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.