Monster Hunter

[NastyNate]

I want to give this franchise a try. I have been thinking about starting with freedom unite for the psp, but I don't know if I should start with the original for the ps2. Anyone have any suggestions where to get started?

[Seraphic]

I would say start with Freedom Unite for the psp. It's fairly polished compared to the older games, and has a tremendous amount of content. I don't remember, but I think I'm around two or three-hundred hours into the game, and I'm still not done doing what I intended to. There are people who play the game for 1000 hours or more.

With FU, you can play online with people using xlink kai or adhoc party, since you have a ps3, Nate. I haven't used these before, but I can probably help you hunt stuff. I'm fairly far into the game.

The learning curve is a bit steep, and the beginnings are a bit slow, but once you get probably 50-80 hours into the game, you'll start seeing what makes the series so good.

Oh, and you'll need this: http://monsterhunter.wikia.com/wiki/Monster_Hunter_Wiki

MH Tri is the newest game available in the west. I really, really love that game, but unfortunately I dont own a wii. It's much more polished and prettier than FU, but fairly limited in content. There are a bunch of other new games, too, but Capcom won't release them here for some reason.

Just let us know what you decide to do, and we'll brief you on the more important game mechanics, since the games themselves tend to do a bad job of explaining them.

[quasadra]

Freedom Unite is sort of like the ultimate edition of the ps2 to psp monster hunter game at the time, you wont miss anything by playing that. excluding the stuff added in Tri and Portable 3rd of course.

[Outlaw]

Freedom Unite is arguably the best Monster Hunter available in the states so it would be a good one to start off with. I would actually advise against picking up the PS2 original as the difficulty curve is a little steeper than the latter iterations and without the ability to take it online the original misses out on a fair amount of content.

Oh, and be patient. It's going to get tough and you will lose several times. Monster Hunter is all about figuring out your opponents, in that respect I would say it shares more in common with a fighting game than an RPG (which far too many people seem to think it is). Once you do figure things out though it can be extremely satisfying.