Monster Hunter is one part role playing game, one part action game, one part MMORPG and two parts adventure game, cooked by a pack of anthropomorphic cats and lifted from the flames the second it turns a delicious bronze hue, all to the sound of a surprisingly cheerful jingle. So tasty!Developed and published by Capcom, the original game wasn't as big of a success in the United States as it was in Japan. However, its portable sequels are among the most popular games available for the PSP, and subsequent sequels have been released on the Wii, PSP, Wii U, and Nintendo 3DS.Monster Hunter is a unique experience. Playing as a hunter assembled from a list of faces, voices, etc., you try to make a name for yourself battling an array of increasingly bigger and nastier creatures that can kick your ass shockingly fast if you're unprepared and/or rush them head-on as if they're Mooks. Each Monster not only has a variety of attacks, but a number of both subtle and overt visual and audio cues to each action, as well as its own status. Recognition of these cues is crucial to properly defeating them. A typical Monster Hunter battle has a graceful Zen-like quality to it, like a bullfight with a 700-pound gorilla (or wyvern, or dragon, or Giant Enemy Crab) should.The weapons and armor store is actually pretty weak, and everything they sell will be out of date only a few hours from starting the game. To get better equipment, the player has to assemble his or her own equipment from parts of fallen monsters as well as activities like combining, mining, fishing and bug collecting. Has nothing to do with He Who Fights Monsters, though.Also spawned a manga adaption, called Monster Hunter Orage, written by Mashima Hiro of Fairy Tail and Rave Master fame.How popular is it? Portable 3rd for the PSP, sold over four million copies in Japan alone in a mere two months. Cha-ching!Current games:
Monster Hunter G: Playstation 2, Wii, Japan only - An Updated Rerelease of MH1 with some new monster variants.
Monster Hunter Freedom: Playstation Portable - A straight port of MHG, known as Monster Hunter Portable in Japan.
Monster Hunter 2: Playstation 2, Japan only - A sequel to MH1, with all new monsters and new subspecies of old ones.
Monster Hunter Freedom 2: Playstation Portable - A sequel to MHF1, known as Monster Hunter Portable 2nd in Japan, it is separate from MH2. Uses the same monsters but has different quests and setting.
Monster Hunter Frontier: PC and Xbox 360, currently limited to Japan, China and Korea - A spinoff of sorts that has mostly exclusive monsters.
Monster Hunter Freedom Unite: Playstation Portable - An Updated Rerelease of MHF2, in Japan known as Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G, featured a few new monsters and subspecies. Has the most content monster-wise of any game in the series to date.
Monster Hunter Tri: Nintendo Wii - The third main game. Many new monsters, but only three old ones make reappearances.
Monster Hunter Portable 3rd: Playstation Portable - A sequel to MHF2. Has several new monsters and subspecies. Not a port of MH3, same deal as MHF2.
Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate: Nintendo 3DS and Wii U - An Updated Rerelease of MH3, known in Japan as Monster Hunter 3G, with several new monsters and touch screen features. Set to be released on the Wii U with connectivity with the Nintendo 3DS and online capabilities.
Monster Hunter 4: Nintendo 3DS - The fourth main game.
Black Lance - "Lance that holds a dark power within. The despair within eats at its user."
Tenebra - "A dark blade that pulses with the lifeforce it saps from any who wield it..."
Every single Dire Miralis weapon. If its description isn't about setting everything on fire, then it's about The End of the World as We Know It.
The Gigginox hunting horn. "A coffin-like weapon sealed with Gigginox hides. At night, the wails of the dead emanate from the inside." It sounds like a description befitting a black metal hunting horn.
And There Was Much Rejoicing: Naturally, defeating the flagship monster of the game results in this. Special mention, however, goes to Portable 3rd, which features a festival for which Yukumo invites people from across the realm (explaining several cameos from previous games).
And Your Reward Is Clothes: Played straight. You usually make either Armor ("Clothes") or Weapons with the materials of monsters.
Averted in the sense that the "clothes" aren't actually useless, with many being awesome and completely practical. Since you are making the clothes out of monster parts, you can pick and choose what you make, so getting a full set is actually a lot easier than just getting anything that looks good.
Antidote Effect: Who actually bothers with the Lightning Rod? Ditto the Tranq Shot...
However, the usual target of this trope (Items that only heal a certain status ailment) are actually very useful in Monster Hunter, because the statuses are indeed quite debilitating *
Fireblight and poison drain your health quite fast, Waterblight and Iceblight make it extremely hard to keep up dodges and blocks, Thunderblight makes enemy attacks completely incapacitate you more often, and Dragonblight reduces your all-important damage output
, and because you know which monster you're going in to fight, which means you can choose to have the status cure with you only when you need it.
Like every Shot, Tranq Shots will default to the Ammunition/Coating storage which ends up saving space for valuable equipments, carves and gathers.
A Taste of Power: The training missions and many of the downloadable quests give you predetermined sets of equipment, some of which is far beyond what you're capable of making around the time you first unlock these missions.
The downloadable demo for Tri Ultimate gives you the highest tier equipment in the game, and lets you hunt a monster at the lowest rank. Mmmm, power.
Ditto the arena battles in Tri.
Attack Its Weak Point: For the higher rank monsters, this is pretty much the only way to inflict decent damage to them.
Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Pretty much the purpose of the game is to fight these things. Better examples are Lao, Shen Gaoren, Fatalis and all the other really huge stuff.
Taken to new heights in Monster Hunter Tri. While exploring the woods outside your town you may encounter super-sized versions of normal creatures with increased HP but much better drops. While not as big as some of the elder dragons they can still be quite massive, with the super-sized aptonoths appearing to be around 30 feet tall.
Coincidentally, Tri also inverts this trope in the form of the Phantom Uragaan, in which it's almost one-tenth of the the size of a normal Uragaan but retains all of its power (normal Uragaan are around 2500cm, the Phantom is around 400 cm). There are also the equally tiny At Bird's Hill Yian Kut-ku and high pitched, tiny Khezus.
Frontier manages to beat them all with Raviente. He's so big that up to 32 players can hunt him at once in 8 groups of 4 hunters each (it's a server-wide battle) AND he has an entire quest just to get carves off of him. Just look here if you want to see for yourself.
Awesome, but Impractical: Most of the Dual Blades that feature two elements. They look Crazy Awesome, but in the 2nd Generation games, the combinations of elements are unwieldy, i.e. monster is weak against one but immune to the other. The notable exception is the Fatalis/White Fatalis duals, which do kick ass.
Also, your new companion in Tri, ChaCha the Shakalaka.
Tri Ultimate adds Kayamba.
Badass Normal: The Hunters in general, though one tends to wonder how "normal" they are.
Bag of Holding: The storage boxes and the hunter's (unseen) item bag. Q: How does a hunter store dozens of claws carved from the Giant Enemy Crab? A: In a Bag of Holding of course!
Bandit Mook: The moment a Melynx sees you, it'll try to steal something from you. If it succeeds, it will try to escape as soon as possible. You can retrieve your stolen items by attacking the Melynx before it escapes, or checking their stash at the large cat statue in that area.
Bears Are Bad News: Portable 3rd introduces Arzuros, the first bear-like monster throughout the series. It even eats honey to restore stamina!
BFS: Comes in two varieties, the bulky greatsword and the slimmer longsword.
Really, this series loves giant weapons. The only weapon sets that aren't ludicrously over-sized are the sword and shield and the dual wielded sword sets, and even then, they would usually be two-handed weapons.
