The concept of survival is more present than ever in video games, thanks to an increasingly extensive range of actions going in this direction. If a title like Metal Gear Solid 3 : Snake Eater to fully integrate this principle, Monster Hunter deepens it by subtly blending it into its history. Humans and dinosaurs have lived in perfect harmony for several generations. Men have built small villages, real havens of peace, on the lands of Monster Hunter while the giants of prehistory occupy the vast plains and surrounding mountains. The balance is thus respected, orchestrated by the carnivorous predators and the excursions of the bipeds. While some men have preferred relatively calm professional activities, the less fierce ones dare to challenge the dinosaurs by accepting the missions offered by the village chief. It is obviously a hunter that you will embody in Monster Hunter. But not just any! You are free to create your avatar according to your wishes. Of course, the selection criteria are not as extensive as in some Role Playing Games. If the face, hairstyle, hair color and voice options will satisfy the less demanding of you, we would have liked to see a little more fantasy or a larger range of parameters. That said, your hero's overall morphology will evolve over time through the acquisition of armor (helmet, chain mail, cuirass, belt, gloves, boots). You are sure that your hunter will be unique in the great online jungle of Monster Hunter.
Prey or predator?
But in solo mode, the physical aspect of your character is not your priority. We are far too busy discovering in detail the different aspects of this Action-RPG and wanting to hunt the dinosaur at all costs. That said, you are only a novice in the matter and the chief of your small village will take a thousand precautions before sending you to slay Wyvern. It is therefore very calmly, even too calmly, that you begin your apprenticeship by accepting the old man's missions. These are classified into two categories. The first ones you will discover are collection missions. If they are not very exciting, they at least have the merit of teaching you the basics of hunting, precautions to take vis-à-vis animal species to survival in hostile lands. You will therefore have to fulfill certain conditions to return as a hero to the village, such as collecting so many Kelbi horns, unearthing healing herbs, finding a spider web or even preparing potions. Most of the time, you will have to trust your survival instincts by snooping around the thickets, digging on the ground in search of the precious ingredients. Sometimes you will even have to combine several objects in order to obtain the appropriate beverage. These sequences are rather tedious and suffer from a certain slowness. Your character is in no hurry and it's with his hands in his pockets that he squats, rummages the ground and discovers what there is to find at the foot of a tree or in rock cavities. A message then appears on the screen announcing your loot in English (?!). It will be necessary to repeat these actions several times in a row to leave the land blank of any item. There are no more headaches! But hey, it's a must before getting to the bottom of Monster Hunter : Hunting Missions. Here you will be asked to kill a specific number of dinosaurs. You will have understood that the task will not be the easiest, especially when faced with carnivorous species. If the herbivores pose little threat, except when they charge or defend themselves with a swipe of their tails, the other creatures are much more belligerent, not hesitating to attack you in groups. You must therefore improvise as a hunter!
And the mess begins! The Cross, Square, Triangle and Circle buttons are reserved for different interactions (menu, dialog, chat, actions). As a result, attacks are grouped together on the right analog stick like many PlayStation 2 titles (Rise to Honour, fight night 2005, Death by Degrees). If the title of Electronic Arts comes out with the honors of Laurent, the same cannot be said of the two other games made in Sony. And here too, the observation is unpleasant. It is difficult to execute the combos by playing with the directions of the stick. But the prize for mediocrity goes to capricious camera angles. Constantly in motion, we try to reframe somehow the view behind the character by pressing L1. But this is only a utopia! The view changes according to the movements of the hunter and if by misfortune a dinosaur crashes in the middle of the scene, it is good to press the umpteenth time on this damn button. It's unfortunate that Capcom hasn't thought of a lock system at the Zelda who could have avoided this disaster because you can imagine that in front of Velocipreys, your health risks morfling. Once the storm has passed, you'll need to recover your health and energy with berries, potions, and pieces of carefully carved barbaque from the still-warm corpses of mammals and other oviparous that have perished under your blade. Simply exploring levels will also tire your character. Sprinting, jumping or climbing will start the gauge of stamina that will have to be filled with the help of fish caught during your adventure or by cooking the meat of your victims.
For honor
Let's talk about levels. Can't imagine being able to frolic peacefully in the vast moors of Monster Hunter. Capcom's game couldn't be more linear. Impossible to get out of your village, and on a mission, the map is cut into several areas linked together by annoying loading times. During the mission, it's the same. If the exterior sets seem gigantic, you are limited in space (and time) if a mountain points the end of its cliffs or if a river passes in the vicinity. It is therefore as a simple spectator that we admire the shadow of the clouds or the dinosaurs grazing on the grass of the neighboring hills. If graphically the landscapes are pretty, the decorations in which you will evolve remind us that we play on PlayStation 2. Indeed, the persistent aliasing spoils the panorama. However, the modeling of the bestiary and the characters saves the software from disaster in the same way as the online mode. Once connected, regulars of Phantasy Star Online on Dreamcast, GameCube or Xbox will not be out of place. It is in a team of 4 players that you will evolve in Monster Hunter by first selecting a mission at the hunters' tavern, a sort of multiple-choice guild. Mutual aid is of course the key to success in achieving your objectives or defeating a terrible dragon. Avoid 
leave a colleague on the way because the latter will only be able to request your help through the virtual keyboard if he does not have a USB keyboard. Compatibility with the PS2 headset microphone would not have been a luxury but unfortunately it is not there. As you fight, you will gain experience which will allow you to discover new challenges of progressive difficulty. As with the single-player mode, the missions are classified into two categories: Gathering and Hunting.
