Authorizing the shark in MONSTER HUNTER WILDS
Nata chance
Great news: Monster Hunter Wilds still rules. It’s so goddamn fun and I am in physical pain writing this out instead of performing a Power Clash with a giant land-squid. My wife is tired of hearing me say “fuck yeah” all the time. But I did finish the meat of the story this week, and the outrageous choice Capcom makes for the ending is so unhinged that I keep laughing to myself in my home office (a fancy word for “part of my living room”).
The choice in particular is regarding the protagonist of the story, Nata, a tween boy who is so miscast in the English dub that he is widely hated online. Beyond even his voice, however, is his prevailing cowardice in the story. Yes, I am calling a child a coward because that’s exactly what he is. He will never have real opinions of his own, and if he ever moved to New York City he would move back home that same week1. But this cowardice is the result of a powerclash between two different elements in the game’s story: Nata’s development and “hunter authorization”. There will be spoilers here.
Nata is a survivor of a traumatic incident, going through beats of PTSD that are surprisingly authentic and familiar to me as someone who has spent time recovering from the same thing. He has emotional outbursts, he makes choices that would endanger him and his team, and he finds savior-like comfort in his protectors. Wilds’ story does a lot of stupid stuff as a product clearly driven by spreadsheets and executive notes (if you take a shot every time an ancient civilization is mentioned, you will be dead. You have been warned), but Nata’s emotional beats are good, if not deflated by how many times the script makes him repeat himself with a squeaky, annoying voice. In the story’s climax, he is given the responsibility of disrupting his home’s ecosystem to prevent a terrible monster from waking and destroying the land, in what is very obviously a setup to have Nata go through a difficult choice that he has to make. Hurt his home, or let his home be destroyed by a catastrophe similar to his formative trauma? This is a wonderfully tense choice, and he has to make that choice, as it’s the pinnacle of his development. It makes all of his annoying bullshit worth it. The story is set up for this choice to be made… you would think, wouldn’t you?
Enter the Hunter’s Authorization. The premise of the Monster Hunter Wilds is that you play a person who hunts dangerous monsters with the bureaucracy of any modern organization. A handler has to accompany you throughout the game world, acting as a representative of your Guild and authorizing you to hunt various threats. Each of these authorizations are explicitly stated with a justification: “In order to prevent further escalation in this region, you’re hereby authorized to hunt this so-and-so.” It’s something the series has never done before, and acts as a nice little bit of bureaucracy that really gives realism to the world. I love it. Even better, the writers smartly use this in different ways throughout the story to increase the stakes. There’s an excellent moment where no one wants you to kill a monster, but you have no choice, so your handler has to heartbreakingly give you the authorization anyway while holding Nata back. Just really stellar stuff all around here. The only problem is that the writers got an idea in their heads to use this convention stylistically and then completely torpedoed the story in doing so.
Back to that final moment with Nata in the climax: he has to choose to disrupt his home for the greater good, so naturally he hesitates, shaking in his boots. And hesitates. And hesitates. And… he never makes the choice. Instead, your hunter character steps in and tells Nata that he actually doesn’t have to do this and that there is another way. You then take out your sword, say “I authorize myself,” and beat the shit out of the monster.
You know I’ve worn that 3 Muskateers hat since the moment I saw it, stats be damned
Yes. That really happens. It is 20% cool, 80% unbelievable, and 100% hilarious. I just kind of can’t believe they did it, as this was written by the very team who set up Nata to go through this moment. Like, guys, just change the script if you want something to happen. It’s your story. I can’t believe I have to write this, but the story isn’t real. You can change it. This is such a huge jumping-the-shark moment that is so over the top that I, again, completely love it. It’s a choice that’s the result of a team who just loves doing weird shit, and it’s also the final nail in the coffin for Nata as a character, dooming him to be the internet’s punching bug for eternity as a child coward.
I can’t believe it, but also, this is a game where you carry weapons so big that other characters repeatedly have to say “Wow, that’s a big weapon. Like, how is that even possi– oh no a monster, save me!” This team is going to do what they want and that is something to be treasured. Fuck yeah.
Be Nice
ZeroRanger - A shoot-em-up arcade game where you can only defeat invading aliens by accepting the tenets of Buddhism.
Why it didn’t work for me: I’m conflicted about this one, because my issue isn’t actually with the story. The way they’ve made such a minimal story work for this is honestly incredible. There is so little to go on, but they’ve made everything speak volumes. The actual problem (spoilers for a mechanic, but not the story) is that if you lose against the final boss, the whole game is reset. The way they’ve made this reflect the story’s needs is phenomenal and I can only applaud them for being such assholes about the gameplay matching the story and their philosophical mission. But guys. I can’t go through it all again. It doesn’t matter that the game isn’t very long. I just can’t. I tried it again twice and lost again and again. Shame on you, shame on me, etc.
Why it might work for you: If you’re a goddamn SHMUP lunatic who can deal with the tension of possibly having your progress erased in the final battle. The game really is tremendous but I’m sure many people have not beaten it for the same reason as me.
Oh, Good
Split Fiction - A co-op game about writers who fight back against an evil publishing company’s use of their ideas as marketing slop. The reviews for this are stellar, the trailer gives me chills, and it’s sitting on a whopping 5.0 rating on Steam. I would love to partake, but that requires me to have friends or family with the same tastes in games as me. This will instead go in the cupboard along with all other intimate co-op games until my daughter is old enough to also not play it with me.
A previous, very short-lived, roommate of mine actually did this. But he’s more successful than me now, so it worked out for him. Congrats, Tim, you successful coward.