Monster Hunter Outlanders, the mobile spinoff of the popular series, has managed to cram the experience of Monster Hunter World into a mobile game, despite being eight years after World's release. The game's formula is surprisingly competent, although it has some bubbling hesitations about the grind and encroaching gacha systems.
The game's progression is designed to support the typical framework of a mobile game, with nearly a half-dozen different currencies to keep track of at any given time. However, it also very much feels like Outlanders wants players to engage with it like a full-fledged Monster Hunter, including all the story exposition.
The game's combat system has been streamlined to fit the mobile experience and accommodate a touchscreen control scheme, with two different control methods: Adventure Mode and Classic Mode. Adventure Mode streamlines things down to three buttons, while Classic Mode gives full manual control, including traditional button-stringed combos. However, Classic Mode proves to be unfit for just touch controls, and the ideal way to play this is on Classic Mode with a controller.
The game's party system and progression work are also notable, with a group of distinct characters that take part in the story who can be recruited and used as NPC companions. Recruiting these characters requires traditional gacha pulls using currency called Rutacoins, which creates some incentive to try and get these various characters. However, the ease or difficulty of pulling Adventurers and upgrading them to be useful in combat is still unclear.