Video Game Review: Monster Hunter Generations (3DS)
Ah, Monster Hunter. Each new game takes months of my free-time and throws it out the window. Generations is a great addition to the Monster Hunter series. But before we begin talking about Generations and what new things it brings to the series, we should probably talk about my history with the Monster Hunter series.
My History with the Series
My first Monster Hunter game was Freedom Unite on the PSP, and I absolutely hated it. I couldn’t get my head around the controls, the weapons felt slow and heavy, and for the life of me I couldn’t figure out how to dodge any of the large monster’s attacks. I stopped playing it faster then any game ever before. Fast forward a few years, and I get myself a 3DS. One day I was casually browsing through the Eshop’s sales, and came across “Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate.” When I came across it, I had some slight curiosity, and I saw it had a demo. Upon playing the demo, my initial thoughts were “this still sucks,” but for some reason, I bought the game anyway.
Its thanks to Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate that I went from someone who hated the series, to a fan of it. The game still confused me heavily, but I slowly got a better grasp on the controls, monster patterns, gathering items, etc. I also remember absolutely hating the water combat. Fast forward again to the release of Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate. I picked it up day one and fell in love. I finally got a grip on the gameplay, and everything in-between. I even went back to Freedom Unite and 3U, and ended up loving those games too.
Onto the Actual Review
Now that we’re past all that useless backstory, lets talk about what Generations is for the series. Monster Hunter Generations (MHGen for short) is the localized version of Monster Hunter X (cross), and its a celebration of all things monster hunter. It has plenty of monsters from previous games in the series, along with adding in a few new ones, such as the “Fated Four,” which are the flagships monsters of this game. There’s also one of my personal favorite new monsters Malfestio, who’s original Japanese name was ridiculously hard to say (Hororohoruru, good luck saying that). Along with the new Monsters is the brand new “Styles” and “Hunter Arts.”
Hunting Styles
Hunting styles change the way you play the game, by changing up your weapons move-set. There are four different types of styles, Guild, Aerial, Striker, and Adept. Guild style is the same move-set from 4 Ultimate, and allows the use of two Hunter Arts. Aerial style, which allows you to jump off monsters and teammates to attack from the air, it also allows for 1 Hunter Art. Striker style, it has a simplified move-set, but allows for the usage for 3 Hunter Arts. The final style, Adept, is my favorite style aside from Guild. Why, you may ask? Because it allows for perfect dodging. If a monster is about to hit you with any attack, be it a small weak hit, to a big high damaging hit, you can dodge it and counter-attack. It, like Aerial, only allows for a single Hunter Art.
Hunter Arts
These are basically those super flashy moves they show off in all the trailers for this game. I was skeptical at first, and thought that these moves would be able to be abused like crazy, thankfully, they ended up not being broken and over-powered. They take timing and waiting for that perfect moment to use them. They range from powerful attacks, to attack or defense buffs for yourself, to even healing abilities. These are quite fun additions that I hope return along with styles in the eventual Monster Hunter 5.
Prowler Mode
Prowler Mode is a new mode where you can play as a Palico. Its more powerful then one would think. It serves a role as a damage dealer, and a support. Its quite different from playing as a Hunter, as any item the Hunter could use, the Prowler cannot, this includes healing items. So how does the Prowler heal itself? Well, whenever a Prowler reaches zero HP, it uses one of its two acorns, these acorns are basically full heals. If your playing solo, your Prowler will quite literally have nine lives. They also have several skills and abilities in their arsenal, however many of these skills must be unlocked by leveling up your Prowler’s level, or hunting specific monsters as a Prowler.
Quality of Life Changes
There are many little changes in MHGen from 4 Ultimate. One of the many changes was you now can hold the A button when carving, gathering, and mining. This allows you to carve slightly faster then before. A returning feature from the Japanese only Monster Hunter Portable 3rd, is the Transpurrter. It allows you to send items back to your box, without having to end a quest. Very useful for gathering items. Another change is to a mechanic introduced in 4 Ultimate, Mounting. In 4 Ultimate when someone mounted a monster, you couldn’t attack it because if you did, you could end up making the monster flinch, doing so would ruin the mount completely. Now, in MHGen, you you can attack the monster while someone has mounted it, and it actively helps them with the mount, unfortunately doing so does not damage the monster. These changes in particular I found extremely useful.
