Retronauts - 707: Monster Hunter

Episode Date: August 4, 2025

What started as an attempt by Capcom to cash in on this new "online gaming" fad has escalated into the developer's biggest cash cow: Monster Hunter. Though the series saw more than its share of growing pains over the passing decades; despite the many attempts to make Monster Hunter a hit in the West, it's only become an incredibly popular crossover success in recent memory. So how did this idiosyncratic, grindy experience grow from niche audience to household name? On this episode of Retronauts, join Bob Mackey, Kat Bailey, and Brian Clark as the crew feasts on extraordinarily huge pieces of meat in preparation for the harrowing discussion ahead. Retronauts is a completely fan-funded operation. To support the show, and get two full-length exclusive episodes every month, as well as access to 100+ previous bonus episodes, please visit the official Retronauts Patreon at patreon.com/retronauts.

This week on Retronauts, we pet our Pugies. Hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Retronauts. I'm your host for this one, Bob Mackie, and this week we are talking to another episode of Retronauts. I'm your host for this one, Bob Mackie, and this week we are talking about Monster Hunter, the very unique co-op RPG that took about 15 years to catch on in the States. Not very long ago, it was scorned and mocked in the West by all but its most devoted fans. And today, it's a global hits. And the most recent release was Capcom's fastest selling game to date. So a lot has changed. And today we're here to ask what happened and also to trace the history as much as we can in 90 minutes. Before I go on any

further today, who is here with me remotely? Hey, it's your Palico, Kat Bailey, host of Acts of blood god very nice and newcomer to my episodes at least who else is here uh this is brian clark from one million power and when i get angry i yell really loud run around like a maniac for a while and then just get real tuckered out i feel like one of us should be actively grilling meat in the background here but that music would just drown out all of our voices it's unfortunate but yes uh monster honor big topic something i've had on my mind for retronauts for years all these anniversaries keep passing us unfortunately i missed the 20th anniversary so now we are here on the 21st anniversary of Monster Hunter.

And before I go on with my personal stories, I want to ask everybody out there, where did you first encounter Monster Hunter was your experience with this franchise? Let's start with a new guest to my episode, Brian. Sure. I first played Monster on, sorry, I'll sometimes have trouble translating the Japanese names to the U.S. names, because early on I played a lot of the Japanese versions. The first PSP game, Freedom, bounced off of it like crazy, decided to come back to it with Try on the Wii, fell in love with it, and have pretty much played the series ever since, including going back to Freedom Unite on the PSP for a ton of hours. Nice. I have a very similar story. We'll get to that. But first, Katz, how about you and Monster Hunter? I know I've reviewed several games while we were working together on U.S. Gamer.

Is this seriously the first retronauts for Monster Hunter? is and nobody none of our core cast wanted to be on so i feel like i am the only monster hunter guy so it is my uh responsibility to bring this to the table thank you for your service bob i appreciate you i did not get into monster hunter until monster hunter world before that but i was very monster hunter adjacent for a pretty large part of its history i was living in japan when it blew up i did many a monster hunter preview for various websites even though i didn't really understand it. And every time I would be like, this is the one. This is the one that's going to get me into it. And my friends, that was not the one that got me into it until world finally got me.

So that's my history with Monster Hunter. I think that's going to be the case for a lot of our listeners. And I think most of the Monster Hunter audiences that world brought them in. Well, as for me, I got a PSP in 2010 because I was working for a website called OneUp.com. And they asked me, do you want to review Metal Grissela Peacewalker? And I thought, yes, but I need a PSP. I went out and I bought one And then a few days later I found out Oh actually Jeremy wants to review this

But in a very nice way They gave me another review That would more than pay for the PSP And my work on the review So I had this PSP kicking around And I thought well what do I do with it And I knew Monster Hunter was a big Japanese series So I bought I think freedom

For like eight bucks on eBay It was going for very very cheap And I just jumped into it Thinking what do I do in this game What's the big deal And immediately They asked you to kill a bunch of peaceful leaf-eating dinosaurs

And I thought, well, this isn't very fun. And I just feel kind of bad. So I didn't think about it again until Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate came out for the Wii U. And someone I worked with that one-up, Jose Otero, was getting way into the game. And like many Monster Hunter fans of the past, you have someone that gives you your first hit. And then you're an addict. So Jose was my Monster Hunter dealer. And we played a ton together.

He really got me into the series. I played with him in person. I felt like a little eight-year-old, like going to his house with my Wii. played on the 3DS. I played on the Wii. It was very fun. But from that point onwards, I've been a mega fan. I've reviewed almost every game up through world. So the big chunk in the mid-2010s to late 2010s I was reviewing those and having a great time watch it really take off. But yeah, for me, I started about maybe like halfway through the series with three ultimate on the WiiU. Weirdly enough, that's what the Wii you did for me. It made me a Monster Hunter fan. So the format of this podcast, we're going to be

talking about the history of Monster Hunter, and then we're going to break down the different eras as best we can in these 90 minutes. I feel like we'll only get through world, hopefully, but we want to let everyone know just how much this series has changed, and just how much it really hasn't changed since the initial releases. So I want to go back to Monster Hunter Origins. Let's travel to the mythical year of 2004 to see what Capcom's up to. And there are a much different company than they are today. So I went back and I looked at their release date. They're released slate from that era, and they're really in a slump. So, Resident Evil, kind of not that exciting.

People aren't that interested in it. It still has a lot of power as an IP, but it won't be reinvented until 2005 when everybody freaks out about Resident Evil again. Devil May Cry 2, I'm sure it's sold very well. It's a game that everybody kind of hates to this day, not an exciting sequel. And then other new properties, they're getting off the Groundlink Beautiful Joe. It's a great game, but the enthusiasm isn't there. So they're just kind of throwing stuff at the wall. right now to see what works like what if they make a Mega Man X RPG what if they make a I think two nightmare before Christmas games why don't they do that so anything that will get them a hit they're trying they don't have these reliable wheelhouses as much as they do today so the time was perfect for a weird concept like Monster Hunter are either of you like in touch with the weirdness of Capcom at this point in history wow I didn't own a PS2 until two

2005. However, I did have a GameCube, and I was very invested in the Capcom 5, I believe it was, where they were putting out games like, what, PN-O-3, and Beautiful Joe. Killer 7. And The Various Resident Evil remakes. And Beautiful Joe was one that I was especially interested in, because to my mind at that time, It was absolutely gorgeous, gorgeous game, and I rented it from some service, and I found it very difficult, but I really enjoyed the aesthetics and the bullet time. At that time, cell animation was very fresh and new and felt very next gen compared to what was capable on the PS1. So from my standpoint at that time,

Resident Evil was starting to get a little long of the tooth and needed a reinvention, which we would get with four. And Mega Man, they were kind of going, I don't know, I don't know, we'll make some really bad 3D Mega Man's for the PS2. Sorry, Nadia, please don't come after me. And they, yeah, so I think you're right in that many of their franchises were in flux around this time period. And Beautiful Joe, for as good as it was, definitely did not.

It was definitely not a system seller. A lot of its GameCube games are not system sellers. Yeah, and game development in general has changed a lot. Obviously, it's an obvious statement. But Capcom is so conservative now because I think they really will only make Resident Evil Street Fighter and Monster Hunter. We can't get a new Devil May Cry game. We can't get a new Ace attorney.

Even these things that are proven hits for them, they only want to stick to the biggest brands. And I get it. But they're a very different company today. But Monster Hunter for them eventually became a big hit. It's worth noting that their fighting game scene was falling off hard around this time as well. Because after Third Strike, there was this huge barium period where arcades were dying. There wasn't online wasn't good enough to support fighting games.

So they were just becoming more and more of a niche proposition until around, I believe, 2009 with the release of Street, Fighter 4. So it was a dark time in that regard as well. Yeah, that's a great point, Kat. I think that's why they turned to some of these other weirdo online games that we're going to talk about in a minute as opposed to like trying to make fighting games work because, yeah, you're right. They were pretty much buried at this point. Yeah, fighting games were a pillar for them for, I would say, more than a decade. And as an outsider to the fighting game scene, it seemed like they dropped off completely from the 90s, from the late 90s to Street Fighter 4 and I think like 2008. But in the early

odds, going back to that time period, the PS2 absolute juggernaut, still the best-selling console of all time. Maybe the Switch 1 will beat it in a few years, who knows. But Capcom decided to launch this initiative to make software for the PlayStation 2's network adapter, the thing that brought you into the world of

online gaming. And the goal was to have one of these three titles in development to sell one million copies. Those titles were Resident Evil Outbreak, auto modelista, and Monster Hunter, and I'll give you zero clues as to which one sold a million. It's the obvious one. It's the driving one, right?

Yes. And that's why we're all playing the yearly sequels to Auto Modolista. And in case you don't know what that is, that is, I mean, I'm sure there's more to it, but that is a cell-shaded racing game. And that's all I know about it. But actually, I didn't even know it was online. Go ahead, Kat. The internet, which is always correct, insists that the original Monster Hunter did sell more

than a million units in Japan, but I cannot find a source that confirms this. Yeah, I couldn't, from everything I read, it wasn't, maybe it was kind of a sleeper hit in Japan, but it was really when... But it didn't really pick up until freedom, right? I don't think. Maybe if you count freedom, which is a, this is very complicated, it's a reworking of the second release of the original Monster Hunter, maybe that will add it up to a million, but it didn't really do anything for Capcom.

