I recently acquired Monster Hunter Freedom Unite for my Vita for a fiver in a PS+ sales. At first it looked like I won't be getting into it - but I toughed it out - and after 10 hours of boredom and frustration it finally clicked. It's deep and addictive and fun. Monster Hunter and I are an item now. I am looking forward to Monster Hunter 4 (which will hopefully see a Vita release), and I'd be overjoyed if there finally was a native translation of the formula for proper homeconsoles and PC.

Getting into the game was rough though. I didn't make any tangible progress for a long time. Ten hours to earn my first positive reinforcement from the game? That's just too damn long to be anything but stupid design really. Being quite stubborn myself, not letting go of a game easily, no matter how hard it tries to reject me, I can easily see how many never get over the initial hump, or wouldn't even dare to try it for themselves.

Being on the inside now, I think it's crazy how Capcom never managed to get the franchise to blow up in the West. It's got all the mechanical feedback loops of your super-successful Western RPGs in there (well, expect leveling), and is just as complex, if not even more so. It's also a lot denser overall, making for an almost Diablo-esque high pace feedback loop once it gets rolling. There's only one major problem. All character progression is tied to crafting, and it takes way too long before one has enough materials to actually start crafting in a meaningful way.

The first thing it would have to fix is the progression curve. It should take 5 minutes at the most before I have my first positive reinforcement, not 10 hours. Rewarding players with equipment for turning in quests would alleviate most early pacing problems. These quests should also teach mining and bug hunting and the likes. It's not quite apparent how to do these things at first. So by the time the player can get into crafting, he already earned a full set of gear from questing and learned how to come by materials efficiently, rather than looking at crafting requirements and seeing an endless and hopeless grind. Once I got to a place of steady progression, and I grew confident and competent enough to tackle and overcome bigger challenges, the game really opened up and got really interesting.

Monster Hunter is kinda like the Japanese version of The Witcher, if it was all about Monster Hunting. Thus far The Witcher games didn't actually deliver on the Monster Hunting part yet like Monster Hunter already successfully does. I play a Monster Hunter, I read up on the Monsters, prepare my equipment to track and lure and shock&awe and trap or kill them - and then go on the hunt. If I succeed in catching my prey, I take their parts and turn them into stronger armor and weapons and useful gadgets trinkets and consumables, to tackle the next bigger challenge. It's really great once you're there! 'Til Capcom wises up and takes a proper shot at a *big* Monster Hunter game, here's me hoping Geralt of Riva will finally live-up to his Monster Hunter profession.

And of course, just keep playing Monster Hunter on handhelds, as they come along.

For the amount of negativity Monster Hunter gets on BombCasts and such, I'd really have thought there'd be more feedback one way or another.

I played enough of a friend's copy of Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate to know that I think Monster Hunter is alright, but I don't think I could play a ton of it alone without the grind getting to me.

I played Demon's Souls enjoyed the combat but the game didn't click. Then I played Monster Hunter 3:U which has the combat (for the most part), which clicked and I played a ton of on Wii U and 3DS. Bought Dark Souls in the Steam Sale and really enjoyed it due to playing a more forgiving game with animation priority combat.

I never quite understood why so many dislike combat with weighty wind-up animations. I always found such things much more rewarding. Anything that's discouraging mindless button mashing is A-OK in my book.

I played a demo of one of the PSP games and was immensely bored by the whole enterprise.

Took a 10 hours investment to squeeze any fun out of it. Now it's the gift that just keeps on giving. Dat Monster Hunter dopamine drip is mint.

Generally you can simply purchase the first few tiers of basic gear from the shop, which I think is enough. Crafting gear is pretty much the pinnacle of reward in Monster Hunter. Simply handing you that gear would seriously diminish the ultimate feeling of reward when you complete a set.

Now maybe they could hand out a few of the materials you need to craft certain gear, just to cut down the grinding a bit. I think that would be a better middle ground.

I'm talking strictly *for the first few hours of gameplay*. Without any tangible progress, most of Monster Hunter's quirks are hard to swallow - at least that's how it was for me.

@seppli: I don't think simply handing you the gear is the right way to handle that though. That's not nearly as rewarding as crafting it yourself and even if it did speed things up I think it would lead to a poor representation of what that game is actually about.

I think there are better ways to reward the player quicker than simply handing you gear for free. Perhaps they could simply reduce the required materials needed for the first set of monster armor enough that you can make it maybe only after a couple fights? One of the reasons crafting monster gear is rewarding is specifically because you're using materials from your defeated foes to craft it, so at the very least you need to defeat your first large monster first.

I don't know if there is a right answer to fixing that 10 hour hump - everyone who plays the game goes through that and I wonder if that is an inherent part of the appeal once you "get" the game. It definitely is a game that relies on someone pushing you through the early stages, and it makes that initial barrier less painful.

