Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate: Review

For many Monster Hunter: World became the first opportunity to get acquainted with a series that they had once heard about, but did not know which way to approach it. The game became much friendlier to beginners than previous parts, offered several qualitative changes, and also appeared on home consoles and PCs, completely bypassing the “portables”. But Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate – its complete opposite. This Switch re-release from 3DS lacks all the innovations and simplifications that made World so understandable for a new audience.

Watch out, monsters

The first difference catches your eye right at the very beginning – in Generations there is no plot. You are simply presented with the fact that the hunters’ guild sent the protagonist to work for Vikademia – an organization that studies the monsters living around. Some residents give you simple tasks, like hunting a certain monster or catching a few fish, but the player gets access to the vast majority of tasks simply by approaching a girl in any of the settlements and selecting the desired mission.

The beginning of the game is very slow, since the days of the 3DS the dreary starting tasks have not changed at all. You will have to meet a couple of large monsters, but outside of these missions you will spend more than two hours fighting helpless animals, collecting herbs and other not the most interesting entertainment. On the other hand, the player here is gradually taught all the subtleties that those who played only in World you’ll have to get used to it. Nets for catching insects and picks for mining ore break after several uses, and the supply of whetstones must be constantly replenished. IN World I didn’t have to think about all this at all, this junk didn’t even take up any space in my inventory.

Green midges showing the way to the monster, in Generations they won’t help. Having taken the task and gone to the right place, the player must independently look for the monster, and then pick up a paint ball and throw it at the enemy – only in this case will he be marked on the map. If in World The locations were large and it was possible to run from one corner to another without unnecessary loading, but in this game they are divided into several small parts, and when moving from one to another you have to watch loading screens.

After World this seems at least unusual – a monster can hit you so hard that you fly into the neighboring zone, and these transitions constantly occur when fighting a monster on the border between two areas. But all this also has its advantages – for example, you can move away from the enemy yourself and drink a potion or sharpen a weapon in a calm atmosphere, without worrying that due to the prolonged animation you will not have time to do anything and will die.

Finally, scold Generations stands for https://uptownacescasino.co.uk/login/ a not entirely clear progression system. After just a few hours, the player is bombarded with a lot of quests and does not indicate which tasks are necessary to obtain a higher rank and unlock the next missions. Of course, doing everything in a row is very useful – you will earn money, and you will find sources of materials needed in the future. But those who want to quickly part with tasks for a low-level character will have to go to Google and look for the corresponding guides.

Although this is far from the only case when you can’t do without tips. Combinations of items also remain a secret until you try to combine them for the first time, and some resources and materials are obtained in very unusual ways. One of them can only be obtained by hitting a harmless monster while it is drinking water or chewing grass. You can figure everything out without a search engine, but it will take too much time – if something is not clear, it is better to immediately seek help.

Spare no one

Otherwise this Monster Hunter offers the same gameplay as World, and in many ways it is even better and larger-scale. There are almost three times more monsters here – as you progress you will meet about a hundred unique creatures, and you won’t have to fight the same ones again and again if you don’t need to “farm” materials for equipment. When porting the game from 3DS to the Switch version, G-rank missions were added – these are even more difficult battles with monsters with increased health and aggressive artificial intelligence. If in normal Generations you’ve already spent hundreds of hours, you can transfer the save and quickly start learning new content.

Compared to World the design of weapons and armor here is much more interesting and varied. IN World all the new swords and axes were the same swords and axes you started with, they just looked a little different depending on the monsters you killed. IN Generations their appearance can vary dramatically, and what kind of funny helmets can be created here sometimes… After killing each new monster, I caught myself thinking that I wanted to immediately go to the blacksmith and see what unusual thing he could make this time.

The hunt for monsters follows the same scenario: take a task at the base, buy potions and other useful things, go to the cat-cook for a spirit-strengthening lunch – and off you go. First you should decide on the desired type of weapon, of which there are 14 in the game, and go to the training ground to study all existing techniques. The balance is still almost perfect, and no one except you can tell you exactly what equipment you want to go through the game with – it’s better to try everything yourself.

One of the distinctive features Generations Hunter Arts and Hunter Styles remain. There were four styles on the 3DS, but here there are six. Among the added ones are the Alchemist style, with which you can create useful items, and the Brave style – after making several hits on the enemy, you will be able to use more devastating combinations of techniques. The style must be chosen at the very beginning of the passage, but later it will be possible to change it at any time.

Hunting arts are spectacular techniques, the scales of which are filled as monsters are beaten. There are a lot of them, and they all depend on the type of weapon you choose: one is useful for inflicting enhanced natural damage, with the other you will injure all surrounding creatures in one fell swoop. The number of arts that you can take with you depends on the style – with the new style of the brave man it will be only one technique, and among the old ones there are those that allow you to go hunting with two or even three, and in the latter case the scales will fill up faster.

All this does Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate unfriendly, but exciting and diverse. Most of the time the player is engaged in hunting monsters in order to create better equipment, and thanks to the huge number of various subtleties the project does not get boring. The version for Switch is especially convenient – you wanted to complete a couple of tasks, took the console, quickly turned everything on (even while on the road) and put it aside. It’s very convenient to play such “endless” games in a portable format, but trying to run Generations I don’t recommend it on a TV – the game is ported from 3DS, so it looks so-so on the big screen.

On the other hand, it will rarely be possible to run multiplayer outside the home, and the cooperative mode in Monster Hunter was always cheerful. Unlike World, where “single” and multiplayer are very conveniently combined, here to play with other people you need to look at the list of open groups and upload to their server or open your own “party”. The system is not the most convenient, and during a difficult battle it is impossible to send an SOS signal – if someone falls off, you will have to suffer until the bitter end or quit. But after killing or capturing a monster, everyone doesn’t run away, as in World, and often stay and prepare at the base for the next sortie.

For fans Monster Hunter: World, who have acquired a Switch and want to buy another Monkhan for another platform, recommend Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate it will be difficult. The game is great – it combines all the best that the series has had in recent years – but it completely lacks many of the positive qualities World. After all, the version for 3DS came out a long time ago, and there were no significant changes in the re-release. If you are ready to consult guides and are not afraid of an inconvenient interface and sometimes outdated mechanics, a huge amount of varied content awaits you. Here you can even play as a Palico – isn’t that a significant plus??

Pros: almost a hundred monsters that are different from each other; excellent design of weapons and armor; a sea of ​​quests with a variety of conditions and rewards; spectacular and varied combat system; good additional content for those who played the 3DS version.

Cons: many details, such as the quests needed to increase the rank, are poorly explained; some mechanics seem outdated in comparison World; maps are divided into zones with loading screens between them; bad graphics in stationary mode.