It was just, here's a weird experiment. Do you guys want to play something like this? I think it was a cult favorite in Japan until freedom comes along and people start, starts turning people's heads. Yeah. The online service in Japan certainly took years longer to be shut off. I think it was like five years after the PS2 online service got shut off for Monster Hunter 1 or something like that. Yeah. It hung around for a very long time, right? Yeah. And it's a shame because there's some lost content. And actually, there's a lot of lost content that was exclusive to the online game. games. Whole monsters. I believe Kieran.

Kieran. Laoshen Long, I believe. Fatalis. I missed this error completely because I was also playing games on PC. And I thought, like, well, there's no, for me, no killer app for the PS2 online. So I don't know about either of you, too, but all of this online connectivity, all this online content. You didn't like Socom? I sold a lot of copies of Socom with that headset back when I worked at a game store.

Me too. It didn't seem like. a great proposition. Actually, it looked kind of crappy to me, just in terms of how it looked. But the original Monster Hunter, I was trying to see, like, who is the creator, who is the main guy behind it, looking at it, I'm sure there are people that can be credited

for more of the essential ideas, but it feels like it was always this collaborative effort by a lot of people at Capcom. But the face of Monster Hunter is a guy named Ryozo Sujimoto, who just happens to be the son of Capcom's founder. How do you get the job? I wonder. Good interviewer, is what I'll say. He's a great interviewer.

But he got his start in the late 90s planning arcade games for Capcom games like TechRomancer and Battle Circuit not like huge games for Capcom but he was working in the design phase of making Capcom games

and he ended up working on all of these games that were built around this network connectivity and yes Monster Hunter started as a PS2 game even though for a long time Monster Hunter was known as the portable experience now I think we're going back to thinking of it as a console game but

I guess maybe it's going back to its roots now with things like World and Rise and Wilds. But it would be known as a portable series later, and that's where it explodes not long after this. And this first Monster Hunter does receive a U.S. release, which I just, I never saw this. Maybe it was not on my radar. It looked like any other game I wasn't that interested in. But this was really panned by critics.

And if the website that reviewed it is still online, which is two of them, they reviews for this game are still online. So IGN's review is online. GameSpot's reviews are online. And you can see just how people didn't get it. Also, this was not the ideal Monster Hunter experience quite yet. But you see comparisons to things like Fantasy Star Online and EverQuest and saying, well, it feels like a lesser version of that. And that is already the previous era's online generation.

So Capcom wasn't quite ready with this initial release, it seems. The world was not ready for Monster Hunter in 2004. That's part of it, too. that's part of it too and I've never played the debut and I've watched a lot of videos

I've read up on a lot of it we'll talk about some of the interesting qualities later but despite the core essential components

being the same it is a very awkward game with not a lot of unique content and the network functionality even in 2004

it felt like a bit of a relic although even today Monster Hunter's online lobbies are still a little bad it's so weird that in 2025

we can complain now in this section. It's so weird in 2025, I can't just tell Monster Hunter, show me what active quests are happening anywhere near me instead of having to like hunt for like, okay, search qualification, look for this monster or any quests happening with this monster. There are too many steps involved. They have not actually figured it out even to this day. It's true. It's gotten better for sure, but they still haven't streamlined it. Yeah, I was playing Wilds on PC when the demo was happening. And I spent, I think, a solid 30.

minutes trying to figure out how to party up with my friends who were playing on PS5. It's crazy. Yeah. And then if you go back, this is just Complaint Corner, but if you go back to an older game like Rise or World, and they still have a very active player base, you don't even know the first place to look in terms of finding random people because you don't know who is hunting what. It's crazy. Maybe with the next sequel, they'll figure this out. But things did improve a little bit. So the first monster hunter that comes and goes, we'll give this. We'll give this a sequel. There's some promise here.

So 2006 brings us Monster Hunter 2 That doesn't come to the USA in this form Excuse me, it's called Monster Hunter Dose You know, that confused me a long time ago for a while Because I thought, oh, they made this for DOS What's going on here? I didn't know they were making DOS games in 2006 Monster Hunter DOS, DOS, DOS, this did not come out in the West

Because very late era PS2 game Sequel to a game that didn't sell well although recently some crazy people just gave this a full translation so if you want to patch it you can play this emulator or however you want to do it

via your own means so this has been translated but after these first kind of slumps Monster Hunter's true savior arrives in the form of Sony's new portable system the PSP because it can kind of handle PS2 level graphics in its own way

it was relatively easy for Capcom to kind of slide this onto the new platform without a ton of extra work just to get more sales for this game series that wasn't really taking off. And it turned the initial networking experience into a purely in-person social experience. It would take very long for the series to go back to you being able to go online via just regular internet to hunt with other people. So 2005's Monster Hunter Freedom, very well-named, was an enhanced port of the first Monster Hunter's second release. This is getting very complicated.

Stick with me here. This kicks off a new era for the series But according to Capcom themselves According to the fan base The series really explodes with Monster Hunter Freedom 2 Because this comes out in 2007 This is when it starts becoming a phenomenon in Japan And Kat, I believe this is around the time

That you were living there in the late odds How much were you a party to Monster Hunter mania When you were in Japan? I became aware of Monster Hunter because it suddenly started to become impossible to ignore. So when I first moved to Japan, the Nintendo DS Light had just come out. And in the subways, it was all DS Lights,

lots and lots of people playing DS Light. And I loved that. And then I started to notice more and more PSPs. And people were always playing the same game on PSP and that game was Monster Hunter. And then I started walking past McDonald's. and various shopping malls, and there would be giggles of high school kids and office workers, all sitting around with their PSP, all playing Monster Hunter.

And I was like, I don't know what the heck this game is, but it looks pretty cool, and it seems very popular. And so the PSP suddenly started to become ubiquitous, circa 2008, which was my last year in Japan. And there was a real social pressure going on there in offices. If you wanted to be part of the collective, you went out for drinks. Also, you played Monster Hunter if you were a guy. And I had multiple people that I knew over there.

Milky, John Ricardy, those kinds of people. They were all big on the Monster Hunter. And they would be like, you play Monster Hunter cat? And I'd be like, no, no, I'm not cool enough to be playing Monster Hunter. Call me in 10 years. How about some Picto chat while we drink? Yeah. And now, excuse me, I'm playing Pokemon.

But Pokemon, actually, I mentioned Pokemon. In Japan, my understanding is that Monster Hunter is viewed as what you graduate to. So all the kids would be playing Pokemon when they were kids. And then they would get a PSP, the big kid system. And they would graduate in high school to playing Monster Hunter with all of their friends. Because Pokemon's for the kids. So there's a good yin and yang kind of going.

going on between the two. So those are my main memories of Monster Hunter. This is when I became very aware of it. And then I went to TGS 2008 and 2009, and there started to be a Monster Hunter thing there every single year. And every single year, the Monster Hunter at that booth, the Capcom booth, was like the biggest thing that you were going to be seeing at TGS. And everybody would be lining up to play the latest, I think Freedom Unite,

was on there was on display one year there was another year where um i don't remember monster hunter three for the for try was it try for the wee was definitely on display there one year and they would have you playing you know whatever the monster was and i'd be assigned to go do a preview so i go do a preview and i would start playing it and i'd be like god this is slow what am i doing i'm just getting knocked over a lot ah and i i i understood that there was something there, but I didn't get it. And what I didn't get was just the nuances of the combat, how it all worked, why it felt like you were just sluggishly rolling around getting annihilated by this monster who would not die because you were hitting it with a million

times with your sword. And now I very much appreciated, but at the time, well, it didn't make the greatest first impression. No, Monster Hunter is probably the worst demoing game of all time. The demo to actual game quality ratio is way off. But Brian, you weren't living in Japan, but you told me and the notes here that you were around when the phenomenon was happening. My first trip to Japan was 2008, I think, like May 2008. So maybe we passed each other at some point, Kat. But the first thing I remember noticing, I think, when I went to Akihabara or something, was a giant monster hunter. 2G Freedom Unite

Billboard. And like Kat mentioned, like, just going into McDonald's and you couldn't help but notice the gaggles of people all playing Monster Hunter. So that's kind of when I first, my eye first turned to it, even though I'd heard its name before that. It was

impossible to ignore. And despite it taking off in Japan, it was kind of like a Pokemon level phenomenon where it was a big hit for a while before it caught on in the West. So the West doesn't really care about the PSP or Monster unfortunately. I did our PSP episode of this podcast about a decade ago, and it surprised me to learn that the PSP kind of had a 14-year window, sorry, 14-month window of relevance

in America before the DS dominated it. And people playing the DS didn't necessarily care about online multiplayer or in-person multiplayer. They wanted to play brain training or some of the more casual experiences the DS was offering compared to the PSP. And also because of our sprawling North American continent, it is much harder to get together with people in person to play games like Monster Hunter. So it was just not fit for the North American lifestyle. And it also didn't help that these games kept reviewing very poorly. If you look at reviews of later games in the series up through maybe three Ultimate, you're seeing a lot of sixes out of tens. You're seeing a lot of sevens out of tens. I don't know if these people were given enough time to sit with the software

or enough chances to play with other people. But clearly, it took a very long time for the West to understand the appeal of the games. And the games had to get a little more user-friendly as well. Maybe if Capcom had like assigned them a coach or something throughout the review process, that would have worked better. Like I said, Jose Otero was my Monster Hunter dealer. And like he got me into the series, but first he showed me this website where you would go on, you would buy like this $10 guide.