But yeah, I'm always happy when more people fall in love with it. Such a fantastic series.

@seppli: I think it has to do with modern action games moving at such a faster pace. A DMC like game can have an encounter over in an instant if you know the combat well enough. Encounters in MH and similar games take a lot more time to complete depending on your skill level and what gear you happen to be using. The game also pretty much requires a wiki or guide open at all times because the game for whatever reason has a lot of trouble communicating what you need to do or how to get some of the more finicky monster bits. The unreadable text on both platforms doesn't really help either.

I think the best way to handle it would be to make the first few quests (after tutorial stuff like mining, carving, map navigation etc.) strictly about taking down a specific monster and crafting its armor set.

I like that idea. If they made it so you were guaranteed to have enough materials to craft your first full armor set after completing a line of quests you would still feel like you accomplished something, but without having to repeat the same quest over and over to get enough materials.

I do enjoy me some Monster Hunter. There are some serious drawbacks and shit that I really don't like. But overall it's a unique experience and I love what they are going for.

I enjoyed my short time with Monster Hunter Tri on the Wii. I don't really want to replay those early parts again, so I won't get Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate United Super Turbo (or whatever it's called now) on the 3DS since my Wii is no longer around. I'll probably wait for Monster Hunter 4 and hope they include online multiplayer.

I've been playing a bunch of MH3U on WiiU and I am enjoying it as this kinda mindless hunting and gathering game... but I don't really see any of the depth people talk about. The combat seems relatively simplistic, and so do the crafting options. The two maps I've unlocked so far seem really small too.

One of the best franchises around. No nonsense, no trying to be something its not. There's monsters, there's crafting, you'll figure it out or die trying.

@taliciadragonsong: OH SHI-

I've probably invested over 2,000 hours total into MH games.

@zidd:

I think of Monster Hunter more like condensed to max open World RPG. Killing Monsters, Farming Mats, Crafting New Gear, Repeat Cycle Against More Challening Odds. Almost none of the frills like story and exploration, most of the thrills, at a more rapid pace.

Certainly. As long as the entry experience is more guided, teaches all the basics, and manages to convey both a sense of reasonably paced progress, as well as accomplishment, that would have been great.

For me, starting out was like being a blind man trying to read Braille for the first time, with nigh zero support.

That's not wrong of course, but how many wash out because of it? And couldn't the opening hours be both welcoming and rewarding as well?

I love Monster Hunter. I've put a lot of time into multiple iterations in the series. It's the kind of game that you can put tons of hours into and still not see the end. It's also the kind of game that you can pick up at any point and have a blast playing even if you've dropped the game for multiple months. Both those things together I can appreciate a lot.

@seppli: The only thing I'm concerned about is how much you'd have to take away from the depth and complexity of the game that makes it rewarding and addictive to make it approachable in those early hours. It wouldn't be the same game, if you know what I mean?

And I don't know if there is any way to explain those complex systems as well as having a human being who knows them already with you within the game. Is there a suitable substitute for that?

I don't think I've ever met someone who can suggest a good answer to that problem. I'd like to hope Capcom are aware it is a problem - when I saw the game demoed at a gaming event they did seem to acknowledge that they needed staff members manning that game to explain stuff.

To make the *beginner opening* optional, and really hold the player's hand for every step of the way. I feel like it was *opened up* from the get-go, which was overwhelming. There was so much to do and learn, I felt like I had no place to start. Then I chose something, and I chose poorly. I mean the first flippin' quest in the guild hut is to kill the boss monster in Snowy Mountains. That's the last beginner quest, if you work with the village elder. There was just no way of knowing out of the gate. Very frustrating.

I can totally understand, I think it's a process that every MH player has gone through, even if it was a long time ago for me now.

To be honest, when I was playing the beginning of 3U, I found the tutorial so long and laborious, and yet I can totally imagine it is nearly useless for properly preparing a new player for the game. Definitely needs to be optional.

I own monster hunter tri. I tried it out (no pun intended) and it seemed fun, but I realized that it's like...hundreds of hours long, and I typically stay away from those kinds of games when I have a huge backlog of other shit to play. Same goes for MMO's, really long RPG's and competitive multiplayer games. I plan on giving monster hunter a shot when I have less other stuff I want to finish.

"Hundreds of hours" is debatable. You could put hundreds of hours into it if you really wanted to master the game, but generally Monster Hunter has several tiers of gameplay. In Tri for example, you can finish the main "story" in maybe 50 hours or so? After that it's mostly fighting harder versions of the same monsters, with a few special high tier only monsters here and there. I don't think you necessarily need to play the most advanced content to get enjoyment out of the game.