I'm curious to know if there are any posters here familiar with Capcom's Monster Hunter series? It is a tremendously popular game that has broken many records for sales within Japan, but for numerous reasons has only attained slight success in the West, which is truly a shame. The main reason for this is the games difficulty, and another is the lack of story to compel the player to tackle ever increasing challenges. The basic premise of the game is extremely simple, and yet it is just the most profound thing.. In each game (MH 4 was just released in Japan this month, but they are many 'upgrades' to each original) you are a hunter and chose your gender and character's appearance and then you are introduced to a tribal village where you have your own home. There is also a blacksmith, a weapon and armor salesperson, an items salesperson, and a village elder from whom you receive quests. Besides this, you also have your own farm. Your home contains a bed on which you save your game, an item box in which you store items, weapons and armors, and a Felyne kitchen; Felynes (and Melynx) are two subspecies of an anthropomorphic cat race, and the more Felynes you hire to work in your kitchen, the more food you can have them cook for you. Depending on the mix of ingredients you tell them to use, the meals enhance (or decrease) your health, stamina, and attack and defense attributes, and there is always a chance of unlocking a Felyne skill, of which they are many and they all of real-time effects on your performance as a hunter. The quests you receive are essentially contracts for which you pay to take on, and you are sent to a bunch of different locations and depending on the quest type, what you have to do varies. There a gathering quests, in which you have up to 50 minutes to run around the area gathering materials, everything from bringing pickaxes to mine ore and crystals, to bugnets for catching bugs, and there are tons of mushrooms and herbs to look for, each of these having various effects when consumed. They may also be used in combining for adding elemental or abnormal status attributes to weapons or ammo. There are hunting quests and slaying quests, as well as capturing quests, which constitute the majority of the game, where you are required to either hunt a specific number of lesser monsters, or a single (and later on, multiple) larger monster, and eventually you begin to hunt Elder Dragons. Each monster you kill can be carved for it's body parts; fangs, claws, tails, ears, spines, brainstems, jaws, horns, pelts, hides &c which are then used at the blacksmiths for crafting new weapons and armors. The crafting is what this game is all about, as there is no real story to speak of the game play is endless. The rarer the items required in crafting new equipment, the stronger you become; however this is not to say that your character becomes stronger in typical RPG fashion, because the only attributes you have are attack power and defense, health and stamina; your stamina decreases as you hunt and is responsible for how long you can run (which can mean the difference between life and death when fleeing) and can be replenished by eating meat that is carved from lesser monsters and then cooked on a portable barbecue spit. Health is increased by crafting a potion called Nutrients and is replenished by various means, primarily potions. Attack and defense are raised or lowered by your weapon and armor, and may be increased by crafted items like demon drugs, which in turn may be combined to craft more powerful status altering drugs. There is also the attributes of skills, of which there are countless and each one as mentioned above alters your performance in real time. Weapons are divided into two main groups, melee and ranged; melee contains long swords, great swords, sword and shield, lance, gunlance, axes and hammers (and sometimes switch axe, which can be changed from an axe to a great sword) while ranged contains light bowguns (which which you can run with the weapon drawn) and heavy bowguns (which do on average 25% more damage per shot but when drawn force you to move very slowly) and also bows, as in bow and arrow. I am primarily a gunner and my weapon of choice is the light bowgun, for the flexibility of being able to run at and evade at a moments notice, and also because some of them provide an inherent ability called Rapid Fire, which allows you to fire several shots for each bullet expended doing 80% of the damage a normal single fired shot would do; however with the stronger ammo types (such as Pierce S, which when fired at a monster can penetrate the skull and exit through the tail and vice versa) you can normally only fire 3 - 4 shots before having to reload, and with Rapid Fire that turns 4 shots into 16 before the need to reload. Some skills which effect a gunners performance are Auto Reload, Capacity Up (which adds an extra shot or two before reloading is required), Evade +1 (which increases the microseconds of invincibility you have when evading), Evade Distance Up (which increases the distance you roll or dive when evading), and so on. Some skills which effect melee (and occasionally gunners as well) are Attack Up, Defense Up, Reckless Abandon (which increases the likelihood of doing a critical hit), Elemental Attack Up, &c. Then there are neutral skills such as those that enhance