Monster Hunter is an action game that was meant to be played online and offline. However, because Capcom shut down their North American servers in 2007, I can only report on Monster Hunter’s offline component, which, according to the vast majority of reviewers, is inferior. Even so, I can confidently state that even offline, and without the help from fellow players around the world, Monster Hunter is a game worth playing. The rewards are smaller and arrive with less frequency offline, but those who are patient can still find a challenging, gratifying experience.
There isn't much story in Monster Hunter. Players custom create an avatar at the very beginning of the game, and modify his weapons, armor, and accoutrements throughout, but there are no plot developments to study, no character development to speak of. Monster Hunter is a series of quests that must be conquered to move forward in the game. It's not unlike a MMORPG, although players in Monster Hunter cannot level up, nor can they freely roam an open-world environment. Instead, each quest starts from a base camp and spills out into several zones, some dessert, some forest, some swampland. The three main quest types include hunt, gather, and capture. In hunting quests, which make up the majority of the challenges in Monster Hunter, players must track and kill animals, large and small. Gather quests ask players to collect ingredients, for example mushrooms or animal livers. And capture quests, among the most challenging, demand players weaken a monster and capture it in a trap, but not destroy it.
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| This was me a lot of the time. |
The most obvious and glaring problem with the offline quests is that many of them are far too difficult to complete alone unless one plays lower level quests again and again to earn money and materials to make stronger weapons and armor. Even then, the most deadly monsters in the game, wyverns, are sometimes impossibly difficult. I think the developers at Capcom meant for the offline component to be more of a tutorial than a full game, and packed most of the material into the online component.
Graphics in Monster Hunter aren’t the most gorgeous you’ve ever seen, but when it comes to art direction, the game is something to behold. From foggy, humid jungles, to sun-baked desserts, each area feels genuine and unique. The forest and hills section of the game is probably the best example of this expert art design: tall, grassy mountains scrape the sky in the background while white, wispy clouds float overhead. Sound design is also especially good in Monster Hunter and only adds to the ambiance. A wyvern’s roar in the distance is genuinely alarming.
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| Forest and Hills |
In general, controls work perfectly fine in Monster Hunter with one big exception. Hunters swing their weapons – whether sword, lance, or hammer – with the right analog stick. This is one of my least favorite control scheme decisions in general in video games, if only because swinging a weapon with an analog stick instead of buttons feels unnatural and unwieldy. After enough practice, swordplay in Monster Hunter becomes more effortless, but it’s still a poor design choice.
Overall, I enjoyed almost all of my time playing Monster Hunter, minus the hours that were spent in tedious trial and error. The game provides its players with a real sense of accomplishment, whether by finding rare ingredients and forging strong armor, or by defeating a powerful monster. I regret I was unable to play Monster Hunter’s online quests with other real-life players, but even offline the game is fun to play, and gratifying. Monster Hunter as a franchise is still going strong, especially in Japan, and I look forward to playing many more installments.
Score: 8.0
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