Not for Everyone... Definately for Those it -is- for.
SO! Gamespot's pathetically inadequate review aside, let's get into it.
Graphics: 9/10. Is purdy.
Below-average graphics? What the HELL are you talking about, Gamespot? Yeah, there's a lot of photo-ey backgrounds, and granted there are a damn lot of aliasing lazies as mentioned, but don't forget that graphical STYLE is important too. If GameSpot are going to give a crappy game like Okami with a cheap art gimmick that makes it look like a mess of paint a 10, then you can sure as hell give this a... 37. But I'm harsher than GS, so I'm giving it an 9. Now, the main thing of style here is... The equipment.
The Japanese were once known for bizarre fashion. You really need to be an Asian to make the hoodie-shorts-spikey hair combo work. If a white guy, or a black guy did it, it wouldn't EVER look right, in a MILLION years. But they've gotten a bit lazy lately. They've stuck with the above look for a good while now. I think Capcom ate all of the Japanese fashion industry's originality, and condensed it into this game. The armour is, quite frankly, amazing. I don't use that word often. The first time I saw the Rathalos armour, my jaw dropped. I didn't even care when the Dragon Armour, the final armour in the game, was just a black version of the Rathalos Armour with bigger spikes. It was still freaking amazing. The Plesioth armour looks like something out of Metal Gear Solid, and the Hornetaur Armour looks like something out of Teknoman. Let's not forget the Khezu armour with it's awesome-as-hell hood, the ridiculously spikey Diablos armour, or the slap we all gave to our foreheads when we saw the Guild Knight armour. In short, even though I still think the graphics of this game are very nice, it's the STYLE that boosts it from a 7 to a 9. That and the FMVs. The Ecology videos are both amazingly cool, and pretty.
So, graphics, 9, for both REASONABLY pretty graphics, and AMAZINGLY cool and unique style.
Controls:
Like a lot of the games I review it seems, a special note needs to be said for controls. Lemme give you the rundown:
L1: Center Camera
L2: Item Sub-Menu
R1: Weapon Special (Such as Guarding with GS/SnS/Lance, Fury Mode with Duals, etc)
R2: Sprint
D-Pad: Camera.
Left Analogue: Movement.
Right Analogue: Attacks.
X: Roll, down in Ammo Submenu while holding L2.
O: Interact, right in submenu while holding L2.
Square: Use Item, left in submenu while holding L2.
Triangle: Help Menu/Chat (Online). up in Ammo Submenu while holding L2.
(Apologies if these are mixed up, been playing MH2 lately and the buttons are different)
And R3 occasionally does something, such as the Charge Attack for Lances. Now basically how this works, is that your left hand stays the same. Your right hand, however, has to move around a bit. Your middle finger usually hovers around Run, with your index on R1 and your thumb switching between the four buttons and the D-pad. Because of the slow nature of the game (more on this later), this enables you to do pretty much everything you could possibly need to do at once. Running, moving the camera, cyling items, quickly rolling out of the way.. I honestly challenge you to find a better camera system that doesn't involve a lock-on or a mouse. (A lock on would have ruined this game.)
Gameplay: 9/10.
It's no DMC or Guilty Gear, but it's still damn fun.
Now, the whole idea behind Monster Hunter (and pay attention, because this is a point that I've seen Level20's (max level online) STILL not realize), is that you are a tiny little human. You are fighting an absolutely gigantic Wyvern (a Dragon with no arms, effectively). To even put a dent in it, you are using massive weapons, usually made from the fangs and claws of previously slain Wyverns. Monster Hunter is kind of... A realistic approach to the age old man VS dragon RPG formula. Wyverns take a long, long time to kill. When you're just starting out, it could take up to about 30 minutes to kill the first Wyvern, the infamous Yian Kut Ku. Considering how many slashes you can get off per minute, well, you're hitting that giant seagull a lot of times.
Whereas if it hits you even once, you can book a cab to drive you to the cemetary where you shall mourn the loss of a nice 1/3rd of your life bar.
Blademaster? Hit by a fireball? Say goodbye to 60%. Fury Mode? Say goodbye to 80%. Potions only restore about 30% of your health, and you can only carry a max of 10, with 6 First-Aid Meds from the quest supplies (same effect as potions). Which effectively means, if you get hit by Kut Ku's tail 50 times... That is, providing you're actually prepared enough to have 10 potions, which 99% of Hunters will NOT, since you have to gather the ingredients to make said potions... And considering how easy this is to do... Well, you're kinda boned considering you need to slash that bird about 1000 times. I'm not exaggerating.
So what's the trick? Preparation. The first is having Potions. As I've said, I've seen people who've somehow beaten the game through having friends online (Or Lances, more on that shortly) who don't carry potions with them. If they try to make a new character and solo it without beastly equips from online, they will get obliterated. And no matter what weapon you're using, it isn't hard to get hit.
