Monster Hunter Generations: Nintendo 3DS Review

Hi there Steemians! Today's review is for one of my favorite Nintendo titles: Monster Hunter Generations! At first I was skeptical about how Monster Hunter would play on a portable system, but those worries were swiftly squashed. Do you like fighting big boss monsters in a crazy action setting with your buddies? Do you like collecting materials to make the baddest weapons and gear around? Then Monster Hunter is a series you should really take a look at!

If you're not familiar with the Monster Hunter franchise it's an action RPG game where you are tasked with hunting the biggest monsters for gear and glory! The story being that you are a fledgling hunter who has taken up residence in a village with a serious monster problem - what luck! You'll then spend your time filling requests from villagers that range from gathering, slaying nasty beasties, and even capturing them on occasion. In the beginning your quests will mostly be gathering related to help you get a feel for the Monster Hunter game play. Soon though you'll progress to being asked to defeat large monsters with progressing difficulty.

In the world of Monster Hunter you can set up your hunter however you would like. There's a large selection of weapons, skills and attributes at your disposal to help you customize your character to your heart's content. I'm partial to the great sword and the switch axe, but every weapon can be great if you learn to use it properly! In addition to weapon types they can also have other advantages in the way of status effects such as poison, elemental attacks, or paralysis. Every monster has strengths and weaknesses, and it would be to your advantage to have multiple weapons with different elements so you can gain the upper hand in a battle. There's a Monster Hunter database app for Android that can help with this.

Monster Hunter is all about crafting! Which is one of the things that drew me to the series in the first place. If you've ever played a game, and you found it laughable that a dragon dropped a sword when it died then you'll enjoy the concept of carving. In the Monster Hunter series you have to make all of your gear yourself. When you slay a monster you'll get the chance to carve it for materials. These are random, but you can up your chances! Every monster features "breakable" parts or pieces that can be severed such as a tail. That means that by severing the tail you not only up your chances of getting a tail specific carve such as a tail spike, but you also get an extra carve reward for the mission.

Depending on the enemy it can take some skill to break or sever these parts, and you might even need a specific weapon to do it. In MH3U for the WiiU I actually had a dedicated part breaker set to help with getting tricky materials! It's typically pretty easy to guess where a piece comes from on a monster, but if you're consistently not getting the drop you require then look for a drop guide online to help you out! There may be a way to up the reward chance by means of severing, breaking or capturing the monster.

Probably the only annoying thing about this particular game is that the monsters like to run away, a lot. A lot more than they did on MH3U for Wii U. You can of course interrupt them if you're quick enough and lucky enough with mounting, traps or combos, but more often than not the monster will fly away, and you'll have to hunt them down. You can make this process a little quicker by use of paintballs or psychoserums to reveal their location on the map or just look around until you find them. Keep in mind that if they start eating or they go to sleep they can regenerate themselves.

You should also expect to kill a monster several times before completing an armor set. Especially an armor set that requires the use of a special permit ticket. For example, if you're eyeing the Dread Queen Rathian armor you'll need to kill her at least five times as each piece requires a Dread Queen Hunter I ticket to make. Sometimes this can feel downright torturous, but once you've completed your armor set you'll feel much better. Keep in mind that there are multiple permit quests involving each monster, and a Dread Queen Rathian II ticket and a Dread Queen I ticket are not interchangeable.

Generations also lets players use Hunter Styles. These selectable skills will give your hunter new abilities and special attacks that can include skills that can raise your defense, raise your healing abilities, give you powerful attacks or my personal favorite, the mounting ability. With this ability activated you'll be able to mount monsters. When you do so, you'll see a little gauge pop up. By alternating the X and A buttons your character will repeatedly stab the monster, and if you can fill the entire gauge you'll be able to topple large enemies, leaving them vulnerable for more attacks. This can work really well if you're hunting with others as they can be ready to unleash their strongest attacks as soon as the monster goes down. It's a fun skill, and it also gives you some extra evading power to go with it.

Monster Hunter also utilizes something called 'Active Skills'. These are skills that are a part of your armor. If you look closely at the armor crafting screen you'll see that all armor comes with some of these skills. Some of them also have levels such as Critical Eye 1, 2, and 3. You can use these skills to boost your power, defense or other attributes in various ways. Most sets of armor will have a couple of these by default, but choosing an armor set with more slots will allow you to use decorations as well. If you have enough slots it's possible to get a whole new skill using a combination of decorations and amulets. Choose your decorations wisely to compliment the objective of your hunting setup. Do you want lots of critical damage? Do you want to increase the power of your poison attacks? Then you should make sure your active skills match.

Keep in mind that you need the correct number of points to benefit from active skills. If you have 10 points of sharpness you'll get Razor Sharp, but if you have 9 points you'll get nothing! Plan accordingly. (It's also possible to get down skills that could make you weaker to certain elements. If your armor set gives you a down skill that you can't live with you can typically slot a one point decoration for that skill somewhere to be rid of the effect!)

