Eleven years ago, I first ventured into the world of Monster Hunter. A chance encounter at our local game store. Fifteen years old me, with €5 in my pocket, rifling through the used games, stumbling upon a PS2 case that had a man with a giant blade fighting a dragon. I thought it looked cool and picked it up, I mean, €5 isn’t that much right?
Little did I know that the €5 spent on that day would cause me to shell out quite a lot of euros in the years to come since the Monster Hunter franchise hooked its claws into me like no other game has ever done. Sure, Pokémon comes close, but that’s a global love for the franchise, something that Monster Hunter, sadly, doesn’t have.
But, dear readers, I shall try to change that! Let this veteran Hunter regale you with stories and why you should pick up this game. Strap in ladies and gents because this’ll be a rather long one.
The Evolution of Monster Hunter
Yes, normally I go “Story, Gameplay, Music” but not with Monster Hunter. This game series is so… atypical, that I have to take a different route to walk you through it. Especially since Generations is a celebration of ALL of Monster Hunter up until this point.
Thrill of the Hunt
Now, how Monster Hunter on the PS2 ever got a sequel is still a mystery to me. While I absolutely loved the game for its mechanics and the thrill of the hunt, I could also see why people would throw it in the bin after 20 minutes. For starters, in the first Monster Hunter, you only got your first real Hunting quest as the Urgent 2 Star Quest (Urgent Quests are quests you need to complete to get to the next rank). Sure, you had the 1 Star Urgent to slay 3 Velociprey (weak, mob monsters that will irritate you to no end), but that was it until you got to the 2 Star Urgent. No real hunting, just gathering stuff…
Through the years this has, thankfully, changed. In Generations, you get a couple of extermination quests right off the bat, ending with your first real hunt. After that, it’s Hunting Quests galore! Monsters that used to be 4 Star quests in Monster Hunter have been knocked down several pegs and now they are nothing more than fodder to dull our blades upon! (Hoorah!)
Just talking about it gets me fired up. Being a veteran Hunter, I have the luxury of having memories of the old games firmly ingrained in my brain, which kind of triggers a “Vengeance!” reaction when I go up to a Monster that gave me so much [CENSORED] back in the day. Hours upon hours upon hours, fighting the same [REDACTED], piece of [OH MY!] Monster over and over…
In Generations, this revenge gets even sweeter with the addition of “Hunter Styles”. Basically, this gives you the ability to perform feats that were never possible in any other Monster Hunter game. This, linked with the new “Hunter Arts”, makes for another fresh feel when going into Generations.
The Hunter Styles (Guild, Striker, Aerial and Adept) are usable with every single one of the 14 available weapons and can all be successfully used, no matter what you choose. From the giant Great Sword to the small but fast Dual Blades, you can play your way.
Here, I’ll explain the Hunter Styles for you:
Guild Style
The tried and true Hunter Style that has been present in all of the Monster Hunter games. Just go in and slap the Monster silly. You can equip up to two Hunter Arts to use when you go for Guild Style
Striker Style
This is like Guild Style, but is more focussed on Hunter Arts. You can equip up to three arts, which will also charge up a bit faster compared to any of the other styles. No flashy moves, just Hunter Art Mayhem.
Aerial Style
Fling yourself across the map by vaulting off of monsters (and fellow hunters) as if they were trampolines! This style is a blast to use and incredibly handy when a monster is trying to leave the area by flying up or if the monster is charging you and you don’t have any place to dodge to. You can also attack while being air-born, which in turn helps when you’re trying to mount a monster like in Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate. The drawback here is that you can only equip one Hunter Art but let’s face it, if you’re flipping through the air like a rabbit on speed, who needs more Arts?
Adept Style
For those who really want to show off their skills. This Style is made for immediate and destructive countermeasures. A Monster is trying to attack you by hurtling its tail towards you at breakneck speeds? Time your dodge right, dodge through the attack and unleash Hellish fury upon the [DEAR LORD NO!] by immediately counter-attacking. This way, you can punish the beast for its insolence. You’re the Hunter, it’s the Prey, it should know its place. Dead and bleeding at your feet. (Can I get another “Hoorah!”?)
The only drawback is again that you can only equip one Hunter Art, but when you’re busy teaching Monsters their place, you don’t have time to keep an eye on the gauge, am I right?
As for the Arts… I won’t go into detail because there are a metric F-Ton of them. Every weapon has 9 Arts, and then there are several “general use” Arts as well. Let’s just say that there are offensive, defensive, buffing, debuffing, healing and more Arts to choose from, but choose wisely. Some will help out more than others, some will seem absolutely useless until you suddenly have an “EUREKA!” moment where it becomes your best Art. Experiment, have fun with them. You’ll definitely have the time to do so.
Why, do you ask? Well… Let’s say you’ll be quite busy. Compared to the old days on the PS2 where you only had 17 large monsters to fight, Generations offers you a whopping 71 large monsters to fight! So yeah, get your whetstones and ammo ready, you’ll need ‘em.
The monsters themselves are pretty diverse and unique, forcing you to quickly adapt to its moves because, if you don’t, you’re dead. Learn their attack patterns, their weak points, their tells… Marvel at their designs and movements.
