The “Best” Story In A Monster Hunter Game
Tomkon
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Monster Hunter games aren’t known for their amazing narratives. You boot up a monster hunter game because they’re fun to play, never to hear an interesting plot.
But there have been some interesting stories in the past-and what’s more, they’ve been told in some really fascinating ways. A great example is Monster Hunter 4, which told the story of a rivalry with the potential to change the fate of the world.
But is it the best story told in a monster hunter game? Well…
Link to Ayyvian’s video showcasing green plesioth’s move in MHS2:
07.09.2023
For me Kutku from Monster Hunter first is my best monster hunter experience even its funny to think about fighting a "dummy" can be the best experience fight before you fighting even greater wyvern in the next quest.
i remember playing MH when im still in 1st grade mid school. Fighting urgent quest Velocidrome put my adrenaline to the highest moment. Monster Hunter feel like a horror game that impose dreadful feel like you've being hunted. After i cleared the 1st urgent quest of 1st star village quest then i've met Kutku the 1st wyvern that look like chicken.
the Introduction of Kutku seems really odd and uneasy unlike velocidrome, its feel like Kutku would wreck havoc any living thing around it and when her beak start clapping its feel so enormous and intimidating and same like what velocidrome did i feel extremely weak and unable to overcome how scary kutku back then.
i've stopped playing after i got defeated twice and losing some zenny to take the urgent quest again. Then a year pass i encourage myself to play again from the beginning then that's is the first Monster Hunter game where i able to finished all the village quest.
The thing is that the world feels alive not just the monsters but the people and its not some bleak or depressing world. people work with the hand their dealt with and the culture and people celebrate
4U has a special place in my heart. I often refer to the time it came out as Monster Hunter's "Golden Age".
love this game so much, sank almost 900 hours in it. A shame that my 3ds isn't in it's best condition now so I had to drop it. Really hoping that the next gem would come close to getting 4U's feel
A personal story for me when it comes to monster Hunter goes back to the one back in the PS2. In that game I struggled even with friends in order to hunt on my own. But slowly began to learn the monsters I fought patterns. I got quite adept in doing so that I could start telling what hit boxes would and would not connect. Back then my friends were all part of a guild known as the Dragoons. To get into that guild you would need to solo a Rathalos in plus rank, which back then was no easy thing to do. Plus rank was considered to be near master rank level of difficulty at the time and the control scheme for the game was very much difficult all on its own. I spent hours studying that thing to the point where I managed to learn it's moveset in and out. And when I was ready I went in along with two guild members and another person who had just attempted the quest and failed miserably. The guy messaged us saying that the mission was complete bs and that it could not be done solo. To prove him wrong and to show that it could he was allowed to be in my quest as an observer. And after dying twice I got the win using duel blades which back then were considered to be the weakest weapon given that there were only two major elements so the blades relied on just quick attacks alone. Beating that Rathalos and entering the Dragoons guild was awesome! And I'll always remember that challenge as well as all the fun that came after ^^
Mh Rise perfected the story, it is completely and utterly skippable
ever notice how when you damage one of gores parts you see light yellow
“None of my friends were interested in the game so I had to solo the guild quests.” This was my entire experience from MHFU-MHGenU thank goodness for the newer gens multiplayer matchmaking and health scaling. Still working on getting my friends into MH though 😅
Oh yes. I CLEARLY remember that first experience of Tigrex showing up on the popo quest. Honestly pretty scary.
Literally thousands of hours spent playing this game with my brothers and our friends. Sleepless nights blasting silver rathalos and gold rathian come to mind.
Monster Hunter is a very special series for me. When I first played Tri on my Wii as a teensy 7 year old, it was the first game that I was really able to play wirh my cousin. We would hop into arena quests, and I was scared for my life. I mean, I'm pretty bad at videogames, but at the age of 7? Man I could get outplayed by Mario Kart AI. But my cousin was much more sure footed, so he'd run in charging towards the monsters, while I'd hang back and only get some cheap shots off when i thought it was safe.
