History of Monster Hunter | Part 2

hello everyone and welcome back to another lesson on the history of the Monster Hunter series today we'll be looking at the second generation of games including monster hunter dose freedom 2 and freedom unite some of the games that really started to make a name for themselves in the West if you haven't watched my previous video talking about the first generation of monster hunter I highly suggest that you do so now additionally if you like these videos and want to help support the channel please consider liking the video and subscribing it just takes a couple of

seconds and really helps boost the reach of the video - Monster Hunter fans everywhere as someone who got into the Monster Hunter series through the third generation onward it's interesting going back and revisiting the portable series as well as investing time into learning about Monster Hunter dos for the PlayStation 2 a game that never made it to North America and that has some unique content that hasn't reappeared in future games by making this video and doing this research I too am learning about the series as a whole and filling the gaps on the knowledge that

I've never had or have lost through time I'm not gonna drag on with a long introduction by looking at this script I think that the length of this video is going to be long enough as it is but I'll say this Monster Hunter is a series where a very large portion of the content is not readily available to Western audiences it is one of japan's most popular and influential series and has made a big name for itself globally with the release of world but that wasn't always the case it wasn't until the release of Monster

Hunter Portable in 2005 that the series really began to take off in Japan and it wouldn't be until the release of freedom 2 in 2007 that the series finally exploded it wouldn't be possible or rather it would be improbable that I could make these videos without the help of the Monster Hunter community through groups dedicated to the series the lore and preserving past content it's possible for these videos to exist today thank you to the community as a whole Monster Hunter dose is in my opinion a definitive addition to the series and one that really

set in stone what the series would be moving forward and I hope to show you why that is as we explore this generation of the Monster Hunter games what led Monster Hunter to become the Capcom powerhouse it is today and how did the series perform since its initial inception and release in 2004 in this multi-part video series we'll take a look at all five generations of the Monster Hunter franchise as well as frontier Monster Hunter online and several other spin-off games that have been developed I'm super rad and today I'm here to bring you a

brief history of Monster Hunter second generation after the development of Monster Hunter 1 and Monster Hunter G the series appeared on portable consoles with the release of Master Hunter freedom in 2005 but freedom wasn't the only game being developed by Capcom at the time while the company wanted to expand into portable gaming an ever-growing market in Japan they continued to work on the next full entry in the series Monster Hunter DOS for the ps2 which would release in 2006 just one year after the release of portable despite its small cult following in the West the

series still got pressed from sites like IGN who covered its announcement all the way up to his release clearly there was some interest in the series it's actually a bit amusing there's even an article where IGN tells you you're wrong for calling it Monster Hunter - instead of DOS speculating that it would be called - in its English release unfortunately that English release never happened due to subpar sales and lack of interest in the West Capcom decided not to release it over here in 2013 Rio's o tsujimoto who became the series producer starting with monster

hunter freedom - is even quoted as saying when you look at the history of the Monster Hunter franchise in the West you can't really say that it's been a huge success however this didn't stop them from developing something great for Japanese audiences to call Monster Hunter - ambitious is a bit of an understatement the amount of changes and concepts designed for this specific entry are staggering there's a bit of a disconnect between Western audiences and the series since the game never made it over to North America some even claiming that it is just Monster High

one with a few additions but is that the case well no in fact DOS is what shaped the series to be what it is today with many of its core concepts and additions persisting through the series all the way up to world but that doesn't mean there aren't a few bad eggs in there for example let's take a deeper look at the time of day and seasonal system Monster Hunter 2 was the first game in the series to implement a day and night cycle the cycle effects monster spawns quests and even the environment if it's

daytime in the desert zones you'll need a cold drink to keep cool but if it's nighttime its noticeably colder and hot drinks are required to stay warm that's a pretty cool addition and one that adds a little immersion to the series without inhibiting the player too much on the other end of the concept our seasons Monster Hunter 2 contains three seasons that change dynamically as you complete quests within the game first hot or warm season where carnivorous monsters are more active and more likely to be encountered this season locks the player out of the desert

zone hunting location but generally offers more to hunt next is cold season which like hot season also locks the player out of a hunting zone this time the snowy mountains area monsters in this season become more aggressive but as a trade-off we'll have a better chance of dropping rare materials for the player finally there's breeding season where monsters go - well you know and during this time there will be more herbivores out and about making this season an optimal time to go gathering while this mechanic of seasons is an interesting addition and offers certain advantages

