Monster Hunter Freedom Review

Also known as:
Monster Hunter Portable

Release date:
2006 on PSP

Also released on:
PlayStation2 as Monster Hunter (2004/2005)
PlayStation2 as Monster Hunter G (2005)
PC as Monster Hunter Frontier (2007)



For those of you who may, or may not know, this is a port of Monster Hunter on PlayStation2. Some of the newer features were in Monster Hunter G, which was only released in Japan. The PSP version includes everything from both PlayStation2 versions and much, much more.

Before Your Game Begins

Before you even start the game you’ll have to make a character. There are a lot of customisation options available so this may take about ten minutes.

You start by choosing either a male or female and your character’s name. Next is the face type and skin colour. Your ‘naked’ clothes colour will change depending on your skin colour. Finally are your character’s voice, hair style and colour. When choosing the hair colour you can manually pick it so it’s completely your choice.

Welcome to Kokoto Village

Once you’ve made your character you’ll wake up in your house in Kokoto Village. This is where you save your game, change equipment, store items and access the Felyne Kitchen. Later on in the game you’ll get a pet pig which apparently increases rare items in your quest rewards.

Once you’re outside you can access a variety of different shops. These include shops for items, weapons/armour and two travelling sales people. The item shop is only useful for the first few quests. It only offers basic things which you can usually find in a quest. Once you’ve finished enough quests a travelling salesman will sell you a wide selection of items. Apart from the usual stuff, he sells information books on enemies, more storage space for items and combo books which increase your item combination rate. There’s also a saleswoman who appears in the middle of town and sells a selection of items. She has three different rotations of items and appears at random after a quest.

There are two types of weapon/armour shops. One is where you buy and one is where you make your own. The only way to get the best equipment is to make your own. This means you won’t be using the shop to buy equipment for very long. The way you make and upgrade your equipment is by killing enemies and carving them up for body parts. New equipment won’t show up in the shop until you have at least one part to make it.

New PSP features

A new feature to the PSP version is the Kokoto Fields. This is an area which is looked after by a number of Felyne cats. There are a number of different areas in here where you can collect ores, bugs, fish and herbs. This is extremely useful and will help you a lot if it’s used after each quest. When you try and collect these types of items in a quest it’s really tedious. Using the Kokoto Field makes things a lot easier.

Each area of the Kokoto Field can be upgraded and will give you more or rarer items. You need to talk to a guy at the entrance of the Kokoto Field and use points to upgrade. You get points by either buying or selling items and equipment. You also unlock more upgrades by progressing through the game.

Apart from the mining spots there’s a Felyne cat to help you in quite a strange way. The cat will ask for a small or large barrel bomb and ask you to pick from three tunnels. After you’ve made your selection, the cat will run inside then tunnel with the bomb. The bomb will explode and the cat will fly out on fire and give you some ore. This is really amusing and part of the Japanese humour used through out the game.

The PSP version includes the training mode from Monster Hunter G. This is extremely hard because you’re given a set amount of equipment and only get one life. You’re also given a limited selection of items which is different depending on the weapon you choose. The training is used to improve your skills against the boss monsters. Once you’ve killed every boss monster with the same weapon you’re given a medal on your Guild Card.



Cooking cats… what the hell?

Occasionally you’ll see the Felyne cat saleswoman. She’ll sell you a selection of different cats which have different cooking specialities and skill levels. Your cats can level up by using the kitchen more. Once you get them to level nine they’ll become master chefs and be able to prepare better food. The higher the cat’s level, the more food you can choose from. When you have the maximum of five cats you’ll be able to have about twenty different choices of food.

Depending on what your cat’s specialities are depends on the food you can choose from. You choose from two foods from a list and then see the cats cook the food. Eating the cat’s food will give you status enhancing effects like more health or stamina. You sometimes get bonus effects at random which give you better rewards among other things. If you pick a bad choice of foods you can get negative effects like reduced health. Finally the effect only lasts for your first life and only for that quest. This is highly amusing and I enjoy seeing it every time.



