This post was written by Dark_Sage. He is Dark_Sage.
You’d have a better chance at defeating racism by buying a coffee from Starbucks than attaining meaningful enjoyment from this borked shitfest.
Life-ruiner
If you wanna know why Crymore’s been sorta… sleepy for the past some weeks, you can thank Monster Hunter.
MonHun fans reading this might reason that this isn’t the game’s fault so much as it is mine, to which I would respond your “thyroid problems” and chronic virginity might require some inward gazing of their own. What, don’t wanna go that route? Then I guess you get to concede this point.
And get ready to concede some more, cuz this game is objectively shit.
Eye Cancer
Considering the only decent part of Monster Hunter is the dress-up feature…
…it’s exceedingly disappointing to have every character look like they’re constantly buffering. 240p wasn’t even acceptable 10 years ago, yet here we are.
Everything in the game is a blurry, blocky mess (yes, blurry and blocky — it’s just that bad), which is a damn shame considering the potential that the environments show. But more important than the wasted set pieces is how sloppy everything looks in action. For a game purportedly based on precision combat, the constant graphical jank can be fatal.
Speaking of…
Capcpom Combat
MH4U’s gameplay has about as much value as a menopausal surrogate mother.
Every game that bills itself as skill-based should at least attempt to live up to that premise. MonHun disagrees.
You can attack through monsters, missing hits because the game has broken hitboxes. Even worse, monsters will arbitrarily wall hack. Meaning, you can have a solid barrier between you and the monster, but its attacks can phase through it (and no, the courtesy does not extend back to you). Stunlocks are also absurdly common, meaning you can get juggled to death simply because the game’s RNG decided you should fuck off.
Factor in a broken camera and the ever-great jaggy graphics from before, and that’s where the “difficulty” that this series is hyped for comes from.
Cryptic is Cool!
To further artificially increase the difficulty (cuz making smart AI would be effort), MH4U is even more undecipherable than Casual Souls. A wiki isn’t gonna cut it; you need to run fucking programs for this shit, since the game explains nothing.
Ain’t just gonna leave ya hanging. Go ahead, put these fanmade .exe’s on your computer. You wanna git gud, right?
- General info: https://sites.google.com/site/pingsdex/pingsmh4gdex/en_us
- Armor builder: http://forums.minegarde.com/topic/7348-athenas-ass-for-mh4g-and-mh4u/
- You’ll need a wiki too, actually: http://kiranico.com/en/mh4u
For example, the only way to reasonably kill certain monsters later in the online portion of the game is to go through the offline portion and complete 4 specific, unmarked quests from a list of ~200. To create a list of all the things the game expects you to automagically know would take several more articles than I’m interested in writing.
What’s important here is that others’ ignorance will affect your progression in the game. Unless you want to waste time soloing quests that are scaled for multiplayer, you’re going to run into a community of carried idiots. And they will drag you down with them. Shit, I’m not even gonna get into how the community as a whole is, since I wanna save the line “more toxic than tumblr” for another post. It’s good filler.
Actually, I’ve probably used it before, so we’ll let this derailed train of thought crash into the conclusion since there’s nowhere else it can go.
The Apex of Awful
I don’t recall there being a single point in Monster Hunter where the game made me think “this is fun”. The series appeals to those who enjoy a steady slog of monotony with which to dull their brains for a while — it’s like alcohol for accountants. And while that might appeal to some of you, when you find yourselves sitting on a D+ in Accounting 101 because you can’t see GAAP as anything but a knock-off clothing store based in China, you’re gonna need to make some serious life decisions.
Rating: D+. Who has to change majors now, Monster Hunter?
This seems worse than Monkey Hunter.
Came back just in time to write the Spring preview!
A Sage returns precisely when he’s most needed.
Good job, Dark_Sage. Does this review pretty sums up your time not being in here? BTW, what’s in store for us this Spring?
Oops! I mean playing the game, not writing up this review.
Well I’m not going to bother with Bloodborne, so Crymore’s future looks quite bright. Bring your shades.
That’s great! Really rooting for it. And oh, what happened to “D_S,WAYW?”? No more verdict on Winter 2014’s shows?
