2349_magic_Future Canon Game_Monster Hunter
**Posted by Magic at 1:09 PM
GAME REPORT -- MONSTER HUNTER
Foreword
Introduction
Picture taken from CAPCOM official website http://www.capcom.co.jp/monsterhunter
MH is an action game which was developed by CAPCOM earlier 2004 on PS2. The game describes hunters (plays who play this game) killing feral monsters. In the game, players will play the role of hunters to complete sorts of quests, such as killing huge dragons, discovering and collecting items. The main purpose of the game is to enjoy the whole wild world, this is a great different to our real world, players must use primeval ways to survive under those monsters’ attacks. A tense and exciting game, this is MH.
Picture taken from CAPCOM official website http://www.capcom.co.jp/monsterhunter
After nearly 1 year, PS2, Monster hunter G was released on the first month of 2005. It didn’t give us players many changes, but we still saw some new monsters and elements in the game. Have to say, Monster Hunter G trained up many hard cores, it was an important step of the entire MH series.
Picture taken from CAPCOM official website http://www.capcom.co.jp/monsterhunter
Same year, 2005, MH was finally released on PSP. Back to there, not many PSP people were interested in MH, because PSP players had so many other games to play with. But after a few months, people started slowly focusing on it. Cause people realized that MHG (the Monster Hunter game on PSP, Monster Hunter G) was extremely appropriate for a portable game console. People can seat next to each other, hunting the monster together. More and more people started joining the hunter world, MH started becoming to a wide world game that it never was. We could say every PSP player has a MH game. Now days, MH has already been the one of the most popular game on rather PSP or other consoles.
Picture taken from CAPCOM official website http://www.capcom.co.jp/monsterhunter
2006, 16th of Feb, Monster Hunter 2 was released. Due to the great success of the last MH game, Monster Hunter 2 had more than 360 thousand copies sold in the first week. This result was obvious to all people, a solid base had been made when the MH game first released.
Picture taken from CAPCOM official website http://www.capcom.co.jp/monsterhunter
Also, CAPCOM will not forget PSP, PSP platform gave MH game the biggest success. So, another MH game on PSP is a definitely happened thing. Sure enough, year 2007, the second MH game – Monster Hunter Portable 2nd was released to the market. This time, CAPCOM gave us more new elements and monsters, the new farm was the most popular new feature to MH players, new monsters were waiting for hunters challenge.
Picture taken from CAPCOM official website http://www.capcom.co.jp/monsterhunter
After Monster Hunter Portable 2nd, CAPCOM started moving their main part from home console to portable console. In 2007, 22th of Feb, the third MH game on PSP was released. It was Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G. As the PS2 MH G version, player can challenge the new and hardest quest in the game ever.
Picture taken from CAPCOM official website http://www.capcom.co.jp/monsterhunter
The newest MH game is Monster Hunter 3. It was released on 1st of Aug on Wii. It was a good game as well, but I have not played it. It didn’t have multi-player game, or maybe it was not good to put the multi-player in a home game console. Anyway, the game was nice, but the soul of MH game has gone. A portable game console is the best place to make a great MH game.
And finally, Monster Hunter Portable 3rd is here, it is still under development, but every MH player is looking forward to see the game got released during Christmas. In 3rd, the players will have more new features such as more battle cats during the quest, new monster from YALONG species, and so on.
Here are 2 other MH games, the first one is Monster Hunter Frontier, another one is Monster Hunter アイルー村 (this game has not released internationally, therefore, so it have not English name). Frontier is an online game. Another one is more like a mini game about those cats living in their own village.
Picture taken from CAPCOM official website http://www.capcom.co.jp/monsterhunter
Due to the great unprecedented success of MH, the developer, CAPCOM, started move to their MH game to the internet. Therefore, year 2009, CAPCOM released a first online MH game, Monster Hunter Frontier Online. This was a successful attempt, because MH has so many fans. The game is good, also, CAPCOM have had another great experience to the online area.