And it was essentially, here's how you get started in Monster Hunter. Here are all the things need to learn. It's still on my, on my tablet somewhere. but it was just the documentation Capcom was not offering new players now so much of that onboarding is in the game itself honestly too much with the newest release but I really needed like a coach and a guy to get me into the world and I was kind of doing the same thing with my wife because she tried playing she played a lot of iceborne but then she couldn't get into uh rise but we played a ton of wilds together and it just helps to have someone in the room who's played a ton like in my case that was Jose he had played a ton he's like I know exactly what to do I know things, I know this doesn't make any sense, but here's what you need to do in this situation or here's what men you need to use. So, yeah, I think in many cases you still kind of need a coach. There was a period all the way up through Monster Hunter 4 where that was the one on the 3DS, right?

I can never keep track of all of them. Through the 3DS where people were saying, this is it. This is the one that's going to put the series on the map in the U.S. I remember when the Wii version came out. It was kind of a big deal because it was a big traditional game on the Wii. It was an exclusive. And it was a home console version, which was really made it stand out compared to other entries in the series. Because at the time, it was known primarily as a portable game series.

And every time people, usually me, Kat, were predicting, this is it. Monster Hunter is going to get big. I'm definitely going to be playing this one. and then it would seemingly not catch on until a world finally in 2018. Yeah, I was hoping for them to catch on because I had nobody to play with in person for a very, very long time. If you had said, Kat, come play Monster Hunter in like 2011 or 2012. I'd be like, well, I'll give it a shot and probably I would have gotten into it much earlier. It's a huge ask for something that require.

It's sort of like playing a board game for the first time where they're just somebody has to sit there and keep explaining the rules And you're like, when does this get fun? When does it get fun? But even though it didn't catch on in the West, we still saw a lot of the Monster Hunter likes come over and sell pretty well or at least make some sort of an impact. And I mentioned Peace Walker. Well, that is a lot to do with Monster Hunter because Peace Walker, an essential main title in the Metal Gear series, is essentially Monster Hunter in its own way. Yes, you have the standard solid snake action or big boss action in this case where you're sneaking through places, tranking dudes, building your base, etc. But the boss fights are just Monster Hunter boss fights. And if you're like me in playing Peace Walker alone, they suck until you really learn how to cheese them. But they're meant to be played with a ton of other people. And then like even Final Fantasy did one. I think Final Fantasy explorers was there. Do the Final Fantasy do two?

Did they do two? I'm sure. At least two variants, if I recall correctly, it wasn't, please fact check me, dear listener. I remember demoing these games back in the day and writing. about them for one-ups so but I feel like Square took at least a couple of stabs at trying to make this happen yeah even before this was a hit in the west uh the games were coming over here I think even like freedom wars was one of those that was a monster hunter they remastered that one yeah and I had fun with that at a demo but I thought wow monster hunter won't sell here so what is this

going to do and apparently it didn't do very well it was a Vita game too so that didn't really help. But Capcom at least didn't give up on the series, and they show a little more enthusiasm in the West throughout the early and mid-2010s. We get a Wii U and 3DS release of 3 Ultimate. The company publishes various versions of 4 and generations on the 3DS. This is when the era in which the series becomes a 3DS series for the most part. But even so, it's still a niche experience for hardcore gamers, but we start to see a real change in how these games are covered. journalists are willing to give them a chance they are less dismissive of these games

and the stance changes on these from like oh it's this weird Japanese thing to well there is an intention to this and you need to sit down with it and be patient and honestly everyone's going to roll their damn eyes at me but I think it's because of Dark Souls Dark Souls was a game changer in terms of how we approach games in terms

of criticism not just playing them and I feel like that let people know all right if this game is pushing you away you need to try to meet it on its own terms or at least try to understand what it's doing before you say, well, this is stupid, and I don't want to play it anymore. I totally agree. And, I mean, you could go back to Demon Souls, really.

Yeah, yeah. There was that pretty famous video. Famous, I guess you could say, where I was on, where I was saying, Demon Souls, I think this thing has a chance to make it. And it, and ladies and gentlemen, it did. And you're totally right, because, I mean, critics at that time were becoming conditioned to big-budget AAA experiences of the type like Gears of War was very was a big deal at that time. We were seeing a lot of games getting very streamlined and the conventional wisdom was that a game had to be as accessible as possible.

So to play a game that was defiantly itself and not too worried about what mainstream audiences felt was shocking but also novel. and I think that created an entire generation of critics who came of age playing games like the Souls series who specialized in it who could appreciate the nuances of a game like Monster Hunter, which was not your typical hack-in-slash action game and if you notice like every clone that came around this time by the way I was doing a bunch of Googling it's just Final Fantasy Explorers

I was thinking maybe one of the Crystal Chronicle sequels or spin-offs or something would be like it, but it was just explorers. Horrible game. Yeah, it was it bad. I don't remember it very well. I don't know anyone who's played it except for Brian who just admitted to it right now. Oh, God.

But all of these games, their reaction was always, well, what if we took Monster Hunter, but we added a fast-paced devil-may-cry-like action layer to it, and then we can be even bigger than Monster Hunter. But Monster Hunter always understood that the satisfaction, was understanding the nuances of its battle system and then grinding and achieving mastery. So it worked in that way,

and I think that's why it's had staying power, a lot more staying power compared to many of these games, which in their own way are a little bit boring. And the reason that Monster Hunter works, not just the nuance, so when you get a good shot on a monster, you really feel it. Like it reacts, it stumbles, you can stun it, you can do all kinds of different things to it. and it has a fighting game aspect to it

like Capcom's fighting game Bonafides really start to appear in all of these games and I think that's cool it is a duel with these creatures Even going back to the earlier generations with limited hardware capabilities

they spent a lot of time on the animation to make sure you felt everything you could telegraph things you could tell when animations were about to start or finish they spent so much time on that now they have all the freedom they want because of you know it's a PC game

It's a PS5 game. But we mentioned that turning point. And I think it was also, in the West at least, critics were conditioned to think it's over for Japan. They're done. All their games are weird and bad. The Last of Us, and that's the perfect game. Let's all talk about this.

Shotgun to the face. Yes, exactly. We all want more headshots. And then, of course, Japan was making a lot of weird and bad games. I understand where the reputation was coming from. But then things like Dark Souls and Demon Souls did help us reevaluate the Japanese game industry. And I worked in an office with a lot of people thinking no one can actually like Dark Souls. There's nobody who actually thinks this game is fun.

And I would hear these complaints in the office, and I thought, I like Dark Souls, but I was pretty low on the total pool. I gave it a perfect score for Game Pro. And people are like, certain high-profile game critics were wondering aloud on social media at that time what people were smoking for saying that Dark Souls was ever a perfect score. Yeah. Well, ha-ha, I got you. I gave it an A-plus on a review that's no longer online. So does it really matter. My review is no longer online too.

Hey. Internet Archive can help us out. Games media. Nothing I've made that I don't own is online, unfortunately. But I can just say whatever I can. I can say I wrote a million articles and they're all deleted. So I can make up my own past. Yes.

Please do. But, yes, Capcom trying to make this work in the West. And after many attempts to get it to catch on over here, they roll the dice and they make Monster Hunter War world, which is the first mainline Monster Hunter title created for the HD era. There's a lot of asterisks there, but I think this checks out in terms of

what my description is. And this became basically like, what was this? About 15 years after the series began is when we finally get the first true HD experience. And everything before this was basically PSP era graphics

or those kind of graphics but presented in a high resolution because you're playing it on the Wii. But this is exactly what Monster Hunter needed to attract a new audience. Many refinements were made many things were simplified, but I think it was really the presentation and the better

online lobbies and capabilities that drew in a massive audience. Also multi-platformed helped as well. But this became the highest selling Capcom title of all time with over 23 million shipped if you include the expansion and I am.

So Monster Hunter went from being this who cares kind of thing in the West. being the number one Capcom game period. Who knows? Maybe Wilds will beat it, but this seemed to be a massive turning point

for the series. I don't want to quibble too much. I think we were very well on the way there with four because I know a lot of people who picked it up with four, get that circle pad pro on the 3DS.

I never got into it, but it was not because I bounced off it. It was because I just didn't have time or I just didn't have a group of friends. that I could play with, but my housemate Ryan got into it with it. And my understanding is that Monster Hunter 4 was actually the first time that it managed to sell a million units in the West. It's also worth noting that Monster Hunter,

Nintendo stealing Monster Hunter for the 3DS was quietly a very big cue over the PlayStation portable. And I think was the death knell of the Vita. Absolutely. I mean, a lot of other. things killed it too, like the bad memory cards and the price and everything, but not having Monster Hunter going over to the 3DS, that was the one that really killed it dead in my estimation. Yeah. Freedom Wars and Soul Sacrifice for as much as I like Soul Sacrifice. Not quite doing it.

