Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate Review

If you were to ask my wife which video game she hates the most, her instantaneous answer (paired with a roll of the eyes) would be, "Ugh... Monster Hunter." She's never played the game, but she knows what it does to her husband for weeks, even months, at a time. Our house, usually filled with boisterous conversation and television background noise, becomes a much quieter place when a new Monster Hunter comes out; her husband becomes a silent fiend for accumulating the pieces for that next weapon or piece of armor and she is, essentially, a widow until either my hands begin to hurt or the battery on my 3DS dies. When my copy of Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate arrived for review, I told her it was time to break out the black armband and shawl. She laughed, but knew that she'd soon be in mourning for the days that I would have time to talk about what happened that day or who was doing what the next weekend. As much as she may hate it, Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate is here, it's the best game in the series and easily one of the best games available on the 3DS, New 3DS or any other system.

Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate does what none of the previous games ever attempted to do - it is welcoming to beginners and tailored to be friendly to both the newest of hunters and the most grizzled of vets. This is immediately evident in the game's opening sequence/tutorial, which is something totally new to the series. Past games have allowed you to create a character and then basically tossed you into the wilderness, with little or no explanation of how to play or what to do next. Here, after you create a character, you find yourself aboard a vehicle flying across an expansive desert. A monster attack allows the game to teach all the things you'll need to know before you really get into things, and it does it in an exciting and cinematic way that is new to the series but feels like a perfect fit.

After this sequence, the game becomes the Monster Hunter us vets know and love. You find yourself in a town with all the familiar locations and characters - the shop, the armor/weapon smith, the house you call your own, the cat restaurant, etc. Unlike previous entries, the game introduces you to all these essential people and places without feeling overly "hand-holdy," but is nowhere near as vague as was the norm for previous games. Even gamers who have never played a Monster Hunter before will be able to dive in with confidence in no time flat, thanks to some optional missions that familiarize you with each weapon type. I'm a Monster Hunter vet, but I still took the time to play through each of these. They are fun, bite sized little fights against a very weak enemy, and allow you to try out all the weapons you already know, along with the new Charge Axe and Insect Glaive. I'm still a Long Sword/Dual Knives/Hammer enthusiast, but I relished the chance to take weapons I rarely use out for a spin.

Whether or not you choose to check out these weapon missions, the real missions are soon laid out for you to begin tackling. These first few missions represent the weakest part of the game, unfortunately. These are the gathering quests designed to familiarize you with the concepts of item collection, combining items and hunting smaller prey. These quests, thankfully, are relatively quick and very easy, and help build up your inventory and bank account before you begin hunting the more dangerous monsters. Two things vets will notice right away is that quests now have secondary objectives that can be fulfilled for bonus rewards, and that now quests don't just appear in a laundry list - they come from requests from people in the town as well as from the main quest-giver (or guildmarm, as she is called here). The secondary objectives make even these boring starter missions feel more fun, and taking requests from townsfolk makes the main hub area feel more alive. As is the case with all previous games, finishing these starter quests gives way to more difficult hunts, and the real game picks up from there. But, like I said, this extra padding in the beginning makes Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate very newcomer friendly, and isn't extensive or boring enough to turn off those of us who have done this all before.

And if you have done this before, there are so many additions and tweaks that make the game feel fresher than ever. Newcomers may have trouble wrapping their heads around the idea that Monster Hunter is essentially all boss fights and crafting, but that's what it is and that's what makes it great. The cycle of picking a weapon type, beating what seems like an unbeatable enemy through skill and memorization and using the spoils from that fight to craft new, better weapons and armor is one of the most alluring and addicting in all of video gaming, and the staggering amount of content in this game assures that you could be at this for upwards of 500 hours and still not be done. You will know Monster Hunter has its claws in you when you think nothing of fighting a single beast over and over just to carve something off its corpse to use in the construction of a desired new weapon, and finally claiming that weapon feels like the greatest accomplishment in the annals of human history. And even as you celebrate, you know there is always another weapon or piece of armor just over the horizon, and getting it will mean having to fight and kill another monster that is ten times nastier than the one you just vanquished. Playing Monster Hunter isn't like playing any other video game; it is an experience that you really can't understand until you've done it yourself.

Multiplayer is a huge part of the Monster Hunter experience for most players, and the multiplayer here is downright amazing. You and three friends can team up to take on all the monsters in the game, and working together to bring down the biggest and baddest monsters as a team is remarkably fun. But being able to tackle all the single player content with friends is a blessing and a curse; it means you'll have to work through the boring starting missions again before you can get to the good stuff. Personally, I enjoy the challenge of being a solo hunter and don't much care for multiplayer gaming, so this mode will remain relatively untouched. But for some, multiplayer is the main way to play Monster Hunter, and those players will be extremely satisfied with what the game has to offer.

I don't know how else to say it: Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate is the best Monster Hunter game ever. It puts to shame all the pretenders that have popped up in recent years - Ragnarok Odyssey, Toukiden, Soul Sacrifice, et. al. - and even makes previous Monster Hunter titles look underdeveloped and archaic in comparison. It has a unfathomable amount of content and remains exciting all the way through. It is, in short, one of the best games I've played in recent years, and is on track to be in my top five favorite games of all time. If you like video games, you owe it to yourself to play - and fall in love with - Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate.

Final Rating: 99%. Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate is the best Monster Hunter game ever.