Revisiting this through the fan-restored Online server has been a blast. MH1's Online mode always mystified me when I was little. "You're telling me there's ALLLLLLLL this stuff I'll never get to see? What the hell!"
Oh sweet 10 year old me, you're not gonna believe this.
The game itself is fine. It's Monster Hunter in its rawest form; extremely rugged, no quality of life whatsoever(you don't even get a "Sort" feature. It's that bare.), very little variety in terms of monsters/equipment/movesets, monster attacks can just start without any windup, the list goes on. We're far away from MH becoming Capcom's highest selling game of all time, and a couple years ago, I'd say MH1 is an interesting starting point to visit if you're curious about how the series started out, but not worth spending too much time with.
However, with the Online mode revival, you can fully immerse yourself in that atmosphere of early online gaming in consoles, and that's where MH1 REALLY shines. Playing this through my Steam Deck, away from my PC and Phone, communicating with other players in-game without Discord or any other external app felt really special. I finally got to live the fantasy that my 10 year old self used to cook up in his mind.
That said, ranking up online is obscenely grindy; instead of completing Key Quests in order to rank up, you need to obtain Hunter Rank Points. Problem is, the amount of HRP required for future ranks is pretty damn high(15000 points to go from HR15 to 16, for example), and when HR15 quests give you at most 500HRP... Yeah. Combined with the lack of quest variety, you'll be doing the same thing over and over to rank up.
It's still super fun though, and I'll definitely chip away at that HRP grind over time. PLEASE visit mholdschool's website/Discord server if you're curious about this game at all.
Oh sweet 10 year old me, you're not gonna believe this.
The game itself is fine. It's Monster Hunter in its rawest form; extremely rugged, no quality of life whatsoever(you don't even get a "Sort" feature. It's that bare.), very little variety in terms of monsters/equipment/movesets, monster attacks can just start without any windup, the list goes on. We're far away from MH becoming Capcom's highest selling game of all time, and a couple years ago, I'd say MH1 is an interesting starting point to visit if you're curious about how the series started out, but not worth spending too much time with.
However, with the Online mode revival, you can fully immerse yourself in that atmosphere of early online gaming in consoles, and that's where MH1 REALLY shines. Playing this through my Steam Deck, away from my PC and Phone, communicating with other players in-game without Discord or any other external app felt really special. I finally got to live the fantasy that my 10 year old self used to cook up in his mind.
That said, ranking up online is obscenely grindy; instead of completing Key Quests in order to rank up, you need to obtain Hunter Rank Points. Problem is, the amount of HRP required for future ranks is pretty damn high(15000 points to go from HR15 to 16, for example), and when HR15 quests give you at most 500HRP... Yeah. Combined with the lack of quest variety, you'll be doing the same thing over and over to rank up.
It's still super fun though, and I'll definitely chip away at that HRP grind over time. PLEASE visit mholdschool's website/Discord server if you're curious about this game at all.