Where's My Storyline?

This game pretty much has no storyline what so ever. The only things you’ll be doing are quests, quests and more quests. The quests are split up into difficulty levels of between one and five stars. You’ll have to talk to the village chief each time you want to start a quest. You’ll be given a number of quests to complete and once you’ve done them all you’ll be given an urgent quest. If you complete the urgent quest you’ll unlock the next selection of quests. Once you’ve completed all the village chief’s quests you’ll have to play ‘online’ for more quests.

Here's a brief description of the quest types;

Hunting quests requires you to kill either a boss monster or a certain amount of regular monsters. This is the most common type of quest you’ll be doing.

Capture quests need you to find a boss monster, weaken it until near death then capture it. This can sometimes be difficult when fighting a Plesioth or Gypceros because they don’t show any sign that they’re near death. When the boss is weak enough you’ll need to trap in a ‘pitfall trap’. Once the monster is trapped you’ll quickly have to throw or shoot a tranquilliser at it to put it to sleep. If the boss isn’t weakened enough you’ll have to continue the fight and try again.

Gathering quests are just there so you can easily collect resources. This is good if you want to kill regular monster, do some mining or do some fishing. There is usually a boss monster, so it’s up to you if you kill it or not. To complete this quest all you’ll need to do is collect a ‘paw pass’ ticket from the item box, and put it in the quest box at your base camp. Occasionally you get a quest to deliver monster eggs or ore. This must be carried back to the base camp and is extremely heavy. If you drop it you'll have to start over again.

The final quest type is only used for Lao-Shan Lung. This quest involves protecting a castle from a 60ft dragon type monster. Lao moves extremely slowly, pulling itself on its stomach. It’ll take 20-30 minutes to get to the castle depending on the damage you do to it. Lao is so big that you can climb on its back while it’s crawling and it just carries on as normal. When it finally gets to the castle you can attack it with a cannon, giant spikes at the front gate or your standard weapons. To shoot the cannon you’ll need to carry the heavy cannon balls from your camp to the castle gate. This is tricky because they’ll be a few Ioprey trying to stop you. This quest is completed by dealing enough damage to Lao or killing it. You fail if Lao does enough damage to the castle.

Combining Items

One of the best things in this game is the fact that you can combine two items make a new item. There are 124 different combinations and it’s up to you to find out what they are. You can on only combine the correct items so this isn’t as bad as it sounds. Some items require the ‘alchemy’ skill to be able to combine them. I believe this make you think there are less combinations than there actually are.

Each time you successfully combine a new item it’s added to your ‘combo list’. This is a quick reference guide and it also gives the success rate of each combination. If you have one of the five ‘combo books’ in your inventory this will increase your success rate. The more books you have the greater the success rate will be. If you have all five books it’ll increase the success rate by an additional 45%.

When you’ve finally completed every single combination you’ll get a medal on your Guild Card. You’ll also get an ‘alchemy guide’ which will let you combine items that require the ‘alchemy’ skill without having it equipped to your armour.




Choosing Your Weapon

This is one of the most important things you need to consider. Choosing the right equipment is the key to success. This may sound obvious, but there’s a lot to consider. Each weapon can usually be upgraded multiple times and each upgrade having two or three different outcomes.

There are seven different weapon types so choosing the right weapon crucial. Apart from the bowguns, each weapon can also have an elemental attribute attached to it. These are fire, water, thunder, poison, sleep, paralysis and dragon.

Finding each boss' elemental weakness is the easiest way to defeat them. Having a weapon with the right element added will cause you to do drastically more damage. Every weapon that has high elemental damage will usually have low ‘raw’ damage. This means that if you use the wrong element for a boss it’ll only do the ‘raw’ damage amount.

