A frustrating, yet rewarding experience.
Presentation: 10
Excellence. Environments are lush and gorgeous. The best looking environment (I think) would be the beach in The Jungle area. The monsters you face look pretty impressive, and thankfully, the best looking character in the game is yourself, especially considering you'll be looking at it all the time. This is the best looking psp game, and probably will be until GoW comes out. The Sound perfectly fits the title. Orchestrated pieces help the environment and action come to life. The little jingle played when you cook meat is the most hilarious thing I have seen in a while. And if you are not careful, you may find yourself cooking just to hear the music. The sound the animals and monsters sound exactly as they should. Snorts, farts, and all. Story: 5
This is where the game falls a little short. I was hoping for a little more story telling, but unfortuantely, there really is none. Every mission is just that, a mission. Your goal is to kill X animals in Y amount of time. Or whatever else there is to do. The mission are only meant to further your character's abilities and pockets, not the plot. Hopefully (if there will be one) Monster Hunter 3 will have a riviting story to motivate fans to even more to put countles hours into the game.
Replay Value: 9
250 quests, some taking around 30 minutes to complete, while others take close to 4 hours. If you try to complete every quest, it may take you upwords of 400 hours. This is more than some people who have played WoW for 2 years have clocked.
The only unfortunate thing about it's replay value is its lack of all out online play. This is a lot to ask for, but it would really make the game legendary. Additional Notes: Also, don't buy this game if you are looking for a game to play for only 10 minutes at a time, however, if you have the time to invest in this game, you will be greatly rewarded.
The game can be frustatingly difficult, but thats the point. The game offers what few handheld and console games offer these days: Challenge. A different strategy is needed for each (yes each) different monster, and also for each weapon type. The learning curve is probably about 1-2 hours.
Because of the challenge, when you finally complete a mission, you have a huge sigh of relief, and a good sense of accomplishment. It's just too bad theres no one to share it with except through ad-hoc
Final Score: (not an average) 8.5 out of 10
Buy this game if you are a fan of the action RPG genre and like to customize and develope a unique character. Avoid this game if you are too busy (or lazy) to get over it's steep learning curve.
Regarded Gamespots review: the review seems biased, especially since no reward was given for exceptional graphics and sound, I honestly think the reviewer didn't dedicate (and didnt want to) the time needed to enjoy this gem.