Video Game / Monster Hunter 2 (dos)

The Hunt Continues

Monster Hunter 2 (Dos) is the second mainline game of the Monster Hunter franchise, released for the PlayStation 2 on February 16, 2006 for Japan, and serving as a sequel-of-sorts to the original Monster Hunter (2004). Though due to the low success of the first game in the West it did not receive an international release. The mascot for the game is the Kushala Daora. The online servers for the game shut down in 2011 alongside the PS2 online servers in general.

Jumbo Village a peaceful and developing village founded by a travelling Wyverian, that a Hunter is assigned to help, suddenly finds itself under the terrible threat of the fearsome Elder Dragon, Kushala Daora. You must use your developing skills as a Hunter to keep helping Jumbo Village grow and develop while also fighting off the threat of the wind dragon to allow Jumbo to prosper.

The game introduces 4 new weapon types: Long Sword, Gunlance, Hunting Horn and the Bow; as well as a whole slew of new mechanics and systems such as Seasons for both village and hunting areas. Also introduced is the subquest system, allowing hunters to complete certain side objectives of one quest and even leave with said objectives complete without necessarily having to finish the main objective. New monster types include the Fanged Beasts, which are a group of mammalian monsters and Carapaceons, which are a group of crustacean monsters.

Unlike most mainline titles, it did not receive a proper Updated Re-release, though Monster Hunter Freedom 2 and its Unite expansion would adapt many features first introduced in this game while expanding its contents. Additionally, its online Hub City Dundorma was brought up later in Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate, now being available offline as well as online, and retaining all of its unique characteristics.

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This game provides examples of:

