Topic: Monster Hunter: World

Lemme check, because Bitterbugs heals confusion.
Nope, nothing in that bug's description, ah well. lol

I'm not thrilled with all the hints of previous flagships returning. Brachydios has been in every single game since he was introduced, and Gore/Shagaru were omnipresent in 4th gen. Having a bunch of older monsters as the top-tier threats also make newer monsters look less impressive.
I want mostly new monsters, not a bunch flagships that have been everywhere for years.

@CrazedCavalier Yeah, well, that's the thing with popular monsters. The ones that don't like them tend to be the minority.

Also Gore and Seregios have only been in one gen so far so I wouldn't call those ones oversaturated at least.

Not seeing many new end game monsters tends to happen if you've only seen the first two starting areas.

I'm fine with flagships returning, or monsters returning in general...just, don't go overboard like they did with Generations/XX.

@Joeynator3000 Most of the new monster additions to those games were for the better, as they added in 3rd gen monsters; the games that went overboard in the 1st place were 4 and 4U, adding back a bunch of barely changed (read: crappy) 1st and 2nd gen monsters because Capcom was running low on money and wanted to rush the game out (heck, 4 even got delayed after consistent backlash on how poor it looked-- March 2013 to September 2013).

...I'm not getting into this argument again...4U was fine...Gen/XX had the crappy monster ports.

@Joeynator3000 4/4U were not fine. Most of the monsters were ported over with a few AI adjustments and tighter hitboxes; even the ones that did receive some changes/new moves (Fatalis, Teostra) were still annoying to fight.
Most of the monsters that got ported over in Gen were 3rd gen monsters, who are far better than 1st and 2nd gen ones. The only two that needed fixed were Nargacuga and Ceanataur; and considering the A team couldn't be bothered to do more than minimal changes to most monsters, why would the B team do more?

4/4U's many issues are symptomatic of Capcom's financial troubles at the time: most of the monster roster being 1st and 2nd gen monsters ported over with minimal changes, lacking area variety (re-skinning the Sunken Hollow as the Volcanic Hollow; not having a desert map until 4U, which was just a re-make of an older one), and a big new feature (Guild Quests) being pure RNG with monsters locked behind it (something they thankfully semi-reversed in 4U). Ecology videos went out the window for story cutscenes, even.

Whatever dude.

There's nothing wrong with having older monsters being ported over to newer games. Not everyone played the older games, so ports will give people the opportunity to encounter those old monsters for the first time.

@crimsontadpoles The operative word is "ported"; that is, barely changed.

He thinks the monsters in 4/4U were direct ports compared to Gen/XX...

@CrazedCavalier And? MH3U and MH4U was the first time I was seeing most of the older monsters. In general, they didn't seem any worse than newer monsters, and I would have struggled to have worked out which monsters were ported and which were new.

If monsters are fun to battle in 4U and Gen, then I don't care that they've barely changed from a previous game that I've not played.

For once I agree with @CrazedCavalier, Monster Hunter 4 focused way too much on porting old monsters with only mounting animations and back breaks added to the point where it only had 10 new monsters counting Shagaru and Gore. Fourth gen needed Cross to add 7 new monsters just to give it an identity of its own separate from the likes of Freedom Unite. The hitboxes of those old monsters are just... obviously bad. Fighting Ceadeus compared to Ukanlos is just night and day in hitbox terms.

I think Cross is a better game by virtue of it having 55 unique monsters over 4U's 43 (not counting subspecies or deviants), but truth be told I'm not fond of fourth gen as a whole due to its limited start. Mounting was always disappointing compared to the expectation set by other games and even fights in the series like Jhen Moh'ran where you can move around on the monster's back freely. It's hard to be certain but in the below video YouTubers who've gotten hands on at PAX talk about the fight with a monster continuing during mounting, just with the creature periodically throwing itself around in attempt to shake the hunter off.