Picture taken from CAPCOM official website http://www.capcom.co.jp/monsterhunter
This is the cat game. It is about what those cats do in the cats’ village. The graphics of the game is very cute, girls love this game. As we know, MH is a very hard game, which cannot be easily familiar with. The interface is clear and friendly but during monster fighting, it is very hard, one hit, you will probably die, no mistake can be permitted. So a lot of female players do not like it much, but I like it that’s modeling and fighting scene very attractive to me. After CAPCOM released this game, female player started watching MH games, because the background of this cat mini game itself is taken from MH. So, another great and successful attempted CAPCOM won many female players joining the Monster Hunter World.
Here is a chart showing the changing of MH game in the past:
CHART
Data is from web and CAPCOM news.
As the chart expressed and I stated, the entire history of MH is a growing and developing process, which it will always give us players some new elements during the game experiencing. A new style action game which is not similar to other action games when it was developed. Also, MH has been changed a lot in order to attract and comfort more players who have not attempted playing MH game. It is not only a hard core game anymore, but also attracted many other players, especially, us female players are entering MH world.
Another important thing that we can see from the chart is the portable MH games are much popular than console versions. Because not only CAPCOM realized, but also our players realized that MH is great for portable consoles, and it of course more appropriate for us to play nest to each other.
The game
The story, genre, sub-genre and the game play of MH
The entire story of MH is about a hunter killing invading monsters and finally saved his/her/their village.
In each MH game, the name of villages that needs to be protected is different. The villagers are different too. However, the main goals are the same, which is to kill monsters and become a famous guy, and defeat the most dangerous quest from the village head. The story is simple, everyone can easily understand it.
The game genre of MH is action, no sub-genre is applicable. As those normal action games, MH needs players to be concentrating on the battle. But unmorally like those normal action games, a small mistake in MH will make your player dies, especially in the high level quests (players call them “G”), you die by one hit.
Because the genre is action, the storyline is simple. Let us take a look:
1. You enter the MH world.
2. Normally, you are a rookie hunter, either be injured from a quest or just woke up.
3. A warmhearted guy will tell you what happened to you and take you walk around introducing you the facilities that the village provides.
4. Starting your first quest. It is normally a gathering quest.
5. You finished your first quest, and you got home.
6. After you completed a few quests, you will unlock some new features and new facilities. Such as cats kitchen and equipment forging.
7. Now you have the power to challenge the higher level quest.
8. After you finished many times high level quests, you started be qualified to the finial challenge from the village head. But you cannot make it at the moment.
9. Starting playing with other players and gathering more powerful equipment.
10. Preparing the final quest.
11. Defeated the final quest.
12. The end.
The entire storyline is like what you just saw, but the game has not be finished yet. From now, players are qualified to the hardest quests, which you will need to play with other players. It is another big part of MH game, to play with your friends and enjoy. The game will never end, you can download new quests and events from CAPCOM website.
To be honest, I have met many friends through MH. They helped me a lot in the game. I used to be rookie in the game, but those friends made me though every challenge.
Here is my MH game play. So far, Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G is the most popular MH game in the world, and all lineal MH games are similar. Therefore, I will take 2nd G as my game play view.
This is the title screen. You can see clearly the words “Monster Hunter”. By the way, I use a Chinese version game, you will see many Chinese words in my game play view, but do not worry about it, you will understand all of them by my description and using your common gamer sense.
By clicking any buttons, you will see the main menu.
New game.
Load a game.
Game media.
Option.
Download.
Media install.
Of course, I am going to select load my own saved character.
What a nice character, I am magic, glad to meet you.
Ok, here is the character selection interface, simple and clean. You can use analog to rotate the character.
After you select your character, you jump into the game directly.
It is your village, a north village that covered with snow. That is very beautiful view.
Right at the center, you see the character you selected.
To compare with some home consoles, PSP’s graphic is just passable. However, when you are playing the game, you will feel much better, because you will not be able to focus on those little tiny detailed things during the monsters battle. Anyway, as a portable console game, the graphics of Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G is not bad, if you compare with another portable console NDS.
This is your home, push square to enter home.
By the way, the small mark at left of my name is showing which weapon you are currently using. In this picture, I am using gun-lance.
An internal view of the home, here is an important place that you will need to save, change equipment and eat.
That little pig is my pet, you probably thing it is a lamb, but you are wrong. It is a pig wearing a lamb costume suit. Of course, I did it for it.
When you click that box at left, you will be able to see a close shot of your character, and you will be able to change gears.
This is the storage of your box. I have got many gears.