Even so, the Akantor Broadsword (Great Sword) is absolutely humongous even compared to other Great Swords.
Bizarre Sexual Dimorphism: The Great Jaggi is an adult Jaggi, they mate with the female Jaggias, which look like mere toddlers when they stand next to a Great Jaggi.
Same goes for the Ludroths. The Royal Ludroths are only males of the species, the regular Ludroths are mostly female, and they are easily less than 1/4 of a Royal Ludroth's size.
Bonus Boss: In Unite, finishing every regular monster training mission unlocks Black Fatalis. Beating him unlocks Crimson Fatalis. Beating a total of three Fatalis unlocks White Fatalis. All of them take several quests to kill and are known for their many one-hit-kill attacks.
Tri Ultimate has the Hallowed Jhen Mohran, which is unlocked by defeating every other large monster in the game, including subspecies, with the exception of the Savage Deviljho, Lucent Nargacuga, and Abyssal Lagiacrus.
Keeping the monsters dazed with flashbangs and shooting them to death with a team of gunners.
Keeping the monsters stuck to one spot with endless Shock/Pitfall traps, and everyone hacking (or shooting) it to death for a more true-to-trope example: Get a monster to run into a Shock Trap, then as soon as it expires, someone places another one nearby as the monster is recovering.
Those above are somehow subverted in recent titles: these tricks still work, but their time affected by flashbangs or traps will gradually decrease: the first flashbang may stun a Tigrex, for example, for around 20 seconds, to just a few after second or third one. Not to mention that some monsters will become completely erratic when hit with a flashbang.
Hunting monsters with other players, especially the full 4 member team, is ridiculously easy in general. It's solo hunting monsters that can kill you in 1-3 hits that are the hard fights of this series.
And then there's the fact that in the G rank quests every hunt will have another big monster present and since you don't have to kill the other monster to complete the quest, both big monsters are at full strength.
The Fluffy Mask in Tri and Tri Ultimate. Oh, sure, it's probably the second or third mask you'll unlock, and the partner wearing will not attack, but the ability to know where EVERY large monster on the map is located, as well as their type (Brute, flying, etc.) and whether or not they're still aggressive towards you, without having to invest in the Autotracker skill is invaluable. In particular, this makes High-Rank quests and their tendency to throw Deviljho at you at random much easier, since it decreases the odd of being ambushed.
Speaking of partners, despite all of the elemental and status abilities that they can be taught, it's usually smarter to just give them Weatherbreaker and Earplugs, which like the Fluffy Mask are obtained pretty early on. Since their attack power is much weaker and less reliable than the hunter(s) themselves, focusing on ways to prevent their supporting dances (particularly healing dances) from being interrupted and turning them into dedicated medics or White Mages is usually much more effective, even if it means doing all of the damage yourself.
Boss Game: Despite the fact there are collection quests and stuff like Treasure Hunting, boss/monster fighting takes up about 90% of the game.
Boss Rush: The "Epic/Marathon" Hunting Quests. Made particularly difficult because you can't change your weapon mid-hunt and each monster is easier/harder to deal with using certain weapons more than others (e.g Dual swords on a Plesioth is pain incarnate; a bow or bowgun with Pierce shots will make sashimi out of one).
Bottomless Magazines: Bows have unlimited arrows despite their quiver being quite visible.
The same can apply to Gunlances... who knew bullets aren't just for Bowguns after all...
Normal Shot level one for the Bowgun, and (At least up until Unite) the Autoreload skill actually makes it so you don't have to reload, either.
In 3 Ultimate, limit-breaking a Light or Heavy Bowgun lets you cram more ammo into them than should be logically possible: loading all types of ammo to their max capacity at once for the Light Bowgun, and getting a huge magazine limit increase and the ability to use Wyvern Fire shots*
Bragging Rights Reward: Seriously, if you can clear all the training missions with all the weapons, you probably don't need that Sword Saint Piercing. Ditto for the stuff that's unlocked once you clear G Rank in Unite. Also applies for getting a full set of White Fatalis armor.
In Tri, most HR51-armorsets count (Deviljho, Alatreon, High-Rank-Ceadeus and High-Rank-Jhen-Mohran). Getting these means you already killed everything you can kill. Multiple times.
Breakable Weapons: Subverted, as they don't really break, but lose sharpness. Even the hammers.
Losing sharpness lessens the damage they do and also will make them bounce off of the monster's hide, interrupting your combos and reducing your damage ouput further. So while you never lose your weapon, it can become next to useless if you don't keep it sharp.
Burning with Anger: Most fire-breathing wyverns have a lasting flame lingering their mouths when enraged. The Diablos and its subspecies also pant black smoke whenever they're angry, too.
Butt Monkey: The aptonoths seem to be at the very bottom of the food chain. Wyverns, raptors, Hunters, NPCs.... Name a carnivorous species, chances are they've eaten an aptonoth at some point.
And to a lesser extent, the carnivorous (Great) Jaggi which have been either eaten by Ludroths, killed by Lagiacrus or Barroth, Rathalos or stomped on then mercilessly eaten by a Deviljho.
Felynes also occasionally suffer some abuse from the larger monsters, particularly in the "Monster Life" videos. One gets chased by a pair of Uragaan in its life video, and another is sent flying during the Brachydios Life after being caught up in a fight between a Brachydios and an Agnaktor.
Came Back Strong: With the Survivor skill found on equipment such as the HellHunter Jacket, your attacks get a stackable boost each time you faint.
Captain Obvious: The Guild Sweetheart, or rather, her guidebook.
"Let's see, Flooded Forest... a forest flooded with water. Okay then."
Cats Are Mean: Melynx, black Felynes who tend to snitch Hunters on sight, charging at and sometimes knocking them out. Can be irritating during those egg fetching quests.
"Wild" Felynes can be just as bad. Though they have to be provoked first and don't steal your items, at least Melynx don't go around tossing explosives.
If the take damage from a monster, they blame you.
Chainsaw Good: The Prototype Saw-slicer. Dual-wielded chainsaws. There is also the Chain Blade, a BFS chainsaw.
Which both do lightning damage.
The Switch-Axe can perform chainsaw-like attacks.
There's also the Chainslaughter Long Sword, a chainsaw katana.
Challenge Gamer: In games that allow modding, many players produce differently sized, stronger or more numerous versions of regular monsters. Many also stick to one 'trademark' weapon regardless of how suitable it is for a quest, refuse to use items and traps or decide to solo online-only superbosses like the infamous Fatalis. There are players who do all of that and more.
Character Level: Notably absent. Played straight in Unite with the Felyne Fighters as well as in Tri and Tri Ultimate with Cha-Cha and Kayamba the Shakalakas.
Played straight however with the Hunter Rank system in the online modes of the console games. Completing quests awards Hunter Rank Points, which contribute to raising a player's Hunter Rank. In most cases, clearing out all the quests in one tier won't be enough to unlock the next set. You'll have to redo quests over and over until your HR is high enough. It doesn't really make a difference though, since you'll be farming the wyverns for their armor and weapons anyway.
It's not entirely played straight, since between each tier of quests, online or offline, is an Urgent Quest that must be completed before moving on to the next tier. The Guildmaster in Tri explains that this is a way to prevent people from doing easy quests over and over until they rank up, because the Urgent Quest is supposed to test if the player has improved their skills. This does not stop players from leeching off of more skilled players, however.
It should be noted that increasing your Hunter Rank doesn't increase your stats, it just unlocks more quests.
