Online gamers looking for a fix until their next big addiction might give this game a shot.
User Rating: 7.6 | Monster Hunter PS2
If your tired of the old downtime and resting treadmill many MMORPG games leave you stuck with but also aren't a big fan of point and click style combat such as Diablo II then Monster Hunter might be the game for you. The game is definitely not an MMORPG and the gameplay setup holds more similarity to Diablo II, with a lobby set up which launches you into quest maps. However, the the focus on questing and gearing up your character most likely would hold the appeal of many MMORPG fans. One huge difference however is the game's lack of any "leveling". Your character in Monster Hunter will be entirely dependent on their gear which is mostly crafted from various monster parts you obtain throughout your questing career. There is a hunter rank level which keeps you locked out of quests that are more difficult until you reach certain designated ranks and also affects which gear appears at the crafter to be available for crafting. The number one drawback to online play with Monster Hunter is that the chat interface is utterly horrible. The only way to chat with online players is either in the lobby of the area you are in which will contain a maximum of 40 players despite the fact the "land" which seems to be the particular server holds up to 750 players. Outside of that you may only chat with people in the "town" you are in which is a max of 8 players and if you are on a quest you can only chat with your party members. So despite the fact they have implemented a friends list to the game the only way to communicate with your friends is to move to their town and hope it doesnt already contain 8 players. That's after making sure you are in their particular segment of the area which may already contain 40 players, in which case you have no way of contacting them. This aspect of the game makes it particularly difficult to form connections with good groups. Monster Hunter's strength really comes from its gameplay and combat (the reason I rated Gameplay a 7, is simply because I cannot give it higher with that horrible chat interface). Some reviewers have said they found the battle system to be lacking but the controls are very intuitive. It is much more fast paced then MMORPG style pseudo real time combat that is really just turn based delay/damage ratios with graphical coating, yet requires much more strategy then typical hack and slash games. There are several different types of weapons including lances, swords, dual swords, hammers, and crossbows. In addition if you are a bow user you can choose from varying types of ammo. The basic monsters you fight are nothing exciting but don't expect much downtime, as most quests even gathering quests provide a plethora of monsters to hack through. Where the combat really shines is setting up with a group (max 4) to hunt down the large wyvern type monsters on each map. The monsters take anywhere from 5-20 minutes to beat depending on the skill of your group. These monsters are have a lot of health and tend to hit very hard in comparison to whatever armor you happen to be wearing thus requiring the group to set up a strategy of placing traps strategically around the area and luring them into them. The main trap used is a pitfall trap and in addition there are numerous types of bombs ranging from flash bombs to enrage and disorient or barrel bombs to dish out the beats. In addition the wyverns frequently flee to different areas of the map, forcing you to clear those areas of the smallers monsters in addition to fighting the main monster. If you manage to defeat the monster before your time expires (50 min), or before you reach a death count of 3 total among your whole party you'll be reward by getting typically 3 monster parts per player off the beast and in addition will receive quest rewards from a menu at quest completion. Unfortunately, even with the fast paced exciting combat, you can't get real excited being as there are only 4 maps total in the entire game to choose from when you quest. In these 4 maps there really is a lack of much variety of monster models and even the giant wyverns despite being different start to feel the same in battles. There is enough to keep players going to shoot for unlocking more armor/weapon combines but I'd have to imagine after a 2 or 3 weeks of battling the entertainment of collecting the crafting materials would begin to dwindle. At any rate if you can find some friends to gather with and play and are able to work around the clunky chat Monster Hunter will probably at least keep players interested for a couple weeks. Also if you do decide to pick up the game I highly reccomend buying the strategy guide as it contains all of the combine lists for item synthesis (its sort of hard to trap a wyvern if you can't guess what you need to make the trap to begin with) . This is my very first review I have written so feel free to send any feedback about ways to improve my writing to evilpjfifteen@hotmail.com.
