So I've recently become totally hooked on Monster Hunter Tri, and figured I should make a topic for it to see if anyone else on the Bog plays it/wants to discuss it.

For those few unfamiliar, in a nutshell, Monster Hunter is a manly-as-fuck fantasy world fulla dragons and dinosaurs where large sections of the populace make a living chasing down monsters several times their size with surfboard-sized chunks of metal to kill them and harvest their body parts to make weapons and fancy clothes.

The monsters may not be the most interesting to some of you since most of them are variations on dragons and dinosaurs, but what really impressed me about them was how much personality and life the developers put into all of them. All the monsters feel less like random enemies to kill and more like real, living creatures. All of them have their own body language to indicate when they're doing what attack, and when they're hungry, tired, or angry. Most of their attacks aren't fire breath and lasers; they're mostly believable attacks an animal might use like body slams, rolls and bites, yet somehow they all still manage to have different and distinctive attacks. Sometimes they'll totally ignore the player to go eat or try to attack another monster, and they'll flee when they realize you've got them on the ropes and you have to track them to finish the job. As a result, fights with the large boss monsters can take a while.

Some of the various beasties you'll come up against:


The Royal Ludroth is a giant amphibious lizard with a sponge for a mane that stores water, which it uses for its distinctive (yet easily dodged) water bomb attack. Most of its other, more dangerous attacks involve it flopping and lunging and rolling around, and it can fight both on land and underwater, often switching between the two as you fight it. Ecology-wise, it's stated that the Royal Ludroth is actually just the male of the Ludroth species, with the much smaller females being lesser minion monsters. Since male Ludroths are rarer, the females tend to form harems around them.


The Gobul is basically every monstrous aspect of fish rolled into one. It's covered in spikes like a pufferfish, has an anglerfish's lure and creepy jaws, and buries itself in the seabed so it can burst out to take things by surprise and vacuum them into its gigantic mouth like some sort of demonic hoover. Much like the Royal Ludroth, it can be fought on both land and underwater, but it mostly sticks to the water. Humorously, it loves eating frogs, to the point where you can actually drag it out of the water with a fishing rod if you use a frog as a lure.


The flamboyant-looking Qurupeco doesn't seem like it'd be much of an intimidating opponent, but this tropical bird has an extremely dreaded special ability/signature technique: it's capable of mimicking the distress calls of other monsters, causing them to join the battle and make things a LOT more complicated. If you're lucky, he'll only summon a few small monsters, but if you're unlucky, he'll summon another boss monster, which in most cases is much stronger than Quru himself is. On high rank quests, he can even summon the dreaded Deviljho, which is pretty much exactly as tough to deal with as it looks.

Anyway, MONSTER HUNTER IS COOL. DISCUSS IT.

I really like the Monster Hunter franchise, even though I have only ever played the first game on the PS2 years ago. I like the style of the creatures, and the creative ways the artists twist and bend dinosaurs and other animals into new and more monstrous forms.

I also like the attention given to the ecology of the animals:

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On the subject of ecology though, one has to wonder how all these giant creatures, which there can't be that many of in any given region, are able to avoid extinction when so many hunters are cutting them up on a daily basis. Ah well, that is the purpose of a video game after all; a place to live out hunter gatherer fantasies free of real-world concern for the environment!

I haven't looked into Monster Hunter very much, but I like most if not all of its creatures from what I have seen.
The weapon and armor choices are a huge negative point for me. Anything THAT big and clunky barely has any valid defense, other than getting the job of slaying hundred foot crocodragons with ten foot thick skin done, of course.

That leech beast is awesome. What's he called? Giganox or something?

I played the shit out of Monster Hunter Tri. Haven't played it too much recently..

Yup, Gigginox is the poisonous leech dragon.

I haven't gotten far enough to fight it yet, but you encounter its adorable young, called Giggis, very early on as minor enemies. The way they scoot along after you and cower from your torchlight is just precious. It's considerably less precious when they attach to you, suck your blood, and swell up and start spitting poison at you.


Funnily enough, though, the Gigginox is actually the SECOND leechlike dragon the series has had. Say hi to the Khezu. Unfortunately I know nothing else about it other than that it exists.

Last I left off I was fighting giginox. Huge pain in the ass.

Jesus lizard obviously prefers stuff like the kirin armors, which are basically fur bikinis sets for men and women alike.

And that's about the only thing I know about Monster Hunter.

The Khezu was the franchise's first 'creepy' monster, though thankfully not the last:

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The Khezu is possibly completely blind, but has an excellent sense of smell. They are hermaphrodites, and they paralyze prey to serve as hosts for their young. You can read more about them here:

http://monsterhunter.wikia.com/wiki/Khezu

"Dude, what are you going to be fighting that you need a sword that big?"
"... Dinosaurs."

Monster hunter tri is super addictive, I would play for hours on end just to get the next best gear so I could fight the next big monster. Its sorta zen in a way.

Pretty much, and considering how long it takes to kill something with a sword three times the size of your body, it's doubtful smaller weapons would be practical at all.

Also, you have to consider that the humans in Monster Hunter are apparently indestructible superbeings, because being shot in the face five times by exploding fireballs only causes you to get knocked out and carried away to safety by cats.

The sword/shield combo is small, but you need to be attacking nonstop and jump and weave and dodge to be practical with it at all.

I prefer the switchaxe myself.

auughhh i hate fighting gigginox, gigginox is such a tool to fight against unless you have a fire weapon and a good idea of how it fights I:
BUT, with that being said theres a dragon i hate fighting more than the gigginox and thats barioth, that god damn thing always almost kills me--

but its so fucking awesome looking, the first time i fought this guy i used a lance and good god that was the worst thing to do ever.

I still wish i could connect to the internet with my wii though, i'd love to kill dragons with people 8C

I hate Barrioth too, but my least favorite quest has to be where you're carrying the huge flaming rocks and Uragaan comes along to stomp the crap outta you.

Hunter: Hot! The gloves! They do nothing! Augh!

Uragaan: Oh, that looks heavy, cumbersome and on fire, let me help you with that.

*Uragaan crushes all your bones*

Hunter: Oh god! This is not helping! This the the opposite!

Uragaan: Problem?

The only things I know about Monster Hunter are that a. it is not Monster Rancher, that is something else and b. I need to fucking play it.

Rev, you should know this by now.

I'm pretty ashamed, yeah.

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I just found this pretty sweet video showcasing a ton of the monsters in Tri! It's a size comparison chart mostly, but has all sorts of nice little touches like the Gobul lunging out and swallowing an Epioth whole and the lights turning off as Gigginox crawls along the wall before dropping into place.

http://www.usj.co.jp/mhp3/guest/index.html

Monster hunter the theme park!

Meh.

Call me when they genetically engineer a Great Jaggi I can fight.