Here you have some ways to sort your items in the box.
At the right, you can see details of changing gears.
Tier of snow lion. (snow lion is my translation)
This is my favorite, tier of Kylin.
Tips: each tier or suit gives you some special abilities and skills, which help you to defeat quests easily. You will know in the follows.
This is the place to change the suit of your little cutie pig.
Here is your kitchen and dinner area. You can enter here through the big hole from the home.
In the kitchen, you can see your battle cats and your cook cats. The most important function here is to order a meal.
Once you ordered a meal, you can see your cook cats cook for you, but that is slipping into chaos. Therefore, you will sometimes have some unsavory serve.
After a little tour in the home, we take place to the village.
In Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G, the village is called Pok (Pocket) village. From my point, it means that a village in your pocket, we can play the game anywhere, any when.
From left, there is Ring, meeting room, item merchant and gear merchant.
The ring gives you the way to train yourself.
The meeting room is the place where you will play online with your friends and challenge the hardest quest.
Item merchant is where you can buy some basic items such as potions.
Gear merchant is the one of the most important place where you will often go to. Here you can use your material that gathered monsters or other ways to make your own gears. It also has some functions to upgrade the gears, such as adding gems and renew.
This way will lead you to another important place, which is the farm.
Here is the farm. There are many functions that can help you to make your in-game live easier.
You can gather mushrooms, crops, honey, insects and ores. (you can make weapons and gears by using those items)
This guy can help you to find some martial that you will never find in your own way.
This is the insect tree, which you can use this large cat hammer to hammer the tree in order to get some rare insects drop down.
This place is that big hole at the back of the farm.
A giant sword is here, you can find the material of making black dragon gears. (one of the most powerful gears in the game.)
This is the fishing bridge in the farm. (Fish is not only a kind of food in MH games, but also a material to make weapons, bullets and gears)
This is the meeting room, which you can meet your friends and get quests in here.
The meeting room is another greatly important place you will often go, because every time you make a multi-play, you will have to be in the meeting room. Also, in here you can make some simple motions to communicate with each other. Please remember, switch on your WIFI!
Ok, let us start a quest.
Get out from the meeting room. On the right, you will see the village head.
She gives you many single quests from easy to hard. The difficulty can be judged by stars. Lesser stars means easier, more stars is the opposite. Let us take a quest.
After you took the quest, you will see a mark on the character’s head. White is a hunting quest, red is a battle quest, green is a gathering quest.
Hunting quest usually needs you to kill or catch the monsters. You do not need to kill the objectives.
Battle quest needs you to kill the monster.
Gathering quest needs you to collect some item that you are asked
Any quest can retry up to 3 times, if you failed 4 times, you go back to the village. Quest retire.
Ok, let start.
The loading interface before starting a quest.
Quest started, you start in a camp, you can find some supplies in the blue box. The red box is for gathering items.
Let’s take a look the interface.
The green bar is life, once the life bar is empty, you die, you have to restart the quest at the camp. The yellow bar is stamina, running and some special abilities drain the stamina, once the stamina is zero, you cannot run or use abilities, until it regains.
Under these 2 bars is a small sword, shows your weapon’s sharpness. If your sharpness is low, you will not be able to cut or slash the monsters.
Under the sharpness is a bar that especially appeared when you use Tachi. When the bar is full filled, you will be able use special movements and attacks
At the top right corner is a clock, shows you the time duration. Below the clock, is the names, the first line is mine, second line is my battle cat.
At the bottom right corner is the item you carrying. Pushing square to use, pushing L and hold to select items.
The right side is the map for this quest. Normally it is partly seem, until you have the item called map or an open skill.
On the map, the small triangle is the character, the white is the camp where you normally start the quest. At last, that crab looking icon is the target monster you need to kill or catch. When the icon is blue, it is not watch you. When it is red, it means it watching you.
Alright, move on.
This is the menu of blue box. The icons on the right hand are supplies.
killing adds, demonstration of Tachi.
Here is the target for the quest. There are not only dragons in the game, but also some other monsters. In this case, the objective is a giant hermit crab.
The head looking thing the hermit crab wearing is another giant monster’s skull.
It saw me, it is coming.
Slashing!
It is defensing.
