“It’s hunt or be hunted…”

          At first glance you may think that Monster Hunter games are mindless hack n’ slash outing but you would be wrong in thinking so. Monster Hunter Freedom 2 stormed Japan, ravaging the sales charts and even boosted the sales of PSP hardware to an extent where they were surpassing Nintendo DS sales. In one month Monster Hunter Freedom 2 had shifted 348,000 units in Japan which turned out to be 85% of Capcom’s sales in that month alone. Monster Hunter Freedom 2 was also the first ever PSP title to shift over one million copies in Japan. It’s true that the Japanese sometimes have a weird taste in video gams but with such high sales, the boys at Capcom must be doing something right. So what’s all the fuss about?

          Monster Hunter Freedom 2 is set in a fantasy realm in the distant past where man hunts monster in a quest for survival and salvation. When you begin the game you will be prompted to create your own hunter using a range of facial features and plenty of hair styles. Male and Female characters are both enabled but you can always import characters from the first title, however their names must remain the same and items and equipment from a previous account wont be returned in this game, instead you will be given tokens which you can exchange for armour and weapons to get a kick start in the new world. Once you have finished the character creation stage you are thrust straight into a cutscene. Your hunter will be venturing the perilous snowy mountains during a blizzard when all of sudden he or she comes across a pile of Popo (mammoth) corpses and a huge monster will descend from the skies and charge towards you. Your hunter is then forced off of the side of the mountain and tumbles into an icy sleep. Soon after you are discovered by the residents of Pokke, a nearby village of hunters. There is no narrative from this point onwards which is kind of disappointing, it is up to you to find fame and fortune through slaying the largest and most fearsome of hostile monsters that stalk the outskirts of Pokke.

          Monster Hunter Freedom 2 is broken up into many parts. Firstly, before you venture out into the vast plains of the hunting grounds you have to stock up on supplies and optimise your equipment. Vendors in Pokke sell items such as potions, antidotes, ammunition, etc. which are must haves if you are going to survive in the wilderness. Instead of having a class system just like RPGs, Monster Hunter forms classes through the choice of weapon the player makes. There are a grand total of ten weapon types which are: Greatsword, Katana, Sword & Shield, Hammer, Hunting Horn, Lance, Gunlance, Light Bowgun, Heavy Bowgun and Bow. The type of equipment available is split into two. Any melee weapon users (swords, hammers or lances) will be required to wear blade master armour which is built with high defence for hunters who like to get close when hunting monsters. Ranged weapon users (bowguns and bows) will be kitted up in gunner armour, an armour type with half the defence of blade master armour but with plenty more special abilities and elemental defence bonuses. All weapons are available at any time as long as you either have the money or materials to get them. There are hundreds of variations and upgrade trees for each weapon type, for example the hammer can follow many paths: bone hammers, metal hammers or miscellaneous hammers. There are definitely over 400 variations of weapons, each with their own unique powers, the choice of weapon is the key to success in a hunt. Apart from purchasing items and upgrading weaponry you can also access your own personal farm from which you can gain plants, metal ore, fish and much more. Once ready to enter the wilderness you must speak with the village elder who will present a list of available quests you can choose from, some being as simple as gathering a few herbs to extreme quests which have you defending the town from a wyvern so big you can’t get a full glimpse of it in a single screenshot. There isn’t an experience and levelling system in monster hunter, instead your equipment and wallet size is what makes you a expert player. The more skilled you get the bigger monsters you can slay, once the beast is slain you carve items from them which you can take back into Pokke village and let the smith craft them into weapons and armour.

          The gameplay is very simple yet addictive, with a melee weapon you use both the triangle and circle buttons to unleash combos and some weapon types can block enemy attacks. With ranged weapons you use the the circle button to fire and then press triangle to reload whenever you want, some of the bowguns having faster reloading times. Each zone is split up into several areas that are numbered on your map, exiting one area will take you to the next and will prompt you with a short loading screen each time you do so. Two bars along the top of the screen display health and stamina, the health bar depletes when you take direct damage from a monster and when your health bar runs out you fall unconscious and are taken back to the first area of the map, when you fall the third time you fail the mission. The energy bar depletes when either running or blocking a monster's attack. Items are a crucial part of how successful you are in hunting, there are hundreds of types of items including health items and stamina items and some can even be made by combining materials you pick up on the field. When holding the square button a mini bar will form in the bottom corner of the screen, tapping the L and R buttons will scroll between items and then tapping square will use the item.

          There are many monsters in Monster Hunter Freedom 2 from small crabs to furry pink gorillas. The monsters of the game inhabit six different zones each one with a different layout. The layouts are a forest zone, a desert zone, a snowy mountain zone, a volcano zone, a swamp zone, and a jungle zone. There are a few bonus zones too but these six are the ones you will visit the most. However the layout will always stay the same meaning you will always be playing the same level over and over but this has an upside because when fighting certain monsters they hide in certain parts of a zone and with experience you can easily track down a hiding monster and go in for the kill. Multiplayer mode is only available through local play but with the help of a Wifi-Max device and a program called Xlink-Kai, players can take the monster hunter experience online where they can team up with three other hunters to bring down the most fearsome of opponents.

          Overral, Monster Hunter Freedom 2 is a great game and it’s easy to see why it became such a huge success in Japan. However, this time around I was hoping for a strong narrative which I thought I would be getting in the first few moments of the game. Downloadable quests and features are available but since early 2008 no more updates have been released. It was also a bit of a shame that infrastructure-enabled online play wasn’t included because the multiplayer experience is possibly one of my favourite gaming moments of all time.