Monster Hunter Freedom Unite review (iOS / Universal)

10 word description: Port of MHFU. Hunt monsters, wield weapons; fish, farm, explore.

10 word review: Players with time to fully experience this will love it.

You will like this if you enjoy: The Monster Hunter series. Deep, tactical fighting games. RPGs where the emphasis is on mastering tough challenges rather than levelling until they become easy. Dark Souls, specifically the gameplay concept of a relentless sequence of boss battles interspersed with environment roaming and smaller scale fights.

The good news: An excellent, full-featured port. Great graphics and overall presentation. Very well implemented touch controls. Absolutely tons of content. Comprehensive tutorial missions. Loads of in-game information, instruction and lore.

The bad news: No Cloud sync. The investment of time required to play and fully enjoy this won’t suit those who are looking for a quick pick-up and play style game. Not quite as much of an epic experience on iPhone/iPod as on iPad, but that shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone.

Arcadelife verdict: There are two ways of looking at this. You’re either going to go into raptures and embrace MHFU as a fantastic achievement on iOS… or you’re going to dismiss it because it’s too long, too slow and takes ages to get through. It’s a difficult call because the game is very good, an impressive port and also a huge, engrossing experience without any IAPs. It also has optional multiplayer that adds an extra dimension to the gameplay.

If you are a fan of this type of game, it will be personal circumstance rather than anything about the graphics, controls or game features that will be the deciding factor. If you’re the kind of gamer who spends hours gaming happily on an iPad, sign up now. If you randomly dip in and out of games on your iPhone or iPod in short bursts, this game is going to frustrate you more than it entertains, purely because it wasn’t originally designed to be played that way.

As an example of a deep, content rich tactical action game – there’s nothing much that can touch it on iOS.

 

That describes so many fun nights out.

Arcadelife rating

Presentation – 9.5/10
Visuals – 9/10
Controls – 9/10
Content – 10/10
Fun – 8/10
Final rating – 9/10

MONSTROUS

Rating categories explained here.

Version reviewed by Arcadelife is 1.00.02

Monster Hunter website link

Arcadelife played and reviewed this game on:
5th gen iPod Touch (iOS 7.1.2)
4th gen iPad (iOS 7.1.2)

This review was typed on a Das Keyboard Model S mechanical keyboard – check them out, they’re really rather groovy.

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