One of the things that really annoys me is the amount of damage to game says each weapon deals. If the damage shown was actually what it says it is you’ll kill every boss monster in about 30 seconds. For example a Rathalos has about 2,000 hit points and the great sword you’re using says it deals 932 damage. If this was true you’d kill it only 3 hits.

Blademaster

The sword and shield is swift and agile so can attack and then quickly escape. It doesn’t do much damage, but can get a lot of hits in by using combos of up to six hits. You can also keep it out and run around at normal speed.

As the name suggests, the great sword is a massive sword. It has great distance and can hit multiple enemies with a single hit. It also has slow attacks and can take a long time to get out and attack. You can however get into a continuous combo of attacks if timed correctly. When your sword is drawn you move really slowly.

The lance is quite an effective weapon, but needs a lot of stamina to use it. You can attack at maximum range and then dodge back, left or right after an attack. You can also attack forwards or upwards with up to three hits in a combo. The lance has a ‘charge’ attack which makes your character run fast towards your enemies hitting as many as you can. This consumes a lot of stamina so can’t be done for long. When your stamina bar is extremely low you can’t dodge after an attack. With your lance drawn you move really slowly, just like the great sword.

The duel swords are the weakest of the swords, but have a special attack that makes up for that. When you normally attack you can get approximately ten hits in using three different combos. You get a massive amount of hits in when you use the special attack, but it’ll consume your stamina super fast. You can also run around with the swords drawn, but they have no way to block attacks. This means you have to be really good at dodging attacks.

Hammers are quite powerful, but really hard to use. It’s really hard to hit enemies because you need to get your timing just right. Your standard attacks are a sideways jab or an overhead smash. The hammer’s best moves are its changed attacks. The first is a forward spinning attack which hits the enemy about seven times. The other is a powerful overhead smash. Just like the duel swords, you can run with the weapon out and can’t block.

Gunner

The light and heavy bowguns are pretty much the same. Both require you to carry ammo so you’ll have to choose the other items very carefully. The amount of ammo you’ll need could up to half your inventory space. You’ll also need to combine items in-game to make even more ammo. This is because most ammo types have a very limited amount you can carry. This may make gunners sound bad, but they’re actually quite good.

Gunners have a wide verity of ammo types including elemental ammo. The main ammo types have three levels of ammo power. The more powerful the ammo, the less you can carry. The types are normal, pierce, crag, pellet and clust. The gunners also have elemental and other ammos. These are flaming, ice, thunder, poison, stun, sleep, recover, paintball, tranquilliser and dung.

Obviously the best thing about gunners is their attack range. You can also upgrade your bowguns power by five levels and add a zoom scope or silencer. This will cost a lot of money, but it’ll be worth once it’s fully upgraded. Each gun can hold different amounts of certain ammo types. This means you'll need to choose your gun carefully.

The only real drawback to being a gunner is that if you run out of ammo you’ll have to forfeit your quest and start over. This is because there’s no way to pickup extra ammo in a quest. The only way you can solve this is to always carry lv1 normal ammo which is unlimited.

Choosing Your Armour

Making this choice depends if you’re a Blademaster or Gunner. Both categories have different armour which can’t be used for both types apart from a select few. Blademasters usually have low elemental defence and high standard defence and Gunners have the opposite.

Each piece of armour has certain amount of ability points. When you get the same set of points to ten you’ll get that ability. Some armour sets can get the points to twenty which gives an advanced form of the ability. You can also get negative abilities as well as positive with the same armour. You don’t have to get a full set of armour for the ability you want. You can mix and match pieces until you’ve got what you need.

The only armour that both Blademasters and Gunners can use is usually the ‘comedy’ outfits. These make you look like an enemy or someone in the game. Almost all of these have no real use apart from they make you look funny. There are also other sets which both categories can use which have low defence but good abilities. These include Guild Knight, Shinobi Heaven and Shinobi Earth.