Not going to cut it. Yeah, I wasn't even thinking of that. I mean, the big Monster Hunter boom was in the late odds, but it's not like the series got unpopular. It just was quietly remaining a massive hit and bringing people to the 3DS en masse in Japan at least. But it was picking up a little scene. I think they made that CirclePad Pro just from Austria. Oh, they had two of. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

And I used it. That was like the only game I ever used it for. And it did help a lot. Oh yeah. So, Brian, you were a fan, probably the longest of any of us on this podcast. What was your take watching it as it became a more mainstream hits? I mean, I think the thing that I agree with Kat that it was kind of getting there was for, but I think the best move that they made, if they really wanted Western popularity,

was to pull it away from being a portable system game again, because by and large, you know, right wrong or whatever, that's just kind of not the way things work here, at least worked then. And I think, like, bringing into that high definition was really what did it. I was actually a little more down on the series during the 3DS years, not because I had any particular grudge against the 3DS, but even with the Circlepad Pro, and I say this is a person who will establish in a moment played a lot on the PSP, this 3DS did not feel good in my hands to hold for that long.

And so that actually caused me to play a lot less of the 3DS versions than I would have before or after. But I mean, I always felt the whole time that it was only, you know, it was going to get its day. And it was very satisfying to see it kind of slowly but surely like creeping toward it. Because you could tell with every subsequent entry that like it was getting its hooks, its claws, I guess, in there kind of, you know, more and more and more. Yeah, I'm glad you brought up the ergonomic factor of Monster Hunter because I've played, I'm guessing, maybe a thousand hours of Monster Hunter in my life,

which is not a lot if you're a Monster Hunter fan. But it's one of those games that makes me think, I'm surprised they don't have carpal tunnel syndrome. How do I not have any serious debilitating problems with my wrists and fingers? Your hands just twisted into a claw. Maybe at that time I met my 70s, they'll just be gnarled hooks. As a person who did adopt the claw on a couple of those PSP games, I am very happy to report that I have no joint problems yet.

I just remember I played so much of it on 3DS. And my hands would just go numb having to lock them into that perfect position. Yes. So now that it's on consoles, I just, it's so much more comfortable. It's great. My trigger fingers kind of hurt after a while for all the R2 and L2 stuff you have to do in those games. So we have World, highest selling Capcom title of all time. They couldn't quite capture that same magic again.

But the following games were not, you know, undersellers in any way. So we have Monster Hunter Rise. It brought a lot of welcome additions, despite being designed for the underpowered switch. It was more of a return to form for those who wanted something a little closer to the older experience, but with still a ton of quality of life improvements. This one sold 19 million if you include the expansion, so not that much less than World.

And then as of this recording, we're just a handful of months out from the release of Monster Hunter Wilds, which has been Capcom's fastest selling game of all time. It might go on to be the best selling game of all time, who knows. But this is a big hit. And this proves that the public's fascination with world was not just a one-time thing. World attracted the most people, and it's been a continual hit worldwide since that big release. Yeah, Monster Hunter World was really a big breakthrough. And, well, I have my own theories on that as someone who got into it with Monster Hunter World.

One of them was just, I think making it seamless was a huge, huge improvement because it was still zonal. strictly speaking, but the world felt alive and it was multi-layered and it was really enjoyable to explore and experience and I believe

a not long after World a remake of one of the older monster hunters came out on the switch and it was noticeable the difference and I don't want to drag older games. It was just

one was going to resonate more with mainstream action fans than the other, and that one was Monster Hunter World. And it helped that the presentation in that game. That was right around the time that the RE engine was starting to take off. Did they use the RE engine with Monster Hunter World? I believe so. Maybe I think. Yeah, because I think it debuted with Resident Evil 7.

Please fact-check this. I'm going to fact-check this one just to make sure that. Either way, this is around the time that, Capcom's presentation started to really take off. So, like, the year before, Resident Evil 7 comes out. And that was when you start to go, oh, oh, Capcom's back. Because Capcom had a really terrible time. Monster Hunter was definitely a bright spot.

But games like Resident Evil 6, not good. I'm sorry. So Resident Evil 7 comes out and it's like, whoa, Monster, we're back here. And then Monster Hunter World comes out the year. after. And it feels like such a leap in terms of technical presentation for the series that it really turned heads and brought in a huge number of new fans. And I remember playing it for the first time and being in awe as I walked through the world, through the jungles, through the world, watching the monsters attack one another. The gameplay felt so much smoother than it had

in the past. So it made a lot more sense to me. There is, I wrote this whole article about fighting a pink rathian and how it felt like this epic duel from one from the top of the canopy all the way down to the bottom and we were just fighting tooth and claw

with my long sword which I really should not have chosen as my weapon at the time because that was kind of an advanced weapon in hindsight. Maybe I should have picked the great sword and then Iceborne came out and even though the clutch claw was a little broken it was even

better in many respects. And that was when I discovered that you should really just wait until the expansion's out, because that's if you don't want to just grind for everything again. Yeah, that's true. No, I'm glad you brought that up, Kat, because I loved

World, and I'm not sure if we'll get to Rise in our discussion because it's further down the list, but when I played Rise, I realized the things that made World more realistic are things I actually don't like in retrospect because Rise has more of segmented maps. It's still one contiguous map, but each space

feels like a separate room in the terms of the old games. A big room. Yeah, yeah, a very, very large room with a huge sky box. A big flat room. And I kind of like that more because there was less hoofing around. And then they changed it and rise so you no longer have to track the monster. And then I went black and I played World Today and I was like,

man, tracking the monster is annoying. I used to like doing this. That's crazy. Yeah. And I'm glad we don't have to do that with Wild. By the way, it's called the MT Frameworks. Sorry, it wasn't the audience. That's right. My bad. My bad. My bad. Oh, so was World still an empty framework?

Yeah. Oh, wow. And then it came out on PC, and the PC version, playing that game in 60 FPS was such an eye-opener for me. And it ran really well. That was one of the first times that I became aware of like DLSS and things like that. And so I think that brought in another wave of people because that was right around the time that Steam was, I think, really starting. to take off into its current era. Yeah, I think so.

Thank you. So now we're going to talk about the different eras of Monster Hunter. We're going to get as far as we can into this. Maybe we'll come back for part two at some point in the future if we don't make it through. But I want to sum up what each era of Monster Hunter was like. And of course, these are very complex, very nuanced games. I can't go over every change, every little shade of difference between them. But we're going to do our best to pull out the main facts here.

And these eras are defined by me just in a way to sort them in a way that makes sense. So I want to focus on the first era first, and this includes Monster Hunter 1, 2, or Dose, and the PSP ports. So the original PS2 games have very, very weird controls. And we think of Monster Hunter in terms of them being like a fighting game with combos. You basically have kind of like a weak attack and a strong attack and a special attack, and you can string them all together to do these fun combos and different moves. Well, in Monster Hunter 1, you just used your right analog stick to attack. And I've never played this game, but that sounds awkward as hell.

It's terrible. I went back and played it after the fact. I did not get in with Monster Hunter 1. But, like, for example, if you're a hammer user, you're just tapping up on that right analog stick repeatedly to do a hammer pound. It's pretty rough. It sounds like Mario Party 1 in that case it's designed to destroy a controller so you'll buy a new one. Or at least, like, put a big welts on your thumb. But they're trying things with, they're trying new things.

things like what if you attack this way? What if there was a game that was online? These are all new things for Capcom. And if you look at various videos and descriptions of the game, I didn't have access to this so I couldn't play it. You can see a surprising amount of the basic elements are in place in terms of how quests work, how items work, how the controls work, even certain animations, they never really broke from their basic form. But in this first release, the amount of weapons, surprisingly small weapon types, the amount of monster surprisingly small. And things get a little complicated in terms of naming schemes at this point because we have Monster Hunter Freedom, which is an enhanced port of the second version of Monster Hunter called Monster Hunter G. And the whole enhanced semi-sequel was a Japanese trend that I think has gone away. It's such a Capcom trend. I mean, it makes sense that they had a Monster Freedom Unite,

given that they had a Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo. Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo. So this was all in line with their various conventions. I'm just thinking of how so many Japanese games like Final Fantasy will have the International Edition or Persona will have. International Zodiac Edition. There you go. And Persona will have, you know, Royal Edition or Fez in Persona 3's case. It was, I'm not sure if we're still doing this as much, but it was a very big tradition in Japan then.

