Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate Review

By Benjamin Kelly on 29/04/2024 21:51 UTC

I often find these days that there are very few game series that still keep me hooked after years of playing. In fact, I could even say that there are very few games that actually hook me for much more than the completion of the campaign and a few forays into the multiplayer. It was therefore with a sense of foreboding and excitement that I leapt back into the world of Monster Hunter with Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate. I have not been disappointed.

The Monster Hunter series is humongous in Japan, but has only really gathered a small (yet ferociously dedicated) following outside of the Land of the Rising Sun. This has always struck me as strange; I hear of many people who've dabbled at the edges of the game's waters only to complain that the water is too cold, but anyone who takes a deep breath, leaps off the edge and plunges in, emerges from those waters as a changed person. They have become a Hunter.

A Great Jaggi, one of the first opponents you'll face.

MH4U is the latest of the series to release outside of Japan, and is the updated release (think 'Directors Cut' with all the added DLC, then more) of Monster Hunter 4, which didn't have a release over here. Our last Monster Hunter was the critically acclaimed MH3U.

For those unfamiliar with the series, MH4U casts you into the role of a Hunter in a world rammed with monsters, most of which are much bigger than you, some of which are bigger than your entire village. Your job, fairly obviously, is to hunt these monsters and carve them up for resources that you can use to craft better weapons and armour, which in turn you then use to hunt even bigger monsters. It's a simple premise with simple controls; X and A are your attack buttons, B dodges, and the R button has a few situational effects. Y is for sheathing your weapon and using items. The very complexity of the game is in this simplicity. See, the game is incredibly easy to play, but the draw is in just how much game there is to play. 

For starters, there are fourteen weapon types to try out, from the humble sword and shield (nimble, allows the use of most items with your weapons drawn, and has good defense) to the massive switch-axe or gun-lance (a sword/axe weapon that's as heavy as it is awesome, and a shielded lance that fires shells), to bowguns and even musical instruments. There's a weapon type for every playstyle. Want to be a lightly armoured dervish of bladed death? Dual blades. How about an absolutely immovable tank capable of targetted destruction? Gunlance. Fancy standing back and blasting your foe? Bows or bowguns. Prefer to fulfill a more support based role dishing out status boosts or negative effects? Hunting horn. That's just the weapons.

Tetsucabras charge frequently, throw rocks, and hurl themselves full bodily at you. They do not make good pets.

Whilst out hunting monsters (and I really do mean 'hunt', you're going to have to track this beast, and it will move from area to area, even within the fight - to feed or even rest and recover) you'll also be able to gather all manner of ores, insects, fish, plants and mushrooms that you'll use to craft hundreds of different items from healing potions to hot drinks to keep you warm; ammo for bowguns; tranquilisers; traps; explosives; and so much more. The crafting list in all Monster Hunter games is huge, and MH4U lengthens the list further.

Speaking of lengthening the lists and variety, MH4U also boasts more monsters to fight than any other game in the series at an astonishing 96. 68 of these are returning from previous games released in the west, including fan favourites like the Tigrex (a blue and orange wyvern that doesn't look disimilar from a winged T-Rex), the Kirin (a lightning unicorn most famous for the armour that can be crafted from it's parts being incredibly revealing on female characters), and the classic Rathian and Rathalos (twin wyverns that move quickly, fly, breathe fire and have venomous tails). That leaves 28 monsters that we've never seen, or hunted before, and the game isn't loathe to show these to you. Each of those monsters has different strengths, weaknesses, temperaments, attack patterns and abilities, and you'll have to learn what those are in order to properly hunt your prey. From which weapons are likely to deal most damage, to where the soft bits of the monsters hide are, to the attacks that the creature will use, that's an astonishing level of detail.

It gets worse when you start 'farming' monsters for certain parts for weapons and armour, as many parts are only carvable if you destroy certain parts of the monster. If you need claws, you'll need to attack the limbs. Horns will need to be broken, and tails hacked off if you wish to claim those parts. Of course, you can also try trapping the monster and taking it alive for even more pieces.

Tigrex are hyperviolent flying killers that are a real test to bring down.

