Monster Musings

Really enjoying the PC release of MH Rise, all the wirebug traversal and rampage stuff has me asking the age old question: "What if Godzilla was in Monster Hunter?"

It's a pretty steep downgrade to either iteration from 5th Gen, the charge has had most of its nuance removed in favor of expanding the button combos. It's effectively the inverse of any Hammer build one could make in Risebreak.

Spinning Bludgeon is now locked behind a myriad of combo starters (either button combo or charge attack) instead of being the moving Level 3 Charge, this makes it a more reactive move hypothetically, but it's much clunkier to start up than ever before -it took some labing over the beta to even realize that it was still in the game because charging is purely for upswings and super pounds now, with all of the new stuff being face button moves.

The Mighty Charge is flashy but turns Hammer into a worse Greatsword, and continues the curse of multi-hit wakeup moves that require exceptional spacing to feel impactful and not wasteful.

Charge Step is utterly fine, it's Keeping Sway from Sunbreak, but it comes at the cost of a stance change and any of the possibility that could've brought with it. It also feels like much of Hammer's reach has been asphyxiated to compensate for the movement it provides, so if you're not leading your attacks with it, it just feels gross.

As a Hammer main since 2009 . . . it's never been more over. They massacred me mallet. I knew Ryozo stepping back in order to fulfill his new executive position would affect Hammer but oh man. This hurts.

The first half of Rey Dau's chase theme is so good, why can't it be all just that.

I playa the Wilds Beta, I yap about da monsters and what not, you watch?

I yap for about 5 minutes about a little life saving bug in Iceborne. Here's the original thumbnail (the updated one uses an orange BG for better contrast and clarity; though I did throw in a third one to mess with YouTube's little best pick feature).

Mernos sighting in the latest trailer for Wilds, bringing the total of returning monsters thus far to 4.

Does this imply that the Forbidden Lands are in the New World, or simply that Mernos were domesticated by more than just the Research Commission? Only time will tell.

I decided to go back to Stories 2 after getting kinda fed up with the Stories 1 remaster and platinum the game, but fuck this gene man.

Now that we've had time to analyze a lot of the Wilds footage from gamescom, I'd like to call attention to the new type of '-prey family' Bird wyverns:

Red and green! Awfully gnarly lookin' with a lot of spines. They'll actually turf war large monsters and attack them as a group; unlike the Jagras before them - who would only wait for a knockdown to attack - THEY CAUSE ONES.

Anatomically, it's closest to Genprey, between the feet and the tinier forelimbs.

While it differs in a lot of the details, they bear a lot of overall resemblances (especially in their proportions) to the version of Velociprey currently just seen in Sunbreak and Exoprimal. Just something to note. Tee hee.

I've been meditating on it, and honestly? I'd be very down if a Monster Hunter game hybridized the decoration and charm systems of World-Rise; craftable decorations and basic, upgradable charms BUT if you want charms with decoration slots and combinations of skills, that's what's tied to an RNG drop system. It'd be a better call back to the drop systems from old gen (like 4U relic equipment) in the way you can build very competent sets on your own, but with an end game system that really raises the ceiling of potential for sets. I think the more frustrating part of Rise and World's systems is that competent, complete feeling sets get walled pretty heavily by RNG.

Got a new Monster Hunter World video out! My finest yet if I do say so myself, fueled in part because my Wilds hype is beyond measure.

I guess I never realized the total suite of QoL changes brought in by Stories 2 until I got to re-experience Stories 1 with the remaster. Certainly the removal of element shifting monsties in 2 proved a decent distraction, but man, Stories 1 is so much rougher to go through again with the full experience of 2 done and dusted. Monster move sets feel genuinely random without consistent rage modes to make a clearer cut change in moveset, the inflexibility in gene channeling, and outright being unable to rename monsties make it a tough recommend over 2. It's bizarre the move was made to fully voice dialogue but not touch up the gameplay in any meaningful way.