Character Select Forcing: Played straight-ish though averted. Any monster can be killed with any weapon once you understand the limitations and openings specific to each weapon. However, some weapons have a huge advantage over others against certain monsters. e.g Any close range weapon against a Plesioth is frustrating as hell since it has the hitbox from hell and it sometimes refuses to leave the water *
although the Plesioth is actually far less threatening in the water, since it can no longer hipcheck, tailspin, or slither, and is limited to dashes and lasers
. A bowgun or bow prevents both of these.
Thankfully in Tri Ultimate you can go in after it.
Charged Attack: Comes in eight different flavors (as of Monster Hunter Portable 3rd)!
Collect Type: Long Swords, Switch Axes, Dual Swords
Hold Type: Great Swords, Hammers, Bows, Gunlances
Literal Type: Lance. You duck behind your shield, hold your lance close to your body and pointed outwards, then run as fast as you can forward. Run far enough and the power of your attack increases.
Cherry Tapping: Killing a monster by kicking it. For Plesioth (a giant amphibious fish-like "wyvern"), it is possible to kill it by fishing it out of the water. In rare cases, the monster will die by accidentally getting hit by a Mook.
In Tri, letting Cha-Cha get the kill can feel like this; though he can reach decent levels of power, he's still not nearly as strong as your hunter. Same goes for Kayamba in Tri Ultimate.
Also Felyne Comrades in Unite.
For the player, getting killed by Mooks, who hardly deal any damage at all, even at low defenses— or getting stepped on by the larger Wyverns.
The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: Missions where you need to carry something in your hands back to the base camp are hated for this. At first the map looks normal with the usual mix of docile and violent creatures running around... until you pick up the object in question, causing every area to be filled with violent monsters just to make you drop it.
It should be noted that getting ambushed by a large monster while fighting another large monster is not an example of this trope, as you are warned that an extra monster might be present and have ways to check for them right at the start of the quest. Getting blindsided in this manner is entirely the player's fault.
Continuing Is Painful: If you die in a mission, your reward money is cut by a third, which is painful if you already spent most of that money on ammunition and supplies. If you die three times, however, all items you used on the mission disappear, you lose a small amount of money, and you have to repeat the mission again. And the worst part? Most missions usually take around 20 minutes to complete.
This sort of thing could be hard to keep track of. To put it simply, if you complete a quest or fail it by getting knocked out three times, you don't get back anything you used up, but you keep whatever items you found. If you abandon a quest, you get back whatever items you brought and used up, but anything you found is lost.
The first time that you are KO'd in a mission in Tri and Tri Ultimate, you'll lose any boosts that were earned from eating before the hunt (aside from those earned from the food's skills) unless the meal provided the "Felyne Foodie" skill. If a monster was already taking out half of your health in one shot despite of the health and defense boost from your feast, for instance, imagine trying to do the rest of the quest without it.
Convection Schmonvection: Averted, in that if you go to a volcano, you'll take continuous damage unless you use a Cool Drink, or have the Heat Resistance skill. Getting too close to the lava while this happens will STILL damage you, however.
However, everything else can walk through lava completely unharmed, including giant rock wyverns, small raptors and cats.
Conservation of Ninjutsu: The real difficulty in fights with multiple wyverns is keeping them apart and fighting them seperately. As the quest time and item limits do not change depending on quest type, each of them are notably less threatening and easier to kill in such a quest. This varies depending on wyvern type, however. Nobody wants to fight two Tigrex at the same time.
Kinda subverted in the High Rank quests, in Monster Hunter Portable 3rd anyways. Every High Rank hunt will have another large monster in addition to the one you have to kill. Unless you use Dung Bombs, you will have to fight with both of them in the same area over 50% of the time. You don't have to kill the other large monster but since you don't have to kill it, both monsters are in their full powered form.
Covered in Mud: Tri introduces the Barroth, the love child of a Tyrannosaurus rex and a Bulldozer that is often covered in mud. It has a habit of shaking said mud off, and any hunters unfortunate enough to get hit by the flying globs are covered in quickly-hardening mud that makes it impossible to attack (and open to getting plowed under by the Barroth!).
Critical Existence Failure: Taken to ludicrous heights. While it's relatively normal for the player, a monster can be near death and still be in rage mode, where it will be moving faster than normal and putting more force behind its attacks.
While played fairly straight in that monsters enter rage (aforementioned 'moving faster and dealing more damage' mode) more easily when nearly dead, also averted in that after breaking certain body parts monsters may not be able to use some of their attacks, and in Tri monsters become tired after throwing out powerful attacks or being hit by concussive attacks.
Also, when brought below a certain health threshold, they will try to escape by slowly limping away, practically making them sitting ducks.
Also when the monsters are below a certain health threshold, they will always try to sleep whenever not engaged in battle. Did we mention that a sleeping monster takes three times the normal damage? Using bombs and the Great Sword, you've basically guaranteed a kill once they've entered this state.
Crazy-Prepared: Playing this game requires you to equip yourself accordingly to whatever you're going up against. In some cases you simply won't win or get what you want without the right tools. For the record, this means arming yourself with the proper weapon, an armor set that complements this weapon or is useful against the monster, and several items ranging from healing potions to Flash Bombs to traps. Hell, you even have to consider details like keeping your hunter well fed, his or her weapon sharp, look out for the climate of the area you're going to (going into the desert without something cool to drink is generally a bad idea) and even the weather (some tools do not work in rain or snow, others ONLY work there...)
Marathon Boss: Some monsters can take up to 40 minutes to kill. This is mostly for stuff like Fatalis.
Description Porn: They manage to do this with some weapons and armors, despite the small text character limit. Just check the descriptions for the various Rathalos sets, for instance.
Depleted Phlebotinum Shells: All elemental weapons to an extent, but special mention goes to Dragon element weapons. It's never specified just what is it, but it sure kills elder dragons fast.
Most dragon weapons are made with elder dragon blood, the content of which has been baffling the Guild and scholars for some time. Dragon Shot ammunition, however, is made with Dragon Seeds, so that might fit the trope better.
Desperation Attack: The Armor Skill "Potential" will give you a big Defense boost when your health is below 40% (and if you get 15 points in it, you'll get an Attack boost too). The Kitchen Skill "Felyne Heroics" doesn't kick in until your HP is down to 10 or less, but it gives you an even bigger Attack and Defense boost. Some expert players use Heroics and deliberately injure themselves down to 10 HP for it to activate, allowing them to kill whatever they're hunting much faster but at the risk of getting downed with a single hit. This is particularly useful for bosses that'd kill you in a single hit anyways (all the Fatalis "brothers" in particular).
On the flip side, a lot of monsters will go into near-permanent rage when near death - they move faster and hit harder. Special mention to Shogun Ceanataur, who does go into literal perma-rage as soon as you smash one of his claws.
Determinator: The hunters, of course. Considering how extremely hard to kill their prey is, this is practically a requirement to make it far in the business. Also present among some of the monsters. Special mention goes to Tigrex; this wyvern is made out of the following things: 50% determination and 50% pure rage. He's so stubborn that, if you dodge his charge, he won't just finish it and then turn around to try again like other wyverns, oh no, he is going to change the direction mid-charge just to get you, and he'll do that up to four times. Combine this with him being a Lightning Bruiser and a creature whose Rage Mode is absolutely devastating and you'll understand why he's considered the bane of many hunters.
The Dev Team Thinks of Everything: If you try to cook meat off a cliff, the BBQ spit will have braces connecting it to the cliff face.