Enemies and Sub-Bosses

There are a wide number and verity of enemies that inhabit the world. Some are content with minding their own business and others make it their job to make your life a constant nightmare.

The main creatures that’ll try and attack you throughout the game are the Velociprey, Genprey and Ioprey. These are Velociraptor like creatures that’ll bite and jump at you continuously. There are usually an unlimited number of these on the level, so as soon as you kill one another will take its place. They also attack you in packs just like real Velociraptors.

There are superior versions of the Velociprey, Genprey and Ioprey which are basically sub-bosses. They’ll appear early in the game as the main monster to kill in the Village Chief’s quests. You’ll find them later in the game in other quests along with the boss monsters. These sub-bosses are larger and more elaborate looking than their lesser counterparts. They also deal a lot more damage and will run in to a different area when they’re low on health.

The Different Areas

Forest and Hills
This area is exactly what you’d expect from its name. Your base camp is in a secluded area with a small fishing spot. You exit into the hills area and can go left into the forest. Most of the hills area is wide open and have grey mountain areas. There are three different ways to go to forest from the hills area.

If you go towards the mountains from camp then climb up to your left, it leads to large cliff. You can climb the cliffs and eventually get to a Wyvern nesting area. This cave leads to a large open area, which then leads to the second mountain area.

Once you’re in the forest there is a secluded area to the north you can do some fishing. Further north the the Felyne cats’ hide out. There is a large area with water where the aggressive Felyne cats will try and attack you with small bombs. If you go south there is a connecting area where an abandoned camp is. There are three different exits in this area. One is to a secluded area where can trade items with the Forest Elder. Another way is to a narrow forest area that has Felyne cats that try and steal items. Finally the last exit leads to the area when you left the camp.

Desert
Your camp is in a plain orange coloured mountain area. You can either go down a ladder to the main desert or the opposite direction to a mountain area. If you go to the mountains there is a medium sized area with a ledge to climb and two exits. The left exit leads to a secluded area with a small lake. There is another exit which leads to the same place as the right exit from the previous area.

The next area is a large mountain area with a fish spot. It leads to an underground cave if you go north or another mountain area to the west. The new mountain area leads to the Felyne cats’ hide out if you go north and the second large desert to the west. This second large desert has two small caves and leads to the first desert. The first desert is extremely large and has three small caves in the mountain and leads back to base camp. Both desert areas are full of Cephalos, which are sand sharks.

Jungle
The camp is on the edge of a mountain and has two exits into the jungle. The left exit leads into a large area which is full of all sorts of trees and has two exits. One is to a secluded area where can trade items with the Jungle Elder and the other leads to a river side jungle area. In this new area you can go right which leads to the jungle right of the camp or north into a different riverside jungle. You can then climb up the mountain which leads to a Wyvern nesting site. If you continue on you’ll go into a cave which then leads to the right jungle from camp. If you didn’t climb the mountain it leads to a cave which then has a further two caves if you continue on.

Swamp
The base camp is in a similar to Forest and Hills, but not as enclosed. The swamp itself is gloomy with purple coloured fog in a lot of areas. Lots of the areas in the swamp look identical, but have minor differences.

Once you exit the camp you’ll be in a medium sized woodland area with a few trees. You can either go right in to a large long grassed area or left in to an almost identical area. In the left area you can go left to a secluded area where can trade items with the Swamp Elder or right to another almost identical area. This third area has a left exit into a doughnut shaped cave or goes to an open marsh area to the right. In the marsh area you can go up or right to almost identical marsh areas. If you went up, this area has a cave at the side and goes right into another marsh area. This is the last marsh area also has a cave at the side. This area goes right into the large long grassed area if you went right from camp.

