izigame.me

I really wanted to like this game, so I fought against the performance issues and played until after the Deathstalker/Ice Wolf monster at the 4th area. From what I've experienced, fixing performance won't save this game. I won't mention these in this review as they are supposedly being fixed, and I believe the game has bigger things to worry about.
The Karakuri system is really cool in concept, but is frequently janky in practice. To build larger devices (like the funny hammer) you have to place multiple smaller objects in a configuration. However the placement is grid based, and sometimes even standing still, you can stack two objects, but the final piece is placed to the side, failing to complete the build. Building these combinations while under attack or moving is essentially impossible, with slight camera movements causing basic Karakuri to be placed outside of the configuration.
Interacting with Karakuri is also clunky. For example, the torch Karakuri causes you to do a short dash forwards and perform a melee attack when you enter a radius around it. The animation can't be cancelled, and sometimes if you walk directly towards the torch, the dash attack animation will end with you still in the torches radius, forcing you to attack again. Combined with the above problem of Karakuri grid placement often getting misaligned, you can end up in situations where you accidentally just place a torch alone and get stun-locked by the attack animation it forces you into.
Monster diversity is basically non-existent. Each area has around 4-5 monsters that can appear there. Monsters start being repeated as re-skins as soon as the 3rd area, and by the 4th area all but one of the monsters is a re-skin. After completing the main quest in the 4th area, my next main quest was to return there and fight a "Mighty Kingtusk". This monster wasn't even a re-skin (although a re-skin of the Kingtusk is present in the area as well), it is simply the same enemy from the first area with inflated stats. In total, the game has "21" monsters, however 7 of them are re-skins, so there is only 14 unique fights (And one of those is basically a dollar store Zorah Magdaros you just hold down the attack button against). The monsters don't also really "do" anything. They mostly just stand around waiting for you to come and beat them up. I know they CAN sleep, but I think I only say this twice in my entire playtime, both times being the same monster in the same place. Monsters don't interact with each other at all outside of scripted encounters which try to replicate turf wars from Monster Hunter. Large monsters don't interact with small monsters, small monsters don't interact with each other, and all will just run at you and attack you with no context for each other, and can't actually damage each other at all (Why are these lizards and mice teaming up against me when there is a giant boar 50x their size stomping around?)
The story of the game is not at all engaging, to the point where I thought it was actually bugged. Upon being introduced to the city hub area, there as a cutscene and a time skip, after which you are already "well acquainted" with everyone in the town. There's no development of your role in the town through gameplay and you are never given a reason to care about anyone. You just walk around with people you've never met before saying it's good to see you again and how important you are. Sidequests mostly boil down to a couple generic lines of dialogue about a family member or something, and end in "Anyway, go kill Sapscourge again.".
The gear system is pretty tragic, with weapon skills being almost exclusively garbage like "+2% crit damage" or something to that effect. Armour is for the most part the same, with the majority of the gear sets I unlocked having no skills attached at all. There isn't very much diversity in armour sets, with many of the individual sets being tied to multiple monsters (and remember there is only 21 monsters). The Human/Kemono path system is interesting, with some armour being able to be modified to be more human or monster like, affecting a balance gauge that can unlock skills based on how far you're tipped towards either side. The system isn't fleshed out very much, with the majority of the armour not being modifiable, and sets that do allow it usually don't let you modify every piece. The skills requiring these paths are few and far between, usually don't do anything particularly interesting, and are often the only skill on a piece of gear. As such, skills being locked behind these paths comes off as arbitrarily locking you out of your gear skills, as opposed to a nice bonus for following a certain path.
The freedom of movement and different movement options are awesome, but come with their own problems. Flying around frequently gets you stuck on invisible walls, has you walking on the air or clipping you through scenery. These issues get progressively worse in each area, with the 4th map being difficult to tell where you can and can't walk at all.
The weapons are actually really fun for the most part, if not balanced really poorly, with some weapons being just objectively worse than others. Additionally, you don't unlock every weapon right away. There are 8 weapon types, with 3 (Cannon, Clawblade and Staff) locked until the end of the first chapter of the story (And there are only 4 chapters). As such, if you want to use one of those 3, you have to play with a different weapon for the first several hours of the game.
Overall, this game isn't worth $70. I'd struggle to recommend it even at half price. Even if the performance issues get fixed, the game is largely a shallow experience that struggles to prop itself up with just the Karakuri and cool weapons. I'd like to hope this game gets the No Man's Sky treatment and becomes the Monster Hunter competitor I was hoping it would be, but with EA at the wheel I'm not holding my breath.
TL;DR: Just buy MHW lol