Released: 2004
Difficulty: Hard
Time Spent: 100 or More Hours
Headline: Your joy really does depend on your tolerance here, but your friends really will help...
Monster Hunter seems to not be an RPG but do to certain limitations with how far this product reaches out, it does feel like a slowly paced action game. The story is more of a legend, once upon a time when there were dinosaurs and dragons; mankind had one desire to rid the world of them all. No motives and no speech, this is a game’s idea of story is as limited as a mission pack but it does boast a somewhat enjoyable personality through its characters.
You hunt, but you also gather by mining, fishing, carving, stealing, inheriting, or exchanging. What you get might be used, sold, combined, or exchanged for items that aid you in combat, or strengthen your armors and weaponry. Your missions include hunting down a big creature, killing a set number of a certain enemy, gathering a specific resource, or going on frustrating egg hunts. That's what this game entails but there is more depth; combat involves you selecting a certain weapon like clubs, swords, lances, and so on. These are all Blademaster weapons meaning you use blademaster armor with them; this also separately applies to Gunners which use crossbows. You can even find some armor fitting for both gunners and blademasters but the selection is limited. You then enter one of at least 7 different worlds each having the world divided into a number of subsections.
Each weapon has a few moves; the right analog stick is responsible for all moves you make. The multitude of weapons and their respective attacks give you an overall, reasonable range of tactics. There can be too much time when changing from one move to another especially when fighting groups of enemies and most definitely against bosses. There are just too many times that you don't complete a move by getting attacked and losing the whole opportunity (and these can be those throw your controller through the TV moments). You could stick by what combo attacks you find; it makes one move link into another with less hassle but it is a long ways away from solving the problem. You can use traps, baits, various bombs, and act as a decoy (roll away just before the monster attacks) which helps out a lot. Fighting may come off a bit hit and miss but the camera uses the d-pad and that means lots of readjusting. On the plus side, every boss and most common enemies have their own fighting techniques. You can block the ram of Rathalos (if you’re in the right position) but that won't do anything against his BBQ fireball. See, it’s got aspects of fun but there's a lot of trouble to be taken.
Something preposterous is the aspect of randomness when you carve into something. I had the issue of carving into a creature that took a week of preparing for, and I still couldn’t get my lightcrystal for a weapon upgrade. There needs to be a carving index so you don't find something that comes from the right place. When you are carving into the wing, how the hell do you get a damn jaw; this problem also recurs while mining, fishing, and bug catching. But none of those activities are as hectic a preparation for as big game hunting so this is excusable to a certain extent. Your armor will help out providing you use the right elements, but with limited income, you have to make choices if you ever want to progress forward. You will also spend a lot of time just preparing yourself for that next big boss battle or nothing but that new weapon upgrade. Despite all of this, you just wait till you pick it back up and play again; you will find yourself wanting to come back.
Cephadromes look a lot like land based Hammerhead Sharks
So its repetitious, awkward gameplay is frustrating but killing bigger and badder enemies is obviously fun, if not frustrating. Thank god there is 4 player online co-op because you need a lot of tolerance to play through this game. The game is not long per se, just incredibly slow; just watch yourself replay the same mission over and over to get more items. What this game misses is to go hunting as you please, not replay missions hindered by objectives. Why not just go on my own hunt with no time limits or obligations? doesn't exist. What keeps it somewhat joyful is what humor you can get out of the villagers, and the feeling of just being in a great, grand hunting adventure? For a console game, this has a lot of loading times as they appear every time you move somewhere else. But at least the game does have nice clips, a solid frame rate, very nicely detailed enemies, and even better looking bosses. Still, a lot of grass and plants are 1-dimensional, and the environments sometimes lack the detail they should have. The sound is better; the music has a kind of catchy tune that I still remember partially today while the effects are all fair to good.
You! You’re the one who stole my Flash Bombs!
So after the 150th hour, I had my fill of banal killing, mini-games of fishing and mining, being picketed by cats, and enough egg dropping for all eternity. I can see how you can be lured in and if you still want a copy, get your fill; though it would be much better with friends.
6.0/ 10 FAIR (PS2)
+Huge game that sometimes offers truly genuine adventure
+Multiplayer co-op is enjoyable
-Not really designed for single player
-Generally slow feel
-Makes some very foolish omissions and decisions
TWiSTEDmerc
Difficulty: Hard
Time Spent: 100 or More Hours
Headline: Your joy really does depend on your tolerance here, but your friends really will help...