That’s one of the few places I didn’t drop the ball; I’ve kept you all perfectly up to date on what I’ve been watching~
In other words, nothing.
^Harsh, but true. (insert lenny’s face)
( ͡°╭͜ʖ╮͡° )
There’s a Dark_Shades pun in there somewhere that I’m not eloquent enough to pull off.
> I don’t recall there being a single point in Monster Hunter where the game made me think “this is fun”.
And you still played for 221 days and 2 hours?
221 hours, and just because I’m addicted doesn’t mean the game is good.
That’s correct. It simply means you are a either masochist or a complete idiot. Either you enjoyed the suffering or you didn’t. Your choice.
> And you still played for 221 days and 2 hours?
American release date: Feb 13, 2015
[Insert space-time joke here]
Nintendo is characterized for not allowing bad reviews for any of their stuff. Anything you say about their games have to be approved by them first, because if you don’t let them approve it, you will be most likely notified for copyright violation if you use any footage or content that belongs to them to do the review (as they do with youtubers), that is why you see scoundrels such as IGN giving this a 9, and otakus giving this a D +.
Meanwhile I’m still enjoying the *bleep* out of FTL (with mods, though).
Such is the path of the gamer.
Well the only reason you got stunlocked and combo’d was because you got hit in the first place. Don’t get hit; git gud
Also the game explains everything in great detail in “hunter’s notes”. It’s just up to you to be able to apply that information.
Well I could always use the casual GS and do the dodge game, but I prefer to have fun and play trades.
By the way, how much have you even played to understand the Hunter Notes don’t explain shit? You think a throwaway sentence on a monster that you can buy for 500z has anything on Kiranico? Where the fuck do they *actually* explain skills? Key quests? This is all important shit that you can’t get from the game, and there are pages and pages with other such examples.
I’m not sure whether you’re casual or stupid but at this point I’m fully suspecting both.
Well if you insist on getting hit and are paranoid of stuns you can always go Halve Stun. I used to run it but I got to the point where monsters would 2-shot me so I just learned to dodge everything.
Hunter notes on Skills:
“Skills refer to a number of abilities that affect hunters in various ways. Skills activate once the Skill Points assigned to your armor and Charms add to a certain number.”
On Quests:
“Ambitious hunters can sign up for a variety of Quests at towns and Gathering Halls…but not all right off the bat. You must first complete available Quests to raise your Quest Level, which in turn unlocks more Quests.”
Obviously the game isn’t going to give you a table of drops and numerical damage values for each monster part – like pretty much every other RPG. They give you “hints” in the books. On Kushala Doara: “It’s difficult to even get close to one of these metallic dragons, but some claim better odds if the creature is weakened with poison, or has another hunter on its back, limiting the amount of wind pressure it can muster.” Or you can check out the corresponding armor for the monster and note the elemental weaknesses.
The game gives you a lot to work with – you’re supposed to experiment and figure out things with your friends and whatnot. Yes, it’s easier to just look it up on the internet but that wasn’t the point.
>used to run halve stun
Oh god, no wonder you think the game explains everything; you were carried like it was your wedding day.
Look guy, I’m glad you were able to make it through the game without understanding what key quests are, but you gotta understand you’re the cancer that kills any enjoyment decent players can have with the game. The notes you gave for Kushala are irrelevant. Poison and mounting are good? Whoop-de-doo. What about elements? Weak spots? You are aware the game gives no feedback for those, right? And what notes do you wanna pull up for Gog?
Just quit. The game or life, I don’t care which.
Your review, much like your rebuttle to Death’s comment missed so many key points and was so generalised that it was painful.
I tend to think you got your ass handed to you from general lack of skill and subsequently ragequit.
The game tells you just fine how to take care of varying tasks within it without giving it all away.
But wait, you do strike me based on what you’re arguing to be a gamer who likes to be given everything on a silver platter and have it hold your hand start to finish with no basis for self discovery and yet you, hypocritically suggest Death got carried for utilising an appropriate in game skill.
Regarding Skill points, were you paying so little attention when crafting new armour/weaponry that you didnt notice how often The Man explains to you how to activate them in his cycling dialogue?
Weaknesses: Armour, as Death did actually tell you will display elemental strengths and weaknesses in the equipment menu screen, which you access with “Start“ incase you werent aware. So that nullifies that point with what I’d classify as basic common sense.