It's kind of like double dip on a game release like that. that. But yes, we have Freedom and this is when fans of the PSP will now shape their hands into that horrible claw because they get rid of the second analog stick controls because there is no second analog stick. And then

we have, we're speeding through this because this is not the more interesting part of this discussion. We have Freedom 2 which comes out over here as Freedom Unite, which adds a very incredible amount of content to keep up with the hunger for more Monster Hunter without having to create

new game because Capcom is sort of stuck with these things they created and when they put the first one on the PSP if they're noticing all people like this. Let's give them more, but let's not work too hard. Let's see what's going on here before we start with three. And then two, uh, sorry, freedom unite or portable seconds, again, very complicated, has a ton of content in it. You can basically play it forever. Thousands of like tons of weapons, tons of armor. It's so much to do. And I think it's, I think it was this one. It came out in 2007, I want to say. I think this was the one that really set the series in Japan,

where suddenly I could not avoid it. I remember when it came out, and all of a sudden, just everywhere, everywhere in Japan. Yeah. Yeah, and really, Brian. I went back and played this one a little bit after I really got into the series properly with the next game we're about to talk about. but going back to 2G slash freedom unite it's just there's a seemingly endless amount of content in that game it's really difficult to imagine unless you go back and look at it because you had all these download quests as well back in the days of the PSP where you would briefly connect to the internet to get special quests that gave you like tie up weapons and armor like here's the you get you get

You still kind of get a little bit of this, but like, here, you get Universal Studios Japan tickets for beating this Pink Raytheon or whatever, and you get just like some sort of crazy weapon or whatever. It's just, you really could just keep playing it forever. It's so funny. Yeah, it feels like the monster hunters outside of World and Wilds are meant to be played forever. Like, I went back to Rise, a game I played for 150 hours, just to see, what else do I need to do? Oh, there's hundreds of quests. And then, not to complain about Wilds, game I did enjoy about 60 hours in I'm done with content until the updates

I've done every quest I've even done the ones that are boring and I don't want to do them interesting system one thing that I found interesting was that I guess Monster Hunter Dose had a seasonal system which makes me feel like Capcom was falling in the footsteps of Pokemon a little bit

because you had a day-night system you had a seasonal system and you could access these by I guess by taking a rest and going to sleep but one of the issues with the seasonal system one of the reasons it wasn't popular was that it was locking out certain kinds of quests so it was considered to be annoying

so for example there would be like the breeding season which was really good for gathering materials because all the herbivores would be out and then there was the ice season and then there was a hot season the cold season of course I think you would have to use the hot drink in order to keep, because it used to be a lot more unforgiving. Oh, boy, did it ever.

About making sure that you maintain your status. Now it's like practically an afterthought. You don't even really think about that. But at the time, way more so. It was like packing for a camping trip before very recently. And I kind of liked that, if I'm being totally honest. It could be annoying where you could just be defeated by a monster through sheer attrition. But, I mean, that really hit at the survival slash RPG aspects of Monster Hunter at the time.

But they dropped the seasonal mode by the time they did Monster Hunter Freedom, Unite? Or was it just Monster Hunter? It was only in Monster Hunter 2, the PS2, the PS2, the PS2, sorry, DOS. That did not continue onto the PSP ones. Definitely did not. No. And so we have freedom to, sorry, we have Freedom Unite. This is so complicated.

Freedom Unite is second G. It was the final, well, not the final PSP one, but the final PSP one with the number two in it. Yes. And I wanted to make note of big additions that have stuck around. This is where we get the feline comrade system, which allows you to recruit a bunch of cat warriors, and then you can bring one along as a partner. and they've definitely really built off of this and that's an entirely complex system of its own. But the basic fundamentals of recruiting these warriors

and growing them and training them, it all starts here and the fundamentals have not really changed. No, and it looks, I have not played the original Monster Hunter, but the original Monster Hunter does feel, does have the look. It is very recognizably Monster Hunter. And it's quite amazing how much actually continue on throughout the years. I mean, it's iterative, as we were just alluding to, the seasonal stuff did not make it in. But a lot of stuff that is still a pillar of the series today,

like the cat warrior system that you were just alluding to, the palico system, that is still a staple even now. Yeah, like the Bronze Age aesthetic or whatever you want to define it as the pictographs that represent the different monsters, like the visuals and the vibe. Oh, yeah. That was the first thing that, caught my eye actually about Monster Hunter Freedom Unite was I'd be looking over at the load screens and I'd go, oh, that's kind of a cool load screen.

Wow, that load screen sure sure stays on that load screen for a long time. That was the other thing that I noticed. A lot of loading until very recently. And I guess I can point this out now. I've played these games for over a thousand hours. I'm a huge fan of the series.

I think most of the monster names stink and they just slide off my brain. I can maybe name five if I see an image of them, but so many of them are like, I don't know, I don't know. Is that Arathian or Arathelos? I always get the two confused. I don't think I remember the name of a single new monster from Wilds.

Yeah, I definitely don't. This is not like Pokemon where they decided, all, let's make these more marketable. They're like, they're not going to be marketable at all. You'll need to like Google them whenever you see them on the screen. Like it's yellow. It's got, it's bipedal. Which one is this? And yet, when you see the name, things will start to pop in your head because they're,

They all have different personalities, vibes. You probably have memories of fighting them. Things like the Nargagante, which I say that. And that's just a whole vibe from Monster Hunter world. And you keep going, or you say Diablo's. And you go, oh, God, God, I hate fighting. Oh, yeah, I know Diablos. Yeah.

But Monster Hunter has the audacity to have a Bereth and a Berreuth. and they make those two creatures as different as possible. It's crazy. But yes, that is Monster Hunter's first era. Let's talk about Era 2, which is when I jumped on board, or try, if you will. So the third generation of Monster Hunter kicks off on the we of all things, though we're going to be seeing various ports of this and upgrades to this across the next four years. So this is a very foundational title until we get to four in generations.

And they wipe the slate clean. They eliminate all but the most popular monsters. and give this game a new setting. And the one weird change they made they never went back to, instead of recruiting cute little kitties, you now recruit small indigenous people. Shakalakas. Yeah, chakalakas.

And some of the games do have some creepy colonialist content, which doesn't feel like it's made with any malice. It's just a natural side effect of making these stories about, we have to conquer nature and take over these lands. But I'm glad you're no longer recruiting indigenous people with little masks on. I like the cats more. And other things we have That some of them have made a return

Like underwater battles These were so tedious They brought them back in wilds Just to I think to put a point We can actually do this Yeah Did they? Yes, with the Lagia Cruz?

Go ahead and go ahead. Yeah, they're not really the same though So for starters, I liked underwater battles. I'm the one person Explain yourself, sir. I didn't like that they made you seek out oxygen sources. I think they could have done

without that part but I think that if they would have done that without the oxygen part it might have stuck because I this is just my opinion

but I don't think the controls are really that much weirder underwater and like those monsters that they made for try that were underwater first like Logiocrys like

Goebel some other ones I'm forgetting Royal Ludros the most fun way was to fight them underwater because they were Kind of like shadows of themselves on land, like by design. You could tell, oh, this guy is much weaker and has much more predictable moves when he gets on land.

And so when they brought it back for Wilds recently, you can go underwater after Loggy, but you don't really, like, fight him with your weapon. You're just able to, like, hook onto him and hit the button a little bit and do some damage before he throws you off. So it's kind of like an homage to it, but it's not a full underwater fighting. us back. I just played that for the first time yesterday and I like it from a set piece angle but it does really limit your functionality. And I guess I never hated the underwater stuff. It just felt the most awkward part is like

okay the monster swims away after you like swim towards it, hit it and then it's going to swim away again. Getting to the monster element was a little tedious. That's, I'll admit to that. That's true. I don't think you're alone. I think there are a lot of people, Brian. Oh, really? You like those underwater battles.

Okay. Because everybody I know whoever played try will always say you know what it was awesome battling La Giacris underwater I hope they bring back

La Giacris and then they brought back Lagyacris for Monster Hunter and Wild so I hope but you don't get to fight it underwater alas

and he looks like I mean he looks cool no matter what he's a great monster but he looks so cool when you go underwater and see him all lit up even in Wilds

like come on that's how he's supposed to be yeah and wilds is a gorgeous game and the underwater part is just very beautiful when you're under there and you can steer them into different elements we'll get to Wilds though

but Brian we're going to talk about an enhanced release of this game called Monster Under Portable 3rd which did not come out in America so Monster Try was the Wii release this because the PSP is still big in Japan this goes to the PSP and Brian has requested

his own little section here to talk about ad hoc party something I try to use and it never worked for me when I was trying to play Peace Walker online It's, yeah, that's true. It did technically, I never tried it with Peace Walker, but I guess Peace Walker did technically support it. Just real quick, Try was the game, Try on the Wii was the game I really got into the franchise with. And so Portable Third, which is, technically it's, I would say it's its own game.

It's not, it's not really like an enhanced version of Try, despite the three in the name. It takes a lot of assets from it, but it is a little bit more its own thing. but anyway, this was the first Monster Hunter launch I experienced having a love of the series already and I am a Japanese translator so I was able to import two copies of this and play with my partner at the time who did not speak or read any Japanese

and we just kind of played so many hours of this together each of us on a PSP and eventually with ad hoc party, which was this weird thing where you could sort of link your PSP to your PS3 and you could use that somehow to get online because Portable Third did not natively have internet capabilities.

It could only do local network play. But you could use this to get online with other people and play in lobbies. And we played with so many, Japanese players, some of which I still think I have on my PSN friends list, that, like, I played online games before this, of course, but this almost kind of like opened my eyes to like how fun online gaming could really be with people that you didn't know or couldn't talk to. It was kind of an amazing experience. This is probably the easiest Monster Hunter game that they've made by far. I'll admit. that, but I just have such great memories of it. Yeah, this one surprised me because I didn't

know it was essentially a new game and like a unique release and the setting is different. They give you the palakos again instead of the little tribal people. And yeah, ad hoc party was essentially Sony saying, they didn't feel like making a lobby system. Why don't you make one? And then it was a lot more work. You had to do

all the work on your end and we actually can't just go online with Monster Hunter with non-friends until four. Is that correct? just like traditionally online Like it's done with two And then when we get to four in like 2015 That's when we can go online

Yeah try had it But if you're talking about just the portable games Yes that's correct Four was the first one And I'm just going to say real quick Yukumo Village the setting In Portable Third Best Monster Hunter Village

I do have a fondness for that What would you like about it? It had a very Japanese aesthetic Like traditional Japanese aesthetic Which they've since tried to do again but I don't think it quite worked as well as it did in Yukumo because Yukumo is the food system for as much as I like Paliko's cooking for you

was replaced by a bathhouse which I thought was just kind of a really neat idea the way it worked. It was real chill. Yeah, it was great. I haven't played it, but Rai's got me to eat dungo for the first time. Ah.

