Wow, it’s been a long time since the last Monster Hunter Tri Diary. I’m kinda running the podcast right now but I haven’t been playing to insistently. I returned to Monster Hunter Tri just recently. I wanted to see what it has to offer before Monster Hunter Portable 3rd comes out.
Monster Hunter Tri sometimes feels like an onion. For once because there is a lot of crying involved. But also because it consists of layers upon layers. I have spent 200 hours on it, yet I still uncover entirely new layers of content.
One layer I recently hit was the high rank. This is something you can only get playing online. Leveling up your Hunter Rank to level 31 unlocks high rank content. This means that the monsters will get more difficult. They will drop rare or even previously unavailable items. Because of this, players can upgrade their gear. The high rank gear unlocks much more skills, enabling much more freedom in experimenting with different setups.
But the interesting part is that in order to reach high rank, you need to hunt the Jhen Mohran – undeniably the largest monster in Monster Hunter Tri.
Needless to say that the battle is epic. Instead of walking around in some forest, your team starts on a ship. The ship is sailing through a desert. Jhen Mohran is a huge whale-like creature swimming in the sand. The monster is much larger than your ship. Fighting him involves shooting with ballistas and cannons as well as jumping on his back to hit vulnerable parts. There is also a huge gong to interrupt his attacks and a giant drill mounted on the bow of the ship.
It is a very different fight from the others. The entire team must work together in order to inflict enough damage before the time runs out. Direct combat with the creature plays a minor role. Instead, the fight is heavily scripted and goes through several phases. At every phase, there are different tasks for each team members to take care of.
It’s an impressive piece of content that is kept away for the players until quite far in the game. It may seem like inefficient game design. But when you finally meet Jhen for the first time, it feels so much more special because of that. Also, transitioning into high rank feels so much more deserved. After defeating a creature so large, you truly feel like a veteran monster hunter.
But entering high rank isn’t the end. It’s just the beginning of yet another onion layer, which I’m looking forward to discover on my own.
