A game that requires dedication, patience and most importantly, player skill; not for the average gamer!
User Rating: 8 | Monster Hunter Portable 2nd PSP
This is another one of those games that always fails in reviews by officials, but not because the game is bad as they make it out to be, but because it's the type of game in which the player must spend time and energy actually learning the mechanics and structure of the game. A summary playtime of 10 hours is not enough to even scratch the surface of this game, which may be why many people turn away from it so soon; they're weak. Much like it's prequel, MHF2 involves the player taking on the role of a hunter, completing quests which can have you slay Velociraptors(known as Velociprey) to very powerful wyverns, dragons, giant crabs, griffons and even pink babboons...yes, pink babboons that hurl their feces at you. Once you manage to kill your target monster, which can take over 40 minutes at times, you can carve it's corpse for special items, which you can use to craft into new weaponry and armour. This is done in the village armoury and the possibilities of what you can craft with your bounty is unimaginable. Rinse and Repeat! It is important to note here, that unlike other RPGs, MHF character abilities do not increase for you the more you play, instead you become more powerful by collecting rarerer bounty to craft and improve better swords, bows, cannons, lances, hammers, etc(the same applies for your amours). The hundreads of different armours affect your defensive capabilities and also provide your character with various skills whilst that armour is bing worn. The combat system of the game can be frustrating, I still remember my first times on the original, shouting out "WTF" on the bus...However, it is only a hinderance if you assume the way to slay is to button mash. Successful slaying of a monster requires careful and well executed hit-and-run combos on the target, combined with appropriate evasive tactics. Now, this may seem simple enough, but as I mentioned earlier, this game takes dedication and learning, once you learn how to at least not get hit too much(becuase the monsters sure hit hard) then you're well on your way to gaining gameplay skills that no "auto-targeting" or "sticky-camera" will ever do for you. You will be able to take down beasts so large and vicious that the reward at the end is not only your bounty, but a fantastiv feeling of accomplishment and worthy of survial. There are noticable flaws in it however, such as the camera, which has an almost evil habbit of messing up whenever you get thrown against a wall( though this has been greatly improved upon since the original). But again, if you play smart and always keep an eye out for where you are, then you won't end up near a wall...beleive me, you DON'T want to get cornered by that pink babboon... What they also seem to have neglected to mention in the Gamespot review(which you should never read) is that they have improved on alot of things since MHF1, such as the long load times between areas in levels. There is an option you can switch on to allow the game to load the entire level in the background, whilst you play, allowing for an almost instantaneous transmission between areas. Of course, as expected and stated in the game is that it drains a little more power from your PSP battery since the disk will need to be read more constantly, but even that only lessens the total life by 20-30 mins. So no, the load times are probably the fastest in any PSP game(great work Gamespot, you sure know what you're talking about). The graphics and overal presentation of the game is astounding, it really does provide a "neo- caveman, feudal Japanese, medieval Knight-esque" feeling to the game. The environments look beautiful and characters, weapons, armours and especially all the monsters are incredibly detailed for a PSP game. Motions are fluid and at times they're intimidating! (You'll understand when you have a Tigrex crawling after you at such a high speed and you're running away screaming "HOLY SH*T!" out loud). There is much more to explain about this game, but the magic of it is to spend the time with it, exploring and learning it all for yourself and developing your own player skill. Again, this game has a very steep learning curve, but get around that corner and what awaits you is by far the most fun you'll have on the PSP.
