Videogame Franchises 3

More game series I have played in the past. A couple of interesting ones this time, including Metroid, the Trails series and Monster Hunter!

For the 3rd part of my blog posts on videogame franchises, I have gone for a pretty mixed selection.

One of them is a franchise that I have actually not experienced that much, in fact, I have not completed or come close to completing a single game or even a quarter of a game of it, but well, I still wanted to mention it, I’ll explain why later.

The other two are different staples of different stages of my life, much more significant and important to me than many of the series I’ve written about before.

So, without further to do, let’s get into them!

• The Legend of Heroes: Trails series
• Metroid
• Monster Hunter
• To be continued!

The Legend of Heroes: Trails series

Can I really talk about Trails when I haven’t even finished one of them? Well, I actually haven’t finished any Final Fantasy either, so I guess you could ignore all of what I wrote for that series too?

Nah, I am “into it”, even if I haven’t had the time to fully dive in as much as I’d like. This is no professional overview and I am no reporter, just some guy on the internet you decided to read for some reason. 😉

This franchise is a massive undertaking, it’s simply overwhelming and kinda scary, and yet, it feels so epic and thought-out, even if I don’t know what it’s about, all I know is that anyone who gets into it becomes an absolute sicko.

I’ve made progress in the first game, around 11 hours of playtime. But that is literally nothing, I still have like 90 hours left, I think.

For this one the case is clear. Start from the beginning, no way around it. It is a grand story across multiple titles, hundreds of hours of gameplay and cutscenes. There are some people saying you can start with the first game of any of the trilogies (yes, this series has multiple trilogies), but you would still miss out on some things.

Obviously, the issue at hand is that the original games, even if they hold up, are still somewhat dated for a modern audience. Even with plenty of quality of life features to reduce grinding time and fast forwarding, it can be a chore for more modern audiences who aren’t willing to invest a lot of time on this world.

Honestly, I have had no issues playing the PSP release on original hardware, no fast forwarding, no save states, I have found the game to be extremely enjoyable, and the only real caveat I can find is the translation, considered by some of the fans as pretty mediocre. I have to admit, I couldn’t care less about this at least at the moment.

However, I am the kind of guy who has read the manga Kingdom, that has been passed around between multiple scanlation teams, for 850 chapters without any official English publications, after almost two decades. So take my opinion with a grain of salt.

The reason I mention these games at all even if I haven’t come close to finish even one, is that there is a remake of the first entry coming to modern platforms this year. I highly anticipate its arrival to Switch, as it’s something I really wish to get into.

The physical editions for these games rise in value very quickly as well, so I want to get my hands on one as fast as possible.

Metroid

The franchise with more games I have actually played to completion, somehow. This series was introduced to me by the same friend who showed me Final Fantasy and Pokemón. So yeah this guy basically shaped my whole personality and bias towards videogames.

Anyway, Metroid was definitely the coolest of the game he showed me, so colorful, with a huge variety of rooms and places to explore. I vividly remember him playing the game and explaining things, getting to the first boss of Metroid Fusion and obtaining the first power-up. It was a sight to behold.

I started with either Zero Mission or Fusion, for the GBA, both on a computer and on my PSP, years later. I completed them for the first time on that device, although last year I also replayed them on my Miyoo Mini Plus and my Anbernic RG35XX SP.

Not a lot of new stuff can be said about this series, it is a gaming staple, the black sheep of Nintendo IPs that has somehow never broken into the mainstream, despite being a direct inspiration of hits such as Hollow Knight and the Ori videogame series.

Metroid Fusion is probably the best entry into the franchise, but at the same time it’s also the most different of all the Metroid games, so I think Zero Mission still takes the cake in that regard, as it is a remake of the first game of the series anyway. Of course, there’s also the Prime series which is in first person, I am yet to try it, but the Remastered edition for the Nintendo Switch is still a good option, I also have it physical, and I also have not played it yet.

Monster Hunter

I didn’t even consider Monster Hunter on this list when I started writing this article, but of course! It makes total sense.

This is one of the best franchises ever! A simple premise, constant evolution and improvements, new monsters and new armor designs. Monster Hunter is always tweaking the formula, while keeping what makes it special and fun. It goes something like this:

Get stick, hit monster, get loot, repeat.

I got started with Monster Hunter when I was looking for fun games to play on my PSP. Alongside Peace Walker and Ys Seven, Monster Hunter Freedom Unite showed up, and it was breath-taking. The scale of the fights, the animations and the graphics, it looked so cool, it made Ys look like a game for kids—what is it with me judging games so quickly? Both are good.

I started it, and proceeded to pickup herbs and mushrooms for like 40 minutes, then I hit some antilopes and weird mammoths that didn’t fight back, trying to carve a specific part that didn’t drop for a while. Oh, and the camera controls sucked.

And yet, 400+ hours later, this game has provided me with some of the most epic, wholesome and interesting gaming experiences of my life!

I’ve talked so much about it you should just check out my previous blog posts on it.

I’ve emulated Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate and I also played Monster Hunter Generations on a friend’s 3DS. All of them are similar and so fun, just play whichever one you have!

I’ve also played some Monster Hunter Rise on my Switch pretty constantly, as well as the Japan exclusive Monster Hunter Portable 3rd.

I got Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate waiting for me on Switch for a while now, but since I still have lots of progress to make with Rise, I haven’t started it yet.

The best Monster Hunter to get into is always the latest one. The second best option, is Monster Hunter Freedom Unite! (Or Rise, I guess).

To be continued!

Well, this is it for today! The last three posts of this series were all mostly written on a single day filled with inspiration. The next part will be brand new, or at least, written on the same day it gets published.

Of course I did some editing and added a couple of paragraphs for this one, but the gist was done since last month. Alas, I’ve enjoyed writing these and I think I could still write a couple more parts for it. We’ll see.

This is day 81 of #100DaysToOffload

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