Review (2025 December)

Introduction

Monster Hunter X (as "MHX" afterwards) is a hunting action game exclusive on 3DS developed by Capcom and released in 2015. It was actually the first Monster Hunter game that I started playing right after its release, which does not happen very often on me, just not a fan of trying out new stuff right away.

MHX has its full version namely Monster Hunter XX (as "MHXX" afterwards), which is more well-known than MHX itself. As the last games in the traditional era for the whole Monster Hunter series, MHX and MHXX offer the last chance to taste the essence. After that, a new era began with Monster Hunter World – a mostly positive game but a pure shame to me, as the essence was gone.

Why No MHXX

Surprisingly, I have not played MHXX at all and am currently having no plan of doing so. There are a few reasons behind.

• A bigger volume is good, but too much grinding is bad – especially for someone who is always obsessed with 100% and challenges. Even thinking about when and how should I continue my MHX journey in MHXX makes me sick.

• Many changes were made to styles and weapons, both minor and major ones. Some were indeed a bit broken, like Bushido Dual Blades or Aerial Slash Axe. Others were nerfed to promote the new styles, for example, Bushido Long Sword for Brave Long Sword, blatantly lame lol. As someone who already spent too long with old stuff on MHX, it would take another too long to adapt in MHXX.

• Even though the online feature still exists, the server of MHXX is pretty much dead. Unfortunately, there are way too many quests clearly designed for coop – tough and disgusting, and sometimes almost impossible to clear for solo hunters. Previously with MHX, I did utilise the online feature, and overall the experience was fine. Now, I just cannot do the same with MHXX, end of an era.

That said, although there are definitely some good points about MHXX, like the EX Special Permit Quests over the Level 10 in MHX, I have decided to stop at MHX and hence, I will focus on MHX here.

Difficulty

Unless you intentionally add extra restrictions (e.g., no coop or Hunting Horn only lol) when playing, MHX is very easy – arguably one of the easiest in the series (up to the traditional era). Apart from some quests that are clearly designed for coop, most hub quests are only on par for solo hunters. And the village ones? Way too easy, sub 5 minutes again and again right after having a new account.

Now I start to think that MHX was the first to lower the entry level by a huge margin for beginners, and its successors like Monster Hunter World continue to make things more ridicuous until being almost unplayable for veteran hunters. Remember in MHX, you are given so many options of styles and weapons. Even you stick to only one weapon, simply switching between different styles against different monsters will be more than enough. That said, lack of well-designed challenging quests – either average at best or way too crazy.

Balance

The balance in MHX is nowhere near perfect, but overall acceptable. Wait, is there a Monster Hunter game with almost perfect balance in weapons? Perhaps because of its low difficulty as mentioned before, even the weakest weapon in MHX can "shine" to some extent. Well, forget about speedrunning though. While in tough predecessors like Monster Hunter 4G (as "MH4G" afterwards), weapons either work fine or get straightly trashed, so the balance issue only gets exaggerated.

As a side note, the 15th "weapon" or option called Nyanta is nowhere near the weakest position. Nyanta is probably not near the top overall either, but can be surprisingly effective against specific monsters. Such a great feature, unfortunately only in MHX and MHXX.

A short lesson, an easy Monster Hunter game usually has a milder balance issue, and a tough one will be criticised forever with it. That is probably the reason why Capcom will never ever make another Monster Hunter game as challenging as MH4G.

Online Feature

As I skipped MH4G on my 3DS, MHX was the first time that I experienced the online feature with Monster Hunter. Although being far from perfect, many argued that MHX had improved a lot on this from MH4G. This is very important, as I mentioned before, there are many quests in MHX clearly designed for coop.

Being let down too many times since my childhood, I hardly trusted other players. That said, as a solo hunter, I usually play with myself until I get some real trouble – exactly what I did back then. With such a low expectation, the online playing with MHX turned out to be much better than I expected. Of course, I still encountered many badasses, some with bad skills and others bad attitudes. But there were some memorably great moments as well, like lottery. For example, have a look at this.