The format of these posts is simple: let’s discuss a specific game or series!
Let’s discuss the Monster Hunter series. What is your favorite game? What aspects do you like about it? What doesn’t work for you? Are there games that gave you a similar experience? Feel free to share any thoughts that come up, or react to other peoples comments. Let’s get the conversation going!
If you have any recommendations for games or series for the next post(s), please feel free to DM me or add it in a comment here (no guarantees of course).
Previous entries: Persona, Monkey Island, 8 Bit Era, Animal Crossing, Age of Empires, Super Mario, Deus Ex, Stardew Valley, The Sims, Half-Life, Earthbound / Mother, Mass Effect, Metroid, Journey, Resident Evil, Polybius, Tetris, Telltale Games, Kirby, LEGO Games, DOOM, Ori, Metal Gear, Slay the Spire
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I played the 3DS one (unless there more) as one of my first 3DS games, and I just couldn’t get into it. To put it simply, it wasn’t clear what I should be doing, even when I understood and did the objective.
People have tried to get me into Monster Hunter several times, with little success. There’s just a lot of work involved.
Lots of crafting and farming, and once you’re ready, the fight itself is a lot of work. It takes a long time due to large HP pools.
There are a zillion builds, and the story isn’t exactly deep enough to engage me despite the shortcomings. To me, it’s basically Elden Ring, but with the aspects I don’t like turned to 11.
I started with World, and put hundreds of hours into that and Rise, plus their expansions. I tried the GU demo on Switch, but it felt too clunky.
The thing that hooked me was the first large monster you hunt, Great Jagras. He’s a pushover for any hunter with even a slight amount of experience, but for me as a new player, it was an epic battle and I certainly didn’t expect that much intensity that early in the game. I also liked how even after you had a monster on “farm status” a hunt could still easily go from good to bad if you weren’t careful. It emphasized that these monsters were incredibly dangerous, and even seasoned hunters could be in trouble if they get too cocky. It also helped keep farming more interesting as you needed to pay attention if you wanted to be successful.
Overall, I like the… world, in World more, but the gameplay mechanics and combat more in Rise. In World, the maps were larger, with more detail and felt more alive. I also liked the tracking aspect, and was disappointed that aspect didn’t make it to Rise. It felt like you were actually hunting your target, instead of just sprinting to their location on your doggo friend and beating them up like in Rise.
I’m definitely looking forward to Wilds releasing next year.
I liked world most too. It has several things rise is lacking. One of which is a serious threat imo. Like, the first time my party ran into anjanath. It just exploded out of some shrubbery and most of his attacks were insta kill. Just having this random threat helped with the world building, suspense on hunts and also gave a clear milestone when you finally get the hunt to take him down. Then there was blood puppy or bazelgeuse, they are all super memorable because of how much of a passive sorta threat they were.
I think that’s how most people feel about their first monster hunter. I played Tri Ultimate first and I feel like games have been easier since then.
I’ve only played World so far but I really enjoy it. At its core, it has some of the funnest combat of any game I’ve played. However, it’s one of those games that tries its hardest to keep the fun part away from you, at least in the first ~15 hours.
They cover up the actual gameplay with convoluted, stereotypical RPG-ness to the point where it feels like a parody of RPGs. Constant crafting and item gathering with inventory management, overly busy and clunky UI, an unskippable videogame story (genuinely this describes the entire story, there is nothing more to say about it than that it is a videogame story).
I know everyone compares these games to Dark Souls, but I have to admit the multiplayer is like Dark Souls’ in the sense that it is also extremely bad. You can’t play with your friends during those missions in the first 15 hours until you ALL solo run to the monster and watch a cutscene first after starting the mission. Why? This has made playing with my friends so miserable and I feel embarrassed explaining the system to them.
It also has microtransactions to change your character appearance and get some skins which is ridiculous and should always be made fun of. If Street Fighter 6 is any indication of how awful the microtransactions in Wilds will be I may just have to skip it.
I push through all this because when you do finally get to just do the monster hunting part, it’s incredibly well done. The maps are beautiful and fun to explore, the weapon combos have crazy depth and all sorts of hidden mechanics to learn, and the monsters themselves have great animations. But it’s exhausting to push through it sometimes.