The only MH game we havent played together since has been Rise, and I consider the man to he my brother, and one of, if not my closest friend. And it was Monster Hunter that really allowed that relationship to kindle. With all our stupid inside jokes, and nicknames for the monsters. Or how we thought the, "J," in Deviljho was an, "I." Nothing like that feeling of picking up MH4U together in GameStop right after it came out, on our 3DS' that we bought JUST so we could play it. And when we'd see old weapons that we used in 3 and 3U, and get excited to use them again. The shit talking wed give a giant land whale after he knocked us off a boat too many times.
I will ALWAYS be thankful that after months of begging, my dad finally caved and bought me that game with the, "cool blue alligator," on it. Despite it being rated T. And i think that's the beauty of Monster Hunter, and videogames moreover. The little worlds we're able to inhabit with our friends, meeting new characters and laughing alongside them. Overcoming great obstacles, and feeling accomplished. And through those fictional stories, take them into the real world with us, and forge bonds because of them.
So hey, thanks Capcom. Even though you almost certainly didn't mean to, you changed my life, and likely many others.
I dont remember much but I did have kind of a hard time with Lagia experianced first in tri and then didnt get further because i was too scarred, then later i got 3U for the 3ds and after a while I managed to surmount the lagia (took a few maybe even a year because time scarce and i had to live life more)
Given that my first rival was Gore, this video has already kinda explained the dynamic with him lol. But another one I had was Dread-king Rathalos from MHG. I remember fighting him SO so many times just to get his stupid tickets for his armor, and I was too scared to fight him 1v1 that I always tried to get people in my lobby first. I think I beat him ONCE on my own, and given how many failed attempts I had even with partners, it was tough. I got his set tho ofc lol.
Little goofy but I am genuinely attached to my Hunter in mhw and I talk to him sometimes because he really made me realize that no challenge is to hard.
Also rajang is our nemisis because it was our first monster out of Shara via event and it was TOUGH.
Once in Monster Hunter Worlds I was fighting the crystal dragon thing that finishes the first main part of the game before you get into the DLC. I didn't know anything about it and wanted to try some new builds so I went in with some BS gear and no real intentions of doing anything other than testing some stuff, but I accidentally left the room open for anyone to join. Some random guy came in and basically solo'd the dragon and then when it was done he turned towards me and typed "Lol good luck in the rest of the game" and then left. I haven't played that game since. Tri was my shit though and rise was pretty good!
My big story would probably be Iceborne Fatalis, i got to it quite late since MHW is a game i dropped a few times before it truly clicked, the final time i had dropped it i was at Alatreon and after getting to Fatalis i remember the weeks long prep i did to my build
For me, the best example I can give is fighting Lucent Nargacuga solo in MH3U. One of the most terrifying fights I’ve ever had, I remember dying twice within the first five minutes, and then fighting tooth and nail for thirty more minutes before finally beating him. By then, I’d gone through every healing item, I was running on fumes, desperately trying to dodge poison attacks while also keeping track of an invisible enemy. It is probably my proudest achievement when he was slain
That's interesting to see how many people really liked 4U, I had no idea. It was my first MH game, learning the combat was sooooo hard and frustrating but very rewarding and addicting. This was when I learned the importance of each and every attack animation, and where on the monster's body the weapon was going to hit. The type of damage to use on which body part, the stagger/break limits, exhaust/KO, the depth is amazing!!! I soloed the entire thing through G rank too, sans the absolute most difficult quests like the Master's Test. I haven't played every release after that, but 4U is still my favorite even if it's because of first time bias. Maybe one day I'll go back to playing but with a cool group to chill with 🤷🏽♂️.
The overall plots of Monster Hunter games are never much to write home about but sometimes Monster Hunter is good at telling smaller stories or giving worldbuilding lore (mainly ecology) through just how things interact in the game or how the quests are structured, Gore and the hunter’s rivalry being one of them.
Most recent example is that one quest in Sunbreak where you have to hunt the aflicted Lunageron. That quest is proper errie with the design choices they picked for that quest in particular and it really builds the terror for Gaismagorm that you fight directly after.
Alatreon and Gore Magala had a great impact in my experience with the franchise but one of my all time favorite fights was Shara Ishvalda.
I mained the HH in World so a dynamic fight between two opponents who utilizes vibrations through sound and shockwaves was really cool in trying to see who was better. Realizing unarmored Shara stared directly into the camera creeped me out and while it was armored I remember it jumping into the air to slam its body on me but I used an Impact Echo Wave to release a shockwave that launched it further into the air to disrupt the attack.
