Thinking with portals is crazy, dude.

I don't recall ever thinking that Portal was a hard puzzle game whatsoever and that hasn't particularly changed on this long overdue replay. However, the escalation of complexity, especially towards the later half of the game still feels like a stroke of genius on Valve's part. Hand in hand with GLaDOS' narration the game just gives up on guiding you (at least THAT overtly, the blood smeared exit signs are a bit much) and lets you figure things out for yourself.

My gut feeling tells me I'm always gonna be more likely to replay this very short and dense brain buster over the more bloated, if still very enjoyable, sequel in the future.

– Played using GReinoso96's F1Enhanced patch –

Prep, Hunt, Loot, Repeat.

Monster Hunter is a lot like Mega Man.
The first one kinda sucks ass, endearingly.

In a manner I find impossible to mentally detach from the way every Mega Man series managed to start out with a great core but borderline evil execution followed by massive leaps in quality by the time of the sequel (not you, X), MH1 and by extension Freedom the First get a lot of things right.

On paper.

In practice, the game constantly struggles with still trying to find a balance between its friction points and rewarding the player's investment.

While the game succeeds at priming you to consider all your available options before and during a hunt, the process of actually prepping for a hunt is spectacularly tedious. Combining items is exclusive to your hunter's pouch, meaning you'll be inventory managing back and forth between the item box (in your house, behind another loading screen) before you're ready to set out for the next hunt constantly. Prices and material requirements for armor pieces/weapons are limiting in a way that makes it feel like the only sensible way to operate is to have a spreadsheet with all your upgrades from start to finish laid out before you so you can target farm to the best of your abilities.

There are brighter spots however. Limited funds/inventory space have you embracing the fact that monster materials/unneeded items sell a pretty penny to fund future endeavours and the forge menu is so kind to only show you upgrades if you actually carry any materials for that piece with you. It's lean in a way that isn't as concerned with pleasing any hoarder mentality the series later adopts. As much as the limited visibility of equipment may invite to spur of the moment upgrade decisions to improve your hunter in the now however, the general lack of transparent in-game information (this extends to combination recipes as well) had me feeling unable to make "good" decisions without resorting to external resources.

In a better game with that kind of compulsion loop I wouldn't feel deterred to engage in "farming" to keep the progression/resource treadmill going, but therein lies my other problem with MH1/F.

Combat and by extensions hunts do not feel good to engage with repeatedly.

Your weapons are, naturally, at their most basic iteration moveset wise and fascinatingly in a change exclusive to Freedom there's not much reason to play anything but Sword and Shield in a solo environment. For whatever reason, SnS gets a 1.5x special modifier in this game, meaning it is the undisputed king of raw damage output. While this is external knowledge the game doesn't communicate, in a game that lets you choose between basic melee weapon no. 1 - 4 and one ranged weapon, you'd be kneecapping yourself intentionally to not pick the weapon with the greatest mobility that also deals the most damage.

That is because positioning and knowing a monster's attack windows/when to exploit them are the core tennants of combat in Monster Hunter. Your understanding of the combat arena and your opponent will carry you to the Quest Complete screen more so than any attack and defense values you receive from gear.

Again, on paper.

In practice, hunting large monsters is regularly a guessing game between frame 1 charge/lunge attacks with persistent tracking and the fan-favourite chain tail swipe. Maybe you get a fireball here and there. Sprinkle in a camera that doesn't play too nicely with the walls in the cramped (but totally organic) areas and endlessly respawning small monster that will stay on your ass until kingdom come and you have a doozy of a combat system.

Not even mentionioning the myriad of concessions Freedom has already made to most of the points I've put forth in this write-up (adjusting prices/mats required, the introduction of the farm to deal with crafting materials etc.) I wonder if it feels crass to say it borders on being a miracle that MH1 sold enough to even warrant sequels and a portable upgraded version. The notably in Freedom absent online/social component of the experience must've done wonders.

All of this to say that after last night's session of trying (and failing!) to deliver some eggs had me staring at the ceiling for a second too long I've decided to create a fresh save file for Freedom Unite. You know, just to get a quick glimpse at the generational jump before I go back to helping with the mother of all Monster Hunter omelettes.

...

I'm gonna go and play Freedom Unite now.

This review is part of a larger work-in-progress series tackling the Action RPG as a genre.
You can find it here.