After playing the new Monster Hunter Wilds Ascendance demo, I came away largely excited for how its Boost Bracer turns things up to 11.
The Teostra rears up before me, all flames and fury, explosive dust spitting out around my hunter. It's scary, but I've fought hundreds of this iconic elder dragon in my career, and I know exactly what I should do: hunker down with my Lance's Power Guard and soak up the devastation before unleashing my own counterattack. Then I realize, 'What's life without a little risk/reward?' This is Monster Hunter Wilds: Ascendance, after all. I ignite my Boost Bracer and fling my lance bodily over my head to come crashing down in a vicious Boosted Offset Crushing Blow, sending the beast reeling. It feels good to be back.
The Boost Bracer is Capcom's big gambit for Ascendance, the Monster Hunter Wilds DLC that will carry us into Master Rank difficulty with a new, full-length campaign and, presumably, the final implementation of the RPG's long-form endgame. It's a device that charges up both over time and as you fight, with up to three stocks that can be stored at the bottom of the screen. Depending on your chosen weapon type, you use this to either ramp up your existing attacks and blocks, or unlock all-new moves. It's immediately reminiscent of Wirebug moves in Monster Hunter Rise; a comparison I make with satisfied glee.
You can push into Boost Mode in several ways. Each weapon has a specific 'Boost Driver' that's used by pressing a three-button combo (my demo is on PS5, so the layout is triangle, circle, and R1). This typically functions as a gap closer or other form of initiation - as noted, the Lance's option is actually an Offset attack, the counter system introduced in MH Wilds that lets you interrupt certain enemy moves if timed correctly. Alternatively, some of your combos will let you activate boost midway through them, such as before the climactic hit of the Lance's poke combo, or while charging up a Greatsword chop.
Once Boost Mode is active, it lasts until the meter along the bottom burns out, and how that affects you plays differently for each weapon. While my demo's two-mission limit gave me relatively little chance to experiment, I'd group these into two broad categories for all the weapons I tried: those that feel like 'enhanced movesets' and those that feel like 'expanded movesets.'
The Lance is very much the former. Once boosted, I'm essentially playing with a Superlance. My basic attacks pump out damage faster and harder, while my guard is (even) more robust than usual, able to shrug just about anything off. The running charge attack closes in quicker and with a beefier leaping thrust. This might sound a little 'underwhelming' compared to weapons that get a more unique suite of additions, but it actually feels so good to transform into this Super Saiyan powerhouse that I didn't mind at all.
When the Teostra moves regions, I switch out to another favorite of mine, the Hammer, and this is very much in camp two. Boost Mode here turns me into a human cannonball, flinging me into the air with the Boost Driver's spinning uppercut and then cartwheeling back to the ground in a direction of my choosing. In powered-up form, I can quick-hop while charging or simply dive forward with a massive overhead attack that closes the gap to bonk enemies in even the smallest windows of opportunity. It feels just as unfair as the Lance, but in a very different way.
"Wait," I hear you cry, "Master Rank Monster Hunter is all about the challenge. Why would I want to be overpowered?" It's a fair concern after the relatively friendly endgame of base Wilds, although Capcom certainly proved it had plenty of difficult encounters up its sleeve with the new monsters and other updates that rolled out over time. As strong as we might be, that only gets you so far - and it enables the developer to make our opponents even scarier. Monster Hunter Rise's Sunbreak expansion was a perfect example of this.
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.pcgamesn.com/monster-hunter-wilds/ascendance-preview-boost-bracer-impressions
