July 15th. That's when Generations drops. It's a little later than I expected, as I predicted a late June release, though to be honest, the July release wasn't too far off. With Anime Revolution in the first week of August, I think I'll be able to get decent enough to show some moves in multiplayer when the con rolls around. I suspect that Gunner weapons will be a bit of an uncommon sight that early into the game's release, as most people tend to go for the more numerous Blademaster weapons.

Historically, I've played Monster Hunter from new game starting with a weapon want to learn, but end up moving to a weapon I know to make the early game grind easier. For this game, I'm planning to do something I've never done before: start with a Gunner weapon. See, for many Blademasters, we'd play through the game, and it's common to (and recommended to) pick up different weapons to keep things fresh and for tactical advantages. Most of the time, however, we'll pick up a Gunner weapon late in the game, get okay with using it, and really only use it against monsters we know are hard to deal with up close, like Najarala or Chameleos. It's a pocket weapon, one you pull out for specific situaitons.

This time, I'm starting with the Gunner weapon. I can do fine with my Blademaster weapon(s) of choice. I've put so much time into learning the ins and outs of the Charge Blade and Lance that I doubt I'll have much trouble getting back into them. Whatever weapon to choose to stick with from the start is the one you'll (hopefully) learn the best, so I'm hoping to be able to blast my way through the Village quests and be the uncommon gunner in Multiplayer, which I'm hoping to embrace more from the get-go this time around.

I'll run down my thoughts on the weapons and other things about the game closer to the release.

PS It's been a while since I last updated around here. Between preparing for an audition for school, and my laptop breaking down, I haven't had a lot of time. Writing on my iPad is fine, but getting images up is a real pain on that thing, so I just held out until my laptop came back from repairs.


On a side note, I looked up the release date of Monster Hunter Freedom 2, the first Monster Hunter game I played, and was surprised to find that I've been playing Monster Hunter, as a franchise, for almost a decade now. Freedom 2 dropped in February 2007 way back on the PSP, making 2016 the 9th year since then. Since then, I've gone through Freedom Unite (PSP), a little bit of Portable 3rd (PSP), a tiny bit of a Tri (Wii), some 3U (3DS), and a very sizable 600 hours in 4U (3DS). By now, I think my hour count in the franchise is at least 2000 hours across Freedom and Freedom Unite, which both clocked roughly 6-800 hours each, and 4U by themselves.

Just for interest's sake, let's look at the weapons I've used in these games, ordered from most used to occasionally used.

Freedom 2: Longsword, Hammer
Freedom Unite: Longsword, Hammer, Great Sword, Bow
Portable 3rd: Longsword, Sword and Shield, Hammer
Tri: N/A
3 Ultimate: Switch Axe, Great Sword, Sword and Shield
4 Ultimate: Charge Blade, Lance, Sword and Shield, Great Sword, Gunlance, Heavy Bowgun

For the first couple games, Longsword was real strong, and also pretty simple to use, in comparison to the weapon in 4 Ultimate. Hammer was also brutally strong, and remains largely the same to this day.

For 3U, Switch Axe was the "new" weapon, and I actually started with Gunlance, but was dissatisfied with it's lack of movement options (and I still am), before "switching" to the Switch Axe, which I used almost exclusively for that game. The axe was also pretty decent underwater, but did anyone actually like the underwater combat? *crickets* I thought so.

4U saw the dawn of the Charge Blade, which was and still is, probably one of the most powerful weapons once you get the hang of it. Swung around with different weapons in the game, but always ended up coming back home to the Charge Blade. Once you get a taste of the power and versatility this thing has, it's hard to go back to anything else. I'm sticking with this one as my Blademaster main in Generations because it's just as fun as it is absolutely frustrating trying to hit the Guard Points on time. It also saw the resurgence of Guard Lancing, giving more tools to make that more viable play style and I loved it. It satisfied my mobility need, my defensive needs and my offensive needs. It scratches a lot of the same itches as the Charge Blade did, but was easier to use. I'd say that the Charge Blade and Lance are probably my "mains", Blademaster wise, of Generations.

Dark Souls has always fascinated me with it's designs. Everything generally looks and feels coherent and well thought out. Things are grotesque, and yet have an air of majesty to them. The art book goes into more detail about the designs of enemies, armour and locations in the game.

