The Monster Hunter thread

[arry_g]

I went back and played another to hours as after my wife went to bed I kept thinking about the game. I did a couple of hunts, they went excellent and I felt proud. I even got to upgrade my hammer at last. Then I went into another hunt, it seemed like a standard affair... collect monster guts. So I got two and then got attacked by a big water dragon thingy, managed to escape and then got two monster guts stolen by some weird cat things (leaving me with zero). Went back to the water to try and get more guts and the big water dragon thingy came back again and killed me... I decided it was time to go to bed!

[Stanshall]

As a new 3DS owner and massive Souls fan, I'd love to understand the appeal of Monster Hunter. I'm thinking of picking up the new one, sounds like it's accessible but I don't quite 'get it' even having played a demo of Generations.

I understand that crafting and preparation is a big part of the game but that makes me think of the most dull elements of The Witcher 3, oils and the like.

I like the sound of a steep learning curve and better gear being a reward rather than a ticket to progress.

In fact, I quite liked the demo - though the lack of lock on took a good while to get used to - and I am curious about the game and series but part of what I really love about Souls is the exploration and the lore, which this seems not to have at all.

So, what is the appeal besides pure mechanics? Or, what makes the pure mechanics so appealing?

[Stanshall]

Thanks for that, plenty of reading material here.

[Stanshall]

Woke in the middle of the night, took the digital plunge when I couldn't get back to sleep, played about seven hours today, I haven't done that with anything since MGSV. Now I get it. Also glad that there is actually a lock on and a million other mechanics which weren't obvious or included in the demo. Ugh, I need to go to sleep but there are about a dozen quests I want to do. Very hard to put my finger on what's so appealing about this but I'm loving it so far.

[Craig]

I got it a few days ago but I've only had an hour or two to play so far. Really like using the prowler to gather without worrying about supplies.

Haven't had the proper time to really dive in but thankfully I've a few weeks where my work is really cut back for the summer. I favoured the long sword in the last game, but kind of wondering if I should change it up this time.

[Sellardohr]

I just started playing the new one. Does anyone have a taste for the different styles and how much they affect gameplay? I get the sense that it's a little bit easy to forget about what style you're in, and forget about your Hunter Art(s), too.

[Jusifer]

with the styles it's important to remember that certain styles are better with certain weapons. for example i use the sword and shield. with it if you use the adept style you have two skills (arts) and every normal move but if you choose the striker style you get three skills but you lose a back hop evade attack. I rarely use the back hop move so it's an easy choice. on other weapons the trade off is different so with other weapons other styles work better. anyway I guess it's easy to just pick the adept style and never even think about the others and with some weapons that would be the best choice but with some weapons the other styles are clearly better since you gain more than you lose. I haven't gotten much in to the skills so can't say much about those. hope it wasn't too unclear.

[Craig]

Before release I heard how much these new skills change up the game dramatically, but it doesn't really feel too different to me. I'm sure at high level play it makes a huge difference but for me it's just a slightly different move set.

Except for the arial style, that is. Which is pretty cool and designed around launching you into the air.

As with a lot of things, the differences are pretty poorly explained in game. Best thing to do is to watch gaijin hunters weapon tutorials about the weapon you're using.

The hunter arts can be pretty rad though.

[Sellardohr]

The more I play the more I'm thinking the styles have more important differences than you realize at first. I was playing with Charge Blade; in Adept style, you get your really cool perfect guard, and a perfect dodge when you've got your axe out, and that's great. But your elemental roundslash, the one that charges up your shield -- in this style, you can only do that from axe mode, which is actually quite a slowdown in your offense. The ability to fire off that roundslash quickly from a shield stab is a big deal otherwise.

But seconded that certain weapons favor certain styles. I can perfect dodge with a Switch Axe, but it just puts me too far away from the monster to counterattack, and my follow-up is a heavy double roundslash which is great but usually whiffs since you just dodged past or away the monster.

My sense at the moment is that there's a pretty healthy amount of depth.

[Craig]

I'm more than willing to accept my skill/knowledge level may limit my appreciation of the differences!

[Jusifer]

I watched most of arekkz gaming's videos on youtube on the different weapons and that gives a relly good look at all the differences between the styles on a certain weapon. here's the one for charge blade https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfeKASXv5Fo

[Craig]

In 3 I was quite satisfied hunting by myself.

Now that I've actually went online and realised you can grind for parts together, it's totally changed it up for me. Even with just randoms, one of which died straight away and gave a very polite "sorry!" Before getting back into battle, it's so much better.

Love it.

[Jusifer]

so I've clocked about 80 hours into generations, played through the single player and up to star 4 in multiplayer I think, and can't seem to get interested enough to pick it up anymore. would be interested to hear how far others are in to the game, how long have you played and are you still playing?

[Stanshall]

I probably put forty or fifty hours in, my first MH game. I was really enjoying it and thought I'd switch to some MP, but it seemed that I had to repeat all the same missions which is a strange choice. If there's a point to that, I couldn't figure it out.

I know I can dip back into the SP any time, and I will when I get the urge, but it's quite all-consuming and I felt I wanted a more varied gaming diet.

[Craig]

I'm about 15 hours in as real life matters caused me to take a break but I'm still enjoying it. If you're 80 hours in and struggling to get excited any more, I'd say you got your money's worth. It's a game with so much content that no matter when you leave it it feels incomplete and after 80 hours I'd say the game has had a fair run.

As for multiplayer concerns; if you're later in the game I can understand having to redo the early quests would be a drag which is a shame because the multiplayer is really great and really changes things up. As I'm still relatively new into it, I'm mixing it up playing a bit of single player and then if I have to grind a certain boss for armour or a weapon, taking to multiplayer. I'm just going with random folk but it means I'm either getting high level guys who kill the monster in 2 minutes flat, or folk my level or lower some of which I'm even helping through the ranks. It's nice!

[Jusifer]

yea definitely got my money's worth out of it! No compains here

[Alex79]

Wish there was a good version on PS4 or Vita. I know there's the PSP one on the store, but that's getting on a bit now, although the hour I spent with it back on the PSP seemed like it was a good game (Monster Hunter in general, not necessarily just that version)

[Sellardohr]

The very first one was PS2 only, and it was wickedly hard. Then Tri was Wii exclusive, which drove some people nuts. My first was Freedom on the PSP. The series has a pretty complex system history between Sony and Nintendo, console and portable.

[Craig]

There's also the China only PC MMO! The Monsters in HD look pretty awesome.

Right now Capcom seem very friendly with Nintendo with regards to Monster Hunter. The games do great numbers for Capcom and Nintendo let them use their characters in game. More importantly, Nintendo have pretty much created hardware peripherals just for these games which is pretty unprecedented outside of Nintendo's first party offerings.

The classic controller pro for the Wii (packaged with Tri) was designed at the request of Capcom, and it's pretty obvious that the circle pad pro add on for the 3DS was the Monster Hunter pad pro.

[Sellardohr]

I remember when that MMO came out. The Monster Hunter Wiki shows all the new monsters that come out with it, which gives me a good monthly dose of jealousy.

In the early days of Monster Hunter, sales were always much superior in Japan than in the States. Is that still the case? We're at least getting all the releases in America, which if I recall wasn't always something you could take for granted.