The Monster Huntin'-ing

The last few weeks have been full of baby bobbing and monster slaying. Without much effort, I've found a group of people to meet at a bar and play Monster Hunter like adults! If you haven't tried it, you should. Drinking a gin & tonic and knocking the holy crap out of a rampaging toad monster won't get old anytime soon.

I'm currently playing Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate (MH4U). It's the first hunting game that's stuck. I played a good bit of Monster Hunter Tri on the Wii U, but, as so often happens, I got distracted by some other gaming purchase. MH4U has some very important additions that make it a fantastic entry to jump into. I'm still glad I play Tri because I was able to find my footing in a game that has a lot of complex systems, but it would be hard to go back. The fourth game in the series introduces enviroments that focus on verticality; requiring the player to jump off cliffs onto monsters or smash their weapon into climbing enemies causing them to fall and become stunned. 

Another big improvement is the story in the single player campaign. MH4U's story is full of humor, adventure, and some kind of evil monster no-goodness! I think my enjoyment is, in no small part, because of the excellent localization by 8-4. They are a Japanese-based localization company that I was surprised to find is responsible for translating some of my favorite Japanese titles! Rogue Galaxy, Nier, Dragon's Dogma, Drakengard 3, and Xenoblade Chronicles X are just a couple I can remember off the top of my head. I enjoy listening to the podcast they do weekly. They are mostly ex-gaming journalists who have lived in Japan so long they don't realize how Japanese they've become.

Back to monster hunting though. We've been meeting up on Mondays and focusing on learning our team dynamic and teaching the new players the ropes. It was really neat to find out what weapon the others gravitated towards. The weapons are each as complex as a good fighting game's characters and it's best to stick with one that you like for a while.

I've been playing the Switch Axe since MH Tri and really love it! It's a giant ax that with the press of a button turns into a giant sword. The animations really make it feel massive and there are a ton of combos that allow you to switch back and forth. The basic rule though is always be swording. That's where you're able to take advantage of the swords innate element and do the most damage. It changes depending on which Switch Axe you have, but each axe has a phial that activates in sword mode to deliver poison, explosive, lightning or a slew of other status effects the monster. In the later fights, it's very important to have the right ax for the right monster. It can decide the fight. 

We'll be meeting next week at a new arcade bar that opened up in Charlotte. It's called Abari and there's not a better place to have our meet up at! I have plans to, at least, beat the story mode before I move on to my next game, but I think Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate will be something I keep coming back to till the sequel is released! 

The next game in the series is titled Monster Hunter Generations and it's considered some of the best hunting yet! It cherry-picks some of the best features of former Monster Hunter games and adds up to one of the most customizable yet accessible games in the series yet! Known as Monster Hunter X (pronounced Monster Hunter Cross) in Japan I've been following this game for a while and it's part of the reason I had to put my fair share of hours into MH4U. A great resource for the game is the youtuber, Gaijin Hunter. I've learned a ton from his videos and high recommend subbing to his channel if you want to learn about a particular weapon.

I'm up for playing with anyone when I can! A new baby doesn't afford all the time in the world, but I sure do love introducing people to the game! Send me a message on Twitter, Google +, or Steam and we'll exchange friend codes for the 3DS.

Backlog for the Baby: Firewatch

In the great backlog wars of 2019 I'm going to regret playing Firewatch first. I had some really great "walking simulators" to choose from, but this one seemed to really just get the experiential first-person narrative right. Since its teasers release I've been intrigued by it's presentation and, seemingly, dialogue heavy experience. I have to say, every bit of excitement was warranted.

The art design captures the grandeur of the great outdoors of Wyoming so well that it made me regret spending my time indoors as a child when I lived there. A lot of the setting of the game my parents and I would drive by on our way into the closest town. It's a game that prioritizes time as a tool for the narrative more than a way to place events linearly on a timeline. The game's days become more like chapters that allowed me to explore with no real penalty and that made all the difference when my searching yielded a particularly heartfelt easter egg. I'd really hate to spoil any of these moments, and they don't change the game in any meaningful way plot-wise, but they can pepper the game with customized tchotchkes of your adventure and subsequent discovers. If that doesn't make sense, I'm sorry, but that's about as specific as I want to get.

The relationship between the two characters is complex in the best of ways. Exposing everything thought transparent in the Telltale's The Walking Dead series. You are given just enough agency to flavor the experience with your own choice, but knowing all the time that these characters are working in the limited scope of their own trauma. You are not in control, they have issues, and you are all the better for it!

This game ranges from 3 to 5 hours depending on how fast the player barrels through the main story. I really think it's a game that can be played through multiple times. After listening to a spoilercast on the game, and learning the crazy amounts of variables that decide what the player experiences, I'm excited to watch my wife's playthrough of the game.

It's pretty annoying writing something about the game, because I very much do not want to spoil anything. I've purposely avoided talking about the actual story, because it was so wonderful for me going in blind to anything other than the great art design and voice direction. I played the game and feel I just finished a fantastic TV series that could only be told in this medium.

Backlog for the Baby

Over the past few months hanging out with my brand new baby boy hasn't afforded much time for gaming. While I'm not surprised about how little not being able to play games has affected my life, it is my main hobby and I've been missing it. My wife and I, with some trial and error, have agreed on an evening a week that the other person can "take off" from kid duties and do something all for them. My wife goes to karaoke, while I plan on playing video games. Also, over the past few weeks I've been peer pressuring a co-worker to get Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate in hopes that we'll meet up on my gaming night for some beers and monster slaying! Anyways, onto the explanation of the blog series.

I've wanted to get my thought down on the huge backlog of games I have on various platforms for quite a while. There are so many games that I start and never finish, it's a problem I share with a lot of people in my online social circles. I want to friggin' beat some of the games! I usually get distracted by an online game of some sort and by the time I comeback to a game I feel I have to start over. Also, I've used the idea of this blog as a pretty easy excuse, not wanting to start really making progress till I feel like actually writing. So I think it's time just to make the promise and stick to it!

I'll just say it now...Earth Defense Force 4.1 is that last game I'm going to purchase for 6 months! This may backfire horribly because I haven't looked at games releasing in the near future yet! I figure, if I do, I'll just make up some concession for myself and compromise the whole affair if I start looking at the calendar. I just chose 6 months out of thin air but that's a pretty good length of time to hold off on buying games and even though gaming is slow going now a days, for me, I think I'll be able to finish some of the core games that have been bugging me that I haven't finished yet!

First on the list is Firewatch! I've been anticipating this game for quite a while and the one evening I played it made me excited to jump into it! The art direction drew me in immediately, and the voice acting is amazing! I'll talk more about it during the next post, but I'm excited to play the game tonight.