Perhaps to the series' detriment, the games have always had fairly lengthy intros. They kind of need to, there's so much going on, so much you can do and will need to do - like the aforementioned gathering and crafting, along with basic hunting techniques - that the game naturally needs to take some time to show the newcomer the ropes. For series experts, you'll find that MH4U doesn't hold your hand quite as long or quite as tightly as previous installments, jumping you into the action fairly swiftly. This time around, you're not a Hunter attached to a settlement, but part of a travelling caravan. There's something about an artefact that you're investigating, but in fairness, whilst pleasant, the plot of Monster Hunter has always been secondary to its immersion and gameplay.

Being part of a travelling caravan certainly has its perks too. You're constantly changing up your hunting grounds, from the open expanses of the Ancestra Steppe, to the watery caverns of the Sunken Hollow, across the burning sands of the Dunes, even to the tops of mountains and frozen glaciers, MH4U has a gorgeous variety of scenery for the monsters to inhabit, and I really do mean beautiful. It's very easy to forget that you're playing on a 3DS. The monsters are detailed to an incredible level (with 'breakable' fins or horns, some of which can even be used to see how weak a monster is getting) and the environments are vibrant, varied and a joy to look at. I often found that, whilst hunting for the big monsters, I would just pause and turn the camera around to admire my surroundings. Capcom have done a marvelous job of creating not just an entire world, but a beautiful one that really feels alive. The monsters aren't running around pretty coloured arenas, these feel like fully functional ecosystems with flowing rivers and waterfalls, sprawling meadows and dank caverns. With the ability to actually use the 3D during gameplay on the New 3DS as well, the game is breath-takingly beautiful.

Hunting comes alive with friends.

Some of the other new features are slightly more subtle. For the first time in the series, the character is now able to climb up obstacles in the environment, rather than having to run around them or use ramps. This sounds a petty thing to notice, but firstly, it changes the fight. Climbing a block is much slower and can get you hit by the monsters big attacks, but you can now leap from heights and do 'jumping attacks'. A well-timed jump attack causes the hunter to swing around and up onto the monsters back, drawing a dagger and allowing you to stab away at the monster's health. Of course, the monster will fight back, and you'll have to reign in your stabbing in order to cling on for dear life as the monster, understandably, tries to throw you off for a swift trampling. There's nothing quite like the rush of leaping full-body from a cliff onto the back of a flying Rathalos, and stabbing it until it plummets out of the sky and slams into the ground where you get to leap off and wail on it some more.

The single player campaign, though, is only the tip of the iceburg, and many even consider the single player to be a kind of tutorial for the game's multiplayer where you and three of your mates can tackle the monsters together. They're scaled up in difficulty, and have a higher chance of being carved for rarer parts, and the game, fun as it is alone, really comes alive when you party up to hunt together. Fortunately, learning from MH3U on the 3DS, Capcom have given us the ability to play online without the need to hook up through a Wii U, so now, even when your friends are too busy with that pesky thing called 'real life', you can jump into a hunt and take down something massive.

On MH3U, I had clocked well over 200 hours of gameplay, and although a good 60 to 70 hours of that was on the single player campaign, most of that was from hunting with friends. In fact, a quick glance at my 3DS usage statistics show that, despite the amount of games played on the console, MH3U constitutes over half of my total playtime. I can really see that being dwarfed by MH4U, as the scale of this game is, put simply, monstrous.

Happy hunting!

9.5

“The scale of this game is, put simply, monstrous.”

Following up on the successes of MH3U, Capcom have been careful not to fix what isn't broken, and instead have tweaked the controls, the graphics and the gameplay to a finely tuned level, before adding in a gutload of new content. Monster Hunter games have always been huge, and this is by far the biggest yet. The story is a little weak, but it's not what the game is really about, and MH4U really shines in multiplayer, and with the added functionality of being able to go online, there's no excuse not to party up and go hunting.  There is a humongous amount of content on offer here, but it does require some dedication to get into if you're not a returning Hunter, and that can put a lot of people off. If you're willing to wade through the tutorials, you'll find this beast of a game will keep you going for - literally - months, if not years.
Story74%
Gameplay98.00000000000001%
Graphics96%