How Monster Hunter Generations Keeps Its Opening Hours Fresh

I’ve played a lot of monster hunting games at this point. More specifically, from Monster Hunter itself to the many games trying to take their own spin on the formula, I’ve played a lot of introductions to monster hunting games. The one universal thing they all seem to share is that they’re by far the worst part of the game: they’re generally slow, tedious, and require a lot of busywork before things really get going.

I’d like to say that Monster Hunter Generations changes things, that it gets straight into the action and trusts the player enough to not make “kill X fodder monsters” or “gather X basic resources” mandatory. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. But don’t run away yet! What Monster Hunter Generations does do is make some interesting additions, both big and small. These changes turned the game’s opening hours from the expected slog to some of the most engaging I’ve experienced for this kind of game in a while.

The most immediate feature to draw my attention was of course the styles. What makes them interesting at the beginning of the game though is that it’s so easy to experiment with them. Sure, Monster Hunter has had things to experiment with before like the weapons and armor, but this is a bit different.

Typically when I’ve played other Monster Hunter games, I always felt like the weapon in particular was a commitment. Even way back in Monster Hunter Freedom Unite on the PSP, people would recommend “beginner weapons” to learn the game, and so that’s how I started. Ever since then I’ve tended to stick to one weapon at the start to “learn” the basics of the game, and then start to branch out when I’m more comfortable. Of course there’s other reasons to feel committed to a weapon type, particularly since the spoils from monster hunts will feed directly back into crafting and upgrading your weapon of choice. My weapon feels like a friend and a commitment, and it’s not something I’d ever give up easily.

Styles are not commitments. While they feel pretty different, you don’t have to entirely relearn the game with styles in the same way that changing a weapon might. Styles can be changed at any time and the game practically encourages you to do so, since style combinations have strengths and weaknesses depending on the type of monster you’re facing. Styles don’t have to be “leveled up” or anything with various monster parts so it doesn’t feel like losing out on an investment. All this made it so that even when I was running around killing wimpy Maccao, I could make my own fun trying out a new style.

Outside of the quests themselves, Monster Hunter Generations also mixes up the structure of the game. Instead of one main hub like in most Monster Hunters or progressively traveling to new places like in Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate, the game almost immediately opens up into four different villages (three of which are from past Monster Hunter games) after doing a couple of quests. Not only does each village have a different aesthetic, but they can potentially change the pace of what can be encountered at the start.

These villages all have their own separate quests which introduce different hunting areas much more rapidly than a typical game in the series. I was so used to spending my opening time in the basic grassy plains type areas that I genuinely didn’t expect that my very first quest after opening up the villages would be in the desert. After running straight out of the first area, it took me over half my health being depleted to red before it registered in my brain that I was supposed to use Cold Drinks at this point in the game already.

The last interesting change Monster Hunter Generations makes is to the upgrade system. Anyone who’s played Monster Hunter for a while knows the pain of having to go on a bevy of scavenger hunts to find the specific items needed just to level up a weapon once. Generations alleviates this by making it so that weapons can be upgrades with any items that fall into a “group” of items. For example if the weapon needs ore, it can now be any type of ore rather than say only Malachite ore. While the higher levels do eventually require their own specific items in addition to the general groups, I found that the upgrade pace was much faster especially during the beginning hours of the game.

Monster Hunter Generations feels like a game built mostly for Monster Hunter’s fans, so for many people this won’t be their first rodeo. While the opening of Monster Hunter Generations still feels relatively tone-deaf in regards to trusting that the player knows what they’re doing, the additions made do make the first few hours go by faster than most other games in the genre I’ve played recently. It may not be enough for every returning hunter, but I managed to breeze through the opening with a smile on my face.