• Anti-Frustration Features: Several quality-of-life changes are made to make hunting easier and less restrictive:
  • There is only one gathering quest in this game at the very start, however there are a number of optional subquests for each succeeding quest, should you complete the requirements for them you can leave with the subquest achieved and get rewards based on it. By extension, the tedious Egg/Item delivery quests are entirely optional, thus leaving it up to the player on whether or not to bother with them.
  • Sword and Shield users can now use items while sheathed, allowing them to better make up for the weaknesses of the weapon.
  • Many materials that could only be found online in the first games are now available offline. As are monsters like the Giaprey, Subspecies, Kirin and Lao-Shan Lung.
  • There are far more variety of shops, allowing you to get certain items easier than before.
  • Decorations are introduced in this game, which allow you to get certain skills with them on armors that wouldn't usually have them or mitigate skill losses.
• Balloon Belly: The Congalala uses this defensively, puffing out its stomach to deflect your attacks (Which may also trigger a retaliatory fart if you keep hitting it there).
• Barehanded Blade Block: A Blangonga in the introduction stops a Great Sword strike with one arm.
• Battle in the Rain: Fighting a Kushala Daora in the jungle will always yield a battle in the rain. This is because Daora is an Elder Dragon capable of altering the weather in its surroundings.
• Big Bad: The Kushala Daora is the main recurring threat in the Low Rank Hub Quests, and its presence endangers the livelihoods of the Jumbo Villagers in their growing community, which makes slaying it your main motivation to become a strong Hunter throughout the game.
• Blow You Away: Kushala Daora is known as the elder dragon of wind, and with good reason. It can generate a wind barrier around itself which will knock hunters off their feet if they get too close, which can complicate things for melee hunters. It has a breath weapon befitting its nature. Instead of fire or lightning, it fires blasts of concentrated hurricane-force winds, capable of doing heavy damage and throwing a hunter 10~15 feet into the air. The game also introduces a Rusted variant whose eolic powers are even more powerful.
• Casting a Shadow: Chameleos, Teostra and Kushala Daora are known to have Dragon energy stored in their bodies, but only the latter one uses it explicitly during combat, as it allows it to empower its physical blows; this combined with the monster's exceptional control of wind, makes it a formidable opponent. For Teostra and Chameleos, the Dragon element plays a more implicit role, as it's what's strengthening their physical attacks and the game uses the player's Dragon Element defense to calculate how much damage those physical attacks is inflicted to the player. For all three monsters, due to them being Elder Dragons, this same element is also their weakness and, in the second-generation games, some of their parts will only break when you inflict enough damage with the Dragon element to them (and in Monster Hunter: World, this is also how their aura abilities can be nullified or at least reduced).
• Chameleon Camouflage: Chameleos can become completely invisible and spends much of its time in the state, notably not even bothering to take the initiative in attacking you (at least until Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate, where it's evidently wised up and realized that an aggressive approach is more effective at fending off pesky hunters). The ability is said to be a result of the supernatural ability to refract light around its body as opposed to color changing, though, making it more justified. Fittingly, it's a massive troll, especially for an animal, as it starts messing with other creatures and pilfering their items either for a lark or to get them to sod off. Breaking the horn disables this ability.
• Chrome Champion: Kushala Daora is an Elder Dragon notable for its silvery metallic body. Its scales and skin are made of a unique organic metal that rusts over time, requiring the dragon to shed them periodically. The highly-aggressive Rusted Kushala Daora, introduced in this same game, is a variant that has yet to molt, giving it a suitably weathered brown look.
• The Dreaded: Kushala Daora is highly feared by both humans and monsters alike, in the intro cinematic a Blangonga drops his aggressions towards a group of hunters and cowers in fear when it spots the Elder Dragon's shadow and Jumbo Village ends up in high alert once the presence of the wind dragon is discovered.
• Early Instalment Weirdness: Rajang isn't an invader monster in this game and isn't the mascot either but still has its own theme music and it's a threat on par with Elder Dragons, just like Yian Garuga before it (minus the Elder Dragon part).
• Elemental Dragon: The second-generation Elder Dragons that are introduced in the offline campaign of this game form an ensemble of powerful quadrupedal dragons, each showcasing a dedicated element in their attacks: Chameleos (a poison-powered chameleon-like monster that can also perform Invisibility and steal items from the player's character), Kushala Daora (a Blow You Away steel dragon that protects itself with wind barriers, can shoot tornadoes and imbue its attacks with ice when fought in snowy areas), and Teostra (a very dangerous dragon with leonine motifs that can shoot devastating fire attacks). There's also Lunastra, the female companion of Teostra that shares many of its fiery attacks.
• Fartillery: Congalala uses this as its signature form of offense, and can be troublesome due to it making you too nauseous to use items temporarily if it connects. It even unleashes a giant fart instead of roaring, but it's still loud enough to hurt an unprotected hunter's ears.
• Fat Bastard: The Congalala is a fat hippo-faced monkey who is known for its unpleasant disposition and disgusting love of fighting with its dangerously powerful farts, rancid breath, and even its own turds. As one would expect, there's a lot of overlap with Fat Slob.
• Gentle Giant:
  • Shen Gaoren is a gargantuan Carapaceon] that's usually just content to just dodder around and do crab things. However, its enormous legs that every step it takes pulverizes everything beneath it, which is bad news if it comes near a human settlement. Interestingly, it's so big that it has to wear the skull of the aforementioned Lao-shan Lung as a shell.