As opposed to the normal subspecies that we get, we now have something new, called the Deviant Monsters. There are only a few of them, but they are powerful. Extremely powerful even. They are monsters that have survived numerous fights with Hunters and have ‘ascended’ to become much, much more than ‘just a subspecies’. Put on those brown pants if you’re not prepared because you’ll need ‘em.
Gathering Done Cat-Quick
Now, Monster Hunter Generations wouldn’t be a celebration of all things Monster Hunter if it didn’t have any Gathering Quests as well! (A collective groan ripples through the audience)
Don’t worry, I too hated those tedious quests but Monster Hunter wouldn’t be CAPCOM’s most innovative franchise if they hadn’t found a way to make them more tolerable (took ‘em long enough though…)
You see, back in Monster Hunter Freedom 2 days, they included Feyline Companions (Feylines or Lynians are sentient catlike creatures that can speak and live alongside humans) which was updated to Palicoes in Monster Hunter 4/Ultimate and now… We have Prowler Mode. What is that, you ask? Well, you can finally play as one of these cute cat creatures! In Prowler Mode you take control of one of your companions and you can play through the game as a cat! Go on hunts, kill monsters 200 times your size!
But that’s not the biggest and best thing about Prowler Mode. As a Lynian you don’t have any Stamina to worry about. So you can sprint as long as you like! What’s even better is that you have an unlimited supply of gathering tools as well! Gone are the days of frustration where your last Bug Net/Pickaxe broke and you had to quit the quest because you couldn’t complete it! Now you can gather as long as you like (well… Within the 50-minute time frame that is).
Your Lynian companions get better over time as well, leveling up, learning new skills… You can even teach certain skills to new cats to create the ultimate battle cat! Or the ultimate support cat! Or… Even the ultimate trapper cat! There are quite a few classes to choose from and mix and match so basically, it’s a whole other game inside of this one.
Hitboxes and You
While all of that sounds fun and exciting (to me and hopefully to you as well!) it all becomes nullified if the gameplay isn’t good. This is another reason why I’m astounded that Monster Hunter is still going today because by White Fatalis’ bushy beard was that a bad part of the game back in the day.
There’s a joke between Hunters about a monster named Plesioth. Giant fish on legs, can use Water Gun and has a rather annoying attack we affectionately call the “Hip Check”. Basically, the joke is that when Plesioth uses his Hip Check 5 zones away, you’ll still bound to get hit in. The hitboxes were THAT bad. You could stand on one side of the arena, the Plesioth could do that move on the other side and STILL hit you.
In Generations, this is almost non-existent. Sure, there are moments where you go “How the heck did that even hit me?!” but usually upon closer inspection, you’ll notice it was your own positioning that was to blame. So gone are the days of utter frustration!
It used to work the other way around as well, where your hits magically didn’t connect even though you basically had your head stuck up some monster’s behind but, again, CAPCOM has done their best and polished it so hard it shines like a million suns (to me, at least).
The Sound of (a) Generation(s)
Before I go into this, I need you to do something. Go to Youtube, search “Monster Hunter Zinogre Theme”. Probably the Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate one since they use the same one in Generations. Listen to it and then come back.
Did you do it? Okay, then you’ll understand my reasoning when I say that the sound design in Monster Hunter games has ALWAYS been top-notch. That is the song that you hear while you’re hunting probably one of the most badass monsters in the game. If that doesn’t get you hyped beyond belief, sharpening your senses to the point you could cut a sheet of paper by just glancing at it, I don’t know what will.
And that’s just one of the themes. On your travels through the Monster Hunting World, you’ll run into some cool and sometimes even frightening themes. One example is the Deviljho theme but that’s just because the monster in question is so damn horrifying when you’re still low-level…
Monster Hunter Generations is a game that’s quiet until you need it to be loud. While you’re gathering, you won’t hear any music, just the sounds of the (digital) nature around you. But once a large Monster walks in on you picking mushrooms, [COULD YOU NOT?] goes down.
Let’s Wrap this Up!
I could go on for hours about this franchise and Generations in particular. The sheer amount of fan service for veteran Hunters such as myself is astounding, with us being able to go back to our old Villages like Kokoto, Pokke and Yukumo, running through the Forest and Hills Zone (now renamed Verdant Hills) or the Snowy Mountains (now renamed Artic Ridge) and meeting people we haven’t seen for so long. There are even references to the old player characters, which I found a neat little addition.
While there is a lot of positives, there are still a few nitpicks I have with the game, like not being able to pick up or even destroy traps that have been set in the wrong location, but those are very, very, VERY minor.
I call Monster Hunter one of CAPCOM’s most innovative franchises for a reason. With each new generation, this series tries something fresh and new to bring in new players while giving us Vets some fresh tasty mechanics to chew on (like completely overhauling how weapon crafting works, making it much more resource efficient and much more understandable.)
While the series is low on story, this has been changing over the years, but I still see this as a franchise where you make your own story (yes, I wrote a LOT of fan stories back in the day, which people seemed to like).
Monster Hunter Generations gets a 9/10 from me. I’d say 10/10 but I don’t want CAPCOM to rest on its laurels and stop the innovation train. There’s always room for improvement, but Monster Hunter Generations is pretty close to perfection.