I have ever expectation that World will have plenty of new monsters due to its 4-year dev cycle circa June. I'm not crazy about fighting Gore / Brachy / Seregios / Zinogre again, but all of the returning monsters are remade for 5th gen — a big jump from 4U's 2nd gen. As long as there are 15-20 new monsters I have no problems with returners. And judging by the pace of the reveals so far, that's exactly what we'll get through the TGS and PSX reveals / trailers.

By the way, the current rumor is for a January 26th release.

@Joeynator3000 @crimsontadpoles I've said that they at least tightened up some hitboxes and made the AI less abusable, while conceding monsters like Fatalis and Chameleos who got much-needed overhauls. The deal is that most 1st and 2nd gen monsters need the latter and not the former; they still have awkward hitboxes at times and virtually no tell on some attacks. 3rd gen monsters are far better designed on average, meaning they don't need to be changed.

TL;DR the big issue that I found in my re-play of 4U (and was only made more apparent in playing Portable 3rd) is that most 1st and 2nd gen monsters just aren't very fun to fight when compared to 3rd and 4th gen monsters.

In general, I like the idea of porting older monsters into the new games. A Monster Hunter game that had every single past monster along with new monsters would be unbelievably brilliant.

The only issue with that is that is unrealistic. It would take for too much time and money to develop something like that. It's all about getting the balance right.

@CrazedCavalier I'm staying out of hitboxes arguments. I don't pay a lot of attention to the fine detail mechanics like those while playing. But I've not really noticed the issues you're saying about 4U, it seemed fine to me.

This is kind of why I love MHXX so much, disproportionately high for the effort put into the game.

Like, compared to World, it looks last gen, and just dated all around. BUT. It's classic MH which I've always loved, and jumping into HD after years on 3DS alone makes it feel next gen. At least, enough that I'm wowed by how great it looks every time I play.

But mostly I love it because it is that Ultimate collection of monsters and maps and villages from games past. As we look forward to the future of this series it's nice to pause and reflect on the last decade or so of amazing MH. It's like a compilation game, a who's who of all the best monsters. It's a game I will love for years to come, as the ultimate classic arcadey MH title that has it all.

It's going to be like we're starting fresh again with World, and whatever game they release as the next portable entry will likely be based on the 5th generation as well. So for me it's nice having that celebratory compilation where I can experience the best of the best of the series to date. I'm very happy right now with that release, which makes me feel better about World because I got what I wanted before having to accept (for better or worse) whatever lies ahead.

I feel like a lot of my reservations and disappointments were compounded by the fact I couldn't get one last hurrah experience in before moving on. But the English 3DS version of MHXX, along with the save transfer tool from Capcom, has amazingly solved the lack of localization for me. And now I feel like I've got what I wanted, and I will always have this game to fall back on for years to come. I will always be able to go out and hunt all the best monsters in the traditional style anywhere and anytime I want. And that's fantastic because that's all I really wanted.

And now we start fresh again. I'm sure I'm not going to like everything about the new direction, but I'm willing to give it a chance and be more accepting, and focus on the good instead of the bad. And that's a beautiful thing

A lot of the monsters in 4U gained some changes, even new moves. Cephadrome doesn't take 40 minutes to kill, Garuga actually puts up a fight, FATALIS ISN'T BORING (where Lao still just sits there for the entire fight). Gravios is probably one of the few that remains the same when it comes to animation/movement, then again it seems to fit him since he's basically a walking boulder.

Then there's the monsters in Generations, I was really excited to see Aganktor and Uragaan return...only to be disappointed that they're just ported directly from 3U. Alatreon doesn't even get any changes, and I heard he's STILL the same in XX's G-Rank...

Because they were good to begin with. Agnaktor and Uragaan are much more precise, skillful, and engaging fights than Gravios, Fatalis, or Gargua by far. Agnaktor has individualized hit boxes for each of its paws and multiple leveled breaks which certainly wasn't possible for players in MH 1 or 2. Moreover, landlocked Lagiacrus was the best remade monster since Rathalos in Tri.

And by the way World is traditional Monster Hunter, it's just not literally reusing the same assets like all the 3DS games because it actually has a respectable budget and timetable. The only non-traditional Monster Hunters in the series are Stories, Explore, and the Animal Crossing knock off From Soft made.