Limelight Forums

Because of its place on Nintendo consoles for a while, the Monster Hunter franchise played a bit of a role in my childhood, in particular the third game for the Nintendo Wii. I probably spent as much time on this as I did on say, Minecraft or whatever. Since then I skipped out on the WiiU remake because who the fuck buys Nintendo consoles post-Wii, but I did manage to give the fourth installment a try on my brother's 3DS.

The game has a pretty niche market so I'll do my best to explain what it is.

Now for those of you who aren't quite sure what Monster Hunter is about, well, you hunt monsters. The game definitely has some Japanese inspiration it has to be said, unsurprising considering all games are made by the Japanese branch of Capcom, but it's little enough not to set off my weeb-ometer. That being said, the Japanese influence allows for some spectacular visuals and the trademark oversized weapons. But you're fighting oversized monsters so who can complain. Once you've hunted your monster, you can carve it up for materials and use those materials to craft various weapons and armour. Every set has its perks and pitfalls, which is important to consider alongside which monster you'll be hunting next. That brings me to the first big point of the game - know your opponent.

Every monster takes a reasonable amount of time to put down, some longer than others (could be 10-50 minutes depending on monster and skill), and it of course depends on both your knowledge and skill. The first time you come up against a large monster, especially if you're a new player, you likely won't succeed. After a few tries you'll start to notice its behaviour and how you can exploit that. You'll find its weak points and elemental weaknesses, and what elemental defences you can put upon yourself to better protect against it. Still struggling? You can bring up to 3 friends along in online play, or join some random players on the same hunt as you if you feel like it. Even the game's basics definitely take a bit of time to learn, I learned them very slowly as I was growing up but it might come quicker to a more developed brain.

There's also a big emphasis on preparation. Aside from gear you're going to need provisions. Food rations to keep your stamina up, and potions to recover health. If it's anything like the previous games potions will initially have to be crafted with materials you find in the wild, but can be bought later. Aside from that, you can also eat meals before hunting for various status bonuses.

Previously, hunting areas were split into 'zones' which had loading areas between them. Things like gathering and movement were not too fluid and heavily limited by the terrain. This aspect has improved over the last couple of games but this game looks to feature fully fleshed out movement, as well as 'open-world' areas with no loading screens between them.

The other huge thing about this game, is that it's finally ditching the Nintendo exclusivity and going back to Playstation, as well as having both Xbox and, my personal favourite, PC releases (the PC release date, sadly, is not yet announced).

Enough talk, though, time for some gameplay:

That's literally the only game I'll set up my PS4 again and play for.