While researching good PSP games to play I found many posts about Monster Hunter Freedom Unite and other Monster Hunter games. They are beloved by the community but after doing some reading/watching it’s not clear to me what the appeal is. I would appreciate if someone could tell what the goal is and what you love about the game. Apparently they are very long games (I think I read 100 hours or something along those lines) which is really great if I can get into a single game for that long. Thank you!
I want to say researching, preparing, tracking, and finally hunting your mark is the draw. But after playing its got a lot of RPG grind fest elements in it and a lot less mechanics that make you feel like a hunter. Its still fun, and you still do track and hunt monsters. But once the fighting begins it feels more like an action RPG to me.
It’s somewhat like Dark Souls in that there’s appeal in mastering the enemies you fight in predicting their moves and timing your own. Finding a weapon that jives with you, buildcrafting, etc. It is a circular gameplay loop in that you kill monster, cut them up, use pieces to make gear, use gear to hunt better monsters…but that’s not a bad thing I think.
It can be a more challenging game than it might seem on its face, especially Freedom Unite, and especially with the limited control schemes of the older portable consoles. I started with 4U and find I struggle going back to it after playing World and Rise.
For Monster Hunter specifically, as well as other similar games like God Eater and White Knight Chronicles, the appeal is literally just big number go up from grinding. If you don’t like grinding, you probably aren’t going to enjoy these kinds of games. They can easily feel very repetitive.
It’s basically a third person hunting game. With giant monsters.
Your goal is to get gud and kill the biggest baddist monsters in the land. While getting up to that point you can make better and unique equipment from the monsters you’ve slain. There’s item crafting too, from basic health items to different types of bullets to bait and even traps. You can also buy most of the stuff too. There a ton of armor and weapon types to learn how to use.
All the animals in the game have their own “routine”, seasons and parts of the landscape they’ll be in and travel around. Learning thier moves and how to kill them is the main chunk of the gameplay.
If any of that sounds interesting I’d check it out. Each game has different weapon types in it. I’ve played Tri and I think one on PSP.
Its a great game, challenging and has a variety of weapons each being interesting to play, as well as a lot of awesome monsters with their own fighting styles. And exploring the location and gathering the materials you need for a fight was always a highlight to me. You could play locally with friends as well! I think I spent over 500 hrs in the monster hunters on the psp alone