Volcano
The camp is in a wide open grey mountain area which has left and right exit. The left area is wide open circular room surrounded by mountains. It has large rocks which explode if they’re hit. The right area is a connecting area which leads to left, into the some caves or right into a similar area left of the camp. Whichever way you take they’ll all lead into almost identical areas inside the caves. Each cave is quite large and you can see lava flowing towards the volcano. If you keep going left you’ll eventually go to a wide open area. This area has lots of lava flowing through it, but has a path clear for you to walk through. If you continue along the path you’ll come to a further lava filled area. This next area is used for some of the later boss battles and leads to the base of the volcano. You can climb all the way up the volcano and even see flames shooting out from inside its base. This area has four mining spots which give you ‘rust stones’ or ‘ancient stones’.

The Arena
You start off in the camp and there’s only one which leads into the arena. The arena itself is a single large room with a ledge at one side. This area is used to challenge you to fight enemies without being able to escape. This can be extremely hard when fighting two bosses at once.



Bosses, Bosses and More Bosses

A lot of the bosses have the same sort of attacks so I’ll explain them briefly;

Tail whip – Spins around in a complete circle while stood still.
Fireball – It’ll shoot either a single shot straight or three in a circular motion towards you.
Scream – This will cause your character to hold their ears leaving them open for an attack. You can block this, but it’ll cause you to stagger backwards.
Charge – The boss will run towards you at high speed then fall over.

When you do enough damage to a boss it’ll get enraged. When this happens its damage, speed and defence increase by about 40%. This can last a short period of time then ware off. When the boss is almost dead it’ll constantly be enraged until you kill it.

Most bosses can get their body parts damaged like their wings and head. Most can also get their tail cut off which will make them a lot easier to fight. When you carve the tail it’ll usually give you rare rewards.

Yian Kut-Ku (pink or blue)
This is the first proper boss you’ll encounter in the game. It’s a dragon type creature which has webbed ears. It has all the common attacks plus three others. It can walk and peck at you which will knock you quickly to the floor. An attack where it stands still, shoots fireballs up than they land all around. Finally it can charge at you while shooting fireballs left and right. You can tell when it’s almost dead because its ears will go back.

Rathalos (red, dark blue or silver)
This is your more common looking dragon type boss and is a male. It has all the common attacks as well as two others. It can hover above you and shoot a fireball down and can also swoop down while flying and poison you. This boss loves to fly to different areas a lot so you’ll get really annoyed having to find it all the time.

Rathian (green, pink or gold)
This boss is a female and is looks just like a Rathalos. She has Rathalos’ poison swoop attack and can also back flip and poison you. Unlike a Rathalos she’ll rarely fly away. This makes her a more manageable boss to fight.

Gypceros (black or purple)
This boss looks like a fat hairless chicken with a white American football on its nose. It acts a lot like a Yian Kut-Ku but can poison you. The thing on its nose call shoot out a blinding light and cause you be temporally stunned. Its most deadly attack is to feign death and kill you if you go near it. You can avoid this by throwing something at it to take it up. There’s no way to tell when it’s near death. This is a real pain if you want to trap it.

Plesioth (blue or green)
If you imagine a fish with legs then you’ve got a Plesioth. This boss is almost always in water and has a few cunning attacks. Its first attack is shooting water straight or in a circular motion while in the water. It can also do it straight on land. Its other attack is a shoulder barge attack which does massive damage.

You’ll need to use ‘sonic bomb’ to cause a shockwave and make it jump out of the water. Once out, you’ll have a short time to attack it before it goes back in.

The thing I hate the most about this boss is when it does its land attacks. It’ll do a shoulder barge or tail whip and can hit you when you’re no where near it. This is extremely frustrating and unnecessary. Just like the Gipsarios, there’s no way to tell when it’s near death.

Cephadrome (dark brown)
This boss is exactly the same as a Plesioth, but it’s in the desert sand. Instead of shooting water it shoots sand. You can see its fin in the sand and you’ll have to hit it to make it jump out.