  • Yama Tsukami is a gigantic octopus-like Elder Dragon that floats around like a hot air balloon, powered by rotting biomatter within its stomach. It sucks up huge swathes of land beneath it to eat. However, it also just goes where the wind takes it, and if said wind just happens to take it above something important, down the hatch it goes. All of it.
• Giant Enemy Crab: The newly-introduced Carapaceons play this trope in spades, while normal Hermitaurs and Ceanataurs aren't bigger than you and pose little of a threat, they're still bigger than any real-life crab; the Daimyo Hermitar, Shogun Ceanataur and Shen Gaoren all play this straight, especially the latter as it is a Lao-Shan Lung sized spider crab that even wears a skull of the aforementioned Elder Dragon as a shell.
• Hailfire Peaks:
  • The new Jungle (also present in Generations Ultimate) has a coastal perimeter in three of its areas (one of them being a small penninsula), so it combines Jungle Japes with Palmtree Panic.
  • The Desert in this game and Generations Ultimate features both hot health-draining desert zones and a cold stamina-draining cave zone, unlike many other maps which only have one or the other type of hazard.
• Hub City: Jumbo Village for the offline campaign and Dundorma for the online campaign.
• An Ice Person:
  • Blangonga is a snow-dwelling Fanged Beast capable of exhaling a freezing ice breath at the hunter. Also, due to its adaptation to live in snowy mountains, it has also learned to throw large snowballs and chunks of frozen dirt at its enemies.
  • Played with Kushala Daora. Its wind-based attacks inflict ice damage when it's being hunted in snowy areas, such as Snowy Mountain in the second-generation games or Frozen Seaway in the fourth-generation ones. When fought in a warm environment, this Elder Dragon is merely a Blow You Away creature.
• Iconic Sequel Character: The game's flagship monster, Kushala Daora, has become one of the most recognizable Elder Dragons in the series, and has appeared in all future installments except those of the third generation. The game also introduced Rajang, which has become a staple in multiplayer quests (and, in expansions, also single-player quests) due to its exceptional power.
• Killer Gorilla:
  • Rajang is a highly aggressive ape-like monster with powerful electric attacks that's one of the most feared monsters in the series, being The Dreaded both In-Universe and by players. It has a six star danger rating, something that's usually reserved for Elder Dragons (indeed, Monster Hunter: World shows Rajang ties in Turf Wars against most Elder Dragons) and other monsters of exceptional power like Deviljho and Akantor. Frontier even reveals that Kirin horns are one of its favorite foods.
  • Congalala is this to a lesser extent, being a horn-headed, fat, hippo-faced ape that annoys players with its reliance on deadly flatulence-based attacks.
  • Blangonga is a strong, aggresive primate with mammoth-like fangs that lives in snowy mountains. It can uproot and throw large snowballs, exhale a freezing breath, and launch itself at the hunters with a powerful punch.
• Living Gasbag: Yama Tsukami is a gigantic Elder Dragon that appears to be a hybrid between a floating forest and an octopus. Despite its size and weight, it's capable of traveling airborne thanks to an internal gas produced by its biological system to facilitate floatation.
• Making a Splash: Daimyo Hermitaur and Shogun Ceanataur are a pair of large Carapaceons (Giant Enemy Crabs), serving as the respective King Mooks of the Hermitaur and Ceanataur, capable of attacking hunters and preys with powerful, pressurized water streams. The main difference is that Daimyo shoots it from its mouth (and, in higher-rank quests, moves sideways while doing so to cover a greater territory for a higher chance to harm its enemies), while Shogun shoots it from the mouth of its shell (namely a claimed Gravios shell) and prefers to do it while hanging from the ceilings.
• Maniac Monkeys: Among the newly introduced Fanged Beasts are primate monsters that range from the somewhat threatening yet still fairly weak Congalala to the extremely powerful Elder Dragon-level monster Rajang.
• Mascot Mook: The Kushala Daora, who is the Big Bad of the Offline quests and appears on the cover.
• Moveset Clone:
  • Daimyo Hermitaur and Shogun Ceanataur are large Carapaceons that serve as King Mooks to their respective minions (Hermitaur and Ceanataur) and attack almost identically with their pincers (both walk sideways and attempt to slash nearby preys or hunters, and can also use both pincers at once to perform a wider slash Bear Hug-style) and burrow underground to attack the hunter from below with their carapaces' horns (Daimyo's carapace is a Monoblos skull, while Shogun's is a Diablos skull). However, whereas Daimyo's special attack is spewing water at the hunter, Shogun's is climbing onto the ceiling and either shooting water from there or landing onto the hunter.
  • Teostra and Lunastra exhibit this, and it's because they're technically the same species (leonine Elder Dragons that attack with powerful fire blasts), but having opposite sexes. They're given different traits each in Monster Hunter: World.
• Nostalgia Level: After completing the Kushala Daora quest, players can visit Kokoto Village and take quests in the Forest and Hills, the only returning first generation map in the game.
• Oddball in the Series: Though the game retains the gameplay and style of the previous installments, it also features a nonstandard progression system that is tied to a Seasonal Baggage mechanic (and is also the only game outside Monster Hunter Frontier to have said mechanic to begin with). It is also the only non-handheld installment in the franchise to feature subspecies in Low Rank quests (the other home console games either don't have subspecies at all or restrict them to High Rank, as well as G/Master Rank when available). Lastly, until Generations Ultimate (released 11 years later), it was the only game to feature an Elder Dragon as a flagship monster (Kushala Daora), and until Monster Hunter: Rise (released 15 years later) the only one to introduce a Variant in the same game where its parent species debuts (Rusted Kushala Daora). In comparison, the other installments in the franchise's second generation (Monster Hunter Freedom 2 and its expansion Freedom Unite) are more akin to the first-generation games as well as those released ever since.
• Old Save Bonus: Transferring data from Monster Hunter Freedom (PSP) to this game via an USB allows the player to unlock a quest to hunt Yian Garuga (since the latter game was only released in Japan, the connection can only begin with the former's Japanese version).