Difficult, But Awesome: Certain weapons against certain monsters. For example, once you learn the timing, a Great Sword will absolutely destroy a Tigrex with little effort.
Difficulty Spike: The first happens once you start doing high-rank quests; it only takes a few mistakes to get clobbered, and some previously trivial monsters can knock you out with three hits, especially the ones that get new attacks. Once you're doing G-rank quests, all bets are off.
The first big one is probably when the player fights a Yian Kut-ku for the first time. Before this, missions were simple slaying ''x''Mooks and gathering missions. The Yian Kut-ku shows the lengths that the player has to go to beat the bosses without getting slapped silly (analyzing attack patterns, finding weak spots, figuring out what weapons are best, etc.)
In Tri, the Barroth is the first sign that the gloves are coming off, and it's usually considered to be a harder fight than the next couple of fights after it, largely in part of the fact that unlike some of the later fights, it has armour, is very fast, and that it's charge attack hits like a truck.
Tri Ultimate also has the Purple Ludroth, the first "subspecies" that the player will encounter as well as the introduction to High-Rank quests. There is a reason that most high-rank armour usually has at least twice the base defense of low-rank armour, and it is borderline impossible to have any until the Ludroth is defeated, meaning that you are definitely going to feel the difference.
Disc One Nuke: Through smart trading with Veggie Elders, one can easily obtain rare materials or materials not normally accessible. Also, the optional Trenya's Boat allows one to get things such as Dragonwoods or Dragonmosses way before you're supposed to.
Although not quite the normal definition, if you farm the online mode without touching single player, or vice versa, you will have vastly overpowered equipment for the beginning missions you still have to do. If you reach rank 51 with a character before you do any storyline in single player in tri, for instance, you can most likely kill the great jaggi in a matter of seconds.
In Freedom 2, the Long Sword "Devil Slicer."
If you're a Hammer user, in MHF2 and MHFU, the Bull Tusk Hammer can be made without leaving Hunter Rank 1 and has 936 raw damage.
Dual Wielding: Dual swords, with which you can belt out a continuous barrage of attacks, but you can't block.
Dung Fu: Flinging "Dung Bombs" at boss monsters is an effective way to show who's the real boss here. They simply flee in terror (or disgust). This attack must be executed stealthily to be any effective, though.
The Manga features a protagonist that Dual Wields Wind-element Blades, something unobtainable in-game. This fact is outright stated in the manga itself: the protagonist's partner has never even heard of a Wind element.
There is one monster claimed to possess "Wind" element: Kushala Daora. This isn't really an element so much as it is an extra ability given to it to make it on par with other dragons though...
Ditto for the Sand Barioth in the third generation games.
Elite Tweak: Mixing and matching armors and gems can result in some potent skill combinations. Add to this that there are several weapons available, each with different playing styles and there are plenty of skills for each weapon.
Played straight in that smaller monsters will attack you even if there is a larger, more threatening monster in the area. For example, Agnaktor will feed on Rhenoplos to regain stamina. Instead of fleeing the area or ganging up on the Agnaktor, they will keep attacking you with their charge attack.
Subverted in some instances. It's possible for a group of Jaggi to gang up on a sleeping Arzuros and to attack it multiple times to wake it up. Also, some monsters will attack each other in some occasions, though they will focus the hunter most of the time.
In fact, initially Monster Hunter was only a Working Title, but the developers liked the simplicity so much they just kept it.
Fartillery: Congas and the Congalala are able to release a cloud of noxious fumes from their behinds, and this is actually one of the most insidious attacks in the game, as when you are "soiled," you cannot eat or drink any healing items.
Returns in Tri Ultimate with Volvidon and Steel Uragaan, but both of them are closer to gassing than outright... farting.
Final Boss: Despite being an Endless Game as mentioned above, every entry in the series has some sort of final monster whose first defeat generally triggers the credits to roll. In Monster Hunter Freedom 2, this was Akantor, in Freedom Unite, his older cousin Ukanlos took that spot (beating Akantor in the village quests still shows the ending sequence).
Ceadeus in Tri is a bit more obviously a Final Boss. He is only available offline and this time, there is a bit more storyline involving him to be seen.
While Ceadeus might be absent in the online mode, a different Elder Dragon takes over for him: Alatreon, who's basically every Elder Dragon from MHFU combined into one.
And in Ultimate, the Ceadeus is still there, but it's defeating the Ivory Lagiacrus that rolls the credits in Single Player. Even after him, though, Alatreon returns as the final battle in the single player campaign.
Fixed Damage Attack: The Crag S and Clust S bullets for bowguns do exactly this.
While not strictly an attack per se, all bombs play this trope as well.
Flame War: Mention whether or not Flash Bombs should be allowed.
"Longswords suck, get a hammer, n00b!"
Ironically, players who use either of these two weapons are by far the most annoying due to friendly fire. Longswords have a really long attack range, Hammers will send anyone flying with even just a tap and are the bane of Great Sword users when they are trying to do a charge attack.
Friendly Fireproof: Playing this game multiplayer would be much more difficult if this wasn't the case. When everyone's swinging weapons the sizes of small cars around one area, this is pretty much a necessity. Also demonstrated in the fact that bombs the size of people do little more than inconveniently send a player flying.
Not totally fireproof. You take no damage from other players and you take very little damage from your cat comrade's bombs but they still stagger you and send you flying. Longswords, Hammers and Gunlances are especially notorious.
And fortunately, this trope does not apply for the monsters.
Game-Breaking Bug: An infamous one plagues the Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate version, both on Wii U and 3DS. When you create a character, the game will determine which charms you can find by choosing between different charm tables. The problem is, some charm tables are "cursed": instead of offering a variety of about 20000 charms, those tables only offer 200 to 800 different charms (and not the good ones: none of the cursed tables offer any charms with 3 gem slots). This doesn't stop here: some of these cursed charm tables prevent you from finding rustshards, which mean you won't be able to find or craft some weapons and armors at all. You can find more info on this on the official forums (including ways to determine which table you got). The tables existed in Tri, but they were chosen upon starting the game up, not on character creation, so they cycled every time you stared a new session.
Only because, for some reason, you never die even when taking a full bite from a set of jaws that's larger than your entire body. At worst, you just "faint" and once you've fainted, the monster leaves you alone instead of finishing you off.
Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: Your Felyne will do this if you start cowering in fear of a monster, get put to sleep, paralyzed, frozen or otherwise incapacitated. Considering that any time your movability gets hindered, there's a fair chance whatever wyvern you're fighting right now is going to use that opportunity to turn you into toast, this is a very useful feature.
Cha-Cha does the same thing in Tri. He even has dialog boxes that have some variation of the phrase. Kayamba does the same in Tri Ultimate.
Neko (Means "Cat"): Kuso start to hit the proverbial fan, honto.
Neko (Means "Cat"): You one dirty yaro, honto! "Yaro" means... never mind.
Giant Enemy Crab: Seven versions if you count the color-variations in Unite as separate types.
Shen Gaoren is by far the biggest. Fittingly, it seems to be somewhat based on the Japanese Spider Crab, which is among the biggest (if not THE biggest) crab in the world.
Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: Ceadeus in Tri. A gigantic serpent-whale-dragon thing that was the real cause behind the Moga earthquakes and isn't introduced or even confirmed to exist until the final tier of quests, unlike Lagiacrus.
Though if it's any consolation, the village elder eventually tells you that he had a suspicion all along that Ceadeus was the cause, because he had faced it himself when he was younger.