Basarios (grey)
This is a monster which hides in the volcano area and look just like rocks. You’ll have to look hard to find his guy because he really blends in with the scenery. His attacks are a giant fire beam that shoots forward and it can also excrete a poison or sleep gas cloud. His skin is made of stone on top but not underneath. You’ll have to try and attack him by hitting his soft underside.

Gravios (white or black)
Exactly the same as a Basiros, but not made of stone. This guy is a lot bigger and can also go in the lava to change areas.

Khezu (white or red)
This thing is like a fat ball with a long neck with a mouth. It has no eyes so relies on what I think is its nose. This is one of the most annoying bosses in the game because of its cheesy moves. Its first attack is to stand still and generate an electrical shield which does massive damage. It can also shoot out an electrical ball which splits into three. This attack moves really fast and will usually be done more than once in a row. It’ll occasionally jump and try and squash you.

Monoblos (brown or white)
Looks like a Triceratops with a tail that splits in two. It has no projectile attacks so isn’t too hard to fight. Its main attacks are to charge at you and tail whip. It can also dig into the floor and attack from right underneath you. If it charges at you it’ll get its horn stuck in the wall. You can cut its horn off to decrease its damage when charging. This guy does massive damage, but is quite slow.

Diablos (brown or black)
Exactly the same as a Monoblos, but has two horns. I think it moves faster when it’s enraged.

Kirin (white)
This guy is a Unicorn that can use electrical attacks. His attacks are to stand still and generate multiple lightning bolts around himself and he also charges a lot. He moves really fast and can’t be stopped until you get a critical hit on him. When moving normally he’ll jump around in small bursts. He’s got no elemental weakness so the fight usually takes a long time.

Yian Garuga (purple)
This is a more aggressive version of a Yian Kut-Ku. The only difference apart from his appearance is that he’ll poison you when doing a tail whip or other attacks. You have to do a certain amount of damage to him to complete the quest. He can’t be defeated in a single quest so this fight will last at for quite a while.

Lao-Shan Lung (red or black)
A 60ft dragon type monster that moves extremely slowly, pulling itself on its stomach.

Fatalis (black or red)
This guy looks like a Chinese dragon and is about 30ft tall. He’s basically the last boss and can kill you in one hit with almost every attack. As with a Plesioth, his attacks rarely actually hit you, but you still die. The black and red versions of this boss are in different areas and have different attacks.

The black version is fought in a castle courtyard with a gate which can close in the middle. There’s a ladder on the side of the castle where you can get to the camp room. His main attacks are single fireball and hover then fireball. He also loves to go on his on this stomach and crawl extremely fast at you. This battle will last a few rounds because he can’t be defeated in a single round. It’s impossible to defeat him unless you’re a Gunner.

The red version is fought in the area leading to the volcano base. This version has all the moves of the black version plus three more. He can fly through the air at extreme speed and can also summon meteors around himself. His most deadly move is to fly really high up and drive bomb at you at extreme speed. He’s drastically more aggressive and is almost always attacking.



The Guild Hall

This is where you go to play with other people to complete more quests. Most of the quests are similar to the ones you’ll find in single player. The only way to get the best equipment and weapons is to complete the Guild Hall quests. The game is a lot more fun playing with other people because of the team work aspect. The maximum amount of people you can have in a team is four. Unlike the single player missions, the Guild Hall's difficulty goes up to eight stars.

The first thing you’ll notice about doing a Guild Hall quest is the dramatic increase in difficulty. All the enemies and bosses will deal about twice the damage and have about twice the health. This may seem harsh, but when you’re doing a quest with someone else it’s not so bad. Completing the quest will also give you greater rewards than you’ll get playing alone.

Once you’ve completed enough quests you’ll get an urgent quest. Completing this will increase your Hunter Rank and unlock harder quests. Hunter Ranks are supposed to be used to ensure that you’re at the correct skill level for quests. However, you can cheat to increase your rank. All you need to do is host the quest and get other people to do it for you. Once the quest is complete you’ll rank up, making the ranking system useless.