to the player it's hard not to notice how it also limits them locking them out of specific areas and by doing so also locking them out of specific quests and in a game that feels like it's all about player freedom even going on to label its portable series as such it was an Edition that probably didn't receive a very good reception we can infer this since the mechanic didn't even make it into the next game in the portable series freedom - if you are going into monster hunter - don't let this mechanic bother you too

much though the player can force a change of seasons by paying to do so at their bed in their player home additions also came two weapons one thing I feel too mention in part one of this series was that each weapon may have an element associated with it these elements included fire water thunder and dragon monsters may be weak to one or several of these elements and using them against them in battle will produce extra damage on top of the ones already listed there are also several elements where the point of them wasn't to offer

extra base damage but instead caused ailments these elements included paralysis which had the chance to paralyze an enemy for a short time and allow the player to attack unobstructed poison which could produce a damage over time effect and sleep which could put the enemy to sleep allowing the player to set up traps or explosives new to monster hunter 2 was the ice element which would deal extra damage to those monsters who were weak to it along with the new elements there were several new blade master weapons introduced to the series including my personal favorite and

main weapon longsword yes I am a weeb unfortunately but are you trying to tell me that the spirit gauge wasn't the coolest concept in the series at the time you couldn't even boost its level yet or use the spirit round slash and it was still incredibly gratifying to fill it up and get that 12 percent damage boost on top of the longsword blade masters also had access to the hunting horn and gun Lance the hunting horn was especially unique allowing the player to play different combinations of notes to create a desired buff effect Gunners also

had access to the bow which is a faster and more versatile weapon allowing skilled hunters to take down monsters from a distance with ease some existing weapons also had various changes for example the iconic great sword charge attack was first introduced into if you remember from my previous video this was also retro actively added to Monster Hunter G when it was re-released on the Nintendo Wii sword and shield also now had the ability to use items even while weapons were unsheathed in combat both armor and weapons had a new slot and decoration system introduced where

players could put decorations into an empty slot to boost specific skill points to either unlock a skill or help boost it to its next tier of effectiveness this gave the player more overall customization and control over the armor sets speaking of armor sets players could now name and label the sets that they kept in their item box allowing them to change equipment much easier on top of this armor was now upgraded similarly to how weapons were requiring certain specific monster parts or gathering materials before being able to forge it to a higher level of effectiveness

so what about the monsters well not only were there new additions but every large monster from Monster Hunter GE also returned for the next entry in the series on top of that there were two new monster classifications added the carapace Ian crab-like creatures who can use other larger monster skulls as their shells and fanged beasts something interesting to note is that both a go a monster who first appeared in the original game is considered a fang beast from this point forward while simply being a herbivore in the previous entries the following large monsters were introduced

bull drom a monster that is similar to a large bowl Fang go Congo ala and Blanc Ganga to ape-like creatures and the first of their kind in the series as well as Raj Aang an online-only EEP like creature daimyo hermit R and Shogun XI an attire two of the new carapace II and monsters introduced the daimyo wears the skull of a mano blows while the Shogun wears the skull of a gravy O's chenggao ran an extremely large care patient is a special online only monster that wears the skull of a lush and lung believe it

or not despite its size it's not classified as an elder dragon while neither named or classified as a monster in the game itself there's a large Shakalaka the player can hunt called king shaka laka what's a Shakalaka they're a type of Linnaean creatures similar to the felines found in Monster Hunter won by the release of monster hunter world there are three types of linens and within those three various subtypes but we won't get into that until later entry in the series various new Elder Dragons were also introduced into this series including the flagship monster of

DOS Cuccia Ladera on top of Kosala there are the following new entries Rusted ku shala a variant of KU shala whose metallic skin has started to rust this is non a subspecies similar to house guard yanggu rouga in freedom was not it small visual differences and may act slightly different in combat with rusted cou shala being more aggressive than its normal counterpart camellias a jittery monster that has the ability to poison the player and steal their items similar to a gypsy rose tea Ostra and Lu Nostra an iconic elder dragon pair loon Astra is an

offline only monster and appears in Monster Hunter twos endgame white fatalis an online-only subspecies of fate Alice that appears white and glows similar to that of a Kirin and finally Yama tsukkomi a very unique looking elder dragon who appears as the endgame hunt for the online question yama rarely appears in master hunter games and western audiences would first get to hunt one with the release of freedom unite on top of this Wow sham lung and Kieran both had easily accessible offline quests while fate Alice and its subspecies remained online only multiple new locations were also

added to the series these include snowy mountains desert jungle swamp volcano tower and town town is a part of the online hub town of Don Dorma and is a location usually used to fight Elder Dragons speaking of Don Dorma let's talk about hub areas the main offline hub area in Monster Hunter 2 is jumbo village a port village and location unique to Monster Hunter 2 specifically the town has never made a reappearance in any future Monster Hunter games only being mentioned by name in Monster Hunter 4 ultimate by completing various special requests the player could

