Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate: Reviews and Discussion

(I searched for a pre-existing topic and didn't see one, but that doesn't mean there isn't one. If I missed it, feel free to link me to it and lock this one)

Didn't you make the MH4U thread that had already existed...?

Online Player Communications
This is perhaps my biggest gripe with this game so far. I apologize in advance if I get overly frustrated about this. It just makes absolutely no sense. In MH3U, one of the crowning achievements was text and voice chat while hunting. For those that have yet to play MH4U, I regret to inform you that all communications in-quest have been removed. Yes, ALL communications. This means you cannot voice chat or even access a simple on-screen keyboard to type messages. The only thing you can do is send pre-edited shoutouts. This is especially frustrating in MH4U because they added the new monster-mounting feature. Some advanced players still do not know that when a comrade has mounted a monster, hitting said monster will cause the mounter to be thrown off. Some sort of in-quest chat would be nice in this instance, since successfully mounting a monster can stagger it for quite some time. There are far more reasons than that for voice chat to be enabled, though. That was one of the best parts about MH3U. The ability to voice chat while questing made everything go so much smoother. The part that makes this so hard to swallow is the reason there is no voice chat. Nintendo/Capcom apparently got wind of the language that was being used in the online mode, so they canned it in MH4U. I'm sorry, but there is no damned reason they should be trying to control what people say online. I agree that there needs to be a manner of restraint when playing with certain people, but canning one of the most useful features in online multiplayer simply because you don't agree with the way people talk is nonsense. Those who have played MH3U and even 4U can fully relate to how useful voice chat was. Not having it in 4U cripples the online play quite a bit. I'll just go ahead and call it bullpomegranate, because that's what it is.

I know there's a way to access the keyboard mid-hunt, I just don't remember what it is. Unless that was changed between 4G and 4U. I've never really needed it when I was playing 4G so I don't remember how to do it to be honest.

Urgent Quest Credit
This falls directly under the no voice chat bullcrap. In Tri and 3U, if more than one person in the lobby needed an urgent quest completed, anyone could post it and everyone that needed it would get credit for it and their hunter rank would increase. In 4U, they took a steaming dump all over this too. Now, only the person that posts the quest gets credit for it. How does this make any sense, and what the hell was the purpose behind implementing this crap? Sometimes you join rooms where people don't have that much time to play. Such is life. Because of that, it would be nice if everyone in the room would get credit for the urgent quest, regardless of who posts it. The other day when my brother and I were playing together, we were in a full room. All of us needed the HR4 urgent quest completed. On 3U, one of us could have posted it and all of us would rank-up to HR5 after it was completed. In 4U, we had to do the quest four separate times for everyone to get credit. I'm sorry, but there is absolutely no damned reason for that. Making the quest poster the only one who gets credit for an urgent is an unnecessary plantain move that should've never been added.

Monster Hunter has always done that. Urgent Quests have only ever counted for the person who posted it. 3U and Tri included. I'm not sure why you remember differently but I know for a fact that it's true for 3U, because I played through most of the ranks with friends. In Tri, you may be remembering differently due to the fact that it had the HRP system from the beginning, and you were able to rank up off of urgents. But if you hit the cap that the urgent lets you pass, then you had to post the urgent yourself, individually. It has always been this way.

Food Skills
As with most Monster Hunter games, when you eat a meal before a quest, it adds temporary skills and boosts to your hunter. You're not always guaranteed to get the skills that are listed though. In 4U, the percent-chance of getting those listed skills is GREATLY diminished. Because I just went into high rank, I eat a fish and a bread for a skill called Felyne Defender (hi). On 3U, you were pretty much guaranteed to get your skills at about an 80% rate or so. In 4U, its more like 20%. In the 20+ quests I did last night, I got the skills I ate for MAYBE three times, if that. Maybe its just because my food ingredients aren't leveled up all the way, but still. Starting from scratch in any Monster Hunter game is always daunting. We do not need the added stress of feeling like eating before each quest is pointless. Starting of in 4U, it pretty much is. You RARELY get the skills you eat for, which in turn makes the quests that much harder. Not getting the food skills in 3U was frustrating as hell, but in 4U its just bullpomegranate galore. There's absolutely no need for it.

That's due to the FRESH system. FRESH food almost guarantees your felyne skills. In fact, later on in the story (when you hit the 4G added content), you even unlock a Super FRESH type of thing, where a random food will have a purple icon next to it. That's a guaranteed 100% chance if you include that ingredient in your meal.

It encourages using different foods instead of always focusing on a single group of skills with every meal on every mission.

Edit: Found your old thread: http://www.southperry.net/showthread.php?t=75204

As a note, they didn't develop it for Wii U this time because they specifically said that spending time on the Wii U version cut down on the quality of 3U, something they wanted to avoid. Considering in Japan most gaming is done on the move and people expect Monster Hunter on handhelds, they had no reason to want to make a Wii U port this time around.