This video shows the Monster Hunter Freedom 2 real-time gameplay in action
Go for a little river cruise, do some farming, play a range of cool little minigames - MHF2 has it all
Four player action is a real blast, and can be a bit easier than going solo as there's more targets for the monsters to track
Monster Hunter Freedom 2 (MHF2) is
the follow up game to the popular Monster Hunter 2 on the PS2, which was only released in Japan.
Developed by Capcom, the guys behind Street Sweeper 2 and Lost Planet, MHF2
is a real-time RPG where you create a character then basically go
around butchering monsters to level up your avatar.
It's not an original concept by any means, but it's a
pretty good game and one that will outlast most other console RPGs
because there's so much
to collect, craft, and kill.
I've never played a Monster Hunter game before,
and so have chosen to review the game in chronological order. Observe:
Before the fancy-looking intro
rocks your world, you arrive at the character creation screen. You can
choose skin tone,
hair type and even a battle cry. I had great fun listening to
all the battle cries, like “Hoooy ya!” or
“Arrgh Hun!!”.
The intro to the game is a
cinematic showpiece, focussing first a tiny town full of nice, caring
people who walk about, clean chimneys, and prepare their meagre food
alongside the occasional bipedal cat-freak.
You know, the
usual Japanese utopian medieval setting.
Things get interesting when the
scene then cuts to a hunter (you) walking around with
a massive anime sword, looking for something to chow down on and/or slice and ice.
The hunter then discovers a serpentine creature lying in a cave and is
promptly chased off the edge of a cliff. He/She (depending on
what sex your chosen character is) then wakes up in a very clean and
tidy house and is introduced to the whole town, whose citizens want you
to be the town hunter.
They even give you a free house,
food, and money to do it. Suckers!!
But the whole point of the intro
is an excuse to get you killing some monsters ASAP, and that's okay
with me. Sure, monsters have feelings too, they have good days and bad
days, but I feel that because they disagree with my religious idealogy,
they must die.
After all this you wake up in your
house where you have a bed, a cupboard and a large chest. The cupboard
allows you to change your hairstyles and read up on various techniques
to kill monsters, which isn't very entertaining although everything
that's written gets brownie points for being very imaginative and
really original.
From the chest, you can choose
weapons, armor and various other accessories that a warrior needs and
your bed provides a save game/exit strategy for when you want to get to
the main menu.
The next step is to explore the
town which contains more humanoid cats than people. From the
town you can go farming (fishing, bug catching, mining and vegetable
growing) and learn
about your weapons with the combat instructor. You can also
depart for quests.
The basic training is very tiring
and I found that it took a long and boring time to complete, to the
point where I became so bored that I turned off the PSP (and
thought about immersing it in cranberry juice).
The instructor makes you venture
out into the landscape to find certain items and to kill certain
monsters, just like the real quests that you get later on in the game,
just a little easier. After completing the basic quests you can start
the gameplay proper, which is where the real fun commences.
The game is played in a bit of a
'circle', where you follow a routine. Check it out:
1.
Complete a quest. 2.
Play around in your garden. 3.
Talk to the cat chef. 4.
Buy new weapons. 5. Complete another quest.
Performing this routine allows
your character to level up, becoming stronger and possibly more
handsome, and allowing you to use better weapons and armour. You'll
also come across more and more items from your travels and monster
butchering, which can be used to make cool stuff. Like any RPG, this is
the hook - the more you play, the more powerful and skilled your
character becomes.
Let's look at the quests, the meat
and potatoes of the gameplay. Based on difficulty, if you complete all
the quests at level one you have access to an urgent level which will
is a bridge to level 2 quests etc... Furthermore, there are
three main categories of quests that are available to you:
Gathering: Gathering
quests are the first quests available to you, and task you
with
looking for items like mushrooms, herbs or bugs etc. which are found in
and around the Monster Hunter environment.
Slaying: Slaying
quests require you to go and kill a large number of enemies
(usually not as strong as the enemies in hunting quests).
Hunting: Hunting
quests demand that you kill the biggest and hardest-to-kill monster in
the area (just one of them).
Slaying and Gathering quests are
the easier of the three while the Hunting quests
need you to be a little more attentive and skilled at the game as
you'll face a singular, highly powerful monster that needs to be
killed.