your carving and gathering speed, luck which increases the % of receiving rare drops from carving monsters or in the rewards received after completing a quest, those that lessen the amount of stamina depleted when charging for an attack or running and evading, skills that make cooking easier and reduce fatigue, &c. These skills are unlocked by completing armor sets (which include the head, arms, chest, waist, and legs) as well as crafting gems, the countless gems each add +1 or +2 to any given skill and they are crafted into the armor or weapon; armor piece and weapons contain 0 - 3 gem slots and it takes a total of 10 points to activate a skill, and it takes 15 to activate it's +2 function; 20 bumps it to the max. Besides the locations you visit from which you can gather and mine for items and materials, your farm also provides a garden in which you can grow any kind of herb you like, a bug catching spot, a mushroom tree, a honey box, a fishing spot (farms are usually next to a lake or an ocean), and a bunch of other things, each of these points to your farm is upgraded by expending points received from trading in items gathered in the field and exchanged to the Guild; also as you progress you unlock more features to add to your farm. In the 3rd generation games you have a main area which you may access at any time, day or night, to hunt or gather as you see fit with no time restrictions, which is a great feature. By the way, the Felynes that you hire are not just for working in your kitchen, you can also hire them as Companions, and chose one of them to equip with armor and teach skills and have it follow you on quests; some of them will even attack the largest monsters and you can teach them skills to heal you and itself, to play a flute and call attention away from you onto itself, and to cure status ailments, as well as increase it's gathering abilities (it does everything you can do, including gathering). In 3rd generation games you get another species as a companion, and in Monster Hunter Portable 3rd (never released outside of Japan but if you have a modded PSP you can download an English translation, and I believe it is by the best and most visually striking game on the PSP to date). The games are also multiplayer, enabling you to take on monsters with up to 3 other players (as there is no official server, there are ways to do this with people from around the world online, but it takes some serious hacking). Anyway the Monster Hunter games are in 3D and there is no "lock-on" targeting; whether you use a bowgun, a bow or a melee weapon you will have to learn how to aim your blows and time your weapon charges. Being that there is no leveling up, your ability to take down increasingly difficult and larger monsters is entirely dependent upon your own skill level as a player, and the greatest thing about this game as compared to the majority of others is that you, personally, 'level up' from practice, and there is an immense feeling of accomplishment and development as you do so. It may not sound like much but I assure you that if you were to give it a chance, you will find it an immensely rewarding and entertaining experience; I am very far into Monster Hunter Freedom Unite, which is an expansion of an upgrade of Monster Hunter 2, released for PSP in 2007. I began playing in 2009 and left it for a long time, but a few months ago have picked it back up and come to realize how amazing the game truly is. The amount of items to get, armor sets to unlock, and weapon types to grow is mind boggling and it truly feels like it just goes on forever, getting harder and harder and more and more fun. I honestly have never played a game before where I am walking around (by the way, the locations are insanely gorgeous and detailed.. which is part of what makes it so incredible as it is truly immersing even on a PSP screen, let alone playing on Wii on a wide screen) in silence, stalking some monster to hunt, only to realize that it, in turn, has been stalking me, and feel literally horrified as it jumps out of nowhere and I run for my life. I used to be afraid to play it alone at night in the dark, lol which is embarrassing to admit, but is absolutely true. I couldn't rate this game any higher than a perfect 10/10, there is nothing else like it and I encourage everyone to give it a try, as it can be gotten now for under $10 used at any game store, for any of the games besides the newest. Happy hunting!! Monster Hunter Portable 3rd https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ev1b4m_zh8"]Monster hunter portable 3rd - YouTube Monster Hunter Freedom Unite (gameplay) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnbZZp8P1PE"]Monster Hunter Freedom Unite - G2★ Online Quest: Ancient Beauty, Black Beast - YouTube Monster Hunter 3U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NpuzQKF8Fw"]Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate : New York Comic Con Trailer - YouTube Monster Hunter 4 (only very recently released in Japan) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdjvYihfUkk"]MONSTER HUNTER 4 Trailer - YouTube
i've seen trailers for it. i love strange life forms. and 3d art. i don't love killing things as the principal or entire reason to be there.
You might have your opinion changed when a high rank Tigrex is running after you and your out of bullets..
