The Thrill of the Hunt: Thoughts on being a Monster Hunter
Much like Dragon Quest, the Monster Hunter series is one of the biggest names in gaming in Japan and almost unheard of in North America. Most people over here just don’t “get it”, and many of them don’t want to put forth the effort required in order to really understand what the game is all about. After all, even with more accessible entries in the series such as Monster Hunter Tri, there is still a very steep learning curve to overcome.
Originally I wanted to write a review of Monster Hunter Tri in order to spread the word. However, after over 100 hours of playing the game, I still haven’t experienced all it has to offer. I’ve come to realize, it’s not a traditional review that’s going to spark interest. My hopes are that by sharing the reasons that the series is so engaging (many of which are not immediately obvious to the new player), it will help more people realize the joys that can be found from becoming a Monster Hunter.
The Ecosystem of Monster Hunter
Quite possibly my favorite aspect of Monster Hunter is how it makes you feel like a real hunter within the game’s world. When you set out on a quest, you’re not immediately attacked by every creature in your general vicinity as you progress to the end of a level. Instead, you have a goal that must be carried out within a living, breathing ecosystem.
If you’re on the hunt for a large monster, it’s not waiting for you to finish a linear stage and fight it. It is traveling as it pleases throughout the interconnected sections of map it calls home. It’s up to you to track it down and, well… hunt it! On the way, you’ll encounter any number of creatures including docile herbivores who are going about their business, as well as other more aggressive creatures that want you dead.
When you find the monster in question, those other creatures don’t just disappear. This is their home, too. They’ll join in the fight, run away, or even attack each other based on their behavior types.
The same monster can also vary in size (within reason) adding more believability to the ecosystem. With these size variations come personality differences as well. You might fight the same giant monster twice and have it be much more aggressive in one fight than the other.
A hunter must have keen eyes
In Monster Hunter, only you and your friends have health and stamina bars. Sure, you might fight a giant monster for upwards of half an hour, but you won’t find a section of HUD displaying their HP. In any other game, this would be downright awful. But Monster Hunter is no ordinary game.
Much like the ecosystem they inhabit, each monster is believable. There are many nuances to their behavior and movement. There may not be a bar indicating it, but a wise hunter knows when a monster is tired, weak, ready to be captured, or about to decimate the entire party.
Every monster has “tells,” and lots of them. A monster who once proudly charged into you now trips on his way over. He starts to slow down, begins drooling, and even develops a limp. These are the signs that get hunters excited, knowing their work is paying off.
You make the story
It’s often said that Monster Hunter has no story. In the traditional sense, that is entirely true. However, when you play Monster Hunter with friends, rarely does a night go by without a handful of stories crafting themselves.
One of the very first times I played a multiplayer session of Monster Hunter was with Jonah on Monster Hunter Freedom 2. We had just started and were doing a simple herb gathering mission. Traversing mountainous terrain, we searched for the needed materials when out of nowhere a giant bull creature known as a Bulldrome appeared. As fresh new hunters, it was a creature that could and would (given the chance) “mess us up” so to speak.
Our only safe bet was to run away. But every time we’d think we lost it and had found another good herb gathering spot, one of us would see it out of the corner of our eye and shout, “OH MY GOD! IT’S BACK! LET’S GET THE @#$% OUT OF HERE!!” Sometimes it would charge us down unexpectedly and the other would have to try to distract it so we could get to safety.
Again, this was an herb gathering mission. Yet, it was a rush and I had trouble thinking of any other gaming experiences quite like it. It happened several iterations ago and I still remember it like it was yesterday.
Similarly, I’ve been hunting a giant monster only to have an even larger monster, stronger than the one the quest wants me to kill, just show up uninvited. It’s one thing to take down monsters many times larger than yourself, but it’s another to know that while you’re doing it, a dragon could swoop in and dwarf both of you at any moment. It’s these types of situations that develop interesting, personal stories between you and your friends.
A constant sense of discovery
Monster Hunter games are very deep. Take weak points for example. All the large monsters take damage to their various body parts differently. Then you have to factor in different types of damage. A monster’s tail might be weak to the slicing damage of a great sword, but resistant to the impact damage of a hammer. Even a monster’s elemental weakness can change with the context.
Most monsters have parts that can be sliced off or smashed to pieces. These can change their attack patterns to make things easier as well as grant you additional rewards. But even if a part can’t be broken, it can still give you an advantage. Continuously attacking a monsters legs, for example, can cause them to fall down, allowing you and your friends to score some easy hits.
But the discoveries aren’t just found in the monsters themselves. Your inventory and equipment have a ridiculous amount of details to learn about. Each piece of armor grants skill points which, at certain increments grant skills. Discovering new armor and weapon combinations as well as supplementing them with gems to add more skill points leads to endless equipment combinations to fit any number of different situations.
Similarly, inventory combination is a huge part of Monster Hunter. Monsters only drop their own body parts when they die. You wont get gold, equipment, or potions from carving up a carcass. Quest givers will give you gold, combining monster parts will the help of a blacksmith will get you new equipment (for a fee), and combining an herb and a blue mushroom will get you a potion,which can then be combined with honey to make a mega potion, and so on.
There is an insane number of items that can be made from combining, only a handful of which the game tells you about. It’s up to your own sense of discovery to find out what they all are. And since there’s way more details to the game’s systems than any one person could ever hope to remember, talk of equipment sets, item combinations, and monster strategies have dominated conversations between my friends and co-workers as we share our discoveries.
A legitimately helpful online community
I am still shocked at how nice the online community of Monster Hunter Tri is. In over 100 hours of time with the game, most of which has been online, I’ve encountered approximately 3 jerks, and way more helpful strangers than I could hope to count.