Oh. So, yes, we have portable third, and then we have where I jumped on board, another release of three, three ultimate for the 3DS and Wii U. This is when it really felt like Capcom was trying to make this work in the West, and these versions could talk to each other. Like I said, I would play it with Jose. I'd play on the Wii U, he'd play on the 3DS, so it was a little complicated, but you could do the console portable interactivity in a way that most publishers and developers wouldn't really try for. They really wanted you to play with other people with this release. I bought a Japanese Wii U for this, actually, because the Japanese version came out in Japan first, obviously. And at that time, I think it was unknown whether it was going to be localized or not.

So, yeah, the same person who I played Portable Third with, we did the Wii U 3DS setup for this one, too. But then I discovered that the 3DS hurt my hand. That was an early version of the – that was an early Wii U game, right? I remember demoing. Yeah. Within the first six months, I think it was like early. It was right after one up shut down. That's when I got into Monster. It's a great game to play when you're unemployed, by the way. I think I did a preview for every single Monster Hunter that was released in the U.S. between 2010 and 2018. Wow. I thought you might have done more than

me cats. I only reviewed a few. I was just the Monster Hunter correspondent because even though I wasn't that much into the series, I did cover Japanese games. So people knew me and is Cat who covers Japanese games. Why don't we have a cover Monster Hunter and I like money and I was a poor freelancer at the time. So I said, okay, I'll go and cover it for you. Well, one of the things that seems unbelievable about Ultimate and various sources confirm this, this was the first Monster Hunter with a lock on camera. Yes.

That's crazy. It took this long to just be able to tell the camera whenever I hit the L button, I want you to swing around to the thing I have targeted. It took that long for the series to get there. I don't use it very much. I don't use it at all. I unlock the camera most of the time. Even when I was given a right analog stick with World and Beyond, I still constantly tap L1 to re-center the monster.

I'm just wired to keep doing that. I don't know why. So unless I'm mistaken, and Brian, you might be able to give me more information on this. I think this is the first Monster Hunter game that has a fight with, that's a unique set piece in which you're doing different things, you're in a different arena. I forget the monster's name.

begins with the sea, but you're basically like swimming along. I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing that right. He was actually originally in Monster Hunter Try on the Wii. He was the, so the important thing to remember is back in this era of Monster Hunter, they were separating single player content from online multiplayer content. They were completely separate paths. Any progress you made in the single player game meant nothing when you did multiplayer. And so Cadeus was the final boss in Try and also, I guess,

guess probably try G or 3G or whatever it's called here I would actually still say that's probably one of Monster Hunter's most amazing boss fights just as a set piece even now like he was amazing like speaking of you know things looking real cool

underwater yeah maybe it was just this gen in general that introduced the set piece battles which I don't think there are any in wilds but I like I mean they can be a little clunky but I like what they did in World and I like what they did in Rise but I think they tried to, because you have that contiguous world, they can't just create a new room for you to fight in in Wilds.

But yeah, we're going to move on to era three. Not a whole lot to say about this. Monster 104 and Generations. So this is right before we get the big world transformation of the series. This is when it becomes a 3DS experience, although the latter generations will receive a switch port that you can still buy. I think Kat mentioned that earlier. But one big change in this is mounting,

which is honestly the peak of any monster in a battle when you can do that successfully it's all downhill from there unless you can mount again and I love how much they played around with this idea

from this point forward but mounting introduced here that's when you do an aerial attack you land on the monster and then you can keep stabbing away until you do a big attack that can usually make them dizzy or at least roll them on their side

so you can do more hits. It's great. Feels incredible. The interesting thing I remember about mounting in this one and I couldn't tell you why when I played online with other people I immediately noticed that when someone mounted the monster

no one would hit it it was like hands off you wait till the mounts over you wait till it goes down I feel like that hasn't been the case in any game that's had mounting sense but there was something about the mechanics of that game where at least people thought that you should not be attacking the monster when someone has it mounted

yeah I experienced that too I'm not sure if it was superstition or if the attacks wouldn't actually even do any damage while the monster is being mounted and attacked by the mounting player. But yeah, now everyone just like wailing away at it. And even now they do significantly less damage when you attack when the monster is mounted. But it's not like it hurts anything in any way.

Yeah. Yeah, I think there was never a fear of you being knocked off. But yeah, I think we were just experiencing that idea for the first time. We don't know what can go wrong here. We don't want to blow this for this person who did, who did a cool thing in battle. But yeah, mounting is here to stay.

And then cat companions come back in the form of cat palicos. They're here to stay as well. And then outside of Japan, we in America and in the West got the upgraded version of four, which was followed soon after by generations. So generations is, for me at least, if you want just the most old school monster hunter content, this is where you go. It's all that content in its most refined form. And there's like a limitless amount of it.

Again, if you're unemployed, this is where you need to go. And Generations has so much stuff in it I forgot about like the fighting styles There's four different fighting styles per weapon And they all involve like new attacks and new animations I believe Generations let's even play as a palico if you want There's a palico mode Yeah

Yeah the weapon variety is crazy Like it makes I mean I won't claim that all four weapon modes on On any given weapon make it into a completely new weapon But some of them do And as a as a as a long time great sword main, like that is probably the best

that the great sword has ever been. Like, I forget which mode it was because it's been a while, but one of them is just so ridiculously powerful that it's nuts. And that's where the game kind of feels like Devil May Cry and that you have different stances, kind of. Like, I want to do all of these kind of attacks. But

like I said, if you want the best old school Monster Hunter, this could be where you want to go, but keep a mind, it was made for people who had been playing it for a very long time. So there's going to be an overwhelming amount of options and that's when you need to go online and look up like Gaigin hunters YouTube page or whatever because there's a lot of help online for these games if you need to learn how to play them everybody has made like here's the hunting horn tutorial here is the long

sword tutorial there are just so many ways to get into the game um every so weapon has its own community I learned there are whole Reddit pages really I wouldn't be surprised if there's like R slash hunting horn yes I picked up I mean when I picked up let's see for wild I picked up the Gunlance Gunlance has its own Reddit community I think there's an R slash gunlance

and it's just all people who are big fans of the gun lands because every weapon is still in personality Oh yeah right Oh for sure The Great Sword That's the beginning weapon

You bonk monsters over the head Feels good to do that Long sword Oh I'm an advanced player I know how to abuse Eye frames I can parry and you're showing off a lot of the time

and tripping people maybe not anymore but back in the old days you were constantly tripping people if you were a long sword user I meant to ask everybody that up front I neglected to what is your weapon of choice in the games

I'm an all-rounder so I pick a different weapon every game so worlds I picked long sword to start and then I picked great sword for Iceborne and I had much better time with a great sword and then I picked the switchax and the bow for rise and actually leveled up both of them and maxed them out

and then with Wilds I picked up the gun lance and the hunting horn and the hunting horn became my my secondary weapon that I would just play casually with friends who are usually just getting started but I found that I vibed the most out of all of them with the gun lance I felt like I could do serious damage I discovered that I was a kind of a defensive player I loved having the shield up and being able to stop a monster cold that felt really satisfying to me

and then being able to get all the bombs onto them and blow them up like Crash Man from Mega Man too so cool so I wanted to try them all you went to the land of orphaned weapons gun lands and hunting horn in one game oh yeah I love the gun lands I think it's actually pretty good in wilds I was going to say if anyone says insect glave, you're lying.

I know an insect glave play. I do, too. I don't know any. Brian, what's your favorite weapon? I started with Hammer, and I did Hammer for a couple of games, but then I actually switched to Great Sword. I've been pretty staunchly Great Sword and Heavy Bow Gun when I need range because I love big heavy weapons that make me move slow.

Yeah, for me, I want to stray away from Hammer, but I can't because it's just so cool. It's great. I love the sliding attack. you can do down a hill where you basically turn into Sonic the Hedgehog in the air and do a spinning somersault. But it's, it's hammer, it's hunting horn, and then probably switch axe, and then Bob. I really want to play projectile more, but I don't as much as I wish I could. I just, the hammer is too damn attractive. It's just a giant thing you hit things in the head with. It's cool. That golf swing? Like, nothing beats that golf swing. It's great. Well, I'm glad that that's

that really determines your personality, right? It's like, what Ninja Turtle do you like? What Monster Hunter weapon is your favorite? It's a personality test. for sure. I think the insect glave is people who are very advanced monster hunter players and really want to show up. Actually, my partner, Insect Glave player, and she picked it up right from the start, and she figured out how to abuse the, you know how in Wilds they have the armor openings that you can kind of hit at? The wounds? Yeah. The wounds. She figured out how to exploit the wounds with the insect clave so fast for just absurd amounts of damage. It's funny.

I feel like new players always drawn to the most complex weapons because they look the coolest. And one person I was trying to get into the game chose Insect Glave and just bounced off of it immediately. And it's, I mean, you don't want to be patronizing and tell people, well, you're dumb, so take the dummy weapon. But you have to tell them, no, maybe just start with the dual blades. S&S for you. No, the person I know who plays Insect Glave too also was their first Monster Hunter game and picked it up. up because I believe in his exact words, I just want to do sick flips. And he ended up really taking to it.