upgrade various parts of the village including the blacksmith or the player home these upgrades would offer several benefits such as the blacksmith opening up a shop that contained various supplies the tavern is where the player will spend a good portion of their time taking available quests depending on the season and participating in minigames such as arm wrestling against the Jumbo arm wrestler or drinking with the y Berrian lady several shops exist in the town as well including the feline merchant who sells general goods a traveling merchant known as the peddling granny who shows up from

time to time and the blacksmith upgraded items could be combined at the combine shopkeeper if the player had the proper recipe several items now also had multiple recipes making it easier to craft items there is no kitchen in town but there is a feline cook who will make various meals for you or your Pookie when given the proper ingredients there are also multiple gathering areas including a fishing corner where the player can go to catch fish as long as they have bait and a cave where they can provide a miner with a pickaxe to go

collect various ores for them similar to the hero of kokuto there is the hero of jumbo who is known for slaying a loon Ostra this hero also has a sword in a stone for the player to obtain by upgrading their mining cave to level 3 finally if all requests for the shipyard manager have been completed and the Loon astra has been slayed the player can travel to kokuto village for a visit similar to the online hub of my guard town master hunter 2 has its own online hub known as dun Dorma part of dun Dorma

is set up specifically to defend against various attacks from elder dragons this hunting location is simply known as town dun Dorma sports an item shop and blacksmith as well as a guild hall which is similar to the tavern and where players will generally hang out and pick up quests there are two people of note in the town specifically his immenseness an old giant y Berrian who is the leader of both Don Dorma and the elder dragon observation team a corporation who focuses on finding elder dragons additionally there is the songstress who can be found on

a stage in Van Dorma the player can give the songstress a musical note in exchange for her singing a song I don't have much else to say on dun dormice specifically but it is important to note that while Monster Hunter 2's online servers have gone on flying Don Dorma isn't completely lost rather the town reappears in Monster Hunter 4 ultimate although not fully additionally there are restoration efforts to get Monster Hunter 2's online component back up and running given the time maybe I'll make a similar video to my mine guard entry when that happens Quest's

in Monster Hunter to function almost identically to previous entries in this series however there are a few additions for one players now have access to sub quests these tasks would be tacked on to larger quests and would allow the player to complete the quest through an easier objective meaning that they could end it sooner without losing any loot that they had already obtained these would not mark the quest as completed however meaning that they would still need to eventually be completed properly additionally a wanted system was added that would reward the player with extra money

if they hunted monsters that were currently wanted by the village a quality-of-life feature was also added to offline quests where the player can now properly pause the game if they needed a break from the action there are a few more additions of note added to Monster Hunter - such as a USB connectivity functionality that would allow players to connect their PSP to Monster Hunter - doing so would unlock a yangu rouga quest for both games one really interesting addition was the inclusion of a competitive player versus player system where players would face off against one

another each attempting to hunt one another's monster that they bring with them into the battle it's hard to find reviews for Monster Hunter 2 but taking a look at the sales to date the game has sold just over 500,000 copies about 200,000 more than Monster Hunter 1 before it monster hunter freedom a game released a year prior sold roughly 1.3 million over double the amount of Monster Hunter 2 this is most likely due to multiple factors including freedoms overseas release and portability however the next release in the series sold over a million more copies than

freedom and truly put monster hunter on the map in Japan let's take a look Master Hunter freedom 2 also known as portable second in Japan is an interesting entry in the series while freedom was for the better part just a port of Monster Hunter G freedom 2 has multiple large changes and more additional monsters one major change is the shift in location substituting jumbo village for a new snow based hub called pokey village a lot of freedom specific features such as farming also make their return it's for this reason that the game isn't considered a

direct port of Monster Hunter 2 rather being called a portable update let's start with what's been removed first of all the entire season system has been stripped from the game no longer locking the player out of various content day and night cycles also no longer technically exists rather than being dynamic a quest will now inform the player if it takes place during day or night and adjust the map accordingly Yama tsukkomi has also been removed from this series on top of that the PvP mechanic introduced into does not make a return either on to the

new hub pokey village sported many of the amenities seen in freedom while lacking certain features that appeared in Monster Hunter 2 specifically the player could not upgrade the village or their player home the farm makes a return allowing players to gather various items such as bugs or or a change compared to freedom allows the player to farm without worrying about breaking their tools however tools will still break while out hunting and gathering an adventurous feline named trenni can also be sent out to help gather for hunters some of the items he can obtain are unique

