Review: Monster Hunter Freedom

Monster Hunter Freedom was the second game I bought for the PlayStation Portable. I had bought this without doing a review because a friend of mine had the second game and really liked it. And for the most part we agree on game genres – we both think Final Fantasy 6 was the best Final Fantasy of the series – so for the most part when he likes a game it’s assumed I’d like it too.

But unfortunately, it wasn’t the case with this game. And with this game it’s not that the game was bad – although there were quite a few things that irritated me – the main problem I had was the amount of time it took to do simple tasks. And it’s the kind of game that I think is only appreciated by a select audience. I get what Capcom did with this series, however I just couldn’t do it. And if you care to know what I’m talking about, read on.

While it's tedious to gather material for new equipment, the look of your new equipment makes the work worth it.

The game is beautiful. The videos are awesome – Capcom did a good job pushing the PSP for what it can do. The backgrounds give the feel that there is more than just the area that you’re in and you really get a feel that you’re out in the wilderness when you’re hunting. And while the graphics are a thing to behold, they don’t do a good job pointing out things that you can interact with. As a hunter, you can search plants, dung (yes, dung), catch bugs, mine and more. However, they don’t do a good job at pointing out where you can do those things. Infact, finding plants can be really irritating because some elements of the area are meant to have plants to grab and others don’t – yet they’ll all look the same. A visual cue would have been nice when having to find this stuff. The game doesn’t have a real good tutorial section, so some visual help would have been nice. Your equipment looks pretty damned awesome too. After your second upgrade you’ll look like what a level 70 character from World of Warcraft would look like after getting epic gear. I think that was a smart move on Capcom because finding those materials were hard enough – so to make it look really nice was a good way to reward you.

As much as I tried the game, one of the reasons why I finally gave up on it were gameplay and controls. The controls, in my opinion, are terrible. You move with the analog stick and your camera is controlled with the D-Pad and the L button puts the camera behind you. I find two problems with this. Having your thumb on the analog stick and your index finger on the L button gets tiring after awhile – my hand cramped up shortly afterwords. The second is that you always can’t have the camera behind you. You need to be able move the camera to see your surroundings. So in order to do that you have to take your thumb off the analog stick and move it to the D-Pad, leaving you open for an attack. It’s very frustrating and I couldn’t adapt to it.

It feels like they didn’t really think out the controls. The attack button is the triangle button. You run with the R button and when your weapon is drawn … you can’t run. So if you need to run away, you have to sheathe your weapon first, then run. The X button makes you dive and the square button is your item button. It sounds like it’s a little backwards. I would have liked it if your run/dodge button should be the X button and your attack could be the Square button and then your item button could be the R button. You’ll notice that I suggested what the controls should be, meaning I had no option to change it.

The map takes up the majority of the screen, and I don't really get what he numbers are for.

Gameplay was kind of clunky too. For being an expert hunter you couldn’t sheathe your item while running. You had to stop and do it. When selecting your items you also had to have your weapon sheathed and it also had to be sheathed to use the selected item. So, a fighting process would go: Unsheathe, attack, sheathe, select potion for later, unsheathe, attack, sheathe, use potion (can’t move while doing that either), unsheathe. Way too many steps. And if you use any other items, you can’t run while doing it. It leaves you open for an attack. If I were hunting for something, I would never stop to do something in the heat of battle. That has a tendency to make battles very frustrating. Especially when you need to stop to heal and you have five enemies going after you. Sure – you could just exit that zone and heal … but you shouldn’t have to do that.

While you’re attacking, you have to be careful to aim properly. There’s no auto-aim, which is fine … but once you start something you have to finish it – so if you miss, then you better hope that they don’t attack you because there’s nothing you can do. You get used to it … but it’s another aspect that is frustrating. It also doesn’t help when the environment gets right in front of the camera in the heat of battle – because then you’re battling four enemies, don’t know which way you’re aiming and you have to stop to move the camera so that you can see.

As for the story – what story? This game has no background whatsoever. You’re a hunter. That’s it.