While Shara had more memorable moments and Alatreon had the spectacle Gore Magala really made it possible to use a set that felt unique. MHR implemented different movesets that made it possible to use songs actively and very frequently but my favorite combination is with Chaotic Gore's berserk skill and the magic wand HH (forgot the name). It reminded me of the manga Berserk with the armor mimicking the Berserk armor and the wand reminding me of Schierke who has kept Guts from going totally insane while wielding the cursed armor. Using bead resonance and spamming health up L + Sonic Barrier lets you outheal the health drain (barely) and sonic barrier lets you continue attacking/buffing so you can be mostly aggressive but you still must be wary of grabs, multi hit attacks and other sources of health drain because you can and will die quickly if you aren't paying too much attention to those or your own resonance bead incase it despawned. Having recovery up (not speed) lvl 3 is also necessary. This playstyle and build allows you to keep berserk mode on far longer than normal and it lets you ignore most attacks while needing to have more game sense since generally ineffective attacks or stress-less moments now become life threatening.
I played freedom unite and had a love-hate relationship with congalalas. I never took it seriously when my friends told me about it, so I decided to solo it. At first it was fine, but then that poo was thrown… I never knew what to do and just kept losing to it for days, humiliating me for months. After learning what deodorants do, I got my win and never forgot the shame it brought me losing to such a thing. It was due to the losing streak with congalala that I learned how to dodge, how to manage my gear and how to keep my calm… In a way, it felt like the ape was teaching me, hence why even to this day: Congalalas are my most hated and loved monsters (fuck the congas, they're just annoying 😅)
An elder dragon slaps your cat
Watchugondoabouit?
Tigrex was my first issue in monster huner freedom unite
I got skill checked for weeks until I managed to kill it with my ravager blade this guy throughout all iterations is my canonical Rival
From freedom unite
Portable 3rd
Generations
Generations Ultimate
World:Iceborne
And pretty soon next gen if the tigrex is there .
When i was little i couldn't for the love of god beat a lagombi, and when i did the barioth came in, so i have this kind of attachment to MH3U snow biome. Most of all however, which is also one of the things i missed the most in MHW was going around, seeing ruins of ancient civilization and ask myself a ton of questions about them, seriously the first time i fought a ceadeus what struck me the most were the remains of this ancient city now basically the resting place of an elder dragon. Also that statue behind the fountain in the little farm, i mean there were clues all around and i loved trying to discover more about the world i was playing in
Frenzy virus: best lore, worst game mechanics. Monsters ignoring Mind's Eye for almost all hitzones don't seem like a good idea.
My personal "story" began when I faced Teostra in World's Devil May Cry collab quest. That was the first monster that made me think about using various weapons and building up a skill tree, because Pierce spam that I was using before didn't work due to his flame barrier. Then Rise has Valstrax, which sniped me siderolling with a Pierce LBG.
I love how mh trailers always have a major focus on the players getting knocked down and messing up to get back up and keep fighting
Mine is the childhood memory stucked with me, when I was like 7 or 9 years old my two bigger cousins just introduce me to play Monster Hunter 2 and 3, with a PSP. It was a experience where I have no understanding of the game but grind it so that every couple weeks I met my big cousins I can play with them, but me being a kid not knowing about anything makes a terrifying experience where I get my body panic from fighting low rank big monsters. So the greatest experience I got is when they are also stuck, and so invite me who's still like barely lv20 to a Lao San Loun fight, and it was amazing, I don't need to face the big monster directly, and moving and carrying the cannon ball, feel like setting up behind them jumping right under Lao's feet and attack him, it was so fun and so exhausted, 30 min of continuous task and failure and then retry the mission.
Four horns quest where you had to hunt two diablos to move up the hunting rank
9:53 fucking beezelgeuse
The spin off Monster Hunter Stories also has a really cool story, it's not perfect and there's some elements I would replace but overall I think it's very good
Rival: Lunastra. Fuck that blue kitty!
