Posted by This past Monday, Monster Hunter Wilds released its third Title Update: the collaboration monster Omega Planetes from Final Fantasy XIV. I have a rather mixed opinion on Omega and this Title Update as a whole.
As a fight, I actually really enjoy Omega. He’s super engaging and forces you to fight him like no other monster, though this could also be seen as a problem. Most of his attacks are very well telegraphed, so if you get hit you (usually) only have yourself to blame. Sometimes that’s not the case, like when Omega decides to just rain missiles nonstop on top of your head. Omega has a few different phases, and he forces you to adapt to them. Phase one is simple and teaches you the basic moves he’s going to be throwing out throughout the fight, and phase one is also the shortest section by far. Phase two sees the introduction of “Pantokrator Mode,” which causes Omega to attack faster and more aggressively while chaining more and more moves together. Phase three’s hallmark is a DPS check where Omega charges a powerful attack, and you have to quickly kill a Nerscylla Clone enemy to spawn a shield that blocks the attack. The final phase sees a return of “Pantokrator Mode” and Omega’s last stand as you finally bring him down. The fight, for the most part, is good. He’s really engaging, and it feels satisfying to dodge or counter his moves. Similarly, Omega hits HARD. He’s easily one of the hardest fights in the game, yet the difficulty feels (mostly) fair and balanced. Aside from four exceptions, none of the attacks feel particularly unfair to handle.
The negatives with the fight basically boil down to the MRV missile attack, the big laser, chip damage, and the DPS check. The MRV missile is the constant rain of missiles that will fall repeatedly on your head. There are a lot of these that you have to dodge, and they come out with such a fast frequency that you can easily get destroyed by them. It’s happened to me on multiple occasions where the first missile is sent, I dodge it, the second missile comes after me and hits me, and then the third missile is launched, and I either try to dodge it or get on my Seikret or sheathe my weapon and the missile hits me and carts me. It feels like an attack that’s really hard to play around and does nothing but waste your time and resources. It’s also a punishment attack (I think) for not holding Omega’s Enmity. I’ll touch on that shortly. The big laser attack is ok for the most part, except when it isn’t. It feels very inconsistent. Sometimes I can outrun it, sometimes I can’t and have to panic roll, other times nothing I do is enough. Sometimes it one-shots me, other times it takes 75% of my health bar down. And if the laser doesn’t faint you, you’re left stunned for a good minute, which is then usually a death sentence because your health is low enough that anything from Omega will annihilate you. My next complaint is with chip damage. Sometimes when you do an attack or trigger something, you find yourself locked in an animation. Sometimes Omega’s hazards in the arena will straight up delete you during these moments if the timing was poor. For example, I’ve been burnt alive because I popped a wound while near a patch of fire on the ground. I saw a clip of a greatsword user power clash with Omega only to get obliterated by the little exploding Omega minions. It feels really bad when the environment/animations decide to screw you over. My last complaint with the fight is the DPS check. It’s a very short timeframe to nuke the Nerscylla, and the Nerscylla really hates to stand still. I think you can see the problem. If you fail the check, congrats: your whole team gets wiped, usually 15+ minutes into the fight, which is just as awful as it sounds.
The other main feature of the Omega fight is the return/introduction of FF mechanics. The ability to use Pictomancy, basically painting a picture and wielding it as a weapon, is introduced, and it’s quite effective against Omega and the Nerscylla. It’s not nearly as clunky as I thought it might be, so that’s cool. The next major feature is the desired team comp for Omega and balancing his Enmity. Omega is meant to be a four-person fight with a tank, a healer, and two DPS characters. In an MMO like Final Fantasy XIV, that’s fine. In a game like Monster Hunter Wilds, the problems quickly become apparent. Tank builds, while they definitely exist, are not necessarily the most common, or usually viable. Same with support/healing builds. DPS is the standard because the central gameplay loop is about hunting monsters, not tanking their attacks or healing/supporting your teammates. The end result in the Omega fight is kind of janky. It can work, especially when you start relying on the support hunters you can bring along (they received a massive buff and are basically a necessity to clear it, especially because their faints don’t count towards your own). Unfortunately, you basically need this comp because the tank needs to hold Omega’s Enmity to limit some of his more destructive moves and keep him in a good position for damage. The MMO composition can work, but it’s clunky and can be frustrating if you’re unprepared, or your teammates are.
Omega’s gear is pretty good. The basic Omega fight gives you armor modeled after the Dark Knight FFXIV class and a greatsword to match. The harder fight, Savage mode, gives you another armor set and an insect glaive and sword and shield. The Dark Knight armor looks fine, but it’s nothing crazy or meta-defining. The Omega armor set, however, looks really good, and I plan to fight Savage mode a few times so that I can make it. As for the weapons, this is one of my biggest complaints: I use bow and dual blades. I have zero interest in Omega aside from making his armor. That SUCKS. That’s a terrible mentality for A BIG TITLE UPDATE COLLAB MONSTER to inspire. Would it really have been that hard to make new Omega gear for each weapon? I get that the new weapons have special skills, but it really sucks that this “big update” only caters to a fraction of the playerbase and their weapons.
Finally, while I enjoy the Omega fight, I conceptually hate it. I don’t like collab monsters because they don’t belong in Monster Hunter. If I wanted to fight Omega or Behemoth or the Leshen, I’d play the games they come from. My dislike of collab monsters is threefold. One: I want my Monster Hunter monsters to be from Monster Hunter so they can return in future games; we will never see these collab monsters again and that really frustrates me in the sense that it’s content that will not reappear; I also know that Monster Hunter isn’t “realistic” given its whole premise and some of its gear, but it feels so out of place to be fighting a dimension-warping robot out of nowhere just because. Two: they use mechanics and playstyles that don’t fit Monster Hunter and the result usually feels clunky or unfair. Three: Omega is the only monster we got in TU3. We now have to wait until December (I think) for more monsters. As I already said above, Omega can make three weapons and two armor sets. What kind of content is that? I get that Omega is supposed to be the focus of the update, and I do firmly believe that given his difficulty it’s ok for him to be the only monster because it would overshadow everything else, but also I have no real incentives to jump back into the game since he makes gear I don’t care about from a game I don’t play.
Overall, the Omega fight is good. The armor you can make from the new Savage mode is really strong too. That’s about where my praises end. Lack of content rears its ugly head yet again as TU3 hits us with a new collab monster (which are controversial as it is), and ONLY a new collab monster. Oh well, at least I can look forward to Gogmazios in a few months.
Broad Scope Entertainment 