The careful mixture of these two elements creates what makes Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate so damn compelling. You aren’t going to be fruitlessly bashing your head against a fight for hour after hour to become more powerful. Kill a monster a few times, build a better set of gear, then move onto the next challenge. Granted, it may sound a little bit like hard work from that, but once you have the game in your hands and the wash of brain-grabbing wonder washes over your face you’ll see it’s a gateway to many an hour of fun times and good hunting.
Holding the door for this gateway is an introductory system that makes Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate much more accessible than others (here’s looking at you, Monster Hunter Freedom Unite) of the past. Rather than simply launching you into the deep end, this latest entry holds your hands for the opening segments. That doesn’t last forever. Within hours you’ll be gritting your teeth as battles are won by a whisker.
This accessibility is not only found in the world of fighting or crafting either. Activities like using merchants to create more items and even the simple act of doing missions outside of the main story (for both multiplayer and single player) are more geared towards including everyone. Getting into a hunt with other players online is incredibly simple when compared to past attempts, plus attempting these hunts alone is much easier thanks to a more accurately scaling system.
Gathering items outside of combat is made simpler with the inclusion of a single merchant who exchanges caravan points (gained by doing almost anything in Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate) for an increased stock of items you already have. Yes, you’re going to have to go out foraging for items before some hunts, but its made much less laborious with the new additions. Its here that a very important aspect of Monster Hunter helps the fourth main entry in the series reach heights its predecessors have never dreamed of. Preparation of potions or other consumables is still important, just a lot less of an effort to gather.
Preparation is somewhat important in most quests but can be supplemented with some of the items offered at the beginning of them from a camp. Where you are going to seriously need to prepare is in Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate‘s new mode, which sends you out on Expeditions. These are a collection of a handful of different zones, each one filled with monsters and collectibles that vary every time. Monsters that you’ve fought in the game so far will appear in them. alongside special pieces of gear that are found in special treasure areas or among bundles of crates.
What they bring to Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate is what the franchise never really had and yet always seemed to need. They’re an ingenious solution to a problem that should never have existed. For all of its focus on preparation, the Monster Hunter property has always had a little too much in the way of predictability about it. You’d very rarely be set upon by something you didn’t expect to see and you’d know the lay of the land after countless hours hunting over its rolling hills or deep within volcanic caverns. Expedition mode does away with some of that prior knowledge. Not all of it though, just enough to keep things fresh.
You’re tasked with going into an area of unknown layout, with the single task of doing some killing for the organization that commands you. You’ll be told what might be there before you go, but there are plenty of opportunities for surprise appearances from monsters that’ll keep things fresh. You don’t even have to necessarily kill the creatures. Just cause something to drop off of their body as proof and the guild will still reward you. There are even chances to go into treasure-holding areas and find extremely powerful equipment just waiting to be added to your armory.
There are masses of other new features jammed into Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate including a Palico fighting minigame that’s used to gather gear for them to wear, a fishing game which can lessen the need to cast out your rod, even a system that allows you to melt down items into other ones for your own personal use. Too many to really go into here without the need to acquire some sort of novel publishing contract.
One of the only gripes with Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate however is its camera. The viewpoint through which Monster Hunter games are viewed has always been a sore point since the claw grip technique came into the world. In this version it is certainly much better than in the past, but still causes enough frustration to cause a few 3DS’ to be slammed against thighs. Locking onto your quarry is all well and good, but even when using the Circle Pad Pro or the New Nintendo 3DS’ C-Stick it can sometimes just be sat in the wrong place at the wrong time. Also be prepared to have a handful of views from inside the monster as it gets up in your grill.
With a single player offline only mode that’ll keep you going for at least 20 or so hours of pure gameplay, solo or group hunts from the Gathering Hall (which run exceptionally well I might add), Expeditions, and the unquenchable desire to complete equipment sets, Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate is a package that most games could never come close to in terms of content. So it might seem strange that this title is available on a handheld system. One which is often used to play quick games while commuting or taking a break at work.
Well its actually the perfect place for Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate to make camp. You can be happily engaged in a tight battle against the rocky Gravios monster, then simply flip the screen down before continuing on with your day. A few hours later, either after work or when the need to kill that monster becomes to great to halt, you open the screen to resume the hunt. Carrying around your own personal action title with enough different fights to make many people faint in fear just feels right. Heck there’s even a pretty good Streetpass system that allows players to put their hunter into the game of another. That other is then able to go and use that hunter to do quests. It’s great, just simply great.
Its no surprise that the dollar sign ($) appears on the “4” key of most keyboards. With its improved accessibility, vast amount of activities to engage in, and intensely compelling gameplay, Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate is a title that could make Capcom incredibly rich. If you’ve got a Nintendo 3DS and the idea of pouring hundreds of hours into one game that’ll handsomely reward you for your time, then this is most certainly the way to go. It’s a monster of a game in a small package that’ll eat your spare time and spit out a smile stretching across your face for many days to come.
