Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate (Nintendo 3DS) Review

When starting up Monster Hunter 4: Ultimate as an regular player of the series, it is like coming back home after a holiday. Everything is so familiar, yet things have happened during the absence. Welcomed additions have improved everyday life. Everything is the same, but still different… in the best possible way. For the new players out there, there has never been a better time to get into the Monster Hunter series.

The concept of Monster Hunter 4: Ultimate is the same simple, yet winning formula that has kept Monster Hunter afloat to this day: to slay monsters, big monsters. Monster Hunter could simply be described as an adventure RPG game with almost only boss battles, but that description would not do the formula true justice. The secret of Monster Hunter 4: Ultimate and what makes it so great is the clever design of both the monsters and the surrounding mechanics for gearing and getting items.

The list of monsters is very extensive and surprisingly diverse. One of the weaker sides of Monster Hunter 3: Ultimate was the fact that most monsters were different forms of either dinosaurs or dragons. This has been fixed here in favour of more based on existing animals. A big highlight is an extremely long snakelike monster that wraps around the player, just like a snake that is about to catch its prey. Or a crablike monster that attacks from below and walks sideways with its water beam in its attempt to kill the hunters designated to slay it. This creates a great assortment of monsters. There is a total of 98 different monsters to slay, wherein 75 of them are large, boss creatures. There is no chance of this ending quickly, not by any means.

What point is there having such a vast number if the experience itself is not good? No need to worry, since Monster Hunter 4: Ultimate covers the aspect of quality as well. With its simple to learn yet hard to master combat system, it makes every boss battle feel unique, yet familiar. The combat mechanics are mostly learned within five minutes of practicing, but it might take hundreds of hours to get truly familiar with them, especially if deciding to play with more than one weapon class, as one of the greatest things with the series is the wide range of weapon classes. Each one feels like playing an entirely different game. The mechanics are so different if choosing to rock the slow, hard-hitting Hammer than if choosing to take on the swift and agile Dual Blades. This to ensure there is a weapon class for all kinds of players to feel comfortable with.

When Monster Hunter 4: Ultimate does continue to build on the legacy of the franchise, it offers a lot of welcomed additions to the series as a whole. Monster Hunter Tri introduced underwater combat, which was not quite as successful as water levels overall and for obvious reasons are not so popular. In doing so, however, the developer opened up the idea of exploring 3D movements in the series, something that has been fully implemented in Monster Hunter 4: Ultimate. This means that now there are many more climbable surfaces. Almost all areas contain one or more climbable wall to make movement easier and more fluid. This is also used in combat to perform jump attacks that have the chance of letting the player mount the boss monster, which is an extremely fun, effective, and ingenious way of interacting with the surroundings of the world. This adds a lot of depth into an already deep battle system.

Another very big thing that is the added online functionality, since while the third generation of Monster Hunter games had online on the home console release, it did not have that in the portable versions - a decision most likely made based on the games' target demographic of Japan, as in Japan Monster Hunter is extremely big and it is not hard to find people on the subway or similar places to play with. Over here in West, however, the series is even to this day considered pretty niche, which means that it is hard finding people to explore the multiplayer portion of the game with, unless there is online or if people have a large circle of friends. The stigma of even playing videogames does not help. Therefore, this change is a very important one to fully enjoy the game, especially for those living outside of Japan.

There is, however, one problem with Monster Hunter 4: Ultimate and the franchise overall, which is the main reason why it never hit big here in West: its steep learning curve. Monster Hunter 4: Ultimate has little to no handholding as the player starts to explore the world. A short tutorial is given to learn how to kill things and combine potions, but that's about it. After that, gamers are on their own and it is a dangerous world to be in. Even at the start of the game, the difficulty level is very cruel on newcomers and it only gets worse. It is very important for the player to quickly learn the combat system and the resource management and gearing in the caravan in-between missions. This touches upon another reason that contributes to the titles' unpopularity in the West: grinding. Monster Hunter is, hands down, one of the most 'grindy' games out there, other than is MMORPGs - it has a looting system that makes most MMORPGs seem generous, by comparison. Later on, to get some armour, some parts are needed to build it but they are extremely rare, with about a 1-2% drop rate. This is very painful indeed as many boss battles take between 10-20 minutes. However, the reward is worth it.

If able to enjoy, or at least withstand, the extreme grinding elements and an initially steep learning curve, Monster Hunter 4: Ultimate is indeed a must buy. It offers some of the best combat in the world of gaming and one of the most complex gearing systems ever seen. The extreme diversity in the monsters and weapon classes creates a game that never gets stale and hundreds, maybe even thousands, of hours into it, the game still has a lot more to teach the player. Monster Hunter 4: Ultimate offers a range of content and a time sink that all but the most grind-filled MMORPGs cannot even dream to compare with… and it offers a fun time while doing so.

Returning to the world of Monster Hunter in Monster Hunter 4: Ultimate has so far been a true pleasure and to all new players there is not much more to say than "Welcome, and enjoy the stay." Monster Hunter 4: Ultimate offers the best of every game in the series so far and adds a lot of new ingredients to the mix as well.