Archive for the 'Monster Hunter' Category

Off to a good start…

Published at January 3, 2008 in Monster Hunter and PSP. 0 Comments

MonsterHunterFreedom_qjgenth I managed to get some more quality time with Monster Hunter Freedom 2 over the festive period finally taking down my first Elder Dragon of the game, Chameleous. Well, technically it was a first round repel but it got me through the quest…

Its not the easiest of fights to say the least. The invisibility I can deal with to a degree… the two moves that give me problems the most are, the one that reduces your stamina to zero in one hit and debuffs you preventing consumption of rations or steaks, and the tongue attack that steals items from you when hit by it.

For the most part its easy enough to avoid one or the other attacks, but get caught out with the stamina reduction and a few tongue attacks dodged too late and suddenly your at zero stamina with no rations or steaks left. Obviously if you use a hammer this fight ramps up in difficulty if you get hit/come out unprepared so bear that in mind and get plenty of meat cooked up.

My strategy was, using Devil Slicer long sword hack the crap out of it whenever it popped into view or its breath/shimmer gave it away. While it was invisible it was generally moving away from me then charging back so some deft rolls are in order here. The attack pattern seems to have it retreating invisible then charging visible two or three times, then its close quarter work for a while… shaking tail attack limits the angles you can attack from so keep it short and sweet with lots of rolls to get range… the spit attack is long range and once used to the animation its easy enough to get out of the way and stay out of the area of effect.. the tongue attack is a little harder to predict and tends to pop up right after you finish a roll, expect to get hit a few times with this.

Now, for all I know there could be a way to remove its invis, or stop certain attacks by breaking its armour in some way but I’ve not found it yet…

After my success with Chameleous I worked on my offline guild hall rank some more unlocking a new tier of quests and crafted a few new items.. all in all, a very productive return to this game this holiday

Note of Absence…

Published at October 22, 2007 in Monster Hunter, Rant and World of Warcraft. 0 Comments

Sick Note excusing me from WoWOver the last month or so I’ve taken a much needed break from World of Warcraft and turned back to console gaming to fill the gap, which has been a nice change. Been able to switch a game on and get something out of it within 30 mins is something I missed when playing Warcraft and the main reason I took a step back for a while.

I like the game and enjoy playing with friends in the guild but lately, looking at the prices for items I’d like, the rep grind needed for heroics, attunement to get into kara, the sheer volume of mats needed for professions and the incurred costs that go along with it, it all boils down to one thing.. grinding.

Want more money? Go grind. Need some rep? Go grind.. Need mats for professions? Go grind… Want to start raiding? Go grind dungeon ‘xyz’….

Now, 1-70 the grind is tolerable. Items drop you can use or sell, you gain mats for professions, you gain XP, learn new abilities, visit new zones, learn about some lore. All good. Get to level 70 and suddenly the game has very little outside of raiding to offer.

Fine.. go start raiding then? First you need to grind your gear which means repeated runs of dungeon ‘xyz’ all the while hoping your group doesn’t have another member in need of the item you want. Even if your the only mage in the group, you then have to contend with the ‘luck’ factor. Then you need to grind some rep/dungeons to continue which is a lengthy process.

In a game like Monster Hunter, no matter what level I am. If I want ‘x’ armour, I go kill ‘x’ monster and the parts I need drop from it. The luck factor is still involved as the high end gear requires specific items and you may have to grind the monster over and over, but by and large the system is more skill based than some. Most armour requires common materials that drop reliably each run, you just need set amounts of it. Therefore your avatar is only as good as the last monster you killed and to proceed you need some skill to take down the next hardest monster using the last monsters armour. That’s the skill and joy of Monster Hunter. In a game like WoW, your character is only as good as the random loot table in each drop.

You could argue that these systems are very similar in that you have to kill say, 10 Rathalos in Monster Hunter to obtain armour crafted from its parts.. but you also may have to run a dungeon 10 times in WoW before ‘x’ boss drops the item you require. The difference is, for every Rathalos run completed I can check my bags and see how many more items I need to craft my armour, there is no mechanic in WoW to say, you downed this boss 8 times, 3 more and he’ll drop the item you want. Its all luck based and you get nothing to show for an unsuccessful run.. MH is luck based but rewards you for every run you complete by visibly pushing you closer to obtaining the item you desire.

For me, WoW is fun but the bottomless well that is the level cap sucks the fun out of the game for me. If I see very little reward for hour after hour of gaming then before long my interest dips and fades completely. However, keep dangling that visible carrot under my nose and I’ll keep running.

Its these points that further enforce my belief that the reason WoW is such a time-sink is not because Blizzard wanted to provide a really lengthy game to keep you occupied long past other games, its simply a business model to keep you paying. The ones who tire of the grind soon cancel accounts and move on to pastures anew. No biggie, subscriber numbers keep going and the regular expansions are sure to draw new players into the game so they can afford to lose a few minority players. For the ones who don’t see it as that much of a grind, the ones who see it as a continuation of the game, the truly hardcore who will sink hour after hour into the game for side-grades that add tiny increments to stats, those are the people this game caters too. The longer it takes to do something, the longer that player is paying Blizzard a monthly fee and ultimately I believe that’s the reason it takes so damn long to do so little in this game.

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Progress…

Published at October 3, 2007 in Monster Hunter and PSP. 0 Comments

TigrexI cleared the Tigrex 4 star urgent quest on Monster Hunter this weekend unlocking the tier 5 content.

It took me a few tries with a few different weapons but I eventually downed it with the upgraded Hydra Bite SnS. Being able to block the faster attacks helped a lot, as did the high poison attack on the SnS I was using.

I’ve cleared some of my 5 stars, mostly dual ‘insert monster here’ quests, but the meat of this tier comes from the Elder Dragons that are now available to fight. From what I can tell these work on the same principle as the Fatalis fights from MH1 in that you can fight them over multiple ’rounds’ and the damage done in previous rounds carries over to the next one.

I tried one at the weekend, Chameleos, but I had no luck with this one. Its harder than others to learn its patterns as it can become invisible which is a big hindrance. I’m sure there will be an area of the Dragons body you can ‘break’ to disable its camouflage but on my brief try I couldn’t figure it out.

I’ve now started trawling through the Guild quests in the gathering hall as I needed Rathian spikes to upgrade my poison SnS. I’ve killed between 10 and 20 of them now between normal quests and I just cant seem to get the lucky carve I need. Hopefully as I move up the Guild tiers I’ll unlock the Rathian+ and be able to get the mats I need from that. To tide me over I made an Iron Katana and upgraded it to the Devil Slicer which is making short work of my current quests… I’m hoping my new weapons and upgraded armour help out when I try Kushala Daora later tonight :)

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Monster Hunter Freedom 2

Published at September 28, 2007 in Monster Hunter and PSP. 0 Comments

RathI 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.

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