Hunting quests are basically what
this game's all about: they're pretty cool to experience and the
monsters that you end up fighting are stunning in their design and
complexity. Sometimes you'll come up against a flying dinosaur or
monkey-looking scorpion fiend or something similar. All of the monsters
in the hunting quests have a large amount of hit points and are all
quite similar in the way that they are most vulnerable from behind.
This means that the quickest way
to eliminate a tough monster is to attack from the rear, so most of the
fighting takes place behind the enemy, not in front of it. Of course,
all this attacking from behind can get boring at times, especially when
using a ranged weapon because they don't do as much damage as other
hand held weapons, like swords or rapiers.
All in all, the real-time combat
is average considering that they could have added a 'lock-on' button
and could have made the camera rotate on any button other than the
joystick. This means that you can't run around and change the
camera angle at the same time. The best way to attack your enemies is
to chase their bum and stay out of the way of their primary attack
moves, because if you try another strategy you probably won't be able
to see the monster.
One of the best things about this
game - and the combat isn't too bad, just that it can be predictable -
is the longevity. It's such as a huge game. There are so many different
items in Monster Hunter Freedom 2 that it's nearly impossible to
collect them all (let alone combine them - which makes even more
powerful items).
There are a few cool items that
are worth mentioning, one of them being the 'paintball'. When shot at
an enemy, the enemy will appear on your mini map so that you can track
it and follow it around, not unlike a high tech tracking device.
Another is the 'spit', which you can use to cook raw meat on. A monster
killer has to eat, after all. You must turn the spit around until you
hear a little noise, if you press the X button when you hear the noise
your meat will be perfectly cooked...pretty cool!
There are also many crafting
materials in MHF2 which you can combine to make other items and
potions. The problem with this system is that you can combine around
160 different items, but you never know what it'll make. The guide just
tells you what items can be combined, not what they make. Some may see
this as is a neat feature, as you have to use the trial and error
procedure to figure all out all the combinations. Others, myself
included, may see these random items combinations as a frustrating
addition.
Aside from the bad additions, the
good one is definitely your farm. The farm belongs to you and is run by
cats. On the farm there is a place to fish, catch bugs, mine, plant
trees and harvest crops etcetera. You can farm each area thrice before
you must complete a quest again. This addition provides something to
look forward to, as it's fun to see how your farm is progressing over
time.
One thing I think could've been
added is Internet play, it was in the other Monster Hunter. So why not
this one? Capcom got lazy.
Although this game misses out on
Internet play you can still meet up with your friends and head out for
some serious monster killing. You can invite up to three friends to
join you on some quests in wireless mode, and it's one of the
better multiplayer console RPGs. It's huge fun in four-player
mode but if you're a loner and don't have any friends with PSPs then
the Internet has failed you this time.
That's just about all for the game
play and add-ons. Time for graphics. The graphics and environment of
the game are great, the designers did a really good job on this one!
The scenery includes a giant and realistic mountain that reflects onto
the water of your surroundings, making the experience of the game worth
while. Just experiencing the graphics of this game makes it worth it,
because they're so realistic and enjoyable that all game play features
are just a bonus. The eye candy is abundant, and anyone seeing you play
this in the libraby or waiting for the train will be mesmerised and
probably become murderously jealous.
The graphics do come at a cost
though: loading times. The time that it takes this game to load is just
stupid, you might as well go and put on the kettle while you watch the
little letters of the loading screen bob up and down the screen for the
100th time.
The game has a great concept but
fails to deliver the goods in a truly epic way. It could have been
brilliant, and there's some really innovative and enjoyable gameplay
elements there, which are contrasted with some very poorly executed
ones. It has everything that a great game should have, it just combines
it in a way that doesn't present well. With a bit more direction
Monster Hunter Freedom 2 could have been a whole lot
better.
If you're looking for a game that
you just want to pick up and enjoy on your Sony handheld, where you can
leave your brain at the door, it may be worth trying a racing
game like Need for Speed. On the other hand if you're into games that
last a very
long time and are involving and enjoyable, with lots of violent combat
and RPG elements, then go and buy this now because the good far
outweighs the bad.
