Monster Hunter

It's huge in Japan

This largely popular franchise has been hugely popular in Japan for quite some time now. With the release of the original Monster Hunter since March in 2004, this game has been thriving and getting sequels and expansions more than most other games including it's own port to the handheld consoles. The US releases haven't been as prominent in sales as they are in Japan which could mean the end of localization to fans in the west. If this actually happens, we'll lose one of the greatest franchises that we've ever seen and I don't feel like moving to Japan any time soon.

There are a LOT of monsters and these aren't even all of them.

The greatest thing about this game is the huge and varied amounts of monsters available to hunt. From ancient dragons to giant wyverns and everything in between, your selection in variety is like a buffet in Las Vegas. Generally speaking, each monster has it's own properties, attacks, elements, ailments, and weaknesses. They're all quite unique as you can see above. Although there are sub-species of some of the large monsters which are recolors who have some different properties. Then again, in the world of Monster Hunter, new and unique monsters come often. Did I mention how large these monsters can be? In the image above the human player on the very left is there just for your size comparison. These monsters can be huge and fighting them can give you the most fun you've ever had in a game.

A bit robotic looking eh?

The basis of Monster Hunter is to take and finish quests that the town gives you. Honestly, there isn't much story in any of the games, Tri being the one with the most engrossing story of trying to find out why there have been so many earthquakes in the area. What really counts in this game is the gameplay. The beginning of the game gets you going, you begin collecting monster parts from the smaller and not as dangerous monsters you kill to start to get a better weapon and armor. Now this can be slow, but when you get to the serious quests of killing the larger monsters, this is where it gets dangerous and fun. The more monsters you kill the more armors and weapons you can make. The weapons are unique, each is technically a different class and have special properties and ways to use. Different monsters have different elemental properties and ailments such as fire, lightning, water, poison, sleep, and more. Making a weapon using parts from a monster with elemental or ailment attributes can cause the weapon to gain those and become stronger.

A real Golden Rathian in Japan

 

As I said, Monster Hunter has been a huge success in Japan, sadly it hasn't had such great luck in the west. Apparently if you were to go to Japan, you would see many, many people playing Monster Hunter in their down time on their handhelds. It's so common that you'd be an outcast if you didn't play. Even Universal Studios Japan has a "real life Monster Hunter" type exhibit of sorts, the picture above is part of it and yes, it moves. Personally, I picked up this game back with it's release in the US many years ago. Unfortunately, I was never able to purchase a Playstation Portable in order to play the other versions of the games that actually do sell outside of Japan. There's even a Monster Hunter MMO for PC as well, sadly it's only open to Japan and Korea. I understand some people have put thousands of hours in this game, I myself have played over five hundred hours of Monster Hunter Tri and will definitely play more until the servers are inevitably shut down. I implore you to give this game a chance. The scenery is beautiful, the monsters are huge and the gameplay is top notch. It's difficult, it's fun, and it's great to play with friends. Such a unique game should be shared with every area of the world and not just contained in Japan. If we could show Capcom how open we are to unique games, maybe other developers would follow their steps in trying something new and giving us more experiences to enjoy. I highly recommend Monster Hunter, give it a chance and it might just grow on you.

Dragon's Dogma

Do dragons really have a dogma?

This game has quite a few interesting aspects that keep it unique from other games in it's genera, even if it isn't the story. The combat and classes as well as the unique amount and varied monsters keep this game generally fresh. The world overall can seem droll at times, but as often as not, there is quite a bit of beauty to some areas. The pawn party is unique onto itself since I don't recall any other game doing such a thing and although the game's surroundings can be beautiful at times, the graphics aren't always a pretty. These are my thoughts about Dragon's Dogma.

I have to fight that!?

