I'm a fan of the Phantasy Star series - and a lot of people I met on those games over the years said that MH was another game with some similarities.
The problem I have is that I'm not a fan of big boss fights, and from what I can tell the MH series prides itself on big boss fights. So I can't say I've ever tried it. One day I might give the latest game a go, especially once I get an Ampere card and wish to test newer games.
Ed
Well, the thing about boss fights is that they're very hard to make. And alot of games unfortunately just.... really dont do them right. When I think about it, I honestly cant think of many games that get it right, outside of maybe the Souls series. I could probably go into a very long rant about what makes a boss fight work and what doesnt. Heck, with my game-dev experience that I often talk about, much of what I did in making that game was in fact boss fights, because that's what I'm skilled at designing.
MH, when really boiled down, does in fact become a series of boss fights. But a huge part of the game's popularity is that they're SO DARNED GOOD.
There's a few reasons for it:
1. Monster ability sets and attacks are just very well thought out. They never really do anything that seems out of place, nor do they do anything that makes you go "ugh, I forgot, this guy can only be beaten with THIS weapon".
2. They all have alot of personality. The monsters are all memorable.
3. THEY'RE NOT STUPID SCRIPTED THINGS. This is what bugs me about how alot of modern games handle boss fights. They dont really treat them like what I"d even call a "boss". In so many games, it's more like a fight VS what I'd call a "set piece". The game is often trying to WOW you rather than challenge you or make you think. So you'll get things like interrupting cutscenes or scripted events with other characters that come in and do stupid things. RPGs in particular get this all terribly backwards. MH doesnt do any of that.
4. Going along with that, the game works WITH all of it's unique complex mechanics instead of AGAINST them. In alot of action games, you might be running around and kicking and shooting, but when you get to a boss, suddenly the thing goes "Okay, here's this guy, but YOU CANT FIGHT HIM NORMALLY... you can only hit him in the Big Obvious Glowy Spot, and it'll only work if you're doing the Turbo Macerena and screaming about cheese at the same time". I dont know what trend caused this but too many games seem to think of boss fights as "time to change the rules!". In MH, you are ALWAYS dealing with your same base mechanics. You still have to watch your weapon durability, your current item selection, dealing with finding the right moments to heal without getting stomped flat, there are a ton of complexities to how MH does things and it doesnt try to take that away from you in favor of "OMG HIT THE SHINY SPOT".
There's a bit more to it, but that's the basics. This is also a big part of why I think the Dark Souls series has such good boss fights, because they also follow all of these rules.
Though also, the game reallly does do more than JUST that stuff, even in missions where you're going up against a boss (which admittedly is most of them). There's other things you have to do as part of your hunting and they're just as important. I always really appreciated this aspect of the game.
By the time Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate came around, people solved that issue the issue of too little DPS by using insect glaive mount spam, making sure that all kinsect buffs are active (which is still an effective method, even though IG has been nerfed a bit in Generations and World).
It is also never a good idea to use hunting horn solo, as its main purpose is a group support weapon. For pre-4th gen MH games, it is more recommended to use dual blades, long sword, or great sword solo (or, if you want to use a blunt weapon solo, hammer is a good choice). Or heavy bowgun if you want to grind for an entirely new armor set (thankfully you can use the same armor set in you usually wear if you want to switch from melee to ranged in MHW).
In 4th-gen games, hammer, insect glaive, long sword, dual blades, and sword & shield are all good DPS weapons for newer players. Heck, the game automatically equips you with an SnS when you first start the game.
In 5th gen (Monster Hunter World and Monster Hunter World: Iceborne), that list is the same, but with great sword, bow, and light bowgun added.
One of the other problems is that you played the PSP Monster Hunter games. The code in this is known to be just a bit broken. *remembers plesioth's broken hitbox in Monster Hunter Freedom Unite*
Geh, that's always what they told me about the horn back then too, but dagnabit I took that bloody thing and hit the "solo ends here" wall anyway. I've always been super stubborn about doing my own thing in games, and to heck with the meta. Provided I even know what the meta is, which I usually dont.
Other than horns I also usually tended to use hammers and whatever the really huge swords were called. I tend to get along well with heavy weapons in action games.
Anyway, as the game goes, I was looking into it and thinking I actually might give it a go today. Sure aint anything stopping me from buying it, and the PC is *definitely* up to the task. And just reading around online last night about it, seems I'd be far from the only one that plays this one just solo. Wheras with the old games, nobody really did that (since again, you really couldnt).
Also I was checking out how they handled MTX, and to their credit it looks like they did it in a non-intrusive way. None of that "pay 5 real dollars for 50 potions" crap. Granted, there IS still $400 worth of bloody MTX, but none of it has gameplay function as far as I can tell, so that's... okay, I guess. Still, why cant these idiots just make proper expansion packs like how it used to be? Freaking Everquest getting a new bloody continent in a box never made anyone super angry, but these modern companies dont want to do that, and then cant seem to figure out why everyone hates them. And yeah, I know, Iceborne is an expansion, but imagine how much more it could have if ALL of the effort went towards that sort of thing instead of "OMG DRESS UP YOUR CAT FOR 10 BUCKS"
One way or another it'll sure beat playing it on the PSP. I really dont know how I put up with that thing back then.
