Guarding might be the most cinematic thing in Monster Hunter Wilds. More than any cutscene. More than any conversation. Outside of Sekiro, some fighting games, and a handful of others, blocking is usually boring. In fact, the way to block in many games is not to touch your controls at all. In games like that, blocking requires an actual absence of player input. Wilds takes a different approach, with Offset Guarding, Clash Attacks, and more. There’s a ton of depth here for those with the skill and patience to draw it out. For hunters like me who mostly just want to not die (and look cool in the process), guarding offers so much more.
Guarding Is the Most Dragon Ball Thing in Monster Hunter Wilds
The most Dragon Ball thing in Monster Hunter Wilds isn’t an actual dragon. It’s the ability to embrace plot armor, dig in your heels, and do your best Goku impression while tanking an explosion that should kill you. Who needs fancy armor when you can put an iron surfboard of death between you and the oncoming blow? You know what’s more cinematic than the game’s unskippable exposition dumps? Blocking. As someone who grew up with Dragon Ball, there’s a special kind of chill I get watching Goku tank an energy blast strong enough to kill a world. Guarding in Wilds feels like tanking for Namek.
Or rather guarding successfully in Wilds feels like tanking for Namek. There are a lot of ways to block wrong. Only certain weapons can use Clash Attacks or Offset Guarding. The Great Sword is a weird jack-of-all-blocks, but you normally have to pick and choose. That means there’s room for everyone from the shyest defensive turtle to the boldest barbarian. Even the normal guard can fail, despite its infinite window. Failure can mean a lot of things. Getting injured, ragdolled, stunned, or KO’d? All in a day’s work. Learn from your beatings, however, and you can hit that Goku high.
The Absolute Cinema of Not Dying
A Sword and Shield serves just fine, but for me, there’s no beating a Great Sword block. Watching your hunter hoist their Buster Sword and brace for Zoh Shia’s room-filling inferno? Cinema. It might not be the brutal ballet of Clashes, but the standard guard can be quite the sight. Sure, a big part of it is just the beautiful SFX of Wilds. How could lava explosions so lovely disappoint? It’s more than that though. The music, creature design, SFX, and animations come together to tell a story. It might be a story of you getting bowled over by drake fire in a mildewed cave, but it’s a story nonetheless.
Monster Hunter Wilds has an actual story, of course, with themes of community, bravery, and conservation. As compelling as it is, I prefer the emergent stories that mechanics like guarding tell. It’s the reason I’m so willing to grind materials, repeating a hunt I’ve done maybe half a dozen times. Meeting Zoh Shia’s fire with the flat of my blade, my sword now a shield against nature’s molten majesty? Nothing in Wilds quite tops that for me. I might not have Saiyan blood and pocket full of Senzu Beans, but I’ll guard like Goku any day.