Quite a few monsters in the series have little or no background information — particularly those introduced in the Updated Rereleases and Frontier's patches — because what little storyline there is is usually not modified to account for them. Ceadeus is only exceptional because he's a storyline boss in a main game.
Guide Dang It: Focusing on improving one weapon type at the expense of others can make material gathering a nightmare, as certain materials can only be gathered if a certain part of a monster is destroyed, and many of these parts can only be destroyed by a very specific weapon type. This leads to a game of trial and error as you try to figure out which weapon breaks which part of which monster.
It breaks down to two questions: does it require slashing or bashing damage, and what weapon of that type can I hit it with?
There's also trying to figure out what element each monster is weakest to, as well as what parts of it can be broken at all. Some monsters have parts that break in two stages, and you're probably not going to bother targeting a body part that's been broken already if you don't know that it can break again.
Hitbox Dissonance: Many of the first and second generation monsters have a hitbox that is way larger than their bodies. Who could forget Khezu's tail hitting you even when it's several meters high, or Rathalos trampling you when you're in the gap between its feet? The worst offender is probably Plesioth and his infamous hipcheck, which can (and will) hit you even if his body doesn't come in contact with yours. Thankfully, Tri mostly fixed this (emphasis on mostly. Almost all monster hit boxes while underwater are ridiculous).
Hopeless Boss Fight: In Tri and Tri Ultimate, the Lagiacrus is introduced in the first tier's quests, and is a 5th tier monster. You can't gain access to better equipment, and your weapons will be doing minimum damage or just bounce off.
Horse of a Different Color: Portable 3rd introduces the Gargwa, Bird Wyverns that look like oversized ostriches which not only serve as prey for some of the larger monsters out there, but are also used by the people of Yukumo as livestock and beasts of burden.
Hot Blooded: The Training Instructor certainly seems that way.
Human Popsicle: Like the Mud listing above, Tri gives us the Barioth, which can encase you in Ice. Not a nice place to be when dealing with a Lightning Bruiser Saber-Toothed Dragon-Cat. Other games also give this ability to one of the Dromes, an Elder Dragon, and a Tundra variant of the abovementioned Barroth.
Hurricane of Puns: Almost all of the lines of dialogue in Tri are puns or other bad jokes. Moga Village is where the puns reach hurricane levels; between Cha-Cha, the Felynes, the quest descriptions, and one villager who lives for awful puns.
Hyperactive Metabolism: Played straight by both monsters and hunters alike. It's entirely possible for monsters to eat herbivores ranging from a third to half their size in a matter of seconds, and then become starved after another couple of minutes. Hunters can also wolf down as many arm-length steaks as they want in no time at all. Justified to some extent with the Deviljho, who need to eat constantly to maintain their high body heat. Unlike most examples of this trope, however, eating only restores stamina, not health.
Improvised Weapon: While they may have been crafted rather than picked up from the environment, some weapons' designs have you doubting them. Example: A plunger shaped lance (no, you hold the proper plunger handle - you stab with the plunger head), two stick puppets, and fuzzy maracas. Justified in that some have such terrible stats that they border on being a Joke Item.
You know that giant cutlery set your hunter held while waiting for their meal in Unite? It's a craftable Dual Sword set called the Glutton's Tools, complete with two upgrade paths.
Which can be unlocked for crafting by having your Felyne Chefs handing you a regular meal pass, which in turn unlocks the Felyne Ragdoll and Melynx Ragdoll, both of which are bowguns.
Tri brings us the Sharq Attaq lance... which is basically a stuffed sharq that you swing around and beat things to death with, and it comes with a no swimming sign that acts as your shield. It's actually pretty decent.
We are perhaps forgetting the Pop Corn, which is a giant corn-on-the-cob. You wield it like a lance. It comes with a straw hat to be used as a shield. And most importantly, when you stab things with it, they explode.
From Portable 3rd: Hunter Dumplings. They're dual blades that are... dumplings. On sticks. Specifically, three (really big) dumplings per stick. The weapon tree branches from there into White or Purple Dumplings. The Purple ones can cause the Poison status effect.
Also, the Scabbardfish Blade - a longsword that is, quite literally, a fish on a stick. It does additional Water damage.
And of course, the Wyvern's Perch, a greatsword that looks like someone cut down a rather thick tree with mushrooms on it and mounted a hilt on one end. How does this thing even do cutting damage?
Also, the Numbingbird! It's a giant flower that has the hitting power of a hammer and can paralyze monsters to boot.
The Type 63 Warmonica (Nibelsnarf Hunting Horn) is Exactly What It Says on the Tin - an oversized harmonica. It's one of the few weapons in the game to get a Water element without needing the Awaken skill, and gets access to Health Recovery (L) at the end of its upgrade path which heavily (though not completely) mitigates the need for Potions.
Instant Sedation: Tranquilizer Bombs, or Tranq Bombs. Damage a monster until it starts showing signs that it's almost dead (usually limping), catch it in a trap and chuck Tranq Bombs at it and you'll capture it by putting it to sleep. Bigger monsters will take more Tranq Bombs before they'll fall asleep, but you can also use Tranq Throwing Knives or make Tranq bullets for use with a bowgun.
Instant-Win Condition: In the 20-60 seconds after you finish a quest, but before you collect your reward and head home, you won't take damage from anything, even though any remaining creatures can attack you, interrupting if you're busy carving something.
Instrument of Murder/Magic Music: Hunting Horns. Their main gimmick is their wide array of buff songs to aid the party, though they're also almost as good as hammers and beating things senseless.
Musical Assassin: Some horns get the Sonic Wave song, which is basically a Brown Note version of the Sonic Bomb item.
Item Crafting: The only way to get weapons and armor.
Item Farming: This is key to the Monster Hunter games, if you want to get items to forge better armour and weapons, otherwise you won't be able to make much progress.
Kaizo Trap: If weak enough, it is theoretically possible to die from a monster collapsing on top of you after you catch it.
Made impossible in normal quests, since after the main quest conditions are fulfilled, the player is invulnerable to any monster attack. In quests with multiple monsters, or quests with monsters that appear but do not need killing, monsters like Congalala that have post-death attacks can potentially harm you.
However, there are quests which don't end the instant you capture the monster, but a few seconds later. In these cases you can effectively die if the monster you just caught happens to fall on top of your hunter. Fortunately, this only applies to first-gen monsters (Rathalos, Diablos, etc.) in older games.
Lantern Jaw of Justice: Uragaan, while not particularly just, has a very formidable chin. Ukanlos as well, with its mighty shovel jaw.
Level Grinding: Not for character levels as such, but the items: you'd sweat through killing a certain monster sometimes over 20 times only in order to get armor that helps you kill the same monster.
Lightning Bruiser The Barioth is one of the fastest wyverns... and hits like a giant flying tiger.
The same basically applies to all wyvern of the Tigrex "family". Another famous example is Rajang, who gets bonus points for actually being able to shoot lightning. From its mouth.
Low Fantasy: Very little/ none whatsoever outright magic. Instead there's a huge amount of fantastic creatures that are used as raw materials.
MacGyvering: The local smith always seems to be able to upgrade your equipment in seconds, using materials ranging from iron ore, to monster bones, to monster kidney stones, to bugs.
Made of Iron: The hunters are all about this. Ten story falls? Minor landing stun. Run over by a monster that weighs somewhere around ten tons? Get right back up!