 

The story begins with the awakening of a dragon, hence the title. It decides to attack the village your character lives in, in which you, since you're such a brave soul, begin to attack it using only a sword and wearing some cloth. Not really a smart idea since the dragon could literally eat you. Instead it decides to take your heart, for unknown reasons, and gobble it down. Apparently when this happens you become Arisen. Your journey is set in stone, you're to kill the dragon and end this blight of it's attacks and vanquish other monsters as well. No easy task alone, but with your fellow pawns, you can take on the dragon to defeat it. What's a pawn? A pawn is a being that looks human, yet doesn't give expression, feelings, or anything otherwise. They are exactly what they are called, pawns. They are there for the Arisen, to fight monsters and otherwise protect the Arisen from death. They also come from a dimension called The Rift, in which you can summon other pawns, but I'm getting ahead of myself. There are quests, people to help and people to become friends with which all ultimately aid you in your quest to kill the dragon.

"It get's excited when it sees a women!"

 

The combat in this game varies enough to keep you otherwise occupied. The controls can be sketchy at times and targeting the creature you would like to kill can be difficult since there's no lock-on capabilities with most classes.  Each enemy has their own set of weaknesses and strengths that you need to learn. Your pawns generally tell you what each is weak to and knows how to deal with each foe. If you have a pawn that doesn't know how to deal with said foe, they learn about it. The more you fight an enemy, the more they learn. It's an interesting feature and it also works the same way with quests. There is a unique gameplay ability that allows you to grab or scale a monster, like in the sense of Shadow of the Colossus. You can grab hold of any creature, be it human, wolf, or cyclops. This adds another interesting element to combat. For instance, be wary when climbing up the back of this ogre in the picture above or he may just jump up and slam on his back to get you off. Your pawns are able to do the same and by having them grab hold, they can attack while holding and slow the monster with their own weight.

Every class is a viable option

Any class you choose can be effective. Even the basic classes from the three choices in the beginning can be kept till the end of the game. As you level these classes, you increase your vocation level which allows you to learn more abilities. The higher the level of your vocation, the better off you are. What's that? You don't enjoy the class you chose? That's fine too since you have the ability, once you reach the main city, to choose which ever vocation you'd like. Not only that, but you also have access to six more classes. You begin with your basic fighter, mage and strider. If you're not enjoying those or you just feel like trying something new, you've got your advanced classes, which is a beefier version of your basic classes, or you've got your hybrid classes, which blend two classes together and allows you to use abilities and weapons of both basic classes. I myself went from a strider to a ranger simply because I'm a fan of longbows. It turns out I made a good choice. Be wary though, not every class can use every weapon or armor. Most equipment is class based and as such I almost made the mistake of not having a bow when I changed classes. You can also upgrade your gear through vendors with specific materials collected from the land or monsters. Not only can you change your class, but you can change the class of your main pawn as well. Quite useful as I found that having only two mages in my party was holding me back greatly. You also can upgrade their equipment as well. Each class has their unique capabilities and work quite well in tandem with all other classes that your pawns can have.

At least they're not lonely

 

Speaking of pawns, Capcom decided to introduce a unique way of adding pawns to your party by way of a Rift Stone. These stones allow you to go into the dimension that the pawns reside in and choose which pawns you'd like to include in your party. Of course, your main pawn is always there to stay, I based my pawn off of a friend of mine actually. Not only can you invite pawns to join your party in the main world, since so many roam around there, but you can come into the rift and find specific pawns for your team. Even more specifically, you can choose to add any of your friend's main pawns to your party as well. It's like you're playing with your friends, but you're not. You are however helping them out greatly by helping them collect rift crystals. Rift crystals are used to pay a pawn to join your party in some cases, or are used to purchase rare items from some special vendors. Questing with pawns earns them crystals when their Arisen gets online the next time. Not only can you get additional currency, but if you so choose, when you leave a pact with a pawn in your group, that pawn will return to it's owner with the items left on it. Think of it as gift giving since the player will receive that item. This also implements a neat way of helping a friend who doesn't have good enough gear to continue with the game, or to help him upgrade his gear.

