Monster Hunter Preview

A little while ago I was lucky enough to participate in the Monster Hunter beta, a new Playstation 2 game from Capcom that combines action, adventure, and online teamwork with various RPG elements. I was extremely pleased with what they had available and many of the other beta testers were too.

Monster Hunter takes place in a universe where humans hunt monsters. Whether it’s for pride, survival, or fun is never really touched upon, but it seems to be the hobby of most people in this world. As a player, however, you have a reason to hunt. From each monster you can gather items and materials to craft new armor and weapons, which will then help in defeating larger monsters. The large monsters are one of the main focuses in the game; since it’s near impossible to slay one on your own it forces players to work as a team.

When I first started up the game I had to make a character. My options were a male or female human, and then from there you can customize everything from hair color (which provides RGB values allowing you to make the hair pretty much any color you want), face type, and even the voice to name a few. Your character isn’t restricted to any type of weapon, so as you progress you can play around with different weapons and be a jack of all trades or become the master of one weapon class. The weapons you have to pick from are giant swords, smaller hunting daggers, crossbows, lances, or giant hammers/clubs, each one controlling very differently and having its own strengths and weaknesses.

When you have your character, you have the option of going to the village or going to town. The village is smaller and represents your home and all the single player missions. A town is bigger than your village and represents the online feature of the game. A town can hold up to 8 hunters at a time and has lots of shops that your village doesn’t offer. Starting with the single player missions is a good idea to get used to the controls, how quests work, and to build up some money to spend in town. Once you want to really get started, though, you have to go online.

When you play Monster Hunter online you have more options with shops, quests, and even weapons and armor. Each town has an inn that the player can use for sleeping, eating, and storing items, a huge marketplace, an armory, and a pub. The pub is most likely going to be the place you spend the most time in. Players can register for quests here, and then other players can join them on that quest by accessing the bulletin board on the back wall. Also, if you’re waiting for someone there you can actually sit down and have a drink. Be careful, though, because you’ll get drunk if you have too much.

Monster Hunter has a splash of RPG elements to it. I say splash because many RPG fans will most likely expect more than this game has to offer. When playing online you gain experience at the end of a quest, and after enough experience is gained your hunter rank goes up. This basically just ranks you against other players and opens up more quests, since armor and weapons are what really matter when going up against a monster. Now remember, the content in the beta was somewhat limited and maybe I just didn’t notice a huge stat boost because I was technically still a newbie.

Other RPG elements to expect include equipment management, item collecting/selling, and even equipment customization. There are places to buy new weapons and armor, but if you want to save money and have more equipment options then you’ll want to have them made. As long as you have the money and items necessary, you can have a crafter create weapons for you. A lot of weapons are only available this way, and some of them don’t even show up until you kill certain beasts.

Definitely the best part of Monster Hunter is heading out to the field for quests. Playing offline you can only go on quests by yourself, and while you get money and items offline you won’t gain any experience from your quests. Playing online allows you to take 3 companions with you on your quest.

The whole game is based around hunting monsters, but there is quite a variety to the monsters. A lot of these “monsters” resemble deer, boars, dragons, and dinosaurs each with their own unique AI. The big herbivores will ignore you until you try to attack them, at which point they’ll run away, yet the velociraptor-like monsters will chase you down as soon as they see you.

To dispose of these monsters you will use your right analog stick, which is a fairly unique way to handle combat. Each weapon controls differently, but overall up will result in a vertical swing, left or right will cause your player to perform a horizontal swing, and pulling back on the stick executes a jumping attack. Learning your weapon of choice is key, because you can’t just move the stick around and expect to do a combo; certain attacks can be linked to other attacks, and finding compatible attacks will allow you to pull off some devastating combos.

The camera is controlled freely by the directional buttons or you can auto center it by pressing L1. The auto center works well during combat, but there were a lot of complaints about it. I personally thought that hitting L1 to swing the camera behind me during an intense battle was fine, but sometimes it would take a few presses to get it just right. It’ll be interesting to see if Capcom listens to the testers and alters the camera controls for the final release.

I’ve mostly been talking about the melee attackers, but it’s important to not overlook the gunners. Gunner characters don’t pull off massive combos or get knocked around…they fight from a distance. Gunners are much like black and white mages; since you can create many different types of ammo you can cause many different effects. Poison shots will poison an enemy, yet Recovery ammo will heal a friend. Your most basic type of ammo is infinite, but you’ll have to gather and combine the correct items to create the other ammo. Gunners also fight differently: they can go into a first-person aiming mode to help hit their target. Add-ons can be purchased as well, giving you the option of having a zoom scope, silencer, etc.

The way to make money and rare items in Monster Hunter is to forage. There are many different spots on the field that one can search for items. Some places just require you get your hands dirty, but other locations will need a special tool to search (for example: mining spots require a pick axe). You can also kill monsters, cut the meat off, and then BBQ it on a portable spit as sort of a mini game. If you stop cooking the meat at just the right time it will provide your character with stamina when eaten. If you burn your meat, it will actually decrease your stamina. You can also fish at certain spots, and different fish have different uses like sharpening weapons or refilling stamina.

Team work is a big deal when taking on the big dragons, and monster hunter makes it easy and fun to work together. Since each type of combatant has his/her different strengths, different strategies can be devised. Using a USB keyboard you can chat with your buddies, and there’s also a button that will send out a little blip on everyone’s radar. This is useful because it’s quick, and if you discuss what it will mean with your team it’s an easy way to say things like “I need to be healed” or “The dragon is here!”

The graphics in Monster Hunter look awesome; you really get a good fantasy vibe from the world. Different missions can have you traveling to new areas, and the two in the beta were a dense jungle and a hillside/forest combo. Both areas were very different, offering different items to be found and a totally different feel. Character models are very cool looking, and the armor and weapons available in the beta were extremely varied as far as looks go. It was cool to see the combination of armor people were using (personally I didn’t wear a helmet because it made my character look tough). The soundtrack is really good as well, and I look forward to hearing the rest of what the game has to offer.

Another thing to note is that this game has some comedy mixed in. It never distracts from the overall theme of the game, but certain things will make you chuckle along the way thanks to the excellent animations. Everything from your character taunting a monster to the way he swings his huge sword to the way he staggers after he’s had a few too many drinks is done really well. There are tons of animations you can have your character do while on the field as well as while sitting in the pub. Capcom did a great job at adding character to otherwise flat characters.

I’m really looking forward to the retail release of Monster Hunter. I had so much fun playing in the beta, and I pretty much did everything possible by the end. Luckily there’s plenty more to the game, so putting hours upon hours into it will be very easy and very fun. With so many customization options and the intense battles Monster Hunter should appeal to action and online gamers right away. Our game store has the game set for a September release date, so be prepared to grab your 8-foot sword and Velociprey armor for some monster hunting action this fall.