Some of the creatures, such as the Uragaan, have scales or skin that is made of or coated with minerals and ores that greatly increase their durability. There is even a literal invocation with the Steel Uragaan, an Uragaan sub-species, which is covered in steel. These creatures are, incidentally, typically the physically toughest monsters next to creatures such as Elder Dragons.
Make Me Wanna Shout: A lot of large monsters are able to shriek so loudly they stun your character, leaving them helpless for a moment.
Meaningful Name: Lao Shan Lung and Shen Gaoren, both Chinese. Lao Shan Lung means "Ancient/Old Mountain Dragon" and Shen Gaoren means "Godly/Divine Giant."
Also, the Ceadeus. "Cea" sounds like "Sea", and "Deus" means God. Sea God. The Japanese name, Navaldeus, is even more blatant.
Medieval Stasis: Averted and played straight with different aspects. The overall tech level has noticeably improved as the series has progressed... but it remains a predominantly hunter/gatherer society which depends on the Hunters for both supplies and safety.
Considering how long Hunters have existed and the fact that there are still Elder Dragons and other monsters roaming free, it's not surprising that the tech level is slow to advance.
Meido: A certain line of female armors puts you in french maid clothes - fully done.
My Blood Runs Hot: Played fairly realistically with the Deviljho, who has a very high body heat and needs to eat frequently to maintain it.
Mythology Gag: The "ending credits" of Portable 3rd (played after you defeat Zinogre for the first time) features Nyanjiro, the courier Felyne (who can deliver items to your box though a barrel he rolls around once a mission) leaving Yukumo to roam the world of Monster Hunter and deliver invitations to Yukumo's victory party onto every past home village up to that point: Kokoto (MH1 offline and MH Freedom), Minegarde (MH 1 online), Jumbo (MH Dos offline), Dondruma (MH Dos online), Pokke (MH Freedom 2), Moga (MH Tri offline) and Loc Lac (MH Tri online), before returning to Yukumo in time for the festivities.
Nintendo Hard: Yeah... there's a bit of a learning curve.
No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Narrowly averted at the end of Tri. After repelling Ceadeus, your character was supposed to have his/her license revoked by the Guild for defying its direct orders to evacuate Moga Village, but was let off the hook in light of his/ her overwhelming support from the villagers, as well as his/ her feat of defeating the monster against the Guild's pessimistic predictions.
No Hero Discount: In Tri and 3 Ultimate in particular. The shopkeepers and the blacksmith will charge you for their services, even though you're trying to save their village from certain destruction.
Noodle Incident: The description for the Angel Parasollight bowgun states that the weapon was "found in the possession of a captured spy, [yet] the Guild has denied any involvement." This in a series of games where you never really see the actual Guild itself, just liaisons of.
Non-Lethal K.O.: You can faint 2 times in a quest, but on the third time you will be taken out of the quest.
Also, by trapping a monster and throwing tranq bombs at its head you can knock it out and capture it. Some quests require you to do this to win.
Obstructive Bureaucrat: In 3 and 3 Ultimate, Once the Ceadeus is revealed to be the true source of Moga's earthquakes, the Hunter's Guild demands that you abandon Moga Village, claiming that the Ceadeus is "out of your league". Naturally, you and the Guild Sweetheart ignore their orders and take out the Ceadeus.
One-Man Army: Entirely possible. In fact, it actually gets invoked in Tri and 3 Ultimate. The Ceadeus is specifically stated to require an entire army of G Rank hunters to defeat, but you manage to kill it on your own.
Also, the first part of the fight with the Lao-Shan Lung features some Latin.
The Ceadeus's second battle theme includes a lot of tonal chanting, but it's Indonesian instead of Latin. Ominous Indonesian Chanting — that's a new one.
Dire Miralis' theme in Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate.
Overly Long Fighting Animation: Rathalos has this annoying move where he pointlessly takes to the air, flies one or two rounds around the area, then attacks the Hunter with a dive.
Palette Swap: Used on some monsters in the PSP series (eg. Rathalos: red, blue, and silver), with each different colour variants having very few, if any, noticeable physical differences between them.
Averted in Frontier, with some of the new monsters. People complained about Dyuragaua◊ being just a re-skinned Tigrex pre-release. Well, they were very wrong.
Subspecies often appear to be this, but they always have new moves and almost always have different elements associated with them. For example, the regular Gigginox poisons, while the Baleful Gigginox subspecies uses lightning.
Panty Shot: Depends on which armor set you use or how much of the armor you choose to equip. Some of them are even the stripey kind.
Papa Wolf: The Aptonoth. The alpha male will attempt to fight back when its kind is threatened while the others flee... that is before running away himself.
Played straight with the Chief's Son in Tri, who had to face a Great Jaggi to save a child.
Power Equals Rarity: Played straight. Although in this case, the rarity-number-and-color-coding works more like a weapon ranking, stronger and better weapons generally have both a higher rarity AND need more difficult-to-attain crafting materials.
Though since the crafting shops have their services open to anyone in the world, anyone who can A) attain the materials for the weapon and B) pay for the service, can have an Infinity–1 Sword / Infinity+1 Sword. Most likely observable in Monster Hunter Frontier (the MMO game in the series), where basically everyone over around HR200 is running around with Rare-12 weapons.
Also, "rarity" is more along the lines of "how difficult it is to make" than actual "how hard it is to find." In Freedom 2, everyone and their grandma had the full set of Akantor armor (both Blademaster and Gunner) despite being Rank 8 (the highest in Freedom 2).
Prongs of Poseidon: A few Lances in the game. Bonus points because they tend to be water-elemental too.
Pungeon Master: One of the Moga villagers in Tri is an absolute master of puns, and throws at least one in almost every single conversation with the player. She manages to make them even worse by explaining them all.
Rainbow Pimp Gear: Mostly averted; you need to wear the entire set of an armor type to get the full bonuses. However, some skill combinations can only be obtained by mixing armor sets, and some sets are incomplete (Example: Diablos armor used to be only a helm, chestplate, and armguards), requiring you to find another set to fill the missing slots.
On a more literal note, S-Rank and other higher rank armours have the option to change its colour, including one "Rainbow" option. Relevant, seeing as they are best worn in sets.
Randomly Drops: To be more specific, randomly carves from dead monster.
Random Number God: Experienced hunters can tell you horror stories about their attempts to appease the RNG, which has been outfitted with a "desire sensor" that reduces the drop rate of any monster part you really really need to make your armor. The only way to increase the chances of getting something is to not want it. Mind, you have to actually not want it. The Desire Sensor is immune to reverse psychology. Petting the pig may help you, though. Maybe.
Raptor Attack: The first aggressive monsters the player always encounters are basically these. The first generation introduces the "Velociprey" line — Velociprey, Genprey and Ioprey, as well as their "alpha" males Velocidrone, Gendrome and Iodrome, respectively, with the second generation adding the Giaprey and Giadrome to the family. The third generation replaces them with the "Jaggi" line — Jaggi and Baggi, with their "alpha males" Great Jaggi and Great Baggi, respectively, with Portable 3rd adding the Furogi/Great Furogi(know as wroggi/great wroggi in the western versions) to the roster.
Red Baron: Many powerful wyverns almost seem as if people are worshipping their awesomeness, as certain titles and motifs tend to appear over Quest Names, Monster Descriptions and Item Descriptions. For example, Khezu is the "Light in the Dark", Blagonga is "The White Darkness", Yian Garuga is The Lone Wolf, Rathalos is the "King of the Skies"...you'd think with all those wyverns they have by now, it'd get difficult to top the titles they already have.
