Monster Hunter, Cards and Waifus.

Monster Hunter is an amazing franchise, how its weapons are made to suit the fans of different genres  gameplay styles and, and even with hundreds of interesting creatures and a compelling world, the games center only around its core gameplay (and menues), leaving dialogue and story way to the side.

But by far its most interesting achievement is how it resolves problems that arrived with RNG and monetization.

But first, some backstory.

The very first real Trading Card Game (TCG) ever was Magic: The Gathering, It, like subsequent TCGs like the Pokemon TCG and Yu-Gi-Oh! among many others, give the players unique and custom made battles that could not be made with regular, set decks of playing cards.

The players had to build their own decks, with cards they had to collect from starter packs, booster packs and other packages, that meant the players had to mix and match cards to their own judgement to create strategies of their own.

While I do enjoy playing TCGs, the concept is broken nonetheless, making your own strategies is satisfying, but the internet exist, and better strategies are uploaded there, so your opponents may use those, and set strategies require set cards, from which you have to pay more money to get, buying them from people, trading them for extra cards and getting more cards from retail packs.

And this leads us to similar scenarios, Gacha games has you trying your luck to get characters that have rarity and stats, playing more usually means more tries to roll the characters you want...but you can also pay to get them, and better characters mean advantages.

Im not well versed in them, but Massive Multiplayer Online games usually have paid services, even if you already paid the game, which means some players can advance at a much faster rate, which can be disencouraging to players that don't want to spend more money (or any money), I'm not saying every MMO has to be like this however, just a thought.

And then come the more common RPG videogames that have a thing called "Drop rates", the game may give you different items based on a random number generator, which means luck basically, If you kill an enemy for example, you may have 70% chance to get a healing herb, but you could also have 2%, 1% and even 0.001% chance of getting a legendary sword.

Players can usually live without those extra rare items, but it can get very frustrating for collectionists, which leads to grinding, the repetitive action of repeating something to get something, be rare drops, leveling up or just stocking up in money, grinding can be fun for some, but its usually very tiresome for most people since it doesn't really add to the game. Some RPGs can have paid downloadable content for rare items for people that doesn't want to grind or give exclusive items, but since a lot of RPGs tend to be single player, these games usually affect the players the less in this regard.

Some games, like the Pokemon TCG for the gameboy color and Xenoblade Chronicles 2 take from the TCG and Gacha type of games respectively, you don't have to spend money on cards or characters, but there's a random aspect to how you get them. They are easier on the player since you don't have to spend money for extremely better odds, but the fact that it still doesn't proceed as a regular RPG leaves a bad aftertaste in my mouth.

Then we're finally back to Monster Hunter, MH is not free of the sins of the RNG, but it handles it extremely different.

First of All, the mainline MH so far has no paid DLCs or anything to you to buy outside the actual game, so there's no abusing the system in that regard, next, comes the fact that MH is a very skill based game, mechanical skill to be precise. For example, to get the helmet of an armor, you may need the scalp of a monster, which may mean that, aside from killing the monster (which can be a feat of its own), you also have to hit its head repeatedly until it breaks, and MH Monster move and are aggressive, so the player has to engage the monster in specific ways and attack in specific moments to have better odds at getting what they want.

This leads us to the "grind", and it may be a grind, but its a different type of grind, You want that helmet, you need that scalp, you may have gotten one but you need more, so you fight that monster again and again, and here is where the true glory of Monster Hunter reveals itself, it can make the game for you, or it can make it worthless, but in MH your character doesn't level up, you do, you learn how the monster attacks, when it attacks, what it does before it attacks, how your attacks land, and where to land them, you start hitting the head more consistently, because you as a player are improving your skills as hunter, and as a hunter you learn how to capture your prey.

But the RNG is still there, you may also get bad luck, you may have killed that monster dozens of times and still not get what you want, but you are still actively hunting, you can't just mash buttons, you have to fight, you have to hit the head, you have to run and to dodge attacks, the RNG is still there, but you have to fight it face to face until it gives you what you want.

The armor and weapon in monster hunter are important, but they aren't everything, the better you are and the faster you learn the more you survive, equipment aids you, but more than aid, they are a trophy, a trophy or your success over odds, because even the skills that aid you come with equipment that need monster materials.

And then comes the multiplayer, because in monster hunter you don't have to hunt alone, you should learn the monsters and the combat by yourself, but you don't have to grind by yourself, the weapons complement each other, the gameplay is purely cooperative, the enemies are the monsters, not the ranks of your fellow hunters, and its a very fun experience to share with someone else, be friends or strangers, and more opportunities to improve yourself, and you kill monsters to improve, and you improve by killing monsters, because its not about the grind, the weapons or the fancy equipment, its about how damn fun the game is, and how those systems make that effort and fun rewarding.

Killer7

What even is Killer7, is it a first person shooter? an adventure game? survival horror? interactive movie? it even has light rpg elements, needless to say, Killer7 is a videogame, there's no doubt about that.

A high fantasy videogame, filled with magic and fiction, like terrorism, human trafficking, rape, pedophilia, political corruption, religious cults, hitmen, child soldiers, abuse of power, the endless cycle of destruction and construction perpetuated by the human being on it's search for meaning. 

Killer7 is as human as a game can be, our own mistakes, forever embedded into 2 mini dvds or a normal one if you play the ps2 version, it is ridiculous, it is gruesome, silly, funny, disturbing, majestic, outrageous, violent, very violent.

After the earth has decided to end all internet communication, stop every single war, destroy every nuclear weapon and bridge every continent together, forming some sort of world peace, a certain someone, named Kun Lan, using his god hand, is transforming people into Heaven Smile, invisible zombies who kamikaze everyone in sight, this newly former and seemingly unstoppable "terrorist" group kill the head of the new united nations, and the world call the only ones who might be able to restore peace once again, the Killer7, 7 highly skilled assassins under the mantle of Harman Smith, Kun Lan's greatest enemy.

Dan Smith, our white boy, he's unstoppable with a revolver, he lusts for violence.

Coyote Smith, a thief from south america, he can jump real high and unlock almost anything, he got a modified revolver too, and a rivalry with Dan.

KAEDE Smith, japanese-american girl, her blood can destroy barriers, and she can absorb blood onto herself too, she'll snipe you from afar with a scoped pistol.

Con Smith, a blind chinese boy, the youngest of the team, he runs extