Review (2025 December)

Introduction

Monster Hunter 4G (as "MH4G" afterwards) is a hunting action game exclusive on 3DS developed by Capcom and released in 2014. As someone who disliked its performance back then, I did not play it on my 3DS (which could be a smart decision). Comparing to Monster Hunter 3G, MH4G has a much brighter visual style. Soundtracks are again amazing.

Because of the new technology (i.e., Citra), I started my MH4G solo journey in 2020. Comparing to other Monster Hunter games on 3DS, in the end, MH4G is the only one with raw built-in 60 FPS. An obvious advantage on the real handheld console, but will slow down when playing on Citra. Additionally, since you can utilise additional codes on Citra to make a 30 FPS game to 60 FPS, MH4G's unique advantage suddenly vanishes and only becomes a burden.

Difficuly

MH4G is difficult, very difficult and arguably the most difficult one in the whole Monster Hunter series. Not only those special download quests or guild quests, even the village part is relatively challenging.

• The hunters are getting stronger with stronger builds. This means higher attack and higher defense with more skills in the status panel, definitely a good thing to take. Comparing to the old era when a final build only has 2-3 skills, it is possible to have 6-8 now while most of these are effective or useful ones. Some nice examples include this and that. However, while the status panel looks nicer, hunters' movements stay the same – slow and silly. Or because of the new system, actually weaker, specifically for ranged weapons.

• In comparison, the monsters have all become much stronger. Higher damage with better agility, this combination is just lethal. Given that the hunters still have the same stun, it is way easier to get hit twice within a short period and then stunned, fainted by the third attack where there is no way to escape – an extremely common scenario in MH4G. Capcom do allow you to lie down for a while, but that only helps a little bit. Given such an extremely low tolerance rate, you must get used to fainting in MH4G, something hardly happen on veteran hunters in other modern Monster Hunter games.

• Not the end of the story. And then Frenzy state, slightly higher damage than normal but even better agility, ready to get stunned? Not enough! And then Apex state, something too ridiculous to explain in a few words. In short, an upgraded Frenzy state, making everything even more difficult. You do get provided with a few Wystones to deal with the Apex monsters, but these ass items have cooldowns, long cooldowns! One of the worst designs in the whole series, no doubts.

• To wrap it up, there are too many 1v2 quests in MH4G. Of course these quests are normal when playing in coop, but pure disasters for solo hunters. For example, some arena quests put everything in a relatively small area and ask for 1v2 even with Frenzy or Apex states! As someone who wanted to clear every arena quest with every weapon, the experience was just terrible. Imagining solo hunting an arena quest with a supporting build without your palicoes? The only good news is that instead of 2 times, you can faint up to 8 times in arena, where only the 9th will be counted as failure. Just keep fainting, stand up and continue. In some of those 1v2, all you can do is keeping looking for small chances, until one gets down. Phew!

Online feature was the key reason MH4G lost the control. Capcom simply expected that most players would play in coop and hence, making everything difficult was reasonable. Indeed fine for those who would exactly follow what Capcom thought, but what about solo hunters? The village part is still pretty much manageable, as it was designed for solo hunting from the beginning. But the hub is totally different, where

• solo hunting is extremely suffering;

• playing in 2 is just alright;

• playing in 3 is slightly easy;

• playing in 4 is just easy.

If someone was always playing in a group of 4, he or she would probably think the village part was more ridiculous instead. A disrespect to solo hunters and a disgrace to the whole series.

Balance

Given its top level difficulty in the whole Monster Hunter series, MH4G has arguably one of the worst balance in weapons. For examples:

• Great Sword is god tier throughout the generation.

• Long Sword is garbage tier at first, gets buffed, and stays garbage tier.

• As 1 of the 2 new weapons, Insect Glaive is god tier at first, gets modified, and becomes even more god tier. Very insightful modifications!

• As the other new weapon, Charge Blade is garbage tier at first, gets modified, and joins god tier. That said, in the end, both new weapons turn out to be pretty broken in MH4G.

• Because of the new system, all ranged weapons are generally difficult to use. Hard to aim the monsters, while very vulnerable to get fainted in 1-2 hits – high risk low reward.

In summary, the weapon(s) you take will hugely affect your hunting experience. Considering that MH4G is already a ridiculous game, just take something decent or even a bit broken to have fair fights. Otherwise, for example, if you insist on using Long Sword instead of its upgraded version in MH4G (called Insect Glaive), get ready for painful frustration.

Mounting System

The underwater system was totally removed in MH4G, farewell. Instead, we had the mounting system. This one was pretty immature back then, but revolutionary enough to get retained in the series afterwards.

Jumping and riding are almost unique features for Insect Glaive, the only weapon that can jump from a flat ground, while others can only trigger this on steps. That said, the riding value is set low for most monsters, as most weapons could only complete 1-2 rides with every monster anyway. But for Insect Glaive, a totally different story. You can have a few more rides, which is very helpful in MH4G and could be extremely effective against some monsters that usually do not offer any chances. If you ever get stuck with a specific monster, find a decent Insect Glaive build, ride on the monster, keep attacking braindeadly, and repeat. Another evidence of showing the terrible balance in MH4G. I did not start using Insect Glaive until I unlocked my hunter rank cap, one of the reasons I had a tough time before that.

Because of the new introduced system, new maps were designed to be more jagged or non-flat, resulting in some notoriously nasty areas. While the hunters are having weird movements against ramps or curbs, most monsters move freely just like on a normally flat ground – a frustrating and annoying experience.

Coding Research

Because MH4G was the first Monster Hunter game that I played on Citra, it was also the first that I spent a fair amount of time investigating the codes. Since MH4G was already built as a 60 FPS game, the coding research was mainly for the builds. Make a weapon, an armour piece, or a top charm "spawn" in your box! Customise a legal guild weapon that normally only spawns with an extremely low rate by grinding guild quests again and again! This kind of codes is universally considered as soft cheating, something I hardly do with any games. However, MH4G is just too much for solo hunters. And I think in this case, optimising my builds becomes reasonable, as long as everything is legal or theoretically possible.