If you're feeling lonely on your solo hunts the game has some NPC friends to help you out in the form of Palicos! These little kitty cat pals will not only provide a welcome distraction to monsters, but they can also attack, heal you, and collect items for you as well! To use Palicos you'll have to visit the Meowstress in the village who will help you hire some. Every Palico has different attributes, and you should be sure to hire cats with the skills you desire them to have. You can specify whether their priority should be healing you, attacking large monsters, or attacking smaller monsters that get in your way during fights! (Sometimes small monsters can be even more irritating then the monster you're hunting when they knock you down, and mess up your combos or stop you from drinking a potion!)

In addition to helping you out in battle your Palicos can do some other cool stuff too! Instead of farming in this game you'll depend on your Palicos to trade on your behalf. By talking to Neko, you can have him send your kitties on a trading quest to other locations. These quests are vital for keeping you stocked up on the materials you need to make consumable items such as potions, flash bombs, paintballs and gunner ammo! You should make it a practice to always have some of your cats busy trading for you.

If you visit with d'Artanyan, you can send your cat pals on an expedition of their very own! This is similar to the hunter hub feature where you select up to four Palicos to go on a monster hunt. You'll then play a little mini game where you fire a cannon at targets. Whatever you land on is what your cats have a chance to bring home. The prizes range from monster materials, ore, herbs, bugs and other crafting materials. There are also some secret materials that you can only get doing these missions. They will be identified on the screen as 'rare', and you'll get them by landing on the invisible question mark icon, which you can find by bouncing the first cat across the screen until it lights up. You'll need to complete a hunt of your own before you can come back and collect any rewards from your cats.

Your Palicos have an enthusiasm stat. If your cats are too overworked they'll be less productive. So, it's typically a good idea to take them to the dojo for a catnap to restore their stamina if they're looking a little tired. You can also use the dojo to change a cat's focus with meditation or to train them.

That's not all either! I'm impressed by how expansive the Palico feature really is. In addition to all the above activities you can also enter Prowler mode where you can actually play and go on quests as one of your Palicos. You can choose this option from the Palico board, and there are special quests you can only complete with the Palicos. You can also enter Prowler mode for your regular hunter quests, and they're particularly good for gathering since you can run without tiring like your human hunter does.

Your Palico friends use armor and weapons just like your main character, and you can craft sets specifically for them! Typically when you make your own armor or when you send your cats on expeditions you'll get scraps that can be used for Palico armor. If you're missing a few scraps, but you have some leftover materials you can also turn those into scraps for use in the Palico armory. As your game progresses you can deck your cats out with better armor, and I have to say I really love this feature.

While the single player is great, and you'll have lots of fun doing it solo the real enjoyment of Monster Hunter comes from playing with friends! You can do this both locally, if your quest partners lives with you like me. Or you can also join in hunts online with people anywhere! If you're not into playing with strangers you can also set a password for your hub so only your friends can get in. Or you can leave it open for anyone to join. If your friends don't have 3DS it's pretty easy to find some people online to play with you fortunately!

If you add your friend's guild cards they'll also be available in the "Hunters For Hire" section on your map. You can choose to hire your friends, and they'll go on quests for you to bring back items. You'll need to go complete a quest of your own before you can come back to them to claim their spoils, but you can use this feature to get extra drops which is nice.

Doing Multi-Player hunts will also score you Unity points. These points are only awarded for doing hunts with other hunters, and when you get enough of them you can get some cool stuff. After accumulating Unity points you'll be awarded tickets you can give to the Veggie Elder. These can be gold, silver, or bronze, and the rarity will change what item you can get if you trade them. The Veggie Elder is that little old man who typically hangs out at basecamp, but you may need to find him elsewhere on the map. What he gives you also depends on the map as well, but a rare ticket will typically get you a hard to get monster drop.

For example a gold ticket can be traded for a Glavenous Fire Orb in Jurassic Frontier, but trading the same ticket in Verdant Hills gets you a Astalos Electro Gem. Make sure to save your tickets for when you need a material for your new armor piece or weapon from a monster that's being stingy! Here's the full Veggie Elder trade list for Generations. This game actually has a larger ticket system than MH3U did, and you can also get bistro tickets, wycademy tickets and several other types of vouchers. Many of these will be more useful as crafting materials for specialty weapons than the so so items you get from trading them to the Veggie Elder.

Make sure to add your friend's guild card to your account or you don't get unity points!

It's safe to say this is my favorite game for the Nintendo 3DS, and it's an excellent addition to the Monster Hunter franchise. If you've been on the fence about picking up Monster Hunter I'd certainly get this game. It has a ton of stuff to do whether you're a solo hunter or you want to play online, and I don't really have any complaints about it. Other than the fact that if you change your weapon it will reset your hunter arts, and not tell you about it. I've gone into a couple fights sans skills, because I forgot. So, make sure you remember to swap them for your new weapon type. There's also no more underwater combat like there was in MH3U which is wonderful. Underwater fighting was just plain painful, and I hated those missions. If you love crafting cool new gear, and you love fighting big boss monsters do yourself a favor, and get this game.

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