One of the first players I encountered online started our play session with the simple words, “I’m here to help.” He was much stronger than the rest of us, but when the going got tough and he did end up dying once, he quickly responded with, “I’m sorry.” I busted up laughing. How on earth can I be encountering people so incredibly polite in an online game? This is the exact opposite of what I’m use to from the medium.
Food for thought
Monster Hunter manages to take the good aspects of the MMORPG genre (large online community, disturbing amount of depth, etc) and wrap it around a solid action game that relies on quick hand-eye coordination and timing instead of repeated clicks, shortcut keys, and macros.
You will get as much out of Monster Hunter as you are willing to put into it. Pick it up and attempt a quest or two and you might be just as confused about what makes it great as you were before you started. But if you delve deep into the millions of nuances contained within, it might grab hold and never let you go.
Tags: capcom, Editorials, Monster Hunter, Monster Hunter 3, Monster Hunter Tri, multiplayer, Nintendo, Wii
This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 28th, 2010 at 5:00 am and is filed under Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
July 28th, 2010 at 9:13 am
Heat Man says:I think a part of the problem is just how it’s presented to people unfamiliar with the series. A lot of articles and discussion I’ve seen about Monster Hunter begin “It is a very complicated and time-consuming game, but…” No matter what praise you’re intending to say next, you’ve already put into the reader’s mind that it’s a very complicated and time-consuming game.
The things best to emphasize are its variety and its arcade-style action. There is a lot to do in the game and it’s always different. No two fights with the same monster will ever go the same way. You can try out different weapons and support items and see how much better or worse they are on the monster. You can try using different armor sets. You can try playing with or without Chacha. And of course, the biggest factor, you can play alone or play with friends.
And then of course there’s the fact that the game relies on good timing, good observation and quick reflexes. This is the arcade action. I think this is why other “hardcore” gamers have trouble with Monster Hunter. It is a pretty looking game, and on the surface looks like any other typical game out now. But they run into it expecting to get some quick time event to finish the monster, and then watch a big cinematic about how the hunter has avenged his wife’s death by the Gobul. (Really, your wife was killed by Gobul? That’s kind of lame.) But no, this is a very action and skill oriented game. It could be an arcade game. The great thing is, everything you do in it makes you better at it (like any good game).
There is a palpable “difference” between eastern and western made games, but I don’t think there’s so much difference between the players. Many people here would love Monster Hunter, they just need to be informed about it the right way. But I do think it’s happening. Word of mouth advertising is slow, but it’s also the best advertising you can get. The discussion needs to continue.
July 28th, 2010 at 12:50 pm
CoffeewithGames says:I picked up the Monster Hunter Tri demo back in March, not really knowing what to expect.
The only piece of advice I read, that I suggest to others, is take your time, and learn the game if you’re new to it.
I have played only about 60 hours so far, but I’m having a blast with the game.
My wife has even monster hunted with me in the game, as we did a few Arena Hunts one night.
The game has a lot of depth to it, with the item crafting and gathering of resources, but if you just want to hunt monsters; you can do that.
I think the game is great for people that want depth and/or those gamers looking for more action game-play.
July 28th, 2010 at 9:00 pm
Chronham says:“He was much stronger than the rest of us, but when the going got tough and he did end up dying…”
That’s one thing that I love about this game. You can pay a friend to get you the weapons and armors you want, but you can still end up failing the beginning quests! This game is between 75%-90% skill based, and the rest is equipment and items – that’s something that most beginners seem to have a tough time understanding.
Also, I can’t get over how much this series involves personal preferences for weapons, armors, skills, etc. I have friends who could use the Hunting Horn VERY efficiently in freedom 2/unite and I couldn’t use one for my life! And when you go online, you’ll RARELY find a group with the exact same armors, but instead, you’ll see an avalanche of sets. And you aren’t just stuck with wearing an entire set of armor from one beast, but instead you can let your creativity and imagination help decide your skills and defense!
If a gamer wants good graphics, tough challenges, a lot of gameplay, an awesome online feature, and a vast amount of character customization, the Monster Hunter series is a perfect fit
July 30th, 2010 at 12:33 pm
Sherrios says:I really liked this article, but I have to agree with Heat Man, where if you say that it’s very complicated and time consuming, the player(who is not normally into RPGs of any kind)is put-off by that.
I love Monster Hunter Tri and my friends and I have so much fun playing it. We don’t even need to hunt a monster in order to have epic moments(try mining in the volcano level with only gathering gear). It’s just sad most people don’t enjoy games like this and I think the reason is that they’re all into “realistic” games(GAH, don’t get me started…)and their FPS games. They want super pretty graphics with loud weapons that give instant gratification. A great gamer can play any kind of game and find enjoyment in it.
August 2nd, 2010 at 4:42 am
linthuslyth says:Rarely do I see people from the west praising Monster Hunter. Usually I hear, “The camera controls suck…”, “It’s so slow-paced”, “the graphics suck”, etc. I admit it’s not a perfect game but are all the other games the same people fanboy about. MH is definitely a game that you have to give time to. The people I’ve encountered that have given it time at worst say, “I still don’t really like it but I can see why other people do”
I got into Monster Hunter when three of my friends played Freedom 2 in their PSPs. Monster Hunter Freedom 2 was the reason I wanted and got a PSP and MH tri makes me really want to get a Wii. I think I’ve put more or less 300 hours combined in Freedom 2 and Freedom Unite (I was at end-game HR9). And I have never put that many hours in a game ever.