This year a lot of people first ventured into Monster Hunter thanks to the PS4 game Monster Hunter World. Then a lot of those people found a Monster Hunter game was coming out for the Switch (it was out in Japan a year earlier) and a demo was available. After playing that demo a lot of people then complained like whiny babies that it was too hard, if you are one of those people this isn’t the game for you. MHGU (because I’m not doing the full title again) plays like classic Monster Hunter rather than the more smoothed version presented in Worlds. Not saying that Worlds is bad or you’re wrong for finding it harder to play than the older style –  just a warning (profanity Rajang).

Monster Hunter has in its time as a Capcom IP become a well loved franchise and well known as the only one Capcom have yet to f**k up at some point (look what happened to Megaman, Street Fighter, Resident Evil, well ok that’s harsh Megaman 11 and Resident Evil 7 are both really good so they seem to have learned from their mistakes there, I’ll get to Megaman 11 next year.) A couple of years ago after Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate became a big success in the west an anniversary title called Monster Hunter Cross or Generations was released for it as well (profanity Rajangs).

Monster Hunter Generations was a compilation of all the years of Monster Hunter plus some new tricks. It continued with the abilities presented in 4U while also giving access to new styles and super moves to players. These styles do affect the way a hunter plays, be it expert dodging, or doing jumps. Of course I should explain some things first I’m getting a little ahead of myself (profanity Rajangs).

In Monster Hunter you play a monster hunter or hunter as they are known. You hunt big monsters (who often look like dinosaurs with stuff attached) with a variety of weapons.

These range from sword and shield, lances with shields, axes that turn into swords, sword and shields that turn into axes and for those who like to take things on from a range you have bows, crossbows and the like. As you kill monsters (or capture them) you acquire parts, these are then used to craft more weapons and new armour which then allows you to kill harder monsters, which give better rewards so you can craft new gear or upgrade ones and so on and on. That’s pretty much it, you kill or capture monsters to get parts so you can get better gear to beat harder stuff (profanity Rajangs).

Of course since this is an anniversary game as well as a few new monsters the pool from which the game draws your hunts from is from throughout its history and not just the monsters themselves but also for good or bad the places you do the hunts. I saw that because the older maps really show their age at just how flat they are, which stands out badly compared to the more 3 dimensional newer maps.  The monsters are vastly more varied and for those coming from Worlds will find Generations Ultimate has a vastly larger array of creatures. Some creatures have special elemental powers and weaknesses. Having difficulty with the fire breathing Rathalos, craft the armour with fire resistance and find a weapon that will take advantage of his weapons (helps to google it)(profanity Rajangs).

The game can be split up into two main modes, single and multiplayer. While single player has the more set story and is probably best you do at least some of this first, multiplayer is where the game shines. Going online you join or form groups to fight monsters as a team, working together to bring down monsters that get a lot harder than you would find them in single player (profanity Rajangs).

But a lot of this can all be said about Monster Hunter Generations, so time to explain about Ultimate which is out for the Switch. Ultimate is an improvement over the original version of Generations, think a 2.0 if you will. It contains all the original had and more. More monsters, new items and a new difficulties. While single player you could only do low rank monsters and multi player low and high rank. Now Single player also has High rank quests and Multiplayer gives you access to the G rank quests (in Japan they often called these Monster Hunter G rather than Monster Hunter Ultimate) (profanity Rajangs).

Now I know what some of you may be thinking, If you already got Monster Hunter Generations on the 3DS but don’t want to do all that grinding again after spending over 100 hours then what are you to do? Well thankfully you can download an app on the 3DS that will transfer your data from Monster Hunter Generations to Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate (which is what I did, I spent ages on that hellblade glavenus armour and I’m not redoing all that just to get back to where I was) which is very handy, though If you want to start from scratch nothing is stopping you as very few monsters are genuinely infuriating, such as the Rajangs, why did they put those back in, HATE HATE HATE HATE.

Monster Hunter games do involve a lot of grinding, but the grind is rewarding, you begin to get better gear as well as come to understand the patterns of the monster, which can lead to some epic dodges leaving the beasts open to an attack. It’s a game that rewards you for being prepared, for learning how to fight the beasts. Flying monsters being annoying? bring flash bombs and watch them fall out of the sky blind. But as mentioned it is a grind, it will take many MANY hours to get to the “final” boss and that may not be for everyone but for those that it is for, I look forward to seeing you on my next hunt, which hopefully wont be Rajang, maybe a Deviljho I like them.

Rating: