Greetings everyone! Are you all hyped for the release of Mons …oh wait, the game is already out! WOOHOO! I hope everyone got their copy on time and spent the entire freaking weekend playing the heck out of the game. Had some crazy moments during your hunts? Liked some of the one-liners those odd Caravan peeps have? Let us know in the comments whenever you have the time!

So before we start talking about the final new village in Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate and some new monsters, I have to give you proper warning; if you haven’t progressed past Cheeko Sands and you don’t want to be spoiled, don’t read the rest of this blog. Then again, if you’ve been reading all of these blogs, you’re probably well aware that spoilers abound everywhere!

Winds of Change

After a brief stay in Cheeko Sands, you and the caravan arrive at your final destination, the village known as Cathar. This windy, mountainside village is isolated from the rest of the known world due to its location. The residents of Cathar are all Wyvernian, including the amazing Maximeld XIV. Who’s that, you ask? He’s the latest successor in a long line of melding experts! Melding lets you combine talismans you own with certain Frenzy crystals to produce even better talismans. Give it a whirl once you get to Cathar!

In the Japanese version, Cathar is known as Shinato (シナト) but we decided to make the name change because we wanted players to immediately get the meaning of the name. Shinato originates from shinato no kaze (科戸ã®é¢¨), which is an alias for Shinatsuhiko and Shinatobe, the god and goddess of wind in Japanese mythology. Another meaning for shinato no kaze is “a wind that wipes away sin and filth,” in essence a purifying wind. And what better way to express purification than catharsis?

Seregios

The flagship monster for Monster Hunter 4G in Japan is a swift and dangerous wyvern capable of shooting out its own scales to wound hunters. It also has zero problems messing with full grown Rathians and Rathalos in their own habitat! Seregios is definitely a monster you do not want to take lightly…even if it does look like a pinecone. Don’t tell it that you think that though, it’ll get even angrier.

Naming a monster like Seregios is a big deal because it’s one of the main monsters in the game, and you don’t want to screw it up. At the very least you want to give a couple of solid ideas and hash things out with the director. Before we sat down with the director Fujioka-san and lead designer Tokuda-san, we were given a couple of keywords to hit when coming up with names. This included talons , legion , Rathalos’ rival, gold , scales , speed , dive bomb, and so on. The names that we came up with were

• Seregios: a Romanization of the Japanese name. I chose an R instead of an L in the middle to make it look like serre (talon in French) and serrate.
• Aurelos: a combination of aer (Latin for air), Regius (Latin for King) and a traditional Monster Hunter suffix, los. We were going for “the king of the skies to rival Rathalos” vibe with this one.
• Ceralos: a combination of celertias (Latin for high speed) and Regius.
• Aegios: a combination of aer and Legion, which the Japanese name also utilizes.
• Aurthelos: a combination of Aur (Latin for gold), and a traditional Monster Hunter suffix, thalos. We were going for “the golden rival of Rathalos”.

We probably didn’t do the other suggestions any favors by adding the Romanization of the Japanese name into the list, but we all agreed that much like Gore Magala and Kecha Wacha before it, the name itself sounded good and is easy enough for more people to pronounce (although some people might end up pronouncing it “Sir Regios”…). We also liked how the original name had this sort of cutting sound to it compared to the ideas we came up with, so there weren’t any objections when Fujioka-san decided to stick with the original Japanese name.

Dalamadur

If you thought final bosses like the Mohrans and Lao-Shan Lung were big fish to fry, you haven’t seen anything yet! Dalamadur is a gigantic Elder Dragon that’s over 1,400 feet in length, and it’s so big it needs two freaking Target Camera icons on the Nintendo 3DS touch screen to fight! The area that Dalamadur inhabits is called Cragtip Spear…actually, I shouldn’t say that Dalamadur inhabits Cragtip Spear; it kind of uses it as a hammock to chill while it waits for hearts-full-of-courage-but-not-much-else hunters to climb to the top of the mountain. Oh, those poor, naïve hunters.

The Japanese name for this king of serpents, Dara Amadura (ダラ• アマデュラ) is quite a mouthful to say in English, but, more importantly, it’s long enough to cause problems during localization when we come up with material names and whatnot, so we tried to brainstorm some short but similar names. One thing we learned while studying up on Dalamadur’s Japanese name is that, despite being a gigantic serpent, its name had zero connection to a snake. The name was inspired by Magdala (Aramaic for great/tower) and the Babylonian word for armor. No, I have no idea how the Monster Hunter team found a resource to translate Babylonian into Japanese, but they’re a crafty bunch. I wouldn’t put it past them to find something that obscure.

Aside from the Romanized Dalamadur, we also came up with two totally new (and short!) names for this beast. The first one was Vashira, which was based on Vasuki, one of the King serpents in Hindu and Buddhist mythology. The second one was Nadalah, which was a combination of Nahash (Hebrew for serpent) and Magdala from the original Japanese name. Oh yeah, we also came up with an alternate Romanized name, Amadulla, just in case. I personally liked Vashira the best because it’s short (easier to use for material names, etc.), has a serpent-like sound to it, and most of all, has some impact behind it. However, Director Fujioka-san wanted to stick with the Japanese version of the name, so we chose Dalamadur over Amadulla to keep it as close as possible to the original.

Shah Dalamadur

The new Dalamadur subspecies isn’t very different from the original species; instead of black scales it sports red ones, and it has a slightly paler look compared to the original’s blue hue. The combination of these visual changes plus the minor change to the monster’s kanji name was our starting point for the localized name. The original species’ kanji name is Jyaouryu (蛇王é¾), which literally translates to “snake king dragon,” whereas the subspecies’ kanji name is Jyateiryu (蛇å¸é¾), which means “snake emperor dragon.” The change is subtle but it was enough for us to work with. Like Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate’s Goldbeard Ceadeus, we aimed to give the monster a name that alluded to its red color but also represented power and royalty. Some names we kicked around were Tsar, Imperial and Deshret; all are related to the color red and with power or royalty.

However, the one that we were really hoping to get approved was Shah Dalamadur. We thought it had a certain exoticness that the other names we came up with didn’t, which made it the perfect name. Fujioka-san agreed with our assessment, and thus Shah Dalamadur was born!

That’s it for this time, and unfortunately my next blog will be the last one in this series. I’ll have a couple of surprises ready for everyone though, so make sure to check back next week!

Not long ago we ran you through some of the basics of Raid Mode , the run & gun bonus mode in Resident Evil Revelations 2. While the core experience is largely the same as Revelations 1 (play maps to get better loot to make better weapons to grind harder maps to get better weapons to… you get the idea), there’s a LOT of new content in the mix.

-SKILLS-

Each of the 15 playable characters begins the game with a small number of skills. As you grind maps and gain levels you’ll gain Skill Points and be able to unlock, equip and improve a huge assortment of abilities. Above, I’m upgrading one of Claire’s starting powers, the Exploding Bottle; it’ll now deal more damage.

Also note all the “locked” slots. These are level requirements – get the character to that level, and you’ll be able to equip additional weapons, unlock new skills and more. For example, Claire begins with two Passive Skill slots. At level 5, another slot will open, another at level 45 and so on.

And here’s Claire vs Barry at level 5. They have different Skills available at the start, making each character feel a bit different right away. Barry also gets his third weapon slot faster than Claire, which makes sense given his “buddy system” relationship with guns.

Back to Claire – I’ve unlocked and equipped Claire’s Herb Storage, while on the right you can see Shield, which will be available at level 18. This process continues well into Raid Mode, as you can see; level 92 and you’ll still be unlocking slots! The more you have, the more abilities you can equip and use to tackle some of the later, more challenging Raid maps.

–ENEMY ABILITIES–

As in the original Raid Mode, some enemies have modifiers that make them even more formidable. As seen above, these enemies will have icons that call out their powers… or you can look at them and get a good idea. While both of these enemies are larger than normal (first icon), one is on fire and another exudes electricity. The former will burn you and deal damage over time, while the latter puts you in a “shocked” state where your defense will be lowered for a period of time.

And then there’s the force field power… this guy’s shielding not just himself, but anyone directly behind him. Gotta get around that shield if you want to deal more damage…

Other abilities that’ll keep you on your toes:

“Attractor” – A mysterious light pulls your character towards them. Protect yourself using obstacles or keep your distance.

“Sprinter” – Small but fast; underestimate them and you’ll pay a painful price

“Coat of Armor” – High defense, low health. Especially weak to critical hits. Can gain a lot of exp from defeating them

“Vanish” – Invisible enemies. Find them through their dust cloud, and by setting your sights upon them

So, this seems like a tall order for our cast, no? The good news is that the Raid Mode roster can also dish out different types of damage and status effects thanks to the aforementioned Skills and new Custom Parts.

–CUSTOM PARTS–

As in RER1, you can acquire Custom Parts in each mission and use them to spruce up your ever-growing arsenal. However, this time around you’ll be able to give your guns ice and fire ammo (plus even more), or make your bullets track enemies, or give your final bullet more power or… you get the idea.

The image above shows the “combine parts” menu; here you can combine weaker custom parts into new, stronger versions that’ll be necessary for some of the harder missions. Unlock two Electric Ammo Lv.1 Custom Parts? Combine them and form a Lv. 2 version!

–IN-GAME STORE–

While most Capcom Unity readers will look at harder Raid missions as challenges just waiting to be overcome, there will be items that can help new players ease into the escalating madness that is Raid Mode.

As with RER1, you can buy all kinds of weapons and parts using the in-game currency earned by completing missions (BP in RER1, Gold in RER2), OR visit the real-world PlayStation/Xbox/PC storefronts for weapon/custom part packs akin to what you saw in RER1. There are also some items new to RER2.

Blue and Red Life Crystals allow you to respawn immediately with full health. Get 10 minutes into a map, lose and don’t want to start over? You can come back to finish the fight, but at the cost of a Blue Life Crystal. These are obtained by completing Daily Missions within Raid Mode, and you begin the game will some as well.

Should you run out of Blue Life Crystals or don’t have the time/desire to play the Daily Missions, you can also buy Red Life Crystals in the PlayStation, Xbox or PC stores. These are optional of course, and running out of either/both simply means you can’t respawn mid-mission (which was the case in RER1). Some missions don’t even allow respawning, so sooner or later you’ll have to get through on your own skill if you want to see all the missions.

Up above are some of the unevaluated “albums” you find as loot drops. Once you’re back in the hub area, you can unlock the album and gain whatever was inside (like guns, Custom Parts etc). Since these are random drops, some guns or parts will be slightly better or worse than others – basically like RER1. I tend to sell off items I don’t want or need, but if you want to amass a heaping pile of albums and weapons, you’ll be able to increase the storage capacity.

When you pick up Episode 1 on February 24 (PS3/PS4) or February 25 (360/XONE/PC), it will include Claire and Barry’s story mode content AND 54 Raid Mode missions spread across three difficulty settings. When subsequent episodes release they will also contain numerous additional Raid Mode maps – Episodes 2 and 3 will each add 36 missions to the mode, while Episode 4 tops things off with another 68 missions. All told there will be over 200 increasingly difficult missions.

To list it out, Raid is split into numerous Gauntlets, each of which contains six Raid missions that come in Easy, Normal and Hard difficulties. If you can clear them all, you’ll access an ever greater challenge…

EP1 : 3 Gauntlets x 6 Missions x 3 Difficulties

EP2 & 3: 2 Gauntlets x 6 Missions x 3 Difficulties

EP4:  2 Gauntlets, one of which you’ll have to finish and see what happens…

We’ll have even more Raid info soon!

Cease your salivations, for  Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate is out and can be yours  today! Good thing there’s a long holiday, amirite? 

Anyway, Yuri and I sat down to celebrate with episode 22 of our podcast, which is all about what Monster Hunter can do  4U. See what I did there? Give it a listen here if for some reason you’re not playing the game right now.

Community Question: What’s the deal with poogies? Why are they pettable? What does that do? Is there a point? Does there even need to be a point? Give us your best poogie analyses. 

One star commenter will receive this lovely copy of  Monster Hunter Illustrations 2– quite a big-ticket item!

And just like that, the best  Monster Hunter game ever created it now available for all; for you; 4 U !

Now we can all join a traveling caravan, explore the brand new environments, and more importantly, hunt awesome new monsters…  online with other hunters!

We have an epic Launch Trailer featuring some awesome review quotes and scores, but before you watch it, I’ll leave you with 2 bits of info:

1) Anyone who owns the game between now and March 15th, gets a free Starter Pack, including  early access to the  Super Mario Bros.  Palico gear;

2) If you buy the game digitally through the Nintendo eShop, you get a free  3DS Theme !

Happy Hunting!!!

Just as you thought Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate was already perfect, here’s another bonus for those of you who jump in early: starting on February 13 ^th (release date) until March 15 ^th you can download a free item pack including a selection of handy items and a little something special…

After you get your game, you should head to the Nintendo eShop and download the Patch 1.1 item listed there; that’s our free gift for you. But what exactly comes in this nice little present? Lots of super useful items! Here’s the list:

Mega Potion         x50
Honey                  x30
Mega Dash Juice   x15
Well-done Steak   x30
Max Potion           x10
Lifepowder           x20
Ancient Potion      x5
Flash Bomb          x30
Sonic Bomb          x30
Pitfall Trap            x15
Shock Trap           x15
Super Mushroom  x6

It’s a pretty handy pack, wouldn’t you say? Oh, what’s that last one…? Super Mushroom, huh?

Well, that’s our little surprise gift for you! With those 6 Super Mushroom units you can walk up to the smithy (after completing the first 2 Capital “C” Challenges from the Caraveneer) and craft either the Mario or Luigi outfits for your Palico as well as 1 matching Invincible Hammer!

HOW TO GET YOUR FREE STARTER PACK

So if you’re reading this because you just got your copy of Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate and are ready to claim your free Starter Pack, including the Super Mario Bros. collaboration items, here’s a little guide on how to get make sure you get everything:

REQUIREMENTS:

–          Internet connection

–          A copy of Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate

–          A save file with at least one hunter created

STEPS:

1)      Go to the Nintendo eShop

2)      Download and install Patch 1.1

3)      Load Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate

4)      Go to “Your House”

5)      Talk to the “Housekeeper”

6)      Select “Downloadable Content”

7)      Go to the “Gift Area” option

8)      Download the Starter Pack

9)      Exit the Download Menu

10)    Check your Item Box

Alright, now you should have your full Starter Pack with all of the items I told you about earlier in this post!

HOW TO GET THE SUPER MARIO BROS. COLLABORATION GEAR

Now that you’ve downloaded all your items, it’s time to get that special little bonus we’ve packed in for you: the Super Mario Bros. Palico gear.

CAUTION:

With the 6x Super Mushrooms, you can only make 1 set of Palico gear, so choose carefully between either Mario or Luigi. Later on, we will release the DLC quest that will allow you to make the other set of armor.

REQUIREMENTS:

–          Complete the first two quests from the Caravaneer – the Capital “C” Challenges

–          Talk to your Ace Palico and make sure it is set to “Deploy” on Palico Board

–          Buy 3 x Large Barrel from the Val Habar market (630z)

–          1300 z (Head 400z, Body 400z, Weapon 500z)

–          6x Super Mushrooms (comes with the Starter Pack)

STEPS:

1)      Download the Starter Pack (see above)

2)      Talk to the Smithy (The Man)

3)      Select “Forge Palico Gear”

4)      Select “Weapon”, then “Invincible Hammer”

5)      Select “Head”, then “Mario Cap”  or  “Luigi Cap”

6)      Select “Chest”, then “Mario overalls”  or  “Luigi overalls”

Okay, now you have everything you need. To equip all this gear, head to Your House, walk over to the Palico Board and select “Manage Equipment”.

All set then! Enjoy your useful item pack and your special new Palico gear. Happy hunting! =)

PC players have been able to pre-purchase Revelations 2 for a little while now, and today we can confirm our bonus items for both the Complete Season and the disc-equivalent $39.99 set.

• Pre-order Resident Evil Revelations 2 (full game) and receive the Soundtrack Selection and Mini-Artbook free 
• Pre-order the Resident Evil Revelations 2 Complete Season and receive the Raid Mode Throwback Map Pack free

Complete Season ($24.99)

Episode 1, Episode 2, Episode 3, Episode 4, Bonus Episode 1, Bonus Episode 2, Raid Mode Character – HUNK. Pre-purchase bonus: Raid Mode Throwback Map Pack

Revelations 2 full game ($39.99)

Episode 1, Episode 2, Episode 3, Episode 4, Bonus Episode 1, Bonus Episode 2, Raid Mode Character – HUNK, Raid Mode Character – Wesker, Raid Mode Throwback Map Pack, Character Costume Pack. Pre-purchase bonus: Soundtrack Selection and Mini-Artbook

Hooray! At long last the original SNES version of Breath of Fire is available on Wii U Virtual Console! We can barely hold our “breath” until we “fire” this game up today at 4pm PST. So please “Gobi” in the chat “Ryu-oom” and ok I’ll stop.

But yeah, head over to our Twitch page around 4pm PST and we’ll play a bit of the early portions. For those who missed this back in its 1994 debut, it was originally published by Squaresoft (!) and was Capcom’s first big foray in the realm of RPGs (which where blowin’ up on the SNES at the time).

I actually did complete this back in the day, but like, literally 20+ years ago in the fall of 1994. My memory is pretty spotty, but I know we have some BoF fans in the house and surely you’ll be on hand to educate me and the viewers 🙂

You can also pick up BoFII on Wii U, OR BoFIV on PSN!

Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate is  almost upon us, and to celebrate the release, we’ve teamed up with the  Nintendo World Store in New York City to host a special midnight launch event!