I loved Monster Hunter on the PS2. I was lucky enough to beta it about a year before release and my addiction was born. 100’s of hours of gameplay and a lot of good online fun with friends and clanmates later and the sequel was released.. but not in Europe or the US.
I was so disappointed I imported the Japanese version and with some messing around with Hard-Drives and memory cards, got it working on my UK PS2. Unfortunately the language barrier was too big for me to get my teeth into the game. While I was able to complete the lower levelled quests through trial and error and prior knowledge of the game, when it came to crafting weapons and armour it all got too much for me.
When MH Freedom was released for the PSP I found hope again. MH Freedom is basically a port of Monster Hunter 1 and the addon that was released overseas called Monster Hunter G. Not surprisingly I went out and bought it on day one but was never able to get behind it as much as the PS2 version. I think it was because I’d already relentlessly grinded for ores and rare monster parts, spent hour after hour killing Rathalos in the hope that a plate drops to craft rare armour, seen Lao Shan killed what seems like a thousand times and obtained a lot of the high end weapons available. It just didn’t hold the same appeal to me anymore.
After a long wait, the second game has finally been ported over to the PSP and its just as good as I had hoped it would be. I’m about 20 hours or so into it so far and its great to be playing fresh content again.
As soon as you start the game you are given the option to import your old character from your MH:F game save if you have one. You are then informed that only non-rare items will be moved over and that anything that isn’t used or found in MH2 will be imported either, so you essentially start from a clean slate again. Any weapons and armour you had are exchanged for crafting tickets which can be used to craft weapons of varying quality depending on the level of ticket you use. Standard tickets can be used to create base weapons and armour while higher level tickets can be used to create higher level armour and weapons, enabling you to skip a few upgrades on weapons and create something higher up the weapon tree.
The next step is the character creation screen. It starts with your character loaded in and allows you to change the name and look if you want. I kept my name and chose a different look from the new options available and started the game. After a quick cut-scene showing how you ended up in the new village, you awake in your new house and an NPC gives you a bit of chatter setting an introduction for your life as a Monster Hunter before you can start the game.
The house is similar to previous games but I did notice you can change the colour and hairstyle of your character at the bookshelf now and also dress the ‘good luck pig’ in different clothes. At the back of the room is still the entrance to the kitchen where you can hire cats to cook a variety of meals for you, each one offering a different buff to your stats that lasts for the duration of your next quest. If your unlucky and pick a bad food combo you may get a debuff that reduces your stats for the duration of the next quest. Another feature I noticed here that I didn’t remember from the last game was the BBQ service. You can now drop off raw meat and fish to be cooked up ready for collection after your next quest.
The item box holds no new surprises, you can still save equipment sets to slots and swap in and out of them at any time. There are enough slots to make up multiple sets for gunning, swordplay, or stat boosts. However small item boxes have been added in various areas. The farm now has one as does the on/offline guild hall. You cant swap or store equipment through them but you can store and take out items. Not as much running back and forth between quests now which is another welcome addition.
All in all, I think Capcom wanted to speed up some of the more tedious activities and largely they’ve done a great job of it. You can quick travel between buildings, drop off meat to be cooked saving you the hassle, quick-swap in and out of different gear.. there is even a new feature in the options menu allowing you to turn background loading on which speeds up the load times but also uses battery faster.
The new map areas are very nice. Larger than before and still featuring the expansive scenery and backgrounds I’ve come to expect from the Monster Hunter series. The Forest & Hills area from the last games has returned although I’m unsure at this point if the rest of the old zones will make an appearance.
The quests are standard fare, low level ones are gathering quests, or slay ‘x’ of this type of monster with each tier easing you into harder and harder monsters to fight. I notice now that items you collect in a level that used to be sold for money at the end of the quests now contribute towards pokke points (points you can use to upgrade the farm area or exchange for items), again, I’m unsure if this was in the last MH freedom game as I never got that far into it, but the addition of this pokke point exchange system is well implemented and provides further incentive to farm nodes than standard material acquisition.
So far, I have unlocked the 4 star quests and made progress in that tier. Things are starting to ramp up in difficulty slightly although most of the quests are for standard monsters that I have fought numerous times. Knowing the patterns and tactics used by these monsters has helped me a great deal in advancing in a timely manner, although, for a challenge I attempted to fight what seems to be the last monster in the 4 star tier, Kushala Daora. This guys a new one to me and while I picked up the Congalala and Blango patterns fairly quickly and was able to progress past them in what I considered to be fairly low level armour and weapons, Kushala Daora seems like a blatant gear check for progression. His attack patterns are fairly easy to deal with, although he spends most of the time in the air which meant I had to swap my trusty hammer for one of the new weapons, the Longsword. This enabled me to hit high and actually attempt to fight but I was still torn to pieces. It came as no surprise to me as the 4 star tier has introduced Monoblos quests, Kushala Daora uses wind based attacks to keep you at distance, and if I remember correctly, blos armour gave a reduced wind effect as a stat bonus. Plus its not that bad armour, although how it stacks up to my Blango set remains to be seen.
All in all, I’m finding MHF:2 an absolute joy to play. The new changes are a welcome overhaul making the game more streamlined to play and the addition of new content, weapons, armour, fighting styles, and monsters just puts the icing on the cake!
Technorati Tags: Monster Hunter Freedom 2, PSP
0 Responses to “Monster Hunter Freedom 2”