Regional Bonus: Tri's Western release drops the monthly fees for multiplayer and also allows for voice chat online.
Repeatable Quest: Online play consists almost entirely of repeatable hunts, so the quests are naturally repeatable as well. However, the extended preparation required for each task keeps players involved.
Most quests in offline play are repeatable as well, with the exception of certain storyline quests (such as when you encounter Cha-Cha for the first time). Generally speaking, those that aren't have a Suspiciously Similar Substitute.
Riches To Rags: The Uppity Instructor in Tri Ultimate. After bragging about his wealth for much of the game and insulting the hunter at every turn, he loses it all on a trading deal gone bad. At one point, he admits that he was rooting through garbage cans in order to feed himself. He eventually returns to hunting for a living after being inspired by the hunter saving Port Tanzia from the Dire Miralis.
Ridiculously Cute Critter: The fanbase has taken quite a liking to (miniature, or miniaturized) Yian Kut-Ku. Cutesy fanart of miniature kut-kus aren't hard to find on a certain imageboard.
The Felynes are 2-foot tall, anthropomorphic Siamese cats with the cutest meow ever, speak in gratuitous catspeak with words like 'purretty' and 'beclaws,' and do a little dance around you when you hold a torch up! Tri adds a Felyne chef who says things like "meown ami".
Then there's the Hypnocatrice, which is basically a smaller, cuter version of the Kut-Ku with more birdlike traits and the threat level reduced by a truckload. In a world with many a deadly Breath Weapon, its special attack is... putting its enemies to sleep. You probably are going to feel a bit guilty when whacking on this creature.
Running Gag: In Tri, whenever the Guild Sweetheart tries to find helpful information about a new monster or area, she inevitably comes up with nothing, due to either lack of information or a painfully obvious description.
Save Scumming: Played straight because it's very helpful in manipulating the RNG into giving you that one last monster piece with a 2% drop/carve rate. Somewhat subverted in that you can only instant-save/ load between quests, so you only save yourself the money and resources, not time.
Schizo Tech: The original game had an apparent Bronze Age or Iron Age with primitive firearms. The rest of the tech has advanced as the series has continued... but the firearms have kept step, and are always better than what should actually exist at that point in history. Then you get airships in Frontier and Sandships in Tri.
Scratch Damage: Played straight on both the monsters and on the player: any weapon can do damage no matter how insignificant, and most monsters can inflict this upon players who get in the way when the monster is repositioning itself - no, not actively charging, as in, stepping sideways to rotate themselves. Becomes irritating in the latter case as it often leaves you vunerable from the resulting flinch animation.
Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right: The player character at the end of the single-player campaign in Tri. With the revelation of the Ceadeus, the Guild has ordered the evacuation of Moga, and has expressly forbidden your Hunter from going after the monster, as it is one that they generally send armies of Hunters after. The Hunter's license is at risk if she/ he doesn't follow the order. She/ He does it anyway.
Serial Escalation: The weapon sizes by themselves could fit this trope, but weapon power is a whole different story. The Ukanlos Trampler has a raw damage rating of 1820, the highest of any weapon (at least in Freedom Unite), and that's before applying any attack bonuses. To put this in perspective, the only hammer to come close is the Enormous Ham G at 1612, but even then it's missing the Ice Element damage and the Defense bonus (though it does have a better affinity).
Set a Mook to Kill a Mook: It's rare, but it's possible for two large monsters to fight each other if one manages to hit the other and all the players vacate their immediate area of awareness. The perpetrator is usually Deviljho.
Shoulders of Doom: The Diablos armor makes good use of the monster's horns. The Gunner version of this set is slightly more subdued.
Short Range Shotgun: The "Pellet S" ammunition rounds for the Light or Heavy Bowguns. It's basically buckshot that works exactly how this trope describes it - minus the instant lethality (you are fighting huge monsters).
The "Wyvernfire" is also a lot like a shotgun - get up close and unleash a massive burst of fire and gunpowder right into a monster's face!
Shows Damage: Averted for the hunters and their companions, but played straight for the monsters to the point of being a gameplay mechanic. Taking enough damage in certain parts of their body can cause them to break or otherwise suffer visible injury, usually giving the hunter an advantage. Cutting off a monster's tail, for instance, makes evading certain attacks easier, while damaging horns, fangs, claws, and other body parts can decrease the monster's damage or agility.
The switch axe named "Sinister Saints"; the axe part looks like death, and the blade of the weapon is death's scythe. making it one in name as well.
Situational Sword: Though often just an easter egg/visual gimmick, it's played straight with a lot of Long Swords, Hammers, and Great Swords once their Charged Attack is used.
Slice And Dice Swordsmanship: Many of the smaller sword-type weapons. Example: the Order Rapier - a Dual Sword weapon whose weapon class only has about two stabbing attacks.
Smoke Out: "Smoke bombs" can be used to get close to a monster unnoticed, or make a monster lose you.
If you drop a Smoke Bomb at the start of the Alatreon fight in Tri, you can buff up in peace for the time the bomb lasts. It will notice you very quickly otherwise.
Socketed Equipment: Weapons and Armor can have from zero to three "slots" in which to put gems. Said gems then count towards skill points needed to activate certain skills.
Soft Water: Played very weirdly in Tri. As always, your character can fall from any height onto anything without damage — at least one area has two exits that are probably 100 foot drops — minimum — one into water and one onto solid ground, and they're both perfectly safe.. However, whenever you fall into water while carrying a Wyvern Egg, no matter how far you fall, you get the "sinks to the bottom" animation for dropping an egg by entering water, not the "break on impact" animation for falling from a height.
Sorting Algorithm of Weapon Effectiveness: Applied to all items in the games, not just weapons. When looking at any item, you see its Rarity, a number indicating how early or late in the game you're supposed to be able to get it. As of Unite, the Rarity levels go up to 10 (and in Frontier, 12). Everything up to Rarity 5 is the items obtainable with materials from low-rank quests, Rarity 6-8 is items from high-rank quests, and Rarity 9-10 is items from G-rank quests.
However, effectiveness is subverted occasionally with some weapons. For example, Siegmund in Freedom 2 is widely considered to be among the best Great Swords despite being Rank 7.
Standard Status Effects: Poison, Paralysis, Sleep, and Frozen in later games. You can inflict and be inflicted with them.
Sticks to the Back: Played straight. Every single weapon class in the game does this - no, not even the Long Swords that come with sheathes are exceptions. The Bowguns that could have been given shoulder slings? Don't have them.
Stripperiffic: Female armor sets have a 20-40% chance of being this, but there are also a lot of Battle Ballgowns and everything in between to boot. Some sets, like the Bone armor, are skimpy even on male hunters.
Super Persistent Predator: Subverted- bosses tend to flee when wounded, but minor predators like Velociprey will continuously do Scratch Damage at you even if they should be fleeing from the barn-sized monstrosity that keeps crushing them by accident.
Technically, with the practice of Persistence Hunting, the Hunters themselves.
Super Title 64 Advance: Monster Hunter Tri Ultimate, otherwise known as Tri U, has one of its releases on the Wii U.
Tactical Suicide Boss: The Agnaktor is covered in an armor of rapidly cooling lava. After enough time, it hardens enough that nothing short of explosions can harm him. However, when he burrows underground, or uses his heat beam, or wades into lava, it softens enough for him to be attacked again. He'd be close to invincible if he stuck to just his hip attacks and charges, rather than burrowing and using heat beams.