I'd watched a youtuber play Monster Hunter Tri years before I ever bought a Monster Hunter game. But watching that series was what intrigued me about the game. I'd strategized what armors I would use, what weapons, what skill would be the best, despite me not having the money the get the game for myself and being unwilling to ask my parents to buy it for me (I was still a teenager). I had decided for myself that the monster I was going to love was Barioth. A decade later, I turn on my 3DS and find out that the game was on sale… I think it was for free. I was so excited to finally play the game I'd always wanted to play that I downloaded it immediately. EVERYTHING grabbed me, and I could hardly wait to get in. I play through the story, get a few quests under my belt…
And the Lagiacrus crashed my small monster hunt, scaring the living daylights out of me. I come back with stronger gear, wearing the Gobel armor I'd seen that youtuber wearing so long ago, and that cutscene. It was such an intense fight for me as I tried to damage it while staying away from it's electrical attacks. That fight cemented the Lagiacrus as my favorite monster in the series ever. I made it's dual blades, I made its armor, I loved everything about it. Still miss it to this day, and I'll always be sad that it's likely we'll never be able to recapture the glory of being hunted by the King of the Sea in the waterways of the forest and off picturesque oceanic coastline again. Not without underwater combat.
I'm only starting playing Monster Hunter World, but so far absolutely every quest, investigation or expedition is a story of its own. No major road blocks so far, but I haven't even gotten to elder dragons yet.
Simple, minimal stories can be just as good as anything complex. In fact, making a simple story good is more impressive and a testament to the skill of the writer(s).
I know I'm late to the party, but I just happened to start up 4U again after revisiting Generations over the summer and man, seeing people still on online play after 10 years really surprised me. Even after seeing that I had only played for ~438 hours (definitely more with resets) and only G3 somehow, I wanted to continue playing to finally get to 100% the game, but I knew that I had already experienced what would most likely be the best out of the game knowing that I beat the main story. I remember looking through all the quests I had completed and being able to remember the time I spent on each quest and how much fun each of the fights were and how my first encounters with Gore and Shagaru felt, and I don't think any of my gaming expereinces will ever top them.
I just beat 4u for the second time. The end cutscene played and I was like oh hey all the people who sell me items are sad this dudes going. Who tf is this dude. Wtf is this sword. Why is home boy so mad. And is that the idiot from world?
Someone show this to the monster hunter movie director for a sequel or tv show streaming series
My "rival" monster is Legiana, the first (and so far only) game in the series I played was World, and from the moment the Legianas attack when first reaching the Coral Highlands i knew i'd have to fight it eventually and i liked it's design so i was pretty excited for it. To me it is still a pretty enjoyable monster to fight and i know most of its attacks well enough to fight it taking only a few sparse hits. Shrieking Legiana was a nice step up, even if it didn't change that much from the regular, it was a nice fight to look forward to when starting Iceborne.
Additionally it has some of the coolest looking armor and weapons which gave some extra incentive to hunt it.
Ngl as weird as it sounds, my rival monster is Pink Rathian. I remember in world it was that one quest I could never overcome, it’s be either it’s poison or burn that I couldn’t get off but time and time again I was carted and lost that quest (it was the mystery Rathian quest.) But, finally, using the IG I actually managed to kill it, I then kept doing the pink Rathian quest til I had the armor, and used that armor for as long as it brought me. Forever I will see that specific Pink Rathian as my one and only rival.
My first intro to Monster Hunter was through Freedom Unite, I was young and didn't really care for reading mission objectives because I had only ever experienced straight forward games, where in mobs and encounters were designed to be fought and played in the order forced upon the player or games were objective doesn't matter as long as you kill everyone else, so imagine my surprise when during the first mission of Freedom Unite I kept failing the first mission because I did not read the damn mission Obj so I kept trying to kill the Tigrex, I remember specifically thinking how stupid the game devs were for putting such a powerful monster at the beginning of the game only to be embarrassed later on upon actually reading the objective, so in short my Rival was the Tigrex in freedom unite, plus as a child despite the frustration I still loved that its name sounded so cool "Tigrex" with the head of a T-rex the color pattern of a tiger and the body of a wyvern.
I love everything about this rivalry, the lore and the game.
Only thing that broke my immersion of the rivalry was, as a broke teen I couldn’t afford the game but I played the demo a ton so I had already hunted Gore Magala many times.
So by the time I challenged it in the game it wasn’t as imposing or threatening as it could have been.
