Monster Hunter Freedom Impressions

[Ultrawolf]

Ok before all is stated. If you preordered the game you get a mini stuffed Poogie (the pajama wearing piggy). Now that that is out of the way, I have to say I was pretty worried about how well Freedom's controls would adjust to the portable and I have to say they did pretty well. It's still not as intuitive as it was on the PS2 controller but it comes pretty damn close.

The game is much like PSO in that you must dive headfirst into it in order to enjoy the game. You HAVE TO WORK YOUR WAY UP THE LADDER. I can't stress that enough with a game like monster hunter. You'll start off and you'll want to kill a giant dragon but you're going to get your ass kicked by -raptors-. You WILL have to LEARN how to fight. It's not a simple matter of mash buttons until creature A is dead. No, you will have to HUNT. You'll have to learn tactics, the ins and outs of your weapon, how to fight specific monsters and come PREPARED. Unless you've got uber gear, you'll have to bring in traps and/or flash bombs of your own in order to take down the bigger baddies. You'll struggle up the rungs as you work from taking down raptors to the first dragon. But by the time you can kill Kut-Ku without too much strain you will be in good shape to progress throughout the game.

Another aspect of the game that is important is crafting. You will have to decide what kind of weapons and armor you want to use. Gunners have a separate armor than blademasters. Basically every weapon except for guns will use blademaster armor. Myself, I prefer the lance for the ability to guard and pick and choose my targets. The Great Sword is a weapon of awesome strength but it is slow to attack and during which time you are vulnerable to gang attacks by multiple creatures. Sword and Shields are a nice balance of defense and offense. Hammers are nice offensive weapons as well. Later on you can wield dual swords which are nice and fast but lacking in defense. You will constantly want to keep yourself armed with stronger armor as your progress throughout the game, feel free to sell old suits unless you play on keeping them for defenses against certain elements. Another great way to make money is to make armor or weapons and sell them but odds are you will want to keep the ores you get from mining for your weapons.

There are generally two different variations of which weapon. The Bone series are stronger but dull much easier which will require you to sharpen them more often. The Metal series are generally sharper which means you will be able to pierce enemies much easier and your attacks will stay consistently stronger because you won't have to sharpen them all the time.
Watch for resistances on armor because you don't want to be facing fireballs when your armor has negative resistances to fire :O!

Harvesting and Mining is an important element. You want to harvest all your kills to get meat which you can turn into steak to eat to boost your stamina, or hides and bones to craft with. Mining requires the purchase of a pickaxe and you'll have to find a mining point to mine into.

A new addition to Freedom is the Farm. As you buy and sell items in town you'll earn points you can use to upgrade your farm. Your farm is basically a gatherer's paradise. You have your own mining point, a bug nest, a crop field, and even a fishing hole. As you upgrade your farm you'll gain access to more crop fields, more fish types in your hole, another higher level mining points, as well as being able to get more material from each point. After each mission your farm will replenish supplies allowing you to harvest again and again. I think it's a nice addition to give players a guaranteed harvesting point for whatever they need. Sometimes during a mission you might not have the ability to mine while a dragon a pursuing you throughout the level so it's nice that they added that in there to supplement mining in the levels. As well as adding replay time to upgrade your farm.

All the old missions are back so far from what I can tell and now you have access to the online missions and all the new missions from the Japanese Monster Hunter G. You can visit the meeting hall offline now which is pretty sweet because you have the same tier mission system you had online on the old games. There's LOTS and LOTS of missions and things to do, so I can easily see spending countless hours and hours in this game like I did the first.

Overall I'm very pleased with the game, while I'm dissapointed in the lack of a TRUE online mode (only multiplayer offline ) I'm still very pleased with the game and I hope to get a couple people roped into the game so that we can tackle some of the later content such as Fatalis and Lao (this is a dragon that's so freaking huge the whole point isn't even to kill him but just stop him from destroying the city). It's definitly a rush feeling like a noob again, but I'm working my way back up the ranks

Good Luck to all those engaging in Monster Huntery!

That said, Monster Hunter has a STRONG learning curve when adjusting from other games because it requires you TO THINK. Running in like gallahad won't work unless you're late in the game tackling loser enemies.

[Shino]

Una and I both got it too... while I didn't get to play it much. I'm only on the second mission. But I like the layout of the controls so far.

I'll probably be tapping you for tips on how to beat the bigger baddies and the best way to earn cash and get weapons and armor quicker.

I'm not sure if I want to go sword/shield, or dual wield.

[Chibi Knight]

I sooooo cannot afford a PSP and this game right now. So do you guys mind if I drool while I look over your shoulders?

*goes back and replays MH on PS2*

[Shino]

[Chibi Knight]

[Shino]

[GAAZ]

I dunno, I think the game still suffers like the first one did where you can't lock on to a target.

When you miss an enemy with your combo or try to do a strong attack and they dodge it takes way too long to turn around to face them again.

The only games that should ever be sans a locking system are FPS games.

Or games that feature fast reactive weapons and a crosshair. IE The Punisher and Max Payne.

I was playing this on Jasons PSP and I'd slice at a raptor and only catch air and the damn thing was right in front of me. But because my knife didn't hit one of about 4 key polygon points the blade did no damage...Yet the raptor can fly at me and miss my on screen character by half a centimeter and I fly to the ground.

I may try it again but I feel this will end up being like PSO where everyone around me likes it while I just can't get into it...At all.

[Chibi Knight]

[GAAZ]

Actually, when I think about it Capcom does suck with target locks.

Until Resident Evil 4 you hitting something was due to proximity or complete luck.

[unastrike]

I can't say whether or not a lock-on feature would help or hurt. Not having it just simply makes you make DAMN sure that when you swing, it counts... otherwise pain will ensue.

That being said, it definitely takes combat out of the arcade realm and into a thinking man's game. This is supported by the fact that you cannot go toe-to-toe with huge baddies and it takes timing, traps and patience to take them down.

GAAZ asked me earlier what my impressions were. I'm only a few missions in, but I can safely say that it's just like the PS2 version. But that's saying a TON about it since this is a portable. In many ways, it's a direct port with some of the additions from the Monster Hunter 1.5 in Japan.

Like the previous PS2 game, the controls and gameplay are on a steep learning curve. Making the transition from the console to the portable version is actually pretty painless... but only figuratively. Hand cramps a-plenty using the PSP's decidedly uncomfortable (yet oh so sleek and sexy) control layout.

Alex, get home soon, man. We gots us some dragon killin to do!