• Our Dragons Are Different: Along with the returning Kirin, Lao-Shan Lung and Fatalis new Elder Dragons are introduced such as Kushala Daora, a traditional-looking dragon with metallic skin that controls storms and doesn't breathe fire; Teostra and Lunastra, lion-like dragons that can detonate entire areas with their fire and powder emitted from their bodies by biting it; and Chameleos, a chameleon-like dragon that can turn invisible, can attack with a long tongue that it uses to steal items from you and can inflict poison on you.
• Passing the Torch: After defeating the Kushala Daora, the Jumbo Village Chief leaves and hands over the Village for you to take care of while he travels to make new villages.
• Playing with Fire: Teostra and Lunastra are a pair of leonine Elder Dragons that can spew a large fire breath, and do so while covering a wide area. When enraged, they prepare a slow load of fire energy that allows them to eventually unleash an exceptionally powerful fire explosion, dealing massive damage and inflicting an instant stun to all affected hunters.
• Poisonous Person: Chameleos is an Elder Dragon that exhales breaths imbued with powerful poison. It can also use the breath to muddle the surroundings and, in conjunction with its light-refracting skin, turn invisible.
• Raijū: Rajang is a Thunder-type monster, can appear like a ball of thunder or fire, has yellow and black fur, and looks like the monkey-like depiction of the raijū. It has only one tail, which can be cut to make it lose power.
• Retcon: Bullfango are reclassified from Herbivores to the newly introduced Fanged Beasts.
• Seasonal Baggage: The game features a unique season mechanic that isn't present in any other mainline Monster Hunter game. There are three seasons, which occur in a cyclic pattern: Breeding (the composite equivalent of spring and autumn), Cold (the equivalent of winter) and Hot (the equivalent of summer). The quests you can accept will depend on the current season, as certain hunting areas will be off-limits. Breeding forbids hunts in the Jungle and the Swamp, Cold forbids hunts in the Snowy Mountains and the Desert during night, and Hot forbids hunts in the Volcano and the Desert during day. The only place that is exempt from any restriction is Forest and Hills.
• Shock and Awe:
  • The online campaign (no longer available) has the horned ape Rajang, which can shoot fast yellow electric bolts as well as unleash a fully charged electric beam when it's angry (signaled by its black fur turning yellow, Dragon Ball Z style). Rajang reappears in latter games via quests that can be played offline, including Freedom Unite which introduces the powerful variant Furious Rajang.
  • The online-exclusive White Fatalis can summon powerful red electric beams from the skies, as well as hover in the air to shoot red electric balls at the hunters.
• Skeletons in the Coat Closet: Carapaceons wear monster skulls to protect their squishy abdomens. Daimyo Hermitaur and Shogun Ceanataur wear a Monoblos and Gravios skull, respectively, while Shen Gaoren wears a Lao-Shan Lung skull.
• Slippy-Slidey Ice World: This game marks the debut of the first snowy region in the Monster Hunter series, the Snowy Mountains. The low temperature causes a hunter's stamina to decrease over time, so it's advised to consume a Hot Drink so the hunter's body remains internally warm and the environmental effects are negated as long as the Drink's effect lasts.
• Sorting Algorithm of Threatening Geography: Once again areas are unlocked in order of how "menacing" they are design-wise and even hazard-wize.
  • The first area is the Jungle, which is a plain simple Jungle Japes and Green Hill Zone styled place that serves as your introduction to gathering (by having the sole gathering quest in the game take place in it) and hosting the first hunting quests.
  • Next comes the Swamp, while it lacks the more threatening ambience of the original, it still houses dark caves filled with cold temperatures that can drain your stamina if you don't use a hot drink and stay too long in them.
  • Later comes the Snowy Mountains, that start off fairly harmless but gradually turn darker and more threatening as you get to dimly lit locations, including a system of caves. It's hostile environment will also gradually drain your stamina if you don't bring in Hot Drinks like the Swamp caves.
  • It's followed by the Volcano, a harsh lava-filled ecosystem where some of the stronger and most aggressive monsters await you, it will drain your stamina without cold drinks in most areas.
  • The last unlocked new area is the Tower, abandoned ruins of the Ancient Civilization filled with decaying structures, very powerful monsters such as Elder Dragons and Rare Species on top of having desolate areas and a grim feeling to the place in spite of the lack of enviromental hazards.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: The new Jungle, Desert, Swamp and Volcano areas take heavy inspiration from the first game's maps, though some other parts are drastically changed such as the new Swamp having no purple mist.
• Temporary Online Content: Ashen Lao-Shan Lung, Shen Gaoren, Rajang, Rusted Kushala Daora and the Fatalis trio are all online-exclusive monsters and can no longer be legally hunted after the shutdown of the online servers.
• True Final Boss: White Fatalis serves as the overall true final boss of the game, being the last monster unlocked in the Online campaign in Dundorma. After the servers were shutdown this role technically goes to Lao-Shan Lung.
• Urine Trouble: The Shogun Ceanataur has an attack where it shoots what appears to be a beam of water from the jaws of the skull it wears as a shell. Except, according to the developers, that "water" is actually gallons of its pee, expelled at such a speed to ward off any predators and Hunters. This was later shown explicitly in Monster Hunter: Rise Sunbreak.
• Wind from Beneath My Wings: Kushala Daora is a metallic Elder Dragon whose attacks are primarily wind-based and can even generate a wind shield around itself to keep hunters from getting too close, this can only be removed if you manage to poison it. The variant Rusted Kushala Daora, introduced in this same game, has an even stronger wind shield.
• Wrestler of Beasts: When not performing his duties as leader of Dundorma, His Immenseness is known for wrestling beasts such as the colossal Lao-Shan Lungs for fun.

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