From the moment I heard ♉the iconic Proof of a Hero theme song on the home screen, I knew Monster Hunter Now was in good hands. Niantic’s Tokyo studio has been developing Now with support from Capcom for many years, and it shows. So much of what I love about the series is repres♕ented in this Pokemon Go-like in a way that feels both true to the series’ roots and appropriate for the mobile AR game. While it has some issues that need immediate attention, and I have long-term concerns about its monetization, Monster Hunter Now is the first Niantic game since Pokemon Go that has the potential to become a giant hit.
There’s a lot of things Now does with the PoGo formula to make it its own. While Pokemon is all about collecting, Monster Hunter is built around your power progression, and Now translates that core loop beautifully. As you explore outside you’ll encounter monsters to fight, minerals t💦o mine, plants to gather, and bone piles to rummage through that all provide valuable crafting materials, allowing you to craft and upgrade your weapons and armor.
The sense of progression, and the feeling that everyt🐼hing you do is helping you work towards a goal, makes short gameplay sessions feel a lot more meaningful than they are in PoGo. Getting a few XP points for catching a Pokemon feels like spitting in the ocean at a certain point, but in Now, there’s always another piece of gear to craft or level up. Your next upgrade is always just a few more hunts away.
My favorite thing about Now, and something I wish Pokemon Go had done first, is the way the map and biomes are displayed. Now allows you to expand the mapౠ and see every monster and gatherable item in every biome in a large area, at least a mile wide. Unlike PoGo, which incentivize✅s you to walk from PokeStop to PokeStop while having random encounters along the way, Now allows you to plan your route based on the resources you need. You can bounce from one biome to another tracking specific monsters or gathering materials, giving purpose and variety to each play session. The biomes reset every three hours, so you’ll have a totally new landscape to explore several times throughout the day.
Combat is similarly tap-based, but in Monster Hunter fashion, focused much more on preparation and reaction timing than Pokemon Go. Each weapon has its own stats, element, and playstyle, while each of your five armor pieces has its own defense rating and skills. Mixing and matching your equipment to find the💞 right build for each monster is a big part of Now, just as it is in the main games, and you can customize five different loadouts to swap between as you encounter different monsters. There’s value in pursuing a wide range of gear simultaneously, which has always been a quality that’s unique to Monster Hunter among RPGs, and I’m glad Now recognized how important that is to the experience.
Hunting monsters is simple, but not necessarily easy. As you tap your screen to whale on your target, you have to pay close attention to the monster and identify when it telegraphs an attack so that you can block or dodge to avoid damage. A perfect block or dodge will give you an attack advantage and sometimes open the monster up to a cinematic counter attack. The first weapon, sword and shield, can follow up a perfect block by leaping into the air and smashing straight down onto the monster’s head. It’s rewarding, it’s flashy, and it's quintessentially Monster Hunter.
It’s also more demanding than tossing Poke Balls, which I suspect will turn some people off. I’ve been known to stop for a second to throw a perfect curved Poke Ball now and then, but I find it difficult to walk and hunt monsters simultaneously, especially if I want to avoid taking damage. Hunts are limited to 75 seconds to ensure you’re not pausing your walk for too long, but you’ll pr🔯obably stop for most, if not every, hunt, and that can become time consuming.
We can’t talk about combat without getting into Now’s monetization scheme, which is problematic, but not nearly as bad as some other mobile games, including some of Niantic’s. Your main money sink in Now is potions, which you’ll need to consume if you take too much damage. You get five for free every day and you can hold ten free ones (called First-Aid Med) but if you run out you’ll either need to buy potions 🔜from the shop at a rate of roughly 40 cents per or stop playing for an hour until your health naturally refills. If you’re below 30 percent health, you can’t even start a new hunt.
This is Now's version of a traditional stamina or energy system that a lot of mobile games use. If you only play sporadically throughout the day it may never be an issue for you, but if you want to play for a long session, you might find yourself needing to spend real money if you don’t want your session to get cut short. The problem is that, unlike other energy-based mobile games that you can simply check in whenever you have a moment, Now requires that you go out and walk around to play. If you don’t have the flexibility to go on several shorter walks throughout the day, you might be at a disadvantage when you try to play for a longer session in the evening or on the weekends. Of course, if you’re so good that you never take any damage then it’s not an issue. In my experience, network issues led to desyncs with the game that caused me to take damage even when I timed my dodges perfectly, so it may not always be in your control.
There’s also a major progression issue th𝄹at needs to get addressed soon, or the power players are going to drop the game in droves. If you progress too fast by finishing the story and unlocking five star hunts, your pool of available monsters could be too difficult for you to hunt. There’s a 75 second timer on every hunt, and if you can’t down your target in time, they’ll escape and you’ll get nothing. If your gear isn’t strong enough, and you can’t find weaker monsters to farm for parts because you’ve progressed too quickly, you might not be able to complete any hunts at all.
These are problems that can be addressed. If Niantic can add a way to craft potions - which would thematically fit Monster Hunter - then the pay-to-play pinch could be significantly mitigated. Likewise, expanding the available pool of monsters once you unlock five stars would help reduce the problem of being underleveled. My only real conc🌠ern for Now is whether Niantic is willing to support it long term.
It’s hard to invest in a game made by a company that just this year shut down its LA studio and laid off 230 people. Niantic launched and terminated NBA All-World in a matter of months, and ended development on Marvel: World of Heroes after announcing it at D23 Expo just last year. It’s the second year in a row Niantic hadඣ a massive wave of layoffs, shutting down development on four games in 2022, including Transformers: Heavy Metal. Harry Potter: Wizards Unite didn’t make it three years. Catan: World Explorers couldn’t even get out of beta. It’s hard to believe Monster Hunter Now even made it to market, and I have reasonable skepticism that Niantic will support it long term if it isn’t a Pokemon Go-size mega-hit right out of the gate.
This is just the beginning for Monster Hunter Now. Only six of the 14 weapons are available at the moment, and I can’t wait to see how some of the more complicated ones like Switch Axe and Insect Glaive get implemented. There’s only 13 monsters in the game too, mostly from Monster Hunter World, which is barely ten percent of the total number of monsters in the series. 🔯There are a lot more mechanics that could be added, like trapping, fishing, palico abilities, and item crafting. This feels like a game that will be practically unrecognizable a year or two from now, and I sincerely hope it makes it that long. This one has the most potential to succeed of any of Niantics games since Go, and I hope the company gives it the support it needs.