Monster Hunter (2004)

Monster Hunter is an online action-hunting game by CAPCOM for the PlayStation 2 released on March 11th, 2004 in Japan, and September 21st, 2004 in North America. The game is a fantasy hunting simulator filled with many deadly monsters. Like actual hunting, successfully killing or capturing the monsters requires significant strategy, skill and involved resource management. While initially considered a commercial failure, Monster Hunter would go on to become one of CAPCOM's highest selling franchises. Despite featuring an offline mode, Monster Hunter was primarily an online game. The official servers were shut down on December 31, 2007 in North America and Europe, and July 1, 2011 in Japan. This means that it is now impossible to play online on official CAPCOM servers. Despite this, the game still features a small active community on private servers.

Storyline

The player assumes the role of a customizable self-insert hunter. They begin by entering the Village of Kokoto, which is a small hunting village lead by a Village Chief known as the Hero of Kokoto. The player grows in strength and skill by aiding the people of Kokoto Village, completing many different Quests in order to progress offline. This eventually culminates is a battle against the monster Monoblos, which is traditionally considered the offline final boss. In the online mode, the player travels to a town, which is not named in game, but is named in the Hunter's Encyclopedia lorebook as "Minegarde Town." In town, the player teams up with other hunters in order to grow stronger, only for the sudden appearance of the Giant Dragon "Lao-Shan Lung" to cause the town to fall into a panic. The player then teams up with hunters to slay or repel Lao-Shan Lung, so it does not destroy any villages in the West Schrade Kingdom. After doing so, the player unlocks a brand new tier of Quests, which would be known as "High Rank" in later Monster Hunter games, but is not named in the original. The player then meets what is known as the "Wyvern Blood's Call," and is met with the appearance of the Black Dragon "Fatalis," the online final boss. After slaying this evil dragon, the town and Kingdom is safe, and the player is regarded as a hero.