Breathtakingly average

 

The world and scenery in this game can be great at times and very dull at times. I've found that traversing the land gets boring rather quickly, until I explore a new area. I find the main problem is that you'll be running through the same areas over and over far too often. Capcom has always had this problem with backtracking as I call it. You open a new way to find a key to a door which you've explored to before which gives you a key to a door that was in your new way. They've gotten better at fixing that issue with sending you straight ahead in some cases, but when you have an open world to explore like this, I find it better for the atmosphere to add interesting locations to run across rather than a canyon floor. There were times I stopped and admired the view, but mostly I trekked through areas rather quickly to get to the next location. The turning from night to day gives a bit different scenery and more danger as areas you've been through can have stronger enemies or just a larger amount than during the day. Most locations are just your generalize caves, mountains, plains and forests. Others can include ruins, catacombs, and other ancient structures. Apparently the main city is ancient, but it looks pretty well kept to me. The world can feel small at times, but if there's an area you haven't explored you, you should head there if you want to find something new. Be careful though since you're more likely to run across something that could easily kill you as I've done that time and time again.

There are some issues that I have with this game overall. The one that annoys me the most is the pawn chatter. They say the same things far too often, way too often actually. It's nice to hear some lore about the place, but they don't need to say something about it each time we go through. I'd rather like to duct tape their mouths than anything. Another thing is the lack of a targeting system. When using melee attacks against small enemies, I like to move from one to another quickly and with accuracy, but am sometimes unable to. Not a game breaking point, but frustrating at times. The foliage in this game is completely lacking graphically. It's your basic 2-D image pasted to stick in one spot while it rotates around to keep the same view for you. It's ugly unless used correctly which it's not in this game. There's close to no 3-D foliage except for trees and bushes. Maybe I'm nitpicking, but I dislike that and feel it's more lazy than anything else. There are other small things that can be annoying at times like the weight system, but that's there for a reason and is justified. Also the missing feature of fast travel, but again, was not included due to the game's design and is also justified.

The issues listed before are miniscule in comparison to the pros in this game. Being able to climb on the back of huge bosses and monsters gives an exhilarating feeling of power and struggle which I so desperately love. The ability to upgrade weapons and armor that you find or purchase is nice since I've grown accustomed to doing so in other games. The pawn system is a great way to raise difficulty since you can make it so you've only got a party of two rather than four, although the difficulty in general tough as is. This game implements things that others should follow even if it lacks in other areas. I for one am enjoying this game and will further enjoy it in the time to come. There is a demo of the game out right now, so if you're leery on purchasing it, you can download the demo and give it a try. Dragon's Dogma is currently available on Playstation 3 and Xbox 360.

Tomorrow I'll be talking about Monster Hunter, another Capcom developed game, and more specifically about Monster Hunter Tri for the Wii. Until then keep on slaying those monsters and game everyday.

Welcome to Dark Souls

 I hope your brought your lubricant

Now imagine this, you've been drudging through hollows whom have been getting the best of you making you get down to your last healing item. Suddenly a Black Knight comes from the shadows and begins ripping you a new one, yet with good reactions and foresight you manage to beat him, although you used your last flask. You know the bonfire is close since you read that message on the ground, but wait, the way there is covered with a wall of white mist. You've just been invaded by another player who happens to just have snuck up from behind to stab you in the back for your death. This is Dark Souls.

This fellow is not nice

In Dark Souls you start out in a prison cell, you're a hollow which is pretty much a zombie. This prison is where hollows are placed so they don't cause more destruction then they should, but of course they still do. You yourself are an undead, yet not a senseless hollow. You still have that last bit of humanity left that makes you almost human. A hollowed knight gives you the key to fight your way out welcoming you to the tutorial. The knight, lying on his death bed tells you of a pilgrimage to ring the two bells and awaken something that has been waiting for the chosen hollow. I myself haven't gotten far enough into the story to know what is truly happening since I've only rang one bell.

 Reminds me of a scene from Lord of the Rings

The world of Dark Souls is simply amazing. Unlike it's sort-of predecessor Demon's Souls, the world is one large place where you don't select a level to play, but more so a path to go. The intricate world design left me in awe when I realized just how many shortcuts there are in this game. Not to mention how the world itself is simply beautiful. Your beginning area may be a prison, but it's still quite a sight to see. From crumbling ruins, to lush, dark forests and the grandest castle you've ever seen, Dark Soul's environments are each as unique as the next. With this said, this creates an amazing atmosphere of awe through the most simplistic means. Areas are often so detailed that you can't help but to stop, and look at your surroundings and simply say "wow".

Now, the combat in this game is much different from all others and here is where I'll get personal about this. I dare you to call this game a hack and slash. I double dog dare you. If you so much as make one mistake that leaves you open, your enemies WILL punish you. The difference between this game and a hack and slash is not button mashing, not timing, but literally time itself. In your usual hack and slash game, like say Prototype, usually you kill enemies as fast as possible just to be done with them. Dark Souls is more or so about time. You take your time going through areas, you must be as careful as possible. Then when you meet a new enemy, you take your time to learn what it does, how to counter it, and finally how to kill it. This game is about studying your enemy, finding a weakness and exploiting it. If you don't exploit it, you'll most likely die. In my opinion, we need more games like this. More games that will punish you, more games that force you to learn, more games that make you freak out when you meet new enemies. The bosses are just the same except you have a smaller amount of time to learn their moves before they utterly crush you. This heightens the difficulty as well. 

If you've played this game and have never died, I bow to you good madam or sir, for you have done what I could not. I'm sure I've got around fifty or more (most likely more) deaths already. The good thing about this game is it does give you a second chance in a strange way. Your death leaves a bloodstain in which you can collect all that you have lost which includes souls collected from killing enemies and humanity. If you die, you need only to return to your demise and hope you don't make the same mistake again. Rushing there would be a fools errand since when you respawn, you also respawn all of your enemies. Loosing your souls is like loosing a lot of progress in game as well. Souls are used as currency and experience. Improving your level is strictly through souls and improving your weapons and armor, you need souls and items. Purchasing items and weapons through shops also takes souls, so dying is an important thing not to do.

The most incandescent fellow you will meet in your journey

Of course you've got all kinds of others who have made the same mistakes, and try to help direct you in how to deal with such obstacles. This is an online only feature. Other players are able to place soap signs down to give messages to another plane, such as your own. These messages give hints to players if they choose to read them, my favorite being "Imminent tears ahead" where there is a boss battle. Some others aren't so helpful when it comes to this. A small amount of people leave messages which say "try jumping" on a cliff side, I really just find it funny. There are more online features of this game as well. As my brother in arms Solaire explains, we're all connected, yet on different planes. A sort of dimension type deal of kinds. We can see signs and ghosts of other players (as well as bloodstains), but can never physically meet them unless you summon them there, and even then, it's just a phantom of themselves. This is a great concept of single to multiplayer. It gives the player a choice of beating the game solo, or if you're having difficulty with an area or boss, you can summon someone who has left their sign. You also get rewarded for such things if you do help people as well. If you help the summoner defeat the boss without him dying, you get a large lump of souls and some new-found humanity. That humanity is used to reverse your hollowing, which allows you to summon people to you as well. The more humanity you have, the better off your are. Although, the crowd pleaser of online is the PvP. Using an item, you can invade another player as a phantom and attempt to slay them. This will net you some souls and the ability to laugh at the other players death as well. There are other aspects to this player versus player, but it's best to leave it left unsaid so I don't spoil everything for new players.

