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May 14 2006
Monster Hunter Freedom Review
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| Summary: The epic action-RPG you've been waiting for
85
Monster Hunter Freedom, my first experience with the MH-series. And I like it, I like it a lot and cannot understand why it is that I haven’t heard of this before, seeing that I do own a PlayStation 2 (even though it’s only been two years since I purchased it).
Anyhow, let us not discuss my gaming background but get down with the game instead. The title “Monster Hunter” tells you exactly what the game’s all about - tracking down and slaying monsters of various sizes, using a handful of different weapons, items and traps. When you first come to life in this game, after having spent a decent amount of time with the surprisingly well made character creation system, your character wakes up inside his house where there’s a bed (duh) for saving the game, an item box for storing whatever you wish not to carry around, and an info magazine where you may read up on things like how combat works, some notes on the areas where you’ll be hunting, and other topics that should be of great interest to a newcomer like myself.
Outside is the village in which you seem to be living and apart from having a couple of merchants and ordinary people wandering the streets, there’s also the Guild Hall where you embark on quests offline as well as “online” (ad-hoc, more on that later), a sword stuck in a tree stump, and a road that leads to a farm where you may do a number of activities without the risk of getting ambushed by Velicoprey or crushed by a descending Yian Kut-Ku. From what I have come to understand, the Kokoto Farm is a new feature even to veteran players and here’s a brief description of what it’s good for: planting seeds, mining resources, fishing and catching bugs. At least that’s all you can do at the start of the game, but as you buy and sell wares - you’ll gain Kokoto Points for helping the village grow and these points are used for expanding the farm. Not only will you be able to get more out of the stuff already mentioned above - but it seems that you can open up new activities as well. I recently added a Mushroom Tree allowing me to gather different types of mushrooms, for example. Kokoto Farm is a neat little feature that will allow you to get some resources without having to embark on a quest.
Because that’s the only way to leave the village - by embarking on a quest... Wandering off to the village border will only result in discovering an invisible wall, unless you’ve accepted a quest and thus will have the option to leave by pressing the square button. Not to worry though as there are quests that are pretty much impossible to fail and these only seem to serve as a way of leaving the village for resource gathering and weapon practicing. Quests are provided by the Village Chief and, naturally, the Guild. It is suggested that you go speak to the Village Chief first, since his first quests will serve as a tutorial where you learn more on combat, healing, combining items, traps etc. All quests provided are divided into five levels of difficulty, represented by an equal number of stars, and contains a number of quests ranging from 8 and all the way up to 20 (from what I have seen so far). Each quest has a reward, a contract fee (except for the first five missions given by the chief), a time limit and both goal and fail conditions. Quests are also divided into five categories: Gathering, Hunting, Capture, Event and Special and take place in one of five maps: Forest & Hills, Desert, Jungle, Swamp and Volcano. Each map consists of a number of areas - once you leave an area, you’ll have to wait until the next has loaded (think Fable).
So, you’ve accepted and embarked on a quest and thus are now standing in the camp; a place to rest up, do some minor resource gathering, and equip yourself with whatever starting equipment that the Guild or Chief has provided you with - which can be found in a giant, blue chest. Usually you’re given a map of all the areas, something that will restore your health and stamina, a whetstone to help keep your blade sharp, and basic ammunition if that’s the road you’ve taken. For inside your house, at the item box, you have no less than five different weapons to choose from - all with their own advantages, weak points and combat strategies. There’s the “weak” but very mobile Sword and Shield, the strong but very cumbersome Great Sword, the lance for keeping a distance without losing too much attack power, the extremely powerful though slow hammer, and the only ranged weapon available - a crossbow gun (heavier versions are available). You should try at least two of these before deciding on which to use. A sixth weapon does exist but you’ll have to find it first: the dual swords with their lethal combos.
Attacking is as simple as one, two, three. Mastering your weapon, however, isn’t. Believe me when I say that newcomers will wonder why the hell you’re unable to lock-on to creatures... But once you get the hang of it, you’ll forgive them for trying to make a realistic game where aiming and timing is of importance. Unsheathe your melee weapon by pressing triangle and then unleash combos by pressing triangle, circle and both together to perform different types of attacks. Timing is not a must here - simply bashing the buttons will do, but it won’t take you too long before you know exactly when to press the next button in order to extend your combo. The more you use a melee weapon, the sooner its edge will become dull and this will affect the weapon’s attack power. There are four levels of sharpness, presented in colors when examining your weapon (red, orange, yellow and green) and by a changing knife-icon when wandering around the map. Green sharpness gives you a 1.125 damage modifier, yellow is 1.0, orange 0.75 and red will reduce all your damage by half.
Once you’ve slain your first monster, you’ll want to cut it open. Stand next to it and press circle to cut the corpse with your hunter’s knife. This will typically provide you with a fang, some hide, raw meat or something else like that. This is also the main reason to why you hunt - to gather resources from both creatures and the nature itself (piles of bones, honeycombs, plants etc). Fangs are good for both weapons and ammunition, hides and scales will let you create new armor, and herbs can be eaten or combined with blue mushrooms to brew healing potions, for example. There are a ton of stuff to create in this game, it’s just a shame that you don’t have a clue on how to do it... I miss having recipes for what items and potions can be created (however, once you do manage to pull something together, you’ll receive a recipe for it). Thankfully, when it comes to armor and weapons - the shops will instantly tell you the requirements.
