Monster Hunter Freedom 2

"Why I love Monster Hunter!"

One of the things which drive us to play games are the rewards. Gratifications, medals, stamps, percentage completed, anything which marks our progress as extraordinarily or stunning.

Many PSP games have this simple feature. GTA wants you to complete all story and side quests to proceed on its percentage scale; Ace Combat forces you to redo your missions and shot specific targets outside the mains to gain access to the medals and special parts; the Lego games let you replay your missions in freeplay mode for the goodies and so on.

Sure, one can do the simple approach for all of these games and play the story, game done. But these games offer more for those who want to complete a game the way it is intended by the developers. Even FFVII CC has sidemissions (100, they are dumb, but anyway).

So what does Monster Hunter use for this?

Monster Hunter does not have a story, so you can't simply finish the game. You can kill Uca or Akantor and say you have the last monster killed. You can clear all quests and take the game as completed. There are so many more things you can achieve.

On one side you can try to get all weapons from a specific line or rarity, but this is a goal you can set yourself, nothing forced on you by the game. But the game has this feature which does exactly that for the completionists among us: The rewards.

Now if you look at the reward requirements MH has you will be, at least, stunned if not abashed. For example one rewards is given when you have created fifty G weapons, the ones unlocked only after defeating the last monster. Or one needs to to have five felyne fighters with max loyality. An older reward is received after you capture every monster at least once, including color variants.
These rewards are vastly different than the ones mentioned in the games above. You can easily get 100% in GTA VC in about 60 hours. Ace Combat lasts 30 hours and Lego around 50. Then you are officially done, game completed.

In Monster Hunter you will need 50+ hours to reach Uca if you leech and make haste. Then you will have to make 50 G weapons. Or send Trenya for 1500 points a hundred times. These things cannot be done just by completing one sidemission or finding a hidden goodie, you need to do quests a hundred friggin times.

So, what I want to say is: Monster Hunter is a game unique in its prospect for the player: Completing? Get ready for 300 hours of sometimes boring, grinding and repetitive game-play. But when you finally receive that reward you haven't got yet it is a reward worth having the name.

And that is why I love

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 12/02/08

Game Release: Monster Hunter Freedom 2 (EU, 09/07/07)