Monster Hunter

"Not balanced, not finished, not fun - this game plays like a primitive beta."

The reason I call this game "not finished" is because 95% of its problems could have been fixed had they been given a moment's thought. Obviously, Capcom didn't care. Also, not that I played this offline only, as I am not about to spend $40 for an enhancement that will only enhance this one game, which I rented instead of bought. It seems Capcom has shares in the PS2 adapter business or something - basically all of the high level content is online only, for no apparent reason. PC games do online better.

This game puts you in the shoes of a young monster hunter. That's the whole story right there. Nice. Anyway, your goal is to kill monsters, get phat lewt, and get rich. This is a standard over-the-shoulder view 3d game where you use the left analog stick to move and the right analog stick to attack. You talk to the village elder to get quests, and then go to the village exit and are transported to a zone where the quest takes place. You kill monsters and carve them up to get materials to make better equipment or just to sell. Those are the basics, now here is my review by categories -

Graphics/Sound

Pretty good. The jungles look pretty much like jungles. The sound is basically background noise, but it never bothers me. I wish there were more variations of armor... and that they actually reflected what you used to make them. Velociprey armor, made from the brilliant blue and shiny black scales of a velociprey, looks dark and ugly.

Gameplay/Other

Basically, this game is about doing the same mission over and over again, so you can get enough money to make weapons and armor that are marginally better than your current gear. Then you get to go to a harder mission and do the same thing all over again. There is no experience system. There are no skills. There is absolutely no character growth at all. Even a rudimentary skill system would have made this much better. Your personal power all comes down to what you've got on your back and in your hand. This is just part of the reason that the game feels unfinished....

After a mission, you must wait either twenty or sixty seconds to return to camp, and there is no way of bypassing this. Why? There is no automatic camera movement at all. Why? There is no plot at all. Why? Most of the high level content is online only. Why? There is no skill developement system at all. Why? The controls are horrible (more later). Why? The list goes on.

I don't know where to put this little piece, so it goes here. This game should have been called Dinosaur Hunter, because basically all of the "monsters" are either dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals or dragons. The game starts with a scene that looks like something straight out of Jurrasic Park - a herd of maybe 40 of your generic large herbivores are walking to a watering hole, and then get chased off by the ingeniously named Velociprey - the "Veloci" comes from the fact that they are velociraptors painted blue, and the "prey" comes from the fact that they aren't prey at all. Speaking of things that don't make any sense... When you're fighting a wyvern, all of the other animals in the zone will still be trying to kill you. Because everyone knows that large carnivores who inhabit the same ecosystem always get along extremely well.

Capcom has apparently run out of things to steal from their own works, so now they're just stealing things from other people. Most of the time it is subtle and wouldn't mean anything if so many other examples weren't present, but at times it is blatant - there is an iron greatsword called the "Buster Sword", for example.

Controls - Failed!/10

This is the part where the game completely blew the potential it had. Keep in mind that this is from the same company that brought us Onimusha, Devil May Cry, and the Megaman series. Those games, especially Devil May Cry, had -perfect- controls. You pushed left, your character moved left. You push attack, your characters attacked. Not so in this game. The fastest normal weapon, the regular sword, makes the original Mario Brothers NES game look like a ninja invasion of vampire headquarters on crack. You push attack, and your character thinks for a while, pulls out his sword (slowly), runs a couple of slow steps, and makes a long, graceful, SLOW overhead cleave to where the monster was standing about five minutes ago, when you started the attack. Keep in mind, this is the -fastest- melee weapon. The greatsword line of weapons is an absolute joke. They're swords so massive they probably weigh more than your character, and are swung appropriately slowly. The rest of the weapons aren't much better. It's hard to describe with words just how bad the controls are, so I'll just leave it at this.

Don't buy this game.

Reviewer's Score: 1/10, Originally Posted: 07/01/05