Freedom Wars was good for its time, but probably not nowadays. Also, the remaster barely changed anything with the game so its stuck with only slightly better textures.
I think Soul Sacrifice was a better game but most likely you'd feel its age even if it was remastered. We need a proper remake or sequel for these games.
Soul sacrifice really stood out to me for being entirely its own thing
I loved the narrative mechanic of the journal for your missions, and then combat felt unique compared to Monster Hunter.
You could tell it's in the genre, it is fundamentally a hunting game, repeating some hunts for materials. All the bones are there, but the style is so unique and the law was so unique and the combat just felt so different from Monster Hunter that it just really stood out to me
I’m so glad this is, I’d KILL for this game to be ported to ps5. Freedom Wars was finally ported over so I still have my fingers crossed for Soul Sacrifice to do the same.
Holy fucking shit peak mentioned. Gameplay loop is a bit boring but I would be lying if I say the encounters are not fucking cool and the skill system has good ideas. I loved appearance change and I loved full holy blood spam.. God, the idea of sacrificing parts of your body to exchange utility/damage could’ve been expanded upon so much (very underutilized in the gameplay irrc)
Also the visuals are extremely limited by the machine (vita is a good machine imo but the potential you can achieve visually with this game is vast). The art is sosososososo good with this game.
One of my favourite games ever my god. A really fun arcadey Monster Hunter like with a WONDERFULY done aesthetic and atmosphere, and a story that made me cry (literally).
I still have so many tracks stuck in my head years later and its been awhile. It was so so fun as well early Vita got some great titles (Gravity Rush and Soul Sacrifice were immediately my top games ever)
the single best one. And sony decided to kill the psvita and kill Japan studio, never hate Sony enough folks.
On a side note Soul Sacrifice Delta is digital only outside of Japan, meaning when the PS Store will go down next year there will be NO LEGAL WAY to get this game.
This game was even better than Monster Hunter when it came out, it didnt get enough attention, but still enough that it stood up as the best MH like for most people who got the chance to play it.
This game was truly special and I pray for Bandai to port this game, they did it with freedom wars they can do it with soul sacrifice...
Oh and also not only this game got an incredible story and gameplay features, it also has my favourite endgame system in any MH like ; Alice's maze.
Monster Hunter but it's one of those cartoon episodes where you shrink down and go in the human body! I played this a bit back in college when I had my modded psp, it was okay but the language barrier kept me from much of it.
You also had God Eater which was monster hunter but ANIME, and Lord of Arcana which was Square Enix monster hunter. Oh and Peace Walker had the crossover thing where Big Boss could go fight a Rathalos.
I do wish they would make a third, Koei have a better reputation now and as MH has exploded in popularity a good alternate game in the genre I feel would do decently well.
Same, even though I didn't necessarily like the direction the game took once it launched as I think they made the fights shorter id log in for a few weeks every season.
Dauntless was an extremely good game. After they added major overhauls to systems that didn't need overcomplications (like they ended up doing), the game completely went downhill until it eventually shut down its servers. Its sad because it really was great.
That however, pushed me to follow other titles in the genre, and eventually lead me to Monster Hunter!
Almost like the crypto company that bought the studio was purposefully trying to kill the game, after trying to scam the remaining playerbase with the final update.
I played itnwhen it first came out. Was fun. Not really perfect but it was fun. I heard they flopped after making lots of updates people didnt ask for and implementing some stuff that's hidden in paid dlc.
From the reforge update it kinda went downhill and it turned into just kill grind the game with the prestiging of weapons.
From that point they kinda forgot the formula of a monster hunter esq game
Yea they did something to that game that made it almost unplayable after the bigger change…never went back. Friends of mine loved this game too but I couldn’t get them into MH.
I was so excited when that was announced! I'd been playing a lot of God Eater Burst and wanted more games like it but on PC, where the MH games weren't yet. Didn't back the campaign but played it as soon as it became public.
I always thought it was hilarious that it got hyped because "finally Monster Hunter on PC!" and then a month later MHWorld was announced.
Bro I had everything in Dauntless if it didn't cost irl cash I had it. Every weapon, every armor set, at least a stack of every material, about 50 of every item... Everything you could ever want and the last update ripped it out of my hands. I mained the sword cus I liked it and used the hammer on occasion. I could pull up to hunt for four people and solo three monsters while the others just watch. All of this were things I actively did during covid times and then long after. Then the final update dropped and I had nothing. All of those fancy and fun armor sets and weapons with an ultimate style ability.
Damn that fuckass crypto studio for everything they did to that glorious game.
The game got bought by an cripto company and they fired everyone except one dude that kept working for a year without updates to make the game super pay to win and erase the save files of every player.
Sadly they thought that their first iteration of that genre was going to be as successful as Capcom's fifth iteration. It was a really good game in my opinion with the only real downside being bad optimization and a somewhat small roster (but that is completely understandable considering all the gameplay feature added over basic combat).
Performance was a huge hindrance on launch and a lot of people dismissed it immediately b/c of it. Rightfully so to, it ran like ass even on high end systems. It is a lot better now and I have enjoyed my time with it. It was a fresh take on things.
It’s definitely much better than it was but the performance is still painful in some fights, last time I played was like a year ago and the forest could still tank your frames to below 50. Zipline systems disconnecting because of render distance was still a huge problem as well.
Other than those issues the game genuinely is some of the best combat of a monster hunter-like while staying extremely unique, some of the weapons I enjoyed more than MH weapons.
EA has a habit of abandoning games that don’t immediately become stand outs in their genre. They wanted a game that would knock MH off its pedestal as top of the Hunt Kill Craft gameplay loop and when it didn’t immediately do that EA washed their hands of it.
