"Doesn't add anything really new to the game play, but the game was pretty damn good to start"

Introduction:
Monster Hunter Portable was released for the PSP about a year ago and it was met with many great reviews and praising. Hell, it's the game that made me finally go out and drop the $250 to get a PSP. Naturally when I heard news of the sequel I went right away and imported this little gem from everyone's favorite island nation.
Well let's get down to business shall we

Graphics: 7/10
now before you get all over me just wait. The reason for the 7 here is because the environments just look really boring. If you've played the first Monster Hunter Portable it's pretty much the same graphics (which don't get me wrong were pretty good) but to me the overall environments (especially in the playable areas) were extremely bland and uninteresting.

Sound: 9/10
Once again nothing really new here. It's pretty much the same music and sound effects from the first game. But those were pretty good in the first place so I don't have any complaints.
Game play (single player): 7/10
Hey wouldn't you know it; it's pretty much like the other Monster Hunter games. For those of you who are new to the series here's a summary of the game play.

Step one: go on quest
Step two: realize you'll need a better weapon to complete said quest
Step three: redo old quests several times to get items to only slightly increase the effectiveness of your items
Step four: Profit

Now if you don't mind this the go ahead. But I know that there are several people out there who will be turned off by this type of game play and the score was made with them in mind. (I myself enjoy this game play)

Game play (multi player): 10/10
this is where the game truly shines. Mainly because many of the missions are super-tough stuff so you and your buddies can do them together. Hooray for teamwork. My only complaint is that Monster Hunter was originally an online game, and they didn't change the basic game play from Monster Hunter to Monster Hunter Portable and Portable 2nd. So it's like an MORPG but it's just you and occasionally your friends.

Difficulty: 10/10
this is a pretty hard game (which is good games are becoming way too easy for my tastes) or at least it is at first. You'll spend about 10-20 hours (maybe more) basically being extremely frustrated. Then it'll click and you'll figure out how the game works and you'll really start to enjoy this game.

Value: 10/10
this is probably the most lasting game on any handheld. You could easily put 300+ hours into this game and I'm at around 230 hours and I've rarely been playing games for more then 10 hours each recently so I think that really says something.

Portability: 3/10
now this game is on a handheld so portability is a big factor here, which seems to have been ignored by the fine people at Capcom. Luckily they added the ability to pause the game during game play (a major flaw in Monster Hunter Freedom). However, many of the missions are long easily taking you more then 40 minutes to complete which isn't very good if you are say on the subway for 7 minutes and have some down time.

Final score: 56/70 or for Gamefaqs that would be 8/10
I would defiantly recommend this game to anyone who owns a PSP but be warned don't expect any major changes from the other Monster Hunter games and the game can get pretty frustrating at times.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 03/07/07