help you through the game against monsters and really depends on how you want to play. I went around in the biggest armor there was with the lance. So my toon was slow, but high defense and attack. Creating the items takes time, but you wont notice that at all since youll be having too much fun attacking monsters and making them cry.
-ONLINE
There is online content for this game! IT....IS.....GREAT!!!! No lag and you see what everyone else is doing. You can follow other people into their world and help them fight whatever they are having issues with. I do believe there is pvp as well where you fight each other.
-Conclusion
I really love this game and there is even a MMO out, but its only in japan which really makes me angry cause this game is so fun. If only they would make a brand new one on the xbox360 with more content it would be amazing, but the amount of people who play this game isn't as high as you would think. Its probably because most people think its a kids game and really its not. My ex took my wii and the only reason i want to buy a new one is to play this game again. I would start all over and play it from day one again and be happy to do so. I still have the game, but not the console. If you want a great game that will have you running around everyday killing monsters and having fun, this is the game for you!