Fair enough. Maybe in my next thousand hours of monster hunter, I could become an insect lay faster. But I might be too old at this point. We're going to move on, though, to era 4, which is Monster Hunter World, and a huge departure from the Monster Hunter that we know of, kind of. So thoroughly modern and no segmented maps, you talked about some of the differences earlier. You can play online with your friends, if you can get your mind around the complex lobby system. And there are too many new features to mention.

you now track monsters instead of them showing up on your map as like a question mark or the icon there are turf wars between them scout flies exist as sort of like an organic kind of waypoint in the game there's slinger pods there's mantles

and one thing we've not mentioned you no longer have to bring along pickaxes or bug nets or maybe in this game you do but they just don't break I forget what the difference is between this in Rise and Wilds I'm not 100% on that

but either way in this game you don't have to really worry about them at all. So gathering is really easy to do in this series. Yeah, they reduced so much of the friction. I know y'all were just complaining about having to track the monster manually. And admittedly, it could be a little annoying to follow the little flash bugs. But I thought it was clever, okay? And I don't like having waypoint arrows pointing me to everything all the time.

And so much about Monster Hunter is about, diagetic interfaces and that kind of thing. And so I felt very immersed in the world. How many more buzzwords can I use it here? Lido narrative consonants. To be fair to having to track the monsters, it was better than what you had to do beforehand, which is you had no visibility of the monster on the map.

You had to paintball it, and the paintball would eventually wear off, and you had no idea where the monster was. Thank you, Brian. I forgot to mention the paintball, which I think is now used in modern games or in Wilds to differentiate between different kinds of the same monster. That's what they use it for now.

And now I feel like Wilds, and I think they actually started doing this in RISE where it's just like, no, you know where the monster is on the map immediately. Like it just shows it. And that's the best way. Yeah, I mean, to give tracking a lot of credit here, I didn't realize I didn't like it until I played Rise, and that was after 160 hours of playing World.

So it worked on me. And then when it was gone, I was like, oh, I'm glad it's gone. I had no problem with it at the time either. I don't think it's coming back because it's not in Wilds. I think they realized this is not the point of playing the game. It was kind of stressful because you'd look for it for a bunch of time. And if you were fighting a particularly hard monster where you felt like you were going to potentially run out of time,

any single minute spent looking for the monster was a minute lost in the actual hunt and those hunts were so much longer at the time but an actual hunt could take 45 minutes against some of the tougher bosses and it always was the worst feeling when you've been going at it for ages

and you're almost there and then someone carts for the third time and the whole party goes no I can feel it in my stomach right now with you saying it. You've lost it all. You've lost your time. There's nothing to be gained from this. Yeah, one thing I've noticed about Wilds is

the fights are so short compared to the past Monster Hunter games. I hate it, actually. I don't want to set up for... It takes away a lot of the epic feeling of it. Yeah. I want another like 20 or 30 minute fight, but even if you go up against well, here is the hardest boss in the game, maybe 15, maybe like 17 minutes. But

in this era, you're still maybe going at a monster for like 40 minutes if you're not doing very well. just one of the tougher monsters in the game. To put this in historical context, this was the middle of the generation of PS4 and Xbox 1, I believe it came out

for both. It did not come out for PC right away. And this was a time where Monster Hunter we're firmly into Japanese games are back because 2017

Breath of the Wild, massive deal near automata all of these games and we had already had dark souls and bloodborn for a while and so the the landscape was very set for monster hunter to make a comeback or to establish itself with a new audience but of course this happens with every franchise that's been around for a long time and then finds a mainstream audience for the first time monster hunter world comes out and all the old school monster hunter fans go well uh I like the older Monster Hunters. I don't know about this

whole seamless thing. I kind of like the zone. And let me tell you, I was drinking hot drinks and cold drinks and it mattered. Okay, let me tell you about some nonsense. I'm like, okay, I don't care. I'm really enjoying Monster Hunter world.

You know, as much as I like the old games, I don't miss some of the more annoying things that they removed. Like, I don't miss running out of wetstones. I don't miss running out of pickaxes or bug nest. and all that annoying stuff that had its place at the time, you know? Yeah, it can stay gone forever, though, honestly. I mean, I am one of those old players, but I did not, like, I mean, obviously I have my

nitpicks here and there, like, oh, this was better then or whatever, but as a whole, like, I'm very pro the streamlining of these games. Like, if you're playing them at the time, you just, it was in the water, right? You just got used to it. But when you see, oh, my God, there's another way. There's a life without hot drinks and cold drinks. This is amazing. You can just find the hot drinks and cold drinks on your ride to the monster, basically, is how it works now.

I am that person now, though, because when I play Wilds, I enjoyed Wilds for the most part. The main story was fine. But now I'm that person. He's like, I don't know. I liked Worlds. He's a lot better. And it felt just a little bit that I met the friction, added a little bit of texture to the game. How many more buzzwords can I get into this?

and it's just not hitting the same. It's too easy. And I actually ended up bouncing off it because I was going whole nights without carting once. And I'm like, I am not that good at this game. Okay, I should be carting. I have the same opinion. And we'll talk about Rise, but Wilds does feel like a sequel to Worlds more than any, or World more than anything.

And my issue with Wilds is there's like a 30 minute tutorial that's very, talky and super easy and then when you get to the actual game it was getting a whole new group of new players and hadn't played Worlds and Rise and I wish I could have skipped that I wish I could have shown my Monster Hunter card and said can I skip this part because Monster Hunter always

always had like an initial first chunk of gameplay and then the second chunk but the first chunk in the case of wilds felt very insubstantial and then when you got to the second chunk like I said I ran out of content I never think I never thought I could do that in a Monster Hunter game. I think of the whole base game is a tutorial. Yeah yeah absolutely At this point, I'm just waiting for the expansion to come out so that I can actually get into the master grade hunts and really go for it, knowing that all of the equipment that I grinded for in wilds, which I didn't even really want to bother this time around, because I know that an expansion is going to come out, and I'm just going to do it all over again.

So might as well just do it then. One other thing to talk about when it comes to world, though, is the clutch claw, which was a big addition for Icebourne. Unfortunately, I did not get to play a ton of Icebourne, and I was playing a little bit of it yesterday. And I realize they love the Clutch Claw so much that they kind of build two more games around it, but especially the sequel. They're thinking, okay, this can make battles more interesting. This can make collecting things a lot easier. And unfortunately, like one negative quality that a lot of people see in IceBorn is the battles are designed around mandatory clutch claw use. They want you to use it at every turn.

And for what I'm hearing, it makes the difficulty very, very trivial in a lot of cases. It was so cheap. So if you could get the monster to retrieve. you could chase it, clutch claw into it, crash it into a wall, and then just go to town. Can I ask one thing? Maybe this started in four, but I'm curious what you all think about this, if you agree or not. Was this the beginning of Capcom, in my opinion, vastly overvaluing Monster Hunter's story? Oh, yes, I think so.

Because you put in the notes, Brian, that four was the first time. And they decided, let's actually have a story instead of just text boxes. Yeah. But Worlds is like, no, we want to have the AAA narrative experience when that is not what I wanted all from the series. Yeah. That's probably my biggest gripe with Wilds, actually. You mentioned it being so talky, but like there's so much story and I just don't care. I just want to hunt the monster. That little weiner kid, you got to fall around all the time.

Is it not a? Is that his name? I think so. Okay. I don't care for him It's a little awkward too Because in world It's all about going to the new world

And establishing yourself I'm like well There's some underlying themes going on here And then there's a point where they're like This new world is our home now And we're going to defend Hold on here Hold on

This is when they weren't I mean they're not being very thoughtful about What it means like conquer a world In certain cases But I do want to talk about rise before we go because it's the last thing on our notes and we have a little bit of time so this is definitely my favorite entry

in the series I think it didn't go overlook because it sold 19 million copies but I think people a lot of people went from World to Wilds with the skipping rise because even I thought at the time oh they're just going to dash off a quick switch game because Switch is popular but no this is a very well thought out game with a lot of great changes

and the clutch claw was a big addition to Iceborne and they decided let's make an entire game where you are essentially monster hunting fighter man, where you basically have web slingers, use those to get around, the environments are very vertical, and so much of the game is about ensnaring and riding monsters. They can't find a way for you to play as the monsters, but you can basically ride every monster in the game and use them to fight other monsters. It's so cool, but it's also very complicated and tricky, especially

if you're a new player. It changes the way the game plays, I would say. I was playing even heavy weapons like a great sword, like with so much more speed with that clutch claw, or sorry, with a wire bug than I ever would have thought possible. Yeah. Monster Hunter rise. Being

able to ride around on monsters would every single battle, there would be that moment where you would hit it, stun it, you can jump onto it, and then what you would do is you would ride it around until you found another monster.

attacked that other monster for a while then you could stun that other monster jump on that monster have it attack the monster you were just like it was so goofy yeah I love that I was going to bring that up cat you took the words out of my mouth because I love what monsters would have turf wars

and then you'd eventually mount one of them attack the other then mount the other and you could just do all of this damage it never got old either yeah no and I was very satisfying when you pulled it off very very sad to see that go in in wilds it was such a fun system, but they got rid of it. They de-emphasized the mounting a lot

in RISE because they were like, okay, you're going to be doing the riding around thing instead of the mounting, so. So more changes with RISE, we have kind of segmented maps, no loading screens, of course, but they're more broken up in different areas like the old games.

