Initial review - Aug 31, 2018

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Monster Hunter has been a long running franchise and very popular in Asia and North America also received some localizations on 3DS in the past. Its first open world version 'Monster Hunter World' did tremendously well in terms of sales and now we finally receive the Japanese port of XX (Japanese version of the title) that was released last year. Kind of irony as NA is receiving older port when World is the newest but I'm just glad it came out at least. I have been really enjoying World (40+ hours) in and just played the Generations Ultimate yesterday for a bit, so I'll come back occasionally for updates.



1. Package

One of the emptiest packages ever. The research I did tells me that file size for the game is about 11gb, so if you didn't get any Prime discount and don't mind digital, then it could be an option too.



2. Gameplay

I did play some 3DS version a long time ago, and played the world, so I am familiar with weapons and how towns work in general. For absolutely first time players new to the monster hunter, the initial gameplay won't be so friendly to you. There won't be any guided tutorials where they tell you 'now press A. very good. now press A A A' kind of typical tutorials, but they just throw you out there in the wild and you have to figure things out. You have to figure out combos yourself and there won't be a chart telling you what to do (ok well there is just one page in Hunter's notes but I swear that's it). So, I strongly recommend that you watch Youtube videos that's widely available on how to get started. Luckily, monster hunter is very popular and you have tons of resources on the internet. Battle mechanics is easy to start, hard to master. The whole purpose of the game is to defeat very strong boss monster and not an arcade type games where you beat small enemies, progress and have boss fights such as Bayonetta series. Every mission is basically a boss fight so you will notice that these large monsters take forever to die. It is normal at the beginning and still is in most cases (except really good players you see on youtube doing speedruns). The game relies little on stories but more on how you interact and continue doing quests. What makes the game really fun is parts you get from the wild and boss monsters and you craft cool weapons and armors from them, thus improving your stat/gears and get better to prepare for stronger monsters.



3. Co-op

I guess one cool stuff which I really like about is co-op that support online multiplayer (and local), so even if you're a loner like me, you can just join a room max of 4 people and start hunting together...and hunting together is really fun. That's what really drove my game in the World and the same with Generations Ultimate.



Conclusion: this game is no god of war, bayonetta or dmc (meaning I enjoyed all these series and different gaming objective than MH as focus is a lot on story and combos), but an action game where you hunt boss-level monsters that require you to think how to manage resources, and actions that requires you to focus as hard as when you play Dark Souls. If you've been hearing all this monster hunter craze and are looking for good challenges with online co-op support, then this is the game for you and this will perhaps also let you get hooked to the World which made a lot of experimental changes and fixes from XX which I like.