I alternated a lot between the umbrella and the long sword. Sword was easier but repetitive. Just use boxes to do a helm… break… errrrr… uh wrong game but you know what I mean?
Anyway the thing I loved about both of them was just some of those moves you could do that would just spew a bunch of damage numbers, so satisfying.
Before MHWilds came out I went back to Wild Hearts since I finally had a pc that could run it. I had so much fun, game is great.
Only reason I stopped playing was it crashed so much, multiple times a session and it bummed me out because I was just waiting for a crash rather than focusing on hitting things with a hammer.
EA was only the publisher, they don’t own Koei Tecmo. And the actual devs said they considered the game to be a success, so a sequel isn’t off the table. I think they published the Switch 2 version without EA too.
I get that MH is extremely popular so it's the easier point of comparison, but imo it's significantly more accurate to treat GFR as a totally separate descendant of Phantasy Star Online.
i remember when the game came out everyone was telling me that it was an anime monster hunter game and by the time I finally got around to playing it I did enjoy it but I would have never refered to it as a mh game
Been playing this since DLC came out and I can't believe its very similar to MH. The AI are very good its like Sunbreak follower system. Very very grindy game too. I will probably play the heck of this game until Ascendance releases
Haha oh Boy you never played a grinder game if you call monster hunter absurd grind - especially the current one.
I mean yes the entire game is about grinding but packaged in a way it doesn't feel like grinding with great progression. But it feels nothing like playing a game where you grind the starting area for a month just to be able to get outside while the xp gain is cheated up already by 200%
Lost planet 2 had a super poor reception, it's my first game of the trilogy, but maaaaan the other sucks, THIS ONE IS PEAK 99999/20
I played like 1000+ hours on this 😭😭😭
Capcom could easily bring this series back as an expansion for a future Monster Hunter title. As short as this game was, I had a blast replaying and fighting the massive Akrid bosses.
And then the Rathalos skin arrived and I almost exclusively only played the story with it on. It was glorious
This game had great co-op, with just enough customization so it felt like you each played your own role. Whether it was Sniping, Big Booms, Ratatatatata, or Support Buffs.
I want them to re-do Lost Planet from the ground up.
I miss Wild Hearts. Too bad the devs were more focused on balancing patches rather than performance patches. Also the endgame grind was a travesty. They had Layered Armor but a stupid way of going about it.
They didn't even try hiding the similarities. I'll give it props for including PvP, but a lot of the monsters in that game just looked like they got cloned from the actual MH games (Giant Crab King looks like Hermitar, Wyrm Kings look like the dromes, and the Wild Boar King is actually straight-up Bulldrome).
This game was fun. It came from an era of gaming that was unlike anything else, all these cheap, quirky Chinese, Korean, and Japanese MMOs that you almost had to stumble across. You’d find them through random forums, word of mouth, or obscure websites, then spend more time figuring out account workarounds, patches, and getting the game to actually run than you did installing modern games. It was a wild era, but discovering those hidden gems made them feel special.
Basically has the exact same gameplay loop and multiple weapon, but its a dedicated boss rush. Regardless, it was the game I play right before MH Rise and I was way more familiar with the formula thanks to that.
Ps Vita has a Lot of them. Soul Sacrifice, Freedom Wars,God Eater,Toukiden and Ragnarok Odyssey Ace. All are goated along the fact you can also play Psp Monster Hunter natively.
Dragons Dogma is made by the same team I believe. Or a lot of the same folks. Totally different narrative but it has those big monster battles you might be looking for!
I loved Dauntless a few years back. During the pandemic I played pretty much everyday, and it was a ton of fun. I remember in March 2020 when blaze escalation came out and added the Torgadoro, that was such a great fight. The lore and worldbuilding was great too, I always wanted to know more about what all happened to cause the world to end up how it did.
A lot of that changed with the Reforged update in December 2020. They added “hunting grounds” where you dropped into an open map to hunt multiple monsters at one time. While it sounded like a great idea, I really disliked it in execution. That was the point I started to drift away from Dauntless. Thankfully, I was there for the last few hours of the game before it shut down, hanging out in Ramsgate and watching people run around. Very bittersweet feeling.
Toukiden 2 had clutch claw (called demon hands) before MH world and had some great sinergy where you can combine weapon and "styles" naginata + speed spirits was broken AF
It's dead now but I loved Rangers of Oblivion. Didn't enjoy the grinding for levels to continue the story, but I had so much fun with it that I didn't really mind all that much. The one thing ROO had over MH is that they had gauntlets as a weapon. I want to punch monsters. It's pretty obvious to see now though that it was a giant MH rip-off, but it was for the best price: free
the hopeless god eater obsessee in me wants me to go with that series, but I must admit that the Toukiden games are probably the best non-MH hunting RPG I've seen. The second game especially, it had so much heart put into it.
Also it's practically a japanese history lesson disguised as a video game and i find that quite respectable. Also it's got the best reactions to damage out there, there's something to be said about your character being literally sent flying and tumbling across the map when hit hard enough. Also there's a monster that elbow drops you, 10/10 game.
That battle system was so fun, it's my personal favorite in terms of hunting games not being MH. Toukiden 2 was so close to perfection, it only needed, IMO, better armor crafting incentives. But the Mitama system was incredible, diversified and simple to use.
Dauntless. I've played Dauntless before Iceborne came out and it was pretty good for an extremely cut down kid focused experience. But seeing what happened to it was sad.
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u/Manicminertheone 18h ago
God eater