No Shovels Required

As well as you’re standard quests you’ll also be able to do a treasure hunt. This involves two people competing against each other for the highest score possible. This is mode is like a gathering quest, but with a few twists. Every item you’ll pick up will be completely different to other quests. Once your inventory is full you’ll have to deliver the strange items to the treasure hunt guy. Once you’ve emptied your pockets you’ll get points for each item. You’re then free to continue the collect more. The common way to play this mode is one person is an item gatherer and the other kills enemies and bosses. This way you’ll get the most points possible for a great high score. Each different area has five different secret items which get put on your Guild Card as medals.

No Online Play… WRONG!

The PSP version doesn’t have infrastructure (online play), but does have Ad-Hoc (local play). Ad-Hoc multiplayer only allows you connect to people who are nearby. If you use a third party program called Xlink Kai you can play online. Xlink Kai is a program that can trick your PSP into thinking that you’re using Ad-Hoc. All you need is a Windows PC and a WiFi MAX.

PLAY ONLINE USING WiFi MAX

Setup guide videos part 1/3, part 2/3 and part 3/3



Japanese Version Differences

The first difference is the option to download additional quests. The English version includes almost all the downloadable quest, but no option to download more. I’ve no idea why Capcom decided to remove this feature because it’s a great idea. There are certain pieces of equipment that are only obtainable by getting items from the downloaded quests. As far as I know, you can hold a maximum of six quests on your memory card at a time.

The second difference is the amount of blood. The Japanese version has drastically more blood. The more damage you do, the more blood there is. Trying to find a boss' weak point is almost impossible on the English version because of the blood reduction. This isn’t a major difference, the option for reduced blood would have been better.

Finally is the way you defeat Yian Garuga. This is done by linking your PSP to Monster Hunter 2 on the PS2. If you don’t do this you can never carve him up for all the items he can give you. This will mean you won’t be able to make his weapons parts of his armour. I’m not sure if you have to do this each time or not.

Graphics, Music, Sound and Controls

This game looks almost exactly the same as its PS2 counterpart. The only thing that I’ve noticed that’s different is the reduced texture quality. This is a common thing when a game is ported from a console to a handheld. The only time you’ll really notice the difference is when you’re looking at your character very close up. I doubt you’ll find a PSP game that looks as good as this.

There’s a lot of music when you’re in the town area, but not a lot when you’re in-game. The music really suits whichever area you’re in and that’ll immerse you further into the game. The only music you’ll usually hear in-game is the boss music. There is other music, but it isn’t really noticeable. The lack of in-game music doesn’t really hinder the game in any way. I noticed that the music from the Swamp Elder was used as the merchant’s theme in Resident Evil 4.

I can’t fault the game’s sound. Everything’s spot on and there isn’t a sound out of place. Everything that’s in the PS2 version is here without any loss in quality.

Due to the PSP’s lack of two analogue sticks the controls were changed. On the PS2 version you used the right analogue stick to control all your attacks. The PSP version uses TRIANGLE, X and TRIANGLE + X to attack. You still rotate the camera using the d-pad which is annoying at times.

Final Thoughts

Overall this is a great action adventure RPG. This is however, one of those games where you'll either love or hate instantly. You really have to be dedicated to playing to get the most out of it. You'll spend a lot of time doing the same quests over and over to get good equipment. There's no levelling up system which some people might not like. The game is more about skill and tactics then anything else. Equipment and rewards can't be traded between characters. This means you'll have to be a good player to get good rewards. You won't get much of the single player game because everything good is 'online'. You should get about 50 hours from single player and an additional 200 hours at least from multiplayer. I've played this game for over 515 hours and I highly recommend playing it.

THUMBS UPS

Score: 9.5/10

References

http://www.capcom.com/monster

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monster_Hunter_Freedom

http://www.angelfire.com/stars5/tkcpics2/mhf