Gemma’s English VA is right with us on Monster Hunter Wild’s confusing menus, which makes me feel a little better for having to Google symbols all the time

Monster Hunter Wilds is my first MH game—there’s not been a real reason for me to abstain for this long, by all accounts I should be a series fan already, but I’m finally getting my feet wet with monster viscera. I’ve also been struggling a ton with its menus, which are flooded with symbols and shorthand. Luckily, I’m not alone, as Kristen McGuire—the English voice actor for everyone’s beloved blacksmith Gemma—has also been grappling with the eldritch script.

In a recent post to the MHWilds subreddit (thanks, GamesRadar+), McGuire has been asking for advice. “This is my first MH game that I’ve ever played, and I feel woefully underprepared. Do you have any tips for a total noob like me?”

The community’s been downright supportive—which is only fair, given the amount of crap I’ve made Gemma forge—but a couple of stand-out comments solidify McGuire’s solidarity with my menu-allergic self. When one player instructs her to “get used to the grind”, she replies: “I actually like grinding, so that doesn’t bother me, haha. The overall menu is just kind of confusing.”

The responses from McGuire’s cadre of helpful series vets are all in agreement: The menus are cursed. “Facts. Played every single title in the series and the menu in this was a definite hurdle for the first day or two,” writes one player. “It’s not you, it’s them [Capcom]. Monster Hunter has notoriously bad menu systems, and Wilds is the worst so far,” adds another. “You will just need patience.”

In a different comment, she adds: “The menu is like looking at something written in a foreign language”, which is a solid assessment. I’m even learning stuff just by looking through her comment replies—for example, there’s apparently a menu I completely glossed over that shows all your Palico’s skills with video examples.

This all reminds me of a recent conversation with a friend, where I asked them what the stars next to a monster’s status weaknesses meant—and discovered that “less stars means less effective”. Unless I missed a prompt somewhere, that seems completely backwards to me. Similarly, PC Gamer’s own Fraser Brown has been wrestling with the baffling multiplayer systems (luckily, we have a multiplayer guide to help you out). We’re all out here struggling, McGuire, welcome to the Monster Hunter experience.