Forgot to state, the monsters will switch to other areas on the map.
Objective achieved
A minute count down before go to another screen.
Reward details
Quest statement.
Here, a quest has been completed. So, what happens is you back to the village, sort out your reward, then start another quest.
Compares
Other similar games
Due to the great success of MH games in the world, many other companies started to create a similar game based on MH.
They are a few of them, but no one got any success.
Only one still in the market and has many regular players.
This game is , its Chinese name is < 猎刃>. It is made by a Chinese company which is JoyChina.
First of all, let us take a look the screenshot of both games.
First two is from Hunter Blade. Last two is from my Monster Hunter screenshots.
Picture is taken from the link:
Picture is taken from the link:
Monster Hunter:
Can you see how similar these 4 pictures are?
Not only the interface looks similar, but also the maps and the monsters look similar.
So far, you have seen the graphics and interface of both 2 games, they are all alike. But it is not all about the similar, if you play a bit of both game, you will find even the controlling senses so close.
Therefore, so many people said Hunter Blade copys Monster Hunter. But I cannot 100% stand on that result, because learning each other’s experience is not that unusual in the game industry. For example, we all know God of War, which is made by Sony. It is the one of the greatest game in the entire game history, as a consequence, so many other companies start taking the good parts in the God of War to make their games. Dante’s Inferno is a sample of it, it looks so similar to God of War, the only different is maybe they changed the models from Kratos to Dante.
However, could we say this phenomenon is bad or is inadvisable? My answer is “NO”. We need those good games, other game companies can learn from them somehow, to make other better games. If people didn’t take example by Super Mario Bros, we probably would not see any platform games in the game industry.
To finish the compares, there are some aspects that Monster Hunter can learn from. Of course MH is good, but after Hunter Blade’s growing that is based on MH, it developed other things which MH does not have. For example, Hunter Blade has much better graphics than Monster Hunter has. More weapons is another good part of Hunter Blade, which Monster Hunter does not have that many. And last, the better communication system and interface in Hunter Blade is better than Monster Hunter’s, it is because Monster Hunter is basically a single console game, it does not have many functions to able to let players to communicate much, even it does have an online version which is Monster Hunter Frontier, but it is still very old and very limited. However, Hunter Blade delivers people a better interface and system than Monster Hunter does, such as more friendly villages with location changing available (you can go to different villages in Hunter Blade, but there is only one village in each Monster Hunter game.), and other better functions.
Future
Monster Hunter can still be developed
As I stated before, even a great game like Monster Hunter still has the space to become even better.
Players want to play more good games, they want changes. MH is a good game, but it does not mean it will still good in the future. Today, people say Hunter Blade is mirroring MH, maybe after a few years, MH has to be mirroring Hunter Blade. A good sample of resting on it past is Final Fantasy. It used to be the greatest RPG game, but after SQUARE had the unprecedented success, both the game and the company fall into an odd cycle, which the graphics get better and better, but the content within the game does not improve or grow much. Other novel RPG games start to take over Final Fantasy’s space. Now, Final Fantasy is only a name of the beauty that’s been.
Both MH and CAPCOM need changes, if MH does not want to be the same destiny as Final Fantasy’s.
1. Improve the graphics
2. Improve the communication interface and systems
3. Add stories (MH game does not have a strong story background, we only know killing monsters, but we do not know why.)
4. More weapons and movements. (From the first MH game, the movements and the weapons mainly have not been changed much.)
5. Start thinking the way to make console version more popular. (From my state, you can see the console MH games do not have a good sales volume, home consoles have much more powerful hardware and network terms.)
If CAPCOM can make the changes above to MH games, I believe MH games will become even more great and success in the whole game industry and history.
Future is not predictable, changing and developing is the only way to be survival in the market, nobody in particular.
Conclusion
I have been playing MH for years, it has its own charm to attract people. I am not a hard core, but I still enjoy it, I am good at using gun-lance (gun-lance is good at defense and dealing big damage.) and hunting flute (a heavy weapon dealing great damage, but also can play note to make buffs to the team.). I love to play with my friends and enjoy hunting super huge monsters. There are not more words I can say about MH, I think I talked enough about it, the history, the game play, the future, the good part, the bad part, and more. Because I love this game, I wish MH could be better and better in the future.
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