Monster Hunter: Freedom 2

Monster Hunter: Freedom 2 - (PSP)
Developer: Capcom
Format: PSP
Genre: Action


Become the ultimate otherwordly hunter supreme.



Head out into Japanese fantasyland to bag yourself some of the most exotic, and most difficult to kill creatures this side of a padded cell. This phenomenally successful series (well, over in Japan anyway) makes a great distraction for all the PSP owners out there. That's if you can get past the incredibly difficult learning curve and the frustrating lack of a decent tutorial to get you up and running.

The premise is simple; you're a big shot hunter (well, a little shot hunter to start with) out to track, stalk and kill a whole host of miffed monsters out to evade you. By killing and skinning, and gathering from their corpses and their pelts, you'll be able to mix objects and combine scavenged parts to create potions, armour and ultimately more advanced weaponry.

From your base on 'the farm' and guided by bizarre cat-like creatures you'll quickly rise up the hunter ranks setting out on ever more fiddly hunting missions, often with multiple foes, to become the hardest nut in this particular world. The cat people will also show you how to mine minerals, catch fish and harvest flora and fauna - all essential to upgrading you and your world.

Once you've mastered the slightly awkward control and interface systems, worked out than running headlong into a scrap gets you a quick ticket to nowhere and worked out the right sort of armour and tools to do the job successfully, Monster Hunter delivers a surprisingly immersive third person experience. Whacked over into four player mode and the whole hunter-killer set-up takes on a great new dimension.

This is a title that ultimately rewards patience and perseverance, but should be approached with the difficulty and culture shock in mind.