So, on that note, onto the Weapon Types, one of my favourite parts about this game.
1: Sword and Shield. Special: Guard. The sword and shield is the all-rounder, really. You move fast on your feet, you deal an ok amount of damage, you can guard (although it often pushes you back too far for you to have time to counter attack, but it does save you from losing all your damn HP), and you can combo. Sword and Shield is about Medium on the Popularity Ladder. When using this, the main things to look out for are how much you move around. Your main combo opener, the Jumping Slash, moves you quite a chunk of space forward - sometimes straight into a Wyvern's charge attack.
2: Greatsword. Special: Guard. Kind of the staple of the game. These GARGANTUAN swords can be between your own size, and about double it. They come in the shape of swords, katanas, and even the rarer Scythe line. They are extremely slow, but they do some of the bext damage in the game. When these things are unsheathed you'll barely notice you're moving, and will rely almost ENTIRELY on rolling and guarding to escape damage. They're quite combo-happy, as you use the sword's own momentum to keep the swings coming one-after the other. They're the only weapon with an Infinite Combo, although don't keep it going too long or the Wyvern will just turn around and bowl you over. Easiest weapon type to use, as your only major lesson is to know when to stop attacking, and to abuse guard. Your biggest cause of death will be Wyverns doing unexpected things just as you swing that huge slab of death. Second-most-popular weapon type.
3: Lance. Special: Guard. Ahhh, the lance. How I hate thee. Lances are, normally, a respectable weapon type. They feature extreme accuracy for breaking/cutting things off Wyverns such as horns, tails or wingclaws, they have a solid guard, they do very impressive damage for their speed and they have the Charge Attack, which is debatably the strongest move in the game. Though, they're just as slow as the Greatsword movement-wise (not attack wise, no way), and they can't roll while the weapon is out, only do tiny little hops. Your main cause of death will be the inability to roll, and it will happen often unless you're very cautious. Guarding is very key for a lancer. The reason so many people love/hate lancers, is an exploit called headlocking. Basically what this is is stabbing the Wyvern in the face repeatedly with a strong lance, timing it (loosely, the timing is by no means strict) so that it goes into a very brief stagger. By the time the Wyvern shakes out of it, you'll have stabbed him a few more times, and he'll do it again. In essense, if you have timing enough to beat pretty much ANY video game EVER, you would be able to render a Wyvern completely unable to move during the entire battle. This is an exploit, as was PROOVEN, LANCERS, when it was REMOVED in Monster Hunter 2. Don't headlock. Online, they're extremely common... As is headlocking.
4: Hammer. Special: Charge Strike. The hammer: my personal favourite weapon type, strangely enough. Hammers are sticks with a giant chunk of death on the end. Although they don't look it, they're faster than Greatswords (unsheathed they run about as fast as an SnSer) though during attacks, yes, they are as slow as a GS. Hammers mostly rely on their Charge Attacks, one of which is a spinning attack followed up by a painful-looking swing that has been universally dubbed 'The Golf Swing,' the other is a small upwards swing followed by a massive downwards smash that kicks up a whole heap of dust. Both of these moves are very, VERY strong, and between Hammers having the highest Power stat in the game and having high Damage Ratios (too complex, won't go into any detail), the Ground Smash is the rival to the Lance's title of 'Strongest Attack'. Because both of these attacks are both amazingly strong and quite slow to come out, Hammer users nearly always rely on Hit and Run tactics. They're the third least-used weapon type. Since Charging up eats at your Stamina (just like rolling, dodging and guarding), your main cause of death will likely be if you get impatient to use your fully-charged Ground Smash and get too hasty. The other is if you get cornered, and since you don't have a Guard ability, you may be boned.
5: Dual Swords. Special: Fury Mode. Stylistically I love these things, although quite frankly, I suck with them. Dual Swords are the fastest weapon type in all ways, both their run speed and their attack speed. While damage from individual slashes is quite low, a skilled Dualsworder has the potential to narrowly beat a GS or Lance in damage. Elemental Weaknesses also account for a lot. Dualswords are hard to make, hard to use, and overall just difficult. Thankfully they were buffed a nice amount in Monster Hunter 2. Anyhow, their special, Fury Mode, ups their damage, chews their stamina, and gives them a new attack that all DS-newbies can, and will, spam. This is a rapid series of VERY, VERY WEAK slashes, followed by a final downwards cut. It's vastly inferior to the Fury-mode Uppercut, which is basically two rising spin attacks, in both DPS and vulnerabilities, but people still insist on abusing it. A DS' main threats are, like the hammer, no Guard, but also people abusing the Fury Combo (it lasts quite a while), and lastly, the fact that unlike Sword and Shields, Dualswords combo in a different way. With a Sword and Shield, you have to press the attack button when the sword is in the right position. With Dual Swords, your next movement can be qued up. This requires some very precise timing, only inputting the attacks at the right moment, so that you can quickly roll away when the situation goes bad, unlike Sword and Shield where you can just mash the Up button until you're about to be hit, then just press right and Square.