Monster Hunter seems to not be an RPG but do to certain limitations with how far this product reaches out, it does feel like a slowly paced action game. The story is more of a legend, once upon a time when there were dinosaurs and dragons; mankind had one desire to rid the world of them all. No motives and no speech, this is a game’s idea of story is as limited as a mission pack but it does boast a somewhat enjoyable personality through its characters.
You hunt, but you also gather by mining, fishing, carving, stealing, inheriting, or exchanging. What you get might be used, sold, combined, or exchanged for items that aid you in combat, or strengthen your armors and weaponry. Your missions include hunting down a big creature, killing a set number of a certain enemy, gathering a specific resource, or going on frustrating egg hunts. That's what this game entails but there is more depth; combat involves you selecting a certain weapon like clubs, swords, lances, and so on. These are all Blademaster weapons meaning you use blademaster armor with them; this also separately applies to Gunners which use crossbows. You can even find some armor fitting for both gunners and blademasters but the selection is limited. You then enter one of at least 7 different worlds each having the world divided into a number of subsections.
Each weapon has a few moves; the right analog stick is responsible for all moves you make. The multitude of weapons and their respective attacks give you an overall, reasonable range of tactics. There can be too much time when changing from one move to another especially when fighting groups of enemies and most definitely against bosses. There are just too many times that you don't complete a move by getting attacked and losing the whole opportunity (and these can be those throw your controller through the TV moments). You could stick by what combo attacks you find; it makes one move link into another with less hassle but it is a long ways away from solving the problem. You can use traps, baits, various bombs, and act as a decoy (roll away just before the monster attacks) which helps out a lot. Fighting may come off a bit hit and miss but the camera uses the d-pad and that means lots of readjusting. On the plus side, every boss and most common enemies have their own fighting techniques. You can block the ram of Rathalos (if you’re in the right position) but that won't do anything against his BBQ fireball. See, it’s got aspects of fun but there's a lot of trouble to be taken.
Something preposterous is the aspect of randomness when you carve into something. I had the issue of carving into a creature that took a week of preparing for, and I still couldn’t get my lightcrystal for a weapon upgrade. There needs to be a carving index so you don't find something that comes from the right place. When you are carving into the wing, how the hell do you get a damn jaw; this problem also recurs while mining, fishing, and bug catching. But none of those activities are as hectic a preparation for as big game hunting so this is excusable to a certain extent. Your armor will help out providing you use the right elements, but with limited income, you have to make choices if you ever want to progress forward. You will also spend a lot of time just preparing yourself for that next big boss battle or nothing but that new weapon upgrade. Despite all of this, you just wait till you pick it back up and play again; you will find yourself wanting to come back.
Cephadromes look a lot like land based Hammerhead Sharks
So its repetitious, awkward gameplay is frustrating but killing bigger and badder enemies is obviously fun, if not frustrating. Thank god there is 4 player online co-op because you need a lot of tolerance to play through this game. The game is not long per se, just incredibly slow; just watch yourself replay the same mission over and over to get more items. What this game misses is to go hunting as you please, not replay missions hindered by objectives. Why not just go on my own hunt with no time limits or obligations? doesn't exist. What keeps it somewhat joyful is what humor you can get out of the villagers, and the feeling of just being in a great, grand hunting adventure? For a console game, this has a lot of loading times as they appear every time you move somewhere else. But at least the game does have nice clips, a solid frame rate, very nicely detailed enemies, and even better looking bosses. Still, a lot of grass and plants are 1-dimensional, and the environments sometimes lack the detail they should have. The sound is better; the music has a kind of catchy tune that I still remember partially today while the effects are all fair to good.
You! You’re the one who stole my Flash Bombs!
So after the 150th hour, I had my fill of banal killing, mini-games of fishing and mining, being picketed by cats, and enough egg dropping for all eternity. I can see how you can be lured in and if you still want a copy, get your fill; though it would be much better with friends.
6.0/ 10 FAIR (PS2)
+Huge game that sometimes offers truly genuine adventure
+Multiplayer co-op is enjoyable
-Not really designed for single player
-Generally slow feel
-Makes some very foolish omissions and decisions
TWiSTEDmerc