*hacks off wyvern wing and wields it like a giant sword*
Be prepaired to put up with crappy combat controls that use the right stick to swing or fire your weapons, extremely crappy camera controls, long action animations which leave you vulnerable, crappy time limits on the missions, having to constantly refill your stamina bar and if you use bladed weapons have to constantly resharpen your weapons, and hunting in tiny claustrophobic "zones" that are just organically designed rooms.
Why would you put yourself through all that hell? Well to become a bad ass hunter for one. There are several locations in the game that unly become unlocked as your complete more quests but each location is made up of a bunch of zones. In each zone there are all kinds of resource spots like plants or a bee's nest or dinosuar poop, or cracks in walls.
You basically go on missions to gather materials to build weapons, armor and items and you just try to get the coolest equipment you can. Also in zones there are dinosuars and if you kill them and act quickly you can harvest body parts from them to also use for weapons and armor and items.
Some of the resource collecting are very crappy minigames. Turning raw meat into well-done steaks that boost your stamina for example or trying to catch fish.
Even though zones arent as big and huge as I would have liked they are alright, different locations have different themes like "Forest and Hills", "Jungle", "Swamp" and "Volcano". Different locations usually have stronger monsters which leads to better equipment and more powerful weapons.
You wont just be needing to gather materials to get better stuff though, you also need cash and the quickest way to get cash is to learn what kind of stuff you can make by using materials found in locations. For example an Ivy plant or a spiderweb are pretty worthless if you sell them directly but if you squish them together and make a net they are worth 54$. Turning Raw Meat into Well-Done Steaks lets you sell them for 48$. Of course you can sell the parts you get off monsters which are a little better than base materials but usually less than combo items and there is the fact that you usually need those things to make or improve stuff.
After a few adventures you learn about one of the cooler aspects of the game. There are huge Wyvern monsters that you can try and take down. Indeed if you want good gear your will HAVE to start taking them down. Its no easy feat though, in fact you used to be able to go online with this game so you could team up with other people to help you bring them down easier. Thankfully a handfull of them can be taken out solo if you prepare for the battle.
Taking on wyverns you can use, net traps, meat, explosive barrels, flash bombs, noise bombs, and your weapons. Even if you start to hurt them they can run away. You can use paintballs to mark them so they show up on your map but when they are injured Wyverns and some other dinosuars will run/fly to other zones and rest and if you dont catch up to them fast enough they will start to heal. And you have to do all this while dodging there nasty attacks because if you get hit it usually hurts alot and you get sent flying.
You can die twice and these cat creatures will rescue you and bring you back to camp fully healed but each time you do you lose 1/3rd of your prize money and if you die a third time you fail the mission.
The whole game is just about watching a clock, gathering materials, killing stuff, and managing your health/stamina/sharpness. Thats what each mission boils down to. Some missions you are sent to gather specific things, Some missions you are sent to kill something big or a lot of smaller things, and the one I hate the most is being sent to collect wyvern eggs.
Collecting wyvern eggs is hard because they are huge and make you unable to fight or use items while you carry them, they give you a short amount of time, and usually you have to try and get past zones that contain hostile dinosuars. You can run but if you run to much you can drop the egg. Those missions will really mess up your controller because your hands will sweat like crazy lol.
You can make three different characters on one save file but you dont really need that many, You can choose male or female and melee or missle weapons. The character creator is generic and limited but who cares since you mostly just want to see the cool armor on them. There are a bunch of different melee weapons like lances, great swords, sword and shield, and maces/hammers. For missle weapons you basically choose between a small bowgun and a huge bowgun lol.
One of the problems I have with this game is that your character never grows, This isnt like an RPG. It doesnt matter if you have killed one dinosuar or one million you will still have the same exact amount of health and stamina as the day you started. The only thing that can make you stronger is your equipment.
Something else that sucks is that alot of armor can only be worn if you are melee or missle. Melee armor usually has really high defense value but negative resistance mods and Missle armor usually has low defense values but really good resistance mods.
Even though there are so many things I hate about this game I still get a little enjoyment out of it. I like the fact that you can set goals for yourself like "today im gonna make a piece of armor" and then work really hard to gather all the materials and then make it. And towards the high end of equipment that can be really hard, First you gather a ton of stuff for healing items, then you gather a ton of stuff for anti-wyvern weapons like nets and explosives, then you have to go and actually fight the Wyvern.
I can't believe im saying this but I'm glad I own this game and I guess I would recommend that you buy it also. If I had rented this game first I probably would have never rented it again. But my video store didnt get it and so I had to guy buy it because I thought it sounded so awesome. I have picked it up and played it several times now and that has been offline only. You couldnt go online if you wanted to now though the servers are shut down i think.
I know there was a Monster Hunter 2 game is japan and I think in the usa on the psp and MH3 was going to be on a ps3 but they are switching to the nintendo Wii. So if you can play any of those Monster Hunter games I guess you should try those out to. I havent played them though.