And we have things that I like, like you pick up health and agility and power-ups on your way to the monster. It gives you something to do when you're just running through empty space. Very video gamey. Yeah, I like how it's just trying to give you things to keep your brain stimulated on the way. Big addition here, you are given a mount for the first time in the form of the Palomute.

And it does not have the GPS style abilities that the Sacred has in the next game, but it was still a major game changer. And it's optional. You don't have to use it if you don't want to. You can bring it along a second palico. But it is just a fast way to zip around the map. And this could be like the fastest playing Monster Hunter two days. It was so refreshing. in that case.

And I love the Palomute. You could get different, you could get different skins for them. I picked Amaterasu because, of course. And you were mentioning Brian earlier, the Japanese aesthetic of, I think, one of the games. Portable third. This one leaned into it really heavily,

and it really worked for me. One of the things I miss about Wilds is not having the cooking scenes because the cutscenes in these series is wonderful. They are. And there's a lot of great ones. I was just thinking of the near creator whose name is escaping here. Yoko Taro. Yoko Taro telling the story, what his story for Monster Hunter Rise would have been.

Did you ever see this? Oh, no, I didn't see this. It slays me every single time. I'm going to look it up now, but continue talking about Monster Hunter Rise. In the meantime, I'll say, in Wilds, they got rid of the cat cooking scenes, but they did give you, like, individually tailored cooking scenes that would account for every ingredient you would put in the frying pan. Not quite as fun as, you know, watching a much of cats go to town on a big piece of beef.

The cats need to come back. They really do. And I was looking at other things that were going on in Rise. And one big addition that, uh, as you say in the notes, uh, Brian, it was an evolutionary dead end were the rampage quest. Yes. And these were essentially, and now it sounds stupid, but it's not. monster hunter tower defense

and you would just fight a ton of monsters at once you'd use these stationary weapons you'd earn points through battles to buy more and place more of them and what it really was is a way for you to quickly play monster hunter with friends without having to go through all of the preparation building characters

just like here's one mode where we can all just get together and slam on monsters and it was so much fun and I miss it in wilds I played a lot of it with the group that I played with and it was I don't remember what material it was but it was like the way to get some kind of material. So there was like real incentive to play it if you were grinding for, you know, certain types of gear.

I think Kat is ready to launch her Yokotaro, Monster Hunter sequel to it. So it was titled Yokotaro's delusional stories while playing Monster Hunter Rise. And it's just him pitching ideas of how he would have done Monster Hunter or told the story of Monster. And he goes, the old muscle man dies the shield in the Hunter Dragon's nightmare that occurs. after the tutorial is over, and it's because of a mistake made by the player. Either the kid from the dumpling shop or Hane from the Otomo Square will die. The one who doesn't die will fall into darkness and set fire to Camura's village. The chorus will disappear from the background music in the Otomo Plaza.

And it goes on and on and on. After clearing the village quests, the village of Camura will be in ruins, and only multiplayer will be available. A barren world where players have lost everything and are reduced to nothing but killing monsters. Let Yoko Taro do the story of Monster Hunter. I'm just saying. He's made nothing but mobile gotcha games since Neeratamata.

Let him do something like this. Please. Yes. From the highest difficulty stage, the monsters start to talk. The true meaning of the monsters in the village of Camero will be explained. I do kind of want that. I do want to see this happen. Maybe with the

post-wilds content, we'll get Yoko Taro. Because I remember a long time ago, Bob, you writing a story about how you're kind of uncomfortable with murdering these monsters and I think a lot of people goes through that phase where they go,

I don't want to kill this monster this monster's adorable. I don't know. I'm just going to stun it. It's going to be okay. But then there are some monsters that you're like, you have to die.

Like Kezu, the one I do remember. Kezhu dies. Old butthole face himself. Well, yeah, actually, we're going to wrap up very soon. But yeah, that was something I had to get over. And I think Monster

to recognize it this because there are no longer nine quests you start with that say slaughterer a family of peaceful dinosaurs who are just chilling out they realize that and then I feel like they could make the games goryer or more realistic and yes I do feel really bad when monsters limping away which is why

I normally am a big baby and I have to capture them and not kill them which is why wilds annoyed me because they made capturing so difficult until you got that first ending but anyways I usually capture because I hate to see the little guys hurt put them down peacefully I say so we're at the end of the podcast

here. And we have, we've complained a bit about Wilds. And I want to know from everybody where we think Monster Hunter should go from here. Now, I did like Wilds. I thought it was a step down from Rise. And it's weird to say that like, I played a game for 70 hours. And I'm like, where's the content, buddy? I want more content. But I'm still, I went back and I played the updates I missed for this podcast. And I'm also out of stuff to do. So for the future, I want more of that like the endless ceiling of content from Monster Hunter. And I say, we need to make the series a little more intimidating again. I think. The fights are going by too quickly. I'm not getting the same rush from beating big monsters. I'm not feeling the highs and the lows the series has given me over the years. And I think Rise really hit that sweet spot and I want to see it come back. Yeah, I think Monster Hunter, I think Monster Hunter, wilds in many ways, is an unfinished story because there will be an expansion at some point. And then we'll be able to kind of make a more definitive judgment. Because I consider Monster Hunter Worlds and Iceborn as a pair.

And Iceborn added so much to Worlds, especially some of the highest-level mastering hunts, where those were epic, epic duels. And some of the monsters had the coolest attacks. One of the things that I love about Monster Hunter is the ways that they would make every single battle feel cinematic, but not in the, oh, I'm watching a cutscene and some cool stuff is having. happening that there are so many cinematic moments just in the gameplay that you'll get knocked over and the monster will loom over you and or you'll be like shaking and you can barely keep on your feet everything feels so huge the sense of scale really works in

monster hunter but as for what I would do going forward we were talking about the ocean nah sky go into the sky okay because one of my favorite things in uh Tears of the kingdom is you fight a boss and you could theoretically just do it completely while falling and that would be such a cool it would add a new dimension as it were to monster hunter and being able to fly around I think they could do a lot of really cool things if you move it into the sky that's all cool any thoughts from you Brian yeah I agree with you Bob I think they need to they need to keep focusing on quality of life but not equate that to not being intimidating.

Like, I think that's really the sweet spot for Monster Hunter to keep everybody happy. I think they need to stop overvaluing the story. And I think they need to bring back some of those real set piece boss fights that we were talking about. Like, I feel like the final boss, like not the boss that rolls the credits, but like the final, final boss is just like, what if there was a large dragon in a room for the past couple games? And it's like, okay, like, that can be fine, but it's, it's, it's not Cadeus or it's not, you know, the, the Jen Moran fight, you know, that took place like on the ship in the desert where like everyone had a roll on the ship, like, okay, when do I hit the gong? I hit the gong here. When do I hit the harpoon? I hit the harpoon here. Like, I think maybe if only at the top levels, like there needs to be a little bit more of that again to kind of bring those old feelings back. Yeah, totally agree. I am also tired of the dragon in a room. room battles. And, well, I think we're on the same page.

Make the lobby system better. I don't want to go online and say, like, okay, I want to play with people. Is anybody fighting Rathian? No. Anyone fighting Kezu? No. Just having to go down the menu until I can finally find people to play with. But thank you, everybody for listening.

This has been another episode of Retronauts. And this is a free episode for everybody out there. But if you want to support the show and get a bunch of stuff on top of that, go to Patreon.com slash Retronauts. And sign up for five bucks a month. And when you do, get all the episodes ad free. and one week ahead of time, but also more importantly, access to a ton of exclusive episodes we do two every month.

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Let's go around the room. Brian, you're new to my episodes. Where can we find you online? What are you working on right now? Sure. Well, you can find me on Blue Sky is One Million Power.com. And at One Million Power.com, where I post translations of, I guess, some of the more oddball stuff from Japanese video game magazines and online publications. YouTube.com slash B. Clarke OMP, where I've been going through right now side-scrolling beat-em-ups in mostly chronological order with some videos that teach you how to one-credit clear different retro games.

And I have a Patreon for all that, too, at Patreon.com. 1 million power. Awesome. And Kett. Yeah, you can find me on Acts of the Blood God, which is a weekly podcast. Twitch.tv.tv.com. Also, Spotify. We talk about Monster Hunter quite a bit. We were doing Monster Hunter Mondays for a little while, so go check that out. Also, I have a newsletter. It's called NintenCats.com. NentenCats.com. Like and subscribe if you're looking for the link. I've got a pinned on my profile on Blue Sky. That's Kat Bailey. That's all.

And as for me, I've been the host for this one, Bob Mackey. I am on Blue Sky and Letterbox. Other places, as Bob Servo. My other podcasts are on the Talking Simpsons Network podcast like Talking Simpsons. And if you want to go to patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons, we have a ton of exclusive podcasts there covering shows like Futurama, King of the Hill, Mission Hill, Batman, the animated series, and The Critics. So check it out at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons.

But that has been it for this episode of Retronauts. We'll see you again very soon for another new episode. Take care. I'm going to be able to be. I'm going to be. Thank you.