The coolest armor in the game, hands down

My overall opinion of this game is simply that it's amazing in all its glory. We need more games like this. Those who complain about the difficulty need to take a different approach to it. Be cautious, be vigilant, and never let your guard down. You cannot go full speed ahead through this game or you will fail miserably. I enjoy that fully, even with myself being completely cautious throughout the whole game so far, there are parts where I still died simply because I didn't observe my surroundings. This game is not cheap. This game is not unfair. If you can't take a different approach to this game other than hack and slash, you should give up. It's hurtful to hear, yes, but necessary to say. Other great things about this game that I like is that enemies and bosses are unique to their own. You might meet them a couple times over, but anything new that comes along, you'll need to understand before you can kill. Also, apparently any weapon and armor set can be upgraded enough to be viable through the whole game. If you so desperately want, you could finish the game with your original weapons and armor, or so I've been told. This gives in to the people who enjoy the aesthetics of the game as well, allowing you to use your favorite looking armor or weapons without too much regret.

Now I've been playing this for PC and I do have complaints. Dark Souls may be amazing, yes, but the port from console to PC leaves more to be desired. Now, if you don't care about the graphical quality being lesser than what it could be, that's fine with me. Yet if you're putting a game from a console to a PC, a much stronger machine, shouldn't you improve the graphics along the way? The developers of From Software either didn't know how or didn't honestly care. The in game graphical scale is still set at the low resolution for consoles. While others have fixed this, we can only hope that From will eventually shoot out an update that will make higher resolutions be supported inside and out. Also, a little bit more optimization would be great since I've felt slow downs in some areas of the game where it shouldn't happen. Another thing that irks me at times is the multiplayer. The concept and idea is a great one, if it works. I've had difficulty summoning anyone into my world, and trying to get friends in your world is even further difficult. I understand the summoning is supposed to be anonymous, you have a random player whom you may have never met summoned to your world to kill the boss, but I feel it would be more fun with an actual friend that I know. If there were some possibility to show where a friend put down a summon sign and have him be priority, so their sign is more visible, I would really like that feature. Alas, multiplayer sometimes fails to work at all at times. I've gone through areas as human and have seen no one to summon when I felt like doing some jolly good co-operation, yet I could be invaded. That's troubling at times. Lastly and possibly the worst issue with this game, although easily avoided, the controls. If you are using a mouse and keyboard setup for the PC version, quit now and save yourself the frustration. You can remap your keys, yes, but the game shows that it was undoubtedly set up strictly for a controller. This is fine by me because of the style of the game and I've got an Xbox controller. Others may not be so lucky and could have to spend an extra twenty dollars just to play it properly. To those I say, good luck and godspeed.

All in all I would greatly recommend purchasing Dark Souls for PC. Even if it's not the best console to PC port, it's still a great game on its own and worth taking a look at if you're not easily enraged and would like a challenge. Tomorrow I'll be writing about Dragon's Dogma, a game made by Capcom which revolves around a fantasy setting in which you are the chosen one whom needs to slay a dragon. Maybe not the best plot, but hey, it is Capcom we're talking about.

Before I go and begin getting comments about a graphical fix for Dark Souls, the link is here.

Feel free to leave comments and questions and I will answer them as quick as possible.

Introductionary Post

Welcome to everyday gamer. I'm creating this blog with intent to continue with supple posting, at least once a week. This is about my experiences with games, a sort of what I've played through my life, what I'm currently playing and views and interests in gaming in general.

Obviously with this gaming blog and posting each day, I'll try to post about a different game each day. Currently, I'm giving Dark Souls for PC a try which I will talk about that game much more tomorrow. For now, I'll give some background of my gaming history.

I began with my fathers Atari 2600, given I'm only twenty two years old, that was quite a long time ago. Pong was obviously the best game, or at least my first so there always that special place in my heart for it. Afterwards I received a Nintendo, which I played countless hours of Mario, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Ikari Warriors on, as well as other games. I think I enjoyed Super Mario 3 the most though. After that I was well on my way to playing Super Nintendo, then came the Nintendo 64, Playstation, and more till I'm here to current consoles.

Tomorrow I'll start with talking about Dark Souls and just how awesome it is. For now, I'm out. Of course to play more Dark Souls.