The Glacial Agnaktor has the opposite problem, in that its icy armor melts the longer it's above ground and and freezes back up once it burrows.
Take That: The ad campaign for Monster Hunter Tri, pointing out the difference between "sissy" real life hunters and fishermen as opposed to big, awesome monster hunters. The ad campaign often made use of footage from television show Deadliest Catch. Deadliest Catch appears again as the name of a 3 star quest in Tri, pitting you against giant man-eating catfish and alligator monsters.
Tampering with Food and Drink: Raw meat can be tampered to give it different effects such as poison, sleep, stun, etc. which will be applied to a monster stupid enough to eat such "Trap meat".
The Blade Always Lands Pointy End In: The "Throwing Knife" items. In addition to always landing (hitting) blade in, they fly perfectly straight as well. These throwing knives have diplomatic immunity from the laws of physics.
The Medic: If you have the Wide Range skill or Lifepowders, you can heal your whole team if they are in the same area; that also includes status ailments, even Blights!
The Slow Walk: Done by some wyverns. Sometimes, they will just decide to screw using their breath attacks or charges and simply walk towards you slowly, then use a bite or hip check. It's actually not dangerous at all and a good chance to get in a few hits, but in a game where you're used to having an interval between enemy attacks of maybe 2 seconds, such a long silence can be oddly terrifying as the monster approaches you, especially if it's a GreenPlesioth...
Theme Music Power-Up: In those missions where you're fighting a giant-class monster around the fortress, the BGM will switch from that monster's rather threatening battle theme to a more heroic one once it reaches the final area of the battlefield, since that's where the outcome of the battle is decided.
When Hunters manage to hit Jhen Mohran with the Dragonator during the final showdown, a new orchestral version of "Testament of a Hunter" plays, being the only time you hear the MH main theme in Tri and Tri Ultimate.
Third-Person Seductress: Like any game where you can choose gender, many males tend to choose the female option. Must be due to all those outfits you can dress her in.
Also the Dragonator at the Castle Schrade is a drill, a very large, spiky drill...
The Dragonator at the Fort consists of four very large, not-so-spiky drills.
The Dragonator during the Jhen Mohran fights is also a big, scary drill.
The Skyscraper, a powerful weapon that is hard to obtain and is made from a chunk of worn-out ancient metal, is the largest lance in Tri and perhaps the entire series. When the player uses the lance's charge move, the lance spins, resembling something like a portable Dragonator.
Too Long; Didn't Dub: The Argosy Captain and Neko (Means "Cat") parodies this habit of anime fansubbers in all their dialog and in the latter's case, his name.
Neko (Means "Cat"): The Tanzia is three ports wrapped up in hitotsu! Hitotsu means one.
Tranquillizer Dart: Used frequently, with Tranq Bombs, Tranq S bowgun ammo, and even Tranq Throwing Knives, required for monster capture quests. It's not Instant Sedation though, the monster has to be near-dead for it to work.
There's also Sleep element weapons, which can make a monster randomly doze off in the middle of a fight.
Trick Bomb: Felvine Bombs- essentially catnip potpourri bombs that can either leave annoying Felynes and Melynxes drunk off their asses and have them drop Shinies, or can tag a monster and have said Felynes and Melynxes ignore you to focus on them. Just don't get caught in the blast radius or you'll be tagged as well.
Trauma Inn: Most Base Camps have a bed that can be slept in to restore health and cure negative status problems. The sleeping hunter's AI partner(s) are also healed instantly.
Turns Red: Nearly every monster gets angry when you damage it enough, and gains some combination of power, speed, and new moves while enraged. Usually they'll calm down after a while, but the less health a monster has, the less damage it takes to make them angry again. On the plus side, you can get a rough idea of how close a monster is to dying based on how quickly they get mad.
Can also happen visually with certain monsters, such as the Gigginox, who will change their colours to depict whether they are enraged, or even exhausted.
Special mention goes to the Baleful Gigginox, who literally turns red as a shout-out to the Red Khezu.
Twenty Bear Asses: The game is completely devoted to collecting chunks of slain monsters.
Averted in the actual quest structure for the most part. Most of the quests only involve slaying a boss or two, though a few of the lower rank missions do involve killing a larger number of smaller monsters. Tri's subquests sometimes play this straight, however, adding an optional requirement to kill a certain number of smaller monsters during a quest for additional rewards.
Underground Monkey: There are several monster families that share movesets, tactics and certain features, not to mention subspecies and such. This is usually a good thing however, given that having to learn a brand new moveset for every new wyvern would make the game even more absurdly difficult, and the wyverns usually have enough distinctions between the subspecies, such as new moves, weaknesses, varied features etc.
Unfriendly Fire: Aside from player-to-player damage being heavily decreased, this is in full effect; players can send flying or stunlock their allies if they don't pay atteniont to where they're swinging/shooting. The longsword is the worst offender.
Unstoppable Rage: Large monsters can become enraged after taking enough damage. Generally speaking, this results in faster speeds, higher damage, and even entirely new attacks that they are not usually capable of pulling off. On the plus side, they usually become exhausted shortly after their rage subsides.
Useless Useful Spell: Averted. Most monsters can suffer from practically any status effect, and may be particularly vulnerable to one or two.
Virtual Paper Doll: With the wide variety of armour you can make, you can mix sets together for skills and looks.
Wake Up Call Boss: Tri gives us Barroth, the first urgent "boss" of the online mode. Not only are his movements completely different from anything you know from other MH games, he is also heavily armored, moves around a lot and has a nasty and hard to dodge status attack that renders you unable to act for a short amount of time. The fact it's the first monster whose roar stuns you doesn't help. There's a reason why players above hunter rank 9 tend to be a lot more skilled than below.
Yian Kut-ku was the wake-up call in earlier installments.
In Tri and Tri Ultimate, take your time to train up underwater combat skill against Royal Ludroth or Gobul. You will need them against Lagiacrus and others.
Wizard Needs Food Badly: Both hunters and large monsters lose stamina the longer they go without eating. For the hunter, this decreases the amount of time they can run, dodge, or block attacks. For monsters, this can result in needing to stop and catch their breath, stopping certain attacks from working, and an overall decrease in attack power and mobility.
The Worf Effect: Agnaktor has the same moveset and roughly the same power as Lagiacrus, the flagship monster of Monster Hunter Tri. In Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, it's seen fighting a Brachydios; it uses its most powerful attack, a laser, on Brachydios. This does absolutely no damage to Brachydios whatsoever (and Brachydios goes on to kill Agnaktor in less than a minute.)
World of Badass: Well...this game essentially has two parties. The giant, ancient, powerful dinosaurs and dragons that walk the land and destroy whatever comes in their way and their hunters, who actually manage to beat these monstrous creatures with wit, skill and sheer determination. It's further emphasized with the use of Red Baron for the wyverns and Description Porn for the items, to make sure you have an idea just what kind of beasts you are dealing with.
Wutai: Yukumo, the player's base of operations in Portable 3rd, has a Far Eastern (particularly Japanese) look, down to a guild base which also doubles as a hot springs resort.
You No Take Candle: Cha-cha in Tri talks like this, as does Kayamba in Tri Ultimate.
Zettai Ryouiki: If you thought the humble Chainmail Bikini was sexy, you have yet to see how this game outfits its girl's chainmail stockings.
This game has many examples of this. If you give her the right combination, you can make her look completely like a school girl. Purely aesthetic though, the defense and armor skill on it blows.
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