New Upgrade System for Weapons & Armor
Its no longer as simple as just hunting one monster over and over again until you get the parts you need, then moving up to the next rank to get the higher rank parts. Nope now not only do you need to get the required materials, you also need other materials. These could range from ore, to insects, to herbivore materials. Its quite a dumb change for the weapons in my opinion.
The change to upgrading the armor is fine. You used to have to go and get Armor Spheres to upgrade a piece of armor. Now, you have to use armor spheres, and then you’ll have to use required materials in place of armor spheres from time to time. When you’re upgrading a piece of armor without armor spheres, its very similar to how upgrading the weapons works, however, instead of using any old random stuff, it usually requires you to use parts from the monster or village tickets that you used to make the armor in the first place. Its a change that makes sense, upgrading your armor by adding more of whatever material you used in the first place.
Villages and Graphics
One of the things that makes this game a celebration of the Monster Hunter series is the returning villages of Kokoto (Monster Hunter 1), Pokke (Monster Hunter Freedom Unite), and Yukumo (Monster Hunter Portable 3rd). There is also the new village of Bherna, which is pretty much the main hub of the game since you can access the Gathering hall directly from Bherna, however you can use the other villages as the hub for village quests if you want. One of the biggest letdowns to me, is that the villages do not have their respective gathering halls. Its a minor thing, but it would’ve been a nice feature. Every village looks great though. The art direction for this game was spot-on. The graphics are an obvious downgrade from 4 Ultimate, but the colors are a lot less in your face. Its a nice mixture of the darker colors of the older games, and the brighter colors of 4 Ultimate.
Memes and In-Jokes
One thing I have a bit of an issue with, is the usage of memes in place of an actual joke. There are plenty of memes all over the place, and its mainly outdated memes, such as “My body is ready,” and “WAKE UP SHEEPLE,” (Except its re-worded as “WAKE UP MOOFOLK!”). Its quite stupid to add memes into games, as memes lose their funny factor very fast.
There are also plenty of in-jokes, which I am perfectly fine with in a celebration game, as they are referencing the series as a whole. Such in-jokes include making fun of Plesioth’s hip-checks, the annoyance of grinding plates and, well… What Khezu looks like.
The Fated Four
Basically, the four flagships. The main flagship being Glavenus, as he is the one on the box-art, and he is the one who is given the most attention in-game. Personally, I find everything about Glavenus to be boring. His fight isn’t that fun and his theme music is not nearly as enjoyable as the other flagships. Astalos is a crazy and intense fight, it can get a little hectic when he’s enraged. Mizutsune is probably my favorite overall. His theme music is pretty pumping, and fighting him is extremely fun. Gammoth has a really good theme, and is kind of a slower fight, but man does she hit hard. These four monsters are very different from each other, and really do all have something going for them. I just don’t really care for Glavenus, however I know some people who think he’s the best out of them all, so take my opinion on him with a grain of salt.
Music
Let me gush for a moment, the music in Monster Hunter is fantastic! I literally cannot get over how good the music is. I especially love Kokoto Village’s theme, Mizutsune’s theme, Pokke’s Theme, and Gammoth’s theme. I had never played Monster Hunter 1, so this was the first time I had ever heard Kokoto’s theme. I think it was the first time I was playing a video game, and the music just made me stop and listen to it. I probably listened to Kokoto’s theme for about five minutes straight while doing nothing but staring at the screen absorbing in the music. So yeah, the music is top notch stuff.
Should you play this Game?
Yes, most definitely.
I’d say give the demo on the Eshop a go before making the decision to buy the actual game. If you play the demo, and like the combat and at least one of the weapons, then I’d say go for it. It also helps to have someone who understands Monster Hunter to help teach you the ropes, as it will makes things a lot less confusing to start.
Monster Hunter is a series that is hard to get into, but once you do its a blast. The game may frustrate you at times, but its when you overcome that one frustrating monster or quest that makes these games really shine.
This was my first review I’ve ever done on something. Tell me what I did right, what I didn’t do too well, what I did okay but should improve on. I would greatly appreciate any positive criticism.