6: Bowguns. Special: FPS mode.Bowguns are the ranged weapon of the game. There are Heavy and Light variants, the only difference being their movement speed (Light is as fast as an SnS, Heavy is as slow as a GS) and their damage. Due to your ability to sit back and fire, Bowgun is debatably the easiest weapon type in the game. The problem is, you have to buy or make your own ammo, which means that, especially later in the game, using a bowgun consistantly can lose you a lot more money than you're making. For this reason, most people have a bowgun, but only use it when a tough fight comes along. There are even some Ledge points where you can stand in near-complete-safty and just rain death on a Wyvern. It's also worth mentioning that Bowguns, with a full load of Cluster Shot Lv2's, have the potential for the best damage in the game. Biggest cause of death? Getting cocky with not having to dodge so long, then only realizing when it's too late that Rathalos is about to lob a fireball at you.
All the weapons feel really, really, really different. The Greatsword is a HUGE slab of hurt that you lug around like it was your ex girlfriend. You actually feel like you're lugging it around when it's unsheathed, and you can almost feel the weight pulling back on you as you try to turn that downwards-smash-into-the-ground into a sideways swing. The Dualswords feel like you're just going along for the ride, trying desperately to stop them when you need to run away, and the Hammers feel like you're a particularly painful fly, smacking at the Wyvern's legs at every opportunity with one of those painful ground smashes. In fact, I can't think of another game that's pulled this off more effectively. The different weapon feels really are a great addition.
Online Play: 7/10.
I was harsh here. Let me clarify this: Yes, Online Mode is a big hassle. It is, to use GS' word, very archaic, it's very outdated, primitive, and there's a lot it could have done. That being said, it's also just amazingly fun. Wyverns get beefed up Online, even moreso when you progress far enough to fight the 'Plus' variants, and then you go on to unlock a few special bosses. The final boss, let me tell you, is a sight to behold. But I'll save the spoilers. The fact is, yes, it could be better. Yes, it's primitive. Yes, it is still a whole heap damn load of fun.
Sound: 8/10.
The songs will never blast out at you, but that's both good and bad. This isn't memorable music (with the exception of the Final Boss' theme), but it certainly fits it. The monster sounds are all great: I cringe every time I Diablos' wail. And the nice gash when you slash a Velociprey mid-pounce and cleave it clean in two is great. The sound isn't amiss, though it doesn't stand out.
One thing I want to mention about sound though... Are me and my friend the ONLY people who realized that the intro to the Desert theme is ripped straight from the song 'Barra Barra' from the Black Hawk Down soundtrack?
Value: 10.
I don't know what to say here. Really, I don't. This game has chewed up more than a lot of MMOs for me. Me and my friend have both racked up a little over 300 hours each on MH1, and I've now been going for about 40 hours on MH2, despite it being a similar game. The design of the weapons and armour just makes me want to make EVERYTHING in the whole damn game. So I've become a bit of an item collector. There's some interesting stuff you might never see without an FAQ; it's not every day you see someone toting around a swordfish as a Greatsword. And there are some things you simply WON'T see, like the fabled GMR Chrome Heart, a Greatsword given out in an Online Event Quest that hasn't happened in a long, long time. Even I've never seen it, and I remain to be very curious as to what it looks like...
Anyhow, the point is, replay value. There's lots if you enjoy the style as much as I do. If you don't, well, the enemies are fun to fight. Very fun. Though good luck finding a crew willing to dedicate the hour required for the final boss.
Overall: 8.8.
I didn't want to give it a 9. I don't quite know why, I just didn't want to. Monster Hunter has some big flaws. For one, it really needs to feel more like, you know, a Hunt. Traps are rarely used out of the often-hated Wyvern Capture missions. I've honestly never seen ANYONE even ATTEMPT to use the Poisoned Meat item. And the problem is, this is Capcom - we all know that once they make one innovative game, the innovation stops dead. MH2, while great fun, is essentially an expansion pack, even though there already WAS a game that was essentially an expansion pack. I can only hope that with the PS3, MH3 will try to add some of the things they obviously wanted to be in MH1. Then there's headlocking. Then there's the times when the Online mode can get very repetetive, grinding Rathalos to level up quickly. But it is a great game. It's not for everyone: Like most Capcom games the difficulty bar is on the high side, and it takes a lot of time getting used to the fact that despite having a sword twice your height, you can't go Rambo on the enemy. I highly reccomend at LEAST looking at this game. It really is a great title despite small flaws, and if nothing else, rent it out to give the absolutely awesome Rathalos Armour a look-see.