to him and cannot be gathered by the player returning to the game are the general store as well as the blacksmith and armoury where the player can upgrade their equipment the feline kitchen and training school also make a reappearance with the training school being expanded on with additional quests allowing the player to train against the additional monsters the feline kitchen is inaccessible until the player meets and hires wandering feline chefs which can be found by interacting with a wandering chef barrel near the player home or by speaking to the peddling granny speaking of the peddling

granny she makes her return from Monster Hunter to this introducing the game's mascot pet boogie to you the Guildhall appears in pokey village and is where the player will pick up their offline and online quests additionally treasure hunts make a return and no longer require an additional party member main offline quests would still be picked up by the village elder outside of the guild hall players now also have the ability to connect to the internet to download additional quests item packs and poogie costumes by the way if you're wondering what that giant boulder behind the

village elder is it smackle eight three new monsters are introduced to the series with the release of freedom 2 these include giad room a large monster version of Gaea pray which were introduced in Monster Hunter - think of it as a winter variant of the Lhasa Jerome without actually being called a variant a cat or a flying wyvern but in name only as he is considered flightless despite this classification and the flagship monster of freedom to the tigrex a series regular and fairly popular monster despite how excruciating Lee difficult I found him in this series

again he was the reason I stopped playing monster hunter until the release of try there aren't many other changes to the series though the tower location from Monster Hunter 2 does get a slight rework freedom 2 was a real turning point for the series in Japan selling to date 2.4 million copies globally in the West the game received multiple 7 out of tens and higher with few lower than that GameSpot notably gave the game a 5 out of 10 despite this the game sold fairly well in the West and would go on to become a

classic entry for the PSP the game wouldn't see a lack of success with its next entry either let's take a look at monster hunter freedom unite this is it monster hunter freedom unite a series classic and the best-selling entry on the PSP ever master hunter freedom unite was considered a critical success in Japan by Capcom and it wouldn't be long until they brought it over to the west it sported 1500 different weapons and 2,000 armor sets advertised over 500 hours of gameplay potential and allowed players to transfer their freedom to save over to unite so

they wouldn't lose progress it was truly a masterclass entry in the series one of the most notable additions was the introduction of the feline companion system now typically known as palak O's the player can hire up to 13 feline companions but only have three of them set as active having companions set his active allows them to take part in training and better their skills in hunting and gathering comrades are limited to offline only content and also cannot join the player when fighting exceptionally large creatures such as Lao Shan Leung and Shen Gong Wu Ren felines

had multiple stats such as attack and defense and would even track the fondness they held towards the player a feline would either use a slashing or impact weapon and while the player could not change a comrades equipment directly as the comrade levels up their weapon will show multiple visual differences the player can use points to have their comrade learn up to three skills at a time and have them unlearn skills when they want to switch them out players can even share their companions with friends through the PSP's sleep mode the feline companion will keep track

of who their original commander was freedom unite once again offered multiple new monsters for the player to hunt including multiple subspecies these included plum daimyo hermit AR and Terra Shogun XI an ATAR the plum daimyo wears a diablo skull and sports a purple tone while the terrace Shogun wears a black grey vo skull instead of a normal grab us and sports the black and red tone next is emerald conga lala who appears green in color and is much more flatulent than its normal counterpart and copper bland ganga who is a larger and stronger subspecies of

blond ganga that lives in hot desert regions rather than in the snowy mountains area two new additions actually first debuted in Monster Hunter frontier those being hip naka trees and Lovaas eov while appearing in munch of frontier hip naka trees would never appear in the main series again meanwhile Lavasa eighth would appear in cross double-cross and monster underworld the ves Boyd Queen a large knee Opteron monster is introduced for the first time in freedom unite technically there is a downloadable quest in freedom to where the player fights an enlarged vest boyd called a vest void

queen but this is simply a larger model of the vest boyd with more health and that inflicts greater damage you can alice is also introduced in freedom unite and has a special location to hunt in found in the snowy mountains called snowy mountains peak it resembles in a canter the flagship monster of the series is a brand new addition the gnar kakuka another very popular monster in the series additionally both yama tsukkomi and king shaka laka make a return in this entry a variant of her Jiang is also introduced in freedom unite called furious for

jiaying furious Raj Aang starts off looking like your average enraged roaring but when going into rage mode has its Ferger stand up and become visibly electrified many of the old monsters also have new attacks as well as new Telegraph's making it easier to know when an enemy was going to attack a specific way and plan accordingly there are multiple little additions and quality of life changes such as extra equipment pages instead of six the player now has eight pages to use with the ability to upgrade that number to ten player could also store more sets

