Monster Hunter Generations (3DS)

BY: FRANCESCO LOMBARDO '17

PTS Falconer Editor in Chief

The music changes and your heart begins to race, you’ve finally reached the boss fight, the frantic and exciting battle that marks the end of many levels and areas in video games. Whether it’s Mario, Zelda, Kirby, or Dark Souls (a game famous for its bosses), boss fights have always been a staple part of gaming. Though lately I have seen a large decline in them. It’s very rare nowadays for games to have boss fights, arguably the best part of video games. I believe it’s due to the fact that video games are becoming a more mainstream form of entertainment, therefore they are striving to be more accessible to a casual crowd. Even the games that I mentioned before have been lacking in their boss fights lately. The most recent Mario games have bosses that are arguably too easy for even the young audience its marketed towards and the most recent Zelda game, A Link Between Worlds, had some of the most disappointing and underwhelming bosses in a Zelda game to date, in my opinion. Only Dark Souls has kept the formula of difficult bosses alive, or so it may seem. There is another series of game that is practically one boss fight after the next, Monster Hunter.

Monster Hunter is one of my favorite game series. With carefully crafted controls and an incredible amount of monsters, Monster Hunter Generations is one of the best monster hunter games to date. The new hub world allows for you to visit three villages from previous monster hunter games as well as allowing you to take on specific quest lines for each one. The addition of all these new quest lines makes Generations feel like an actual RPG instead of the single player story experience it was in the last iterations of the game. While there really is no story, the dialogue is well written and makes you feel like you are making a difference whenever you finish up quests for certain characters. This is one of the many things I enjoy about it, you actually feel like you matter and are not just a player character.

The most important part of any Monster Hunter game is the combat and zones in which you fight the monsters. I’m glad to say that combat has never been better. The new inclusion of hunting styles and hunter arts create a very customizable experience. Now we can choose from guild (just like previous games), striker (allows you to charge up hunter arts quicker), aerial (lets you easily jump around and mount monsters), and adept (a style that lets you perform deadly counters). Each style can be combined with special hunting arts that are charged as you attack the monster. These add great variety to the combat and make it extremely fun to try out other weapons that you may have not wanted to play. My favorite style is aerial as it makes the game feel much quicker and makes mounting monsters extremely easy. Overall, the combat is easy to learn, but hard to master.

The sheer number of monsters and armor sets in this game is more than any other Monster Hunter game to date. I’ve fought many monsters from previous games and visited many of the same areas from past years. The many thousands of ways that you can customize armor make it extremely complex. You can opt to make complete armor sets and gain certain skills from that, or you can mix and match armor pieces and decorations to your desire allowing you to craft your hunter to suit your play style. I enjoy keeping my armor all the same, so I choose complete sets that have the skills that I require to help me gain an advantage against monsters. For example, I have an amulet that gives me a plus ten to mounting granting me a skill that allows me to easily get onto monsters. I also have a greater evasion and deal more critical damage because of my armor. The fact that the game doesn’t penalize you for not having all the same armor pieces is what sets it apart from other RPGs.

Monster Hunter Generations is a culmination of everything done right in a video game: an insane amount of content, free DLC, great graphics, deep and complex combat, and a wealth of customization options. Every monster feels completely unique and not one will be the same as the last. It’s a masterpiece and easily one of the best games on the 3DS.

Verdict: Must Play