Anywho, what better way to celebrate the beautiful designs of Dark Souls, than to faithfully recreate the intricately etched Greatsword of Artorias, one of the major figures in the lore of Dark Souls.

It's not the first "big blade" they've forged, but it might just be the most detailed with numerous embossed and engraved designs across the blade. The gorgeous contrast between the silver edges, and the dark blade makes the designs pop out more prominently. Massive props to Man At Arms Reforged (Baltimore Knife and Sword) for the amazing work on this beast of a blade.

If you want to dive more into the lore of Dark Souls, I recommend looking up Vaati and EpicNameBro (ENB) up on Youtube for their respective takes on the lore. If you're feeling particular free of things to do, MoonlightButterfly has cut together a masive feature length "movie", following the various characters of the game. It's an impressive feat that helps tie all of the game's stories together into a single (albeit very lengthy) package.

Welcome back to Salty Huntin', a series where I rant about dumb stuff that's in Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate. It's a great game, but riles me up so much when the game doesn't do things I want it to, or when monsters have advantages against a majority of the weapon types.

I've raged more fighting this damn Snake than I have almost any other monster.

Q: Are you a Blademaster?
A: Yes
Result: Unless you're using a GL or CB, you'll probably have really shitty time. If you're using either of those two, you'll have a slightly less shitty time.

Source

Source: MH Wiki

Lastly, Najarala is vulnerable to Blast. Very vulnerable. Grab your best Blast weapon and light this sucker up like New Years. Keep the pressure up and watch it's relatively low HP get eaten up by the explosions.

While it's definitely has weaknesses, Najarala effectively makes fighting it with Blademaster weapons an annoying and difficult battle. It almost becomes a battle against the systems of the game itself, rather than the monster. Do yourself a favour and grab a good Bowgun if you need to take a bunch of these down.

Unlike most monsters, Tidal Najarala, the subspecies, actually is completely different. Without going into details, it's actually a little bit more manageable as a Blademaster. Still annoying, but nowhere near as bad as regular Najarala is. It's gimmick is basically pinball. 

Welcome to what's hopefully to become somewhat long running series. Here I'm planning to write some reviews of some games I've enjoyed on the 3DS as the system turns 5 years old. A lot of these games will be pretty old, some from the system's early line up, and some released last month. It's not a comprehensive list of what's good on the 3DS, but rather a list of games I've played, liked and think that people who haven't tried them  really should give these a shot. I'm aiming for a 1 game every other day schedule so hopefully I can keep that up for a good week or two.

Most of the games are games that most 3DS owners probably have. Some of them are a little more niche. First up: Animal Crossing New Leaf.

At the moment, the many monsters of the Monster Hunter are categorized  by their general physical characteristics. Taking a quick look at any of the monsters, you'd be able to generally put them into the right "classes". However, some of those matches don't work out particularly well, while there are some classes that have seemingly been created for a single monster (here's looking at you, Zinogre).

My goal here is to reclassify the monsters, including the enigmatic Elder Dragons, into groups more indicative of the monsters' physiological characteristics.

Looking over the list in the game, there are some oddities, like Akantor and Ukanlos (both are Flying Wyverns), whose wings are, even in an vestigal sense, barely apparent. I hope that new monsters added in future games will fill out some of their more neglected classes, like the Fanged Wyverns, Snake Wyverns and the Temnocerna, as each of those classes are populated by a single large monster. Not much of a class if it's a class named for a single created for a single creature!






Raptors* (created for this list)
Monsters in this Class all previously belonged to the Bird Wyvern class, but I've re-categorized them to a more specific sub-class. Raptors are very similar to the Flying Bird Wyvern, with the exception of their lack of winged forelimbs. They resemble the dinosaurs that our (real world) birds of prey are said to be descended from. These monsters live and hunt in large packs led by an Alpha Male, typically denoted by "Great" preceeding it's name, as well as being significantly larger than the rest of his pack.

• Velociprey/drome
• Genprey/drome
• Ioprey/drome
• Giaprey/drome (no recent appearances)
• Jaggi/Jaggia/G. Jaggi
• Baggi/ G. Baggi
• Macau/ G. Macau (MHX)

Wtf is that?!