Monsters are ALWAYS with zero exception, weak to their armours elemental weakness. One quick test run if you’re not sure would show instant results considering how much faster monsters die when attacked with their opposing element.
As for weakspots, unless you’re madly obsessed with DPS, speed runs and obsessive detail, they barely help to know, which you have on Kiranico for the dedicated hunter anyhow. Any hunter of half decent skill can drop a G rank beast in maximum 20 minutes purely with combat and correct item useage, oh yeah incase you missed it the item useage iss fairly self explanitory.
Buff skills, stacking and item useage are RPG commonplace, nothing difficult to grasp.
About the only real issue your critique highlighted was the monsters attacks frequently clipping the environmental hitboxes, which does piss me off.
I’d have no issue with you thinking the game was shit if your review contained any actual, or even relevant argument, but all I see is a silver platter gamer raging inconsistent gripes and his own lack of attention to the games instructions.
Pay attention next time, it’s a lot to take in, but this game isn’t for casual gamers.
Just to bolster my own legitimacy to this argument before you make yourself look stupid with some insult that has nothing to do with the game, like you did above, I’m 810 hours in, Maining Light Bowgun for over 1600 hunts, having solo’ed my game in its entirety save for all but the hardest hunts, eg G Shah Dalamadur which simply isn’t possible to solo with LBG due to damage output/ammo capacity and am one of the top ranked players in Australia.
Yes I confess to not being great at melee combat in the game, but I’m yet to find anyone who can beat me with a gun.
Hats off to you Ghost. Your post is very well thought out and raises valid points. There isn’t really much I personally can add to that other then verifying that what you do say is correct.
As for your G Shah Dalamadur issues I would love to hunt with you on it. I have put in over 663 hours personally on the game and soloed most of the game outside some Apex monsters and Elder Dragons. I am a dual blade user that could help with the DPS issue of damage output.
Can’t HBG be used for some pretty fast solo clear times in comparison to melee weapons?
‘I suck at this game so it sucks’
ok
So mad for no reason. ;_;
Did you finally git gud fam?
I got to Silver Crown before my playgroup got bored. Can’t imagine Generations lasting us very long, honestly.
I dont agree too your Statement, but I respect it.
The Caravan Quests are more the casual stuff, you cant enjoy whitout much Gameknowledge.
Online is more for Metaplayer. So, you allways have the Chance too enjoy the Game in some way. Elemental Weaknesses and Weakspots can be figured out by try and error.
Sure the Game make a bad Job in Comunicating the deeper Elements of the Gameplay, but what Game is different? I definitly prefere this Game over Xenoblade, whit his braindead Gameplay.
I said the Game is comunicating badly, but this is only halfe true. Look at all the Cutscenes. Najarala, Gravios, Nerscylla. they not just cool too look at.
They comunicating Informations about the Movesets, what otherwise would come out of nowhere.
And the Game had some realy sick Armordesign. Nargacuga, Rathalos and Najarala look phantastic.
And dont forgett the ecology. Every Monster is part of the ecosysthem, whit semi-belifable Lore too his behavior. Seltasqueen actually eat Seltas in Battle, Kushalas Scales have grooves for absorbing Air from his entire Body, and Zinogre lives in Symbiosis whit Bugs.
This turns into an Part of the Gameplay. Nearly every Monster is unique and had a memberfull Fightingstyle.
Even similar Monsters like Stygian Zinogre, and Zinogre, and the G-Rank Versions of both are significant different in Fightingstyle and Abilitys.
Your 200 in the Game, its basicly late Earlygame. Off course your not warmed up.
There’s more bias in this post than there is starving children in Ethiopia lmao
There are children left in Ethiopia?
Fuckin’ casual. I beat 3 ultimate when I was in 3rd grade old with no problems and I loved every second of it. All you needed to do was not skip through all the dialogue and actually listen to what people had to say. I was too stupid to know what armor skills even were back then and I beat 4 ultimate with hammer because I thought that since it had the highest base raw, it was the strongest. I still beat the game. If a 3rd grader with absolutely zero experience with action RPGs is better than you, I think something is wrong.