Monster Hunter Freedom also has an interesting way of developing skills: all armor will raise a certain skill by a certain number. So what you do is combine pieces of armor in order to raise a skill up to 10 points or more. This will activate the skill and you are then able to e.g. carry more, can withstand knockdowns, or are resistant to stealing - just to mention a few of the skills and their various effects.
Visually the game’s very impressive, as you’ll come to understand the moment you embark on a quest. The environment is highly detailed and monsters do both look good as well as move and behave like you expect them to do (hitting and slaying one Aptonoth may very well cause the rest of the herd to flee in panic). So far I haven’t had any slowdowns either - be it five Velocipreys or one, big Yian Kut-Ku attacking me, the game runs perfectly fine.
But there is one thing that slows the game down significantly, and that’s the frequent loading times. Entering the game as well as loading your next quest can take up to 30 seconds and while a map’s different areas thankfully only takes 4-10 seconds to load, they are all quite small and thus walking across the map will take some time to do.
Overall, Monster Hunter Freedom has been a great experience to me. It’s an incredibly fun and addictive action-RPG and definitely one of the top games out for the PSP. Very appealing visually and the sound isn’t too bad either, with good ambient effects and a nice (though short), Celtic soundtrack. It’s just a shame that they didn’t include more tutorial quests, left out Infrastructure (though ad-hoc play naturally is very enjoyable!) and that the gameplay is plagued by such time-consuming loadtimes. Still, I definitely recommend this game to everyone who finds the concept interesting but be aware that if you’ve never played a MH-game, you might have a hard time grasping the controls and will probably only think of it as an “OK game” the first hour or so, until you’ve completed at least the first five tutorial quests given by the Village Chief and thus have learned more about the game (even though you’ve still only scratched the surface). Now, let’s hope for a sequel with Infrastructure play and that they continue to support this game by giving us downloadable content!
Pros
• Detailed environments
• Good character customization
• Item creation
• Rich on content
• Ad-hoc play
• Downloadable quests?
Cons
• Load times
• Somewhat hard to get into
• Some areas are a little too small
• Infrastructure left out
REVIEW IT
PRODUCT INFO
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Comments
Yea wow im in the nz and i cant wait for this now it looks wicked and cheers to your review im definately going to get it now : RPG ALL THE WAY!
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KageNaruto said: "lmy questions: so to have diff characters do you need diff game saves? or are you bale to have like a few to choose from. i think you need gamesaves but since yore able to get so many diff character type si cant help but wonder. also, can you switch your weapon type in the game if you get the weapon?
alsohow often can you save your game?"
I'm not sure whether the game creates a different save game for each of your characters or not, but there are three character slots available anyhow.
Yes, while in the village, you may change your equipment and that includes picking another weapon. You can even save up to 20 different sets of equipment - so that you don't have to manually unequip the stuff that you're currently wearing and then re-equip what you want to wear now. Instead you can simply pick a saved set and your character will then be equipped accordingly (assuming that you haven't sold any of the pieces in the set).
You may save the game as often as you like - while still inside the village. Also, once a quest has been completed and your reward given - the game asks if you would like to save.
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according to someone how reviewed the first monster hunter, they said it was fun but was a little low on variety (as in if you pick a quest, it eighter you go hunt down a monster or pick up a certin herb and the only difference was the diffeculty of the missions). are the mission on this one a little more creative and involving. ConraDargo, hope you answer soon, i would appriciate it.
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Well with quest-categories like Hunting and Gathering, I’m afraid there's very little room left for variation... You always either hunt down X monsters, gather X resources, or capture a monster. The only real difference here is the number of monsters to kill, what they are, and how to do it. Or what reagent to find and where (doesn’t have to be a plant, it could very well be the liver of a Piscine Wyvern).
At least they did bother writing a small background story to each of these missions  Not that you’ll care about it or even read what it is... ;P
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I would just like to recommend this newly started MHF-forum - I believe it has the potential of becoming a good gathering place for us Hunters
link
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omigod just 7 more days before i get my hands on this game! AAAAAAAAAAAAA
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Man, I wont... Im just worried about the LOAD TIMES!
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Eventually you'll get over the loading times because of how fun the game is. I tell you guys - the more I play the better it gets. It's hard to describe the satisfaction of finally being able to slay a big Wyvern or getting that kick-ass weapon you've been trying to gather enough resources and money for
And what impresses me the most is how different my character looks now that I’ve progressed through so many quests. The amount of time spent on making every piece of armor, weapon and even the upgrades made to a weapon is just stunning (and that includes being able to see whether a bowgun has a Scope or Long Barrel attached to it or not). It’s hard to believe that the Great Sword I’m wielding now, which resembles a Velicoprey’s face because it’s made out of their bones and the blade is even fitted with their razor sharp fangs, is in fact the same Great Sword I’ve been carrying since I begun playing. It has never been replaced, only improved/upgraded.
The game really kicks enough ass for you to overlook the loading times.
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stop making it look so good, the anticipation is already killing me, anymore and ill actually die
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Come on folks - run out and get it now that it has been released in the US
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it doesent ship to stores till tomorow though or in my case thurs, so i kinda cant....
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Aw man, that sucks :/ I've got 38 hours of playtime now :D
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review is at Link............i wounder why the game always receives low scores when people say it is soooooooooooo goooooooooood, seriously though???
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I'm not sure why so many reviewers seem to dislike this game either... It's definitely weird - just look at the score that GameSpot's readers has given the game, freaking 9.3 out of 177 votes :S
Not that I think you should trust them all, seeing that a lot of people rates a game even though they’ve never played it...
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just picked up a compy earlier today, so far, its looking pretty good
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