in total as well as hold a maximum number of 99 of each item within a storage slot in the players box players could even install part of the game's data onto a memory card for faster loading times additionally the player could skip certain cutscenes such as the entry scenes for fate Alice and Lau sham lung guild cards also received an upgrade with multiple new pages which would allow various stats and feline information to be shown there are also many new character customization options such as hair and starting clothes in the addition of new music for

areas and new downloadable quests the game was basically packed to the brim with new features and additions the game introduced many new weapons and armor sets thanks to the inclusion of the new monsters some of these armor sets even had unique skills that could not be obtained from decorations some weapons received several changes as well for example some dual blades could support two elements rather than one and the hunting-horn added the ability to produce a sonic bomb effect with these new weapons and additions came a brand new sharpness level to date purple sharpness is the

highest level of sharpness that can be obtained for any weapon in almost any monster hunter game except for frontier which added the sky-blue sharpness which is one level higher than purple G rank quests marked their return with the release of freedom unite this is because freedom unite is a direct expansion of freedom - in Japan the games are called portable second and portable second G respectively these quests can be picked up from the new guild Clerk in the guild hall certain first-generation locations saw the return and existing locations such as forests and hills now have

the ability to be in either day or night the volcanic region was also upgraded adding two new areas to the map finally the game introduced epic hunting quests where the player would hunt multiple monsters one after the other carving these monsters wouldn't produce materials but would instead reward the player with mega potions however quest rewards would still be monster materials meaning that the player could capture monsters for rarer rewards freedom unite sold exceptionally well globally for a PSP game racking in 3.8 million sales to date it would even see a digital release on the PS

Vita with the inclusion of right analog stick functionality for the camera controls finally ending the need to use the infamous claw grip as of writing this it is the third best-selling game on the PSP Western reviews of this game were slightly better than freedom - with a Metacritic score averaging above the 80s Wow okay that was a lot of information for a brief history entry and there's definitely even more I could have gotten into but why not try the game yourself dust off that old PSP or that Vita and check out freedom unite one of

the pillars of quality in the Monster Hunter series in the next part of this series we'll be looking at the third generation of Monster Hunter including portable 3rd try and ultimate which are some of my favorite games and include some of my favorite monsters including the best boy lugia crews if you enjoyed this video and found it informative consider supporting the channel by liking commenting and subscribing again it only takes a couple of seconds and helps support me in my goal of creating this content for you all I try to respond to every comments I

can so if you want to hear from me be sure to let me know thanks so much for watching everyone and I'll see you in the next video hey you made it to the end of the video that means so much to me and really it's just so amazing and awesome and I really do appreciate it you're probably wondering why I'm here again and it's because within the video there are a couple little things that I just want to point out to you due to a couple of inaccuracies and just just some things that I

feel need a little bit of clarification to start off there's the pedaling granny that shows up in freedom too and freedom unite there's actually two granny's there and I don't know which one's supposed to be considered the pedaling granny I'm pretty sure it's the one that sells you the items but there's also one near your house that also gives you all the feline chefs so I wasn't completely sure if you know the answer and you want to clarify that for me feel free to do that in the comments that would be swell I kind of

made it seem like the Pugi costumes only started to show up in freedom too but that's not the case if you watch the footage that I recorded you can actually see that in moss 302 you can get custom poogie costumes I think they're actually the same costumes being worn in freedom too and Monster Hunter - in my footage this was actually an issue in the wiki and I had to correct it epic hunts first show up in freedom - they don't show up in freedom unite first I already recorded the audio segment for that and

I didn't want to re-record it so I thought I would just come on now and let you know that that was wrong that was incorrect and it has been remedied a second correction is that I said forests and hills finally got nighttime in monster hunter freedom unite I think but that's not the case it actually already had nighttime in master hunter - it just didn't show up in freedom - and then made its return in freedom unite I added a little correction within the video editing for this part but just to clarify you can actually

change the look of your pal eCos armor also I don't know why I didn't mention this in the video when talking about freedom - and freedom unite and the web Changez one of the things to talk about is the fact that the longsword now has an infinite combo because they added the ability to use the buttons instead of the right analog stick because there's no right analog stick on the PSP and yeah that is the first appearance of the infinite combo in monster hunter unless it showed up in frontier somewhere but I don't think it

did so yeah that's a really cool fact anyway that's the end of my little segment where I fix all of the wrongs I made if I missed anything else or got anything else wrong let me know please feel free to comment feel free to like feel free to subscribe that would be great ok good bye [Music]