Not the game’s fault and I don’t love it any less because of that
He’s just like a comfort favorite monster to me by this point
My favorite story:
I was taking my friend through World so he could join me in Iceborne. We were doing the first High Rank hunt, the Pukei-Pukei in the Wildspire hunt. But since I was post Alatreon, we were killing everything else too. We had just killed… I think it was Rathian? And a new monster entered the are: Bazelguese! It was his first High Rank hunt and he got Bazelguese'd. Bazel carted him twice before I could trap it. My friend runs across the map to look at the beast, and neither of us noticed the bomb scale. One of the wild wingdrakes landed on said scale and carted my friend one last time, failing the quest.
So Bazelguese is his favorite monster now.
Yeah… f*ck the Green Plesioth. He's the reason I learned to use bowguns (LS main).
my first playthrough of monster hunter 4 wasnt the greatest mainly bc i was still new to the series, gore magala was my big roadblock i didnt have the right gear or the right knowledge of beating it, i was young and gore actually scared me on my first playthrough and even gave me nightmares for a bit and when i finally beat him it was like my entire life was complete and it was the happiest ive ever been, i truly felt as if i beat this godly monster, when i fought shagaru i was thinking it was gonna be the same as gore and since ive beaten gore i would easily beat shagaru, 37 tries later i began to give up but deep inside i knew that i could beat him if i put enough effort, so i began to study the greatsword to my hardest abilities, grinded the hell out of armor settled with uraagan armor and i finally beat shagaru after 4 more tries with my new knowledge. Monster hunter 4 ultimate became the number 1 game i have ever played and it remains there still
God Bless capcom for making such an amazing game and making younger me's life so much easier to go through
My story was fighting ragingbracy I remember going at him for days until I finally killed him even after killing fatalis and alteraon I will always remember it.
I use gunlance because of that green plesioth
Honestly I think my perfect MH game would have a twist to 4's story, in which rather than a elder dragon with super rabies it is a problem you the hunter has caused.
The game starts and you go about business as normal; you do some small monster quests, maybe an early large monster or two, all is well and good until you meet him.
At first he doesn't look very impressive, an early-ish monster maybe on par with other starter monsters but more aggressive. Maybe its another raptor, maybe its a leopard-like fanged wyvern or a chimp-like fanged beast, it looks a bit meaner than what you have fought until now but you are sure you can take him.
You fight it in what seems like a typical hunt in this point in the game but on the brink of death… it gets away. No matter what you do, it will always get away due to a cut scene that plays. No biggie, not every hunt will be a success it is how it goes. Then as the game goes on, you will regularly have hunts interrupted by this type of monster. They will always target you and not other monsters, getting in the way of hunts making them harder. You will also have hunts for this kind of monster more often as they appear in new maps and have them be partial objectives for multiple-monster hunts.
That is when the reports start coming in.
Packs of this particular monster type are easily trouncing other hunters, even the most experienced barely escaping with their lives. You hear of disappearances as it is implied that this monster is deliberately hunting humans, wyverians and palicoes, dragging them away to never to be seen again. These seemingly normal monsters have turned deadly and are causing chaos to hunters everywhere and throughout the ecosystem. You are deployed at the climax at a seeming suicide mission to find their alpha and put an end to it, only to meet a variant with notable scars. It is him again.
Due to your failure to put this monster down, it turned "man-eater" and has led a super pack of its kind to the top of the food chain. Now you must put an end to this nemesis of your own making.
I started with World, so my first rival was Anjanath:
– He's introduced very early in the game as a powerful predator
– He roamed around in the forest even before you unlock the Story mission to hunt him, and by this point in the game, he's the biggest menace you've faced
– His hunt was the first mission that I actually failed (and also the first time I complained about bullshit hitboxes because I WAS BEHIND THE FUCKING TREE, THAT FIRE SHOULDN'T HAVE TOUCHED ME IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!)
– After beating him, I saw his armor and weapons, liked them and hunted him so many times because WILL YOU FUCKING DROP THAT GEM ALREADY!!! (also the bone noses)
– And then he came back in Iceborne with a vengeance
Hearing Zinogre's theme for the first time in 4U sent shivers down my spine, he is my rival, one I never tire of facing.
When Gore Magala hit my palico, I knew we would be mortal enemies