Besides the thrill of the hunt, a major reason for going after all these monsters is that the game’s progression system is based on equipment; that is, your gear defines everything about your character (there is no traditional leveling; you won’t be able to upgrade your health or stamina, for example).
Advancement rests upon crafting better armor and weaponry over time; this requires you to collect materials that are primarily derived from the monsters themselves. Although many games feature the thrill of acquiring new gear, Monster Hunter is unique in the way gear is intrinsically linked to monster battles — the armor you wear, for example, tells the story of the encounters you had to fight through to craft its components.
In keeping with this general theme, Monster Hunter’s combat is also wholly unique.
14 flavors of fighting
In a typical ARPG, combat is usually distilled down into two key types: ranged and melee. While there are subtle differences in terms of range or speed, swinging a mace is much like swinging a sword; a bow is akin to a gun.
Monster Hunter gets creative in the way it builds on this formula. Each one of the game’s (currently) 14 weapon types are completely different in terms of moment-to-moment usage. The developers even go as far as to incorporate different UIs based on the weapon in use. You could wield a katana for powerful long slashes, or you could use an ax that morphs into a giant sword; in my case, I use a war horn that I use to pummel monsters but which also plays music to apply buffs to my character.
Importantly, every weapon type has its own progression path in place — incorporating upgrades that spin-off different subsets of the weapon from the base template. It can take dozens of hours to learn, master, and upgrade a single weapon — let alone 13 others.
These components all make Monster Hunter special. But it’s in the end game where the franchise really shines.
New, new game plus
It’s usually the case that “new game plus” or post-game content refers to some little extra as a bonus for players to chew on after completing the game. Monster Hunter, however, is built almost entirely on its end-game content.
Earlier on, I mentioned that every Monster Hunter game received a remastered version that contained post-game expert level content. In this context, it’s not an exaggeration to say that the main story of each game is essentially a tutorial for what’s to come later. After the final story mission — which usually involves fighting an extra-large monster — you’ll be given access to new missions and challenges.
A much tougher version of the game is essentially unlocked at this point; in the process, the game remixes all locations to feature harder enemies, different versions of monsters, as well as new loot and materials to find. Most importantly, this is where the developers unlock brand new, extra-difficult monsters. Some of these are expert variants of the ones already featured in the game. But they might also be totally original creatures, or they could be returning fan favorites from previous titles.
This is also where the quest for more gear kicks off, with the core progression tree for all the armor and weapons extending outward with new features, appearances, and options. With the recently released Iceborne expansion (which is coming to the PC in January), the experience will continue to grow with new monsters and an extended progression curve.
If you’re familiar with the series by now, then you’ll be aware of all these great reasons to dive in. But if you’ve never played a Monster Hunter game, you might be wondering why it hasn’t been on your radar until recently —well, it’s definitely true that what made the series a cult hit on handhelds also held it back for the longest time.
Constrained hunt
Despite Monster Hunter seeing some home console releases, franchise enthusiasts knew that the very best versions of the game were on handhelds. Although this was the case, the handheld versions of the game weren’t necessarily friendly to new players.
For one thing, the camera controls were a problem. Both the PSP and 3DS did not have a second analog stick (the 3DS had a separate attachment you could purchase for this purpose). So, fundamentally, the games were designed to utilize the face buttons for camera control. Basic features (like tilting the camera, locking-on, and the general functionality of a 3D camera) simply wasn’t there.
The technical limitations of handhelds also played a role; the engine occasionally struggled as it pushed up against the boundaries of what these platforms could do. As the games’ scope expanded, the 3DS and PSP hardware arguably held them back; loading times, in particular, were a huge problem. These wait times were an issue primarily because the game had to load each biome at a time — yet another loading screen interrupted your travel between the hub and a mission. This became such a problem that later entries would allow players to download assets onto the PSP’s memory stick to help reduce the need to fetch data from the UMD.
Another problem was onboarding new players. Not only did newcomers have to buy a PSP or 3DS to play the best version of the respective entry, but the series really began to ignore playability and onboarding in general. Since it had a cult fanbase who would buy every entry, the developers perhaps knew that fans had already figured out how to play the game. This manifested in the form of minimal user assistance — including tutorials — which were kept to a minimum, which doesn’t help new players get invested in the game.
While I’ve only supplied a fairly basic outline of Monster Hunter’s constituent parts, there’s a lot that goes into learning how to play one of these games and its associated subsystems. Jumping in from scratch required players to climb a steep hill and invest a significant amount of time to get to grips with the nuances of the gameplay systems.
Ultimately, this was the story of Monster Hunter for more than a decade. It was a niche series with a hardcore fanbase that would likely pick up any platform required to play a new entry. But in 2018, things changed radically: Capcom and the development team took an enormous gamble with Monster Hunter World. And it paid off.