I do like the way the game was presented. You didn’t have to go through half-hour long cutscenes or a mind-numbing tutorial of how to move, how to attack, etc. You started your journey and you went to work. And your tutorials were given to you in the form of quests. So succeeding in your tutorials rewarded you. But their tutorials weren’t terribly detailed. You’re told to find a type of plant and that you press the Circle button to forage for plants – that’s it. On that mission I remember thinking to myself, “Where in the hell do I go?”

But, that’s the point that I think Capcom was aiming at. I think their plan was to make you as much of the hunter as they could be. So at the beginning of the game the hunter is new to the hunting scene and so are you. But with their form of tutorials you are given instructions by an elder or a wiseman … so why couldn’t he say WHERE to find the stuff?

No boars or wolves here - you fight some big enemies in your quest to become the best hunter.

Despite all my negative comments … I did find the game fun. I found the whole aspect of it to be quite ingenious. Instead of there being an epic battle … it’s just a game where you collect, kill and up your reputation. And in a way … it’s something that people strive for in MMORPG’s. Me and my friend both agree that this could be considered a MMORPG for the console. And while things moved relatively slow, I was having fun. But it was at a certain quest where I had to do quite a bit to try to defeat a monster. However, when the game didn’t do what the tutorial said should happen, I realized that this is a game that is meant to invest some serious time in. And in my case, that just won’t be possible. I’d be one thing if I made continual progress but with this game it’s expected that you start and complete a mission in one sitting and that just takes way too long. Plus, the various frustrations with the game ruined my enjoyment of the game .. but when I was able to make progress I really enjoyed the game.

In addition to the long missions, it also took awhile to get your upgrades. You have to do a lot of mining to get ore materials for weapon upgrades and there are only so many mining places in a zone. So you go out, mine go back and then go back out again. But it’s aspects like these that give this game a great replayability. The idea of going out to earn your weapons and the exploration factor where there are literally hundreds of things you can discover and combine make this a game that you can really go back to. Unfortunately, if you’re in a position where your time is limited then this game won’t be for you. When I play a game for an hour I’d like to have some sort of accomplishment done and in this game I think it’s very possible to waste an hour and accomplish nothing.

So now, let’s wrap up the review.

Graphics. A very pretty game. Detailed backgrounds, awesome video make this game nice piece of eye-candy. Lets you know that the PSP can push out PS2-like graphics. Not graphically separating interactive environments was a shame though. 9/10.

Music & Sound Effects. Nothing memorable. Sound effects, such as sword swinging, cutting into the enemy, and footsteps are fairly well done.  4/10.

Gameplay & Controls. The camera followed the action well, however moving the camera was a pain. Controls overall seemed quirky and could have been better had more thought been put into it. Having your camera movement on the same side as your character movement is frustrating. Most of the time you’re either moving one or the other and having to press the L button constantly while using the analog stick can get uncomfortable. However, controls respond well to what you want to do – but the method for getting those actions done were unrealistic. During a fight, would you stop dead in your tracks to heal when your enemies are closing in on you? Or would you heal yourself while running if you could? Small areas gave you a good chance to leave and catch a breather if you needed to. 12/25.

Story & Presentation. Practically no story. Presentation was okay. Your tutorials were done through quests – rewarding you when you completed them. However, tutorials could be more detailed, but I think this was Capcom’s intention so that the hunter started out with as much knowledge as you did – you learned as the hunter learned. While I think this is a smart way to present a game, more direction would have been nice. 8/20.

Fun Factor. The game was enjoyable overall. It had frustrations that killed the fun factor for me. But at the same time, being able to do almost anything is a pretty neat thing for me. Unfortunately, the amount of time I think they wanted put into their missions is out of my range. Had I been single without a kid, I’m sure I would have been addicted to this game. 20/25.

Replayability. You have a crapton to do. Want to mine? Fish? Catch Bugs? Collect plans? Combine various objects to get new tools? Increase your reputation as a hunter? Upgrade your material? Work on upgrading the town farm? No problem. There are a ton of quests and things to do to keep you going back to this game for a very long time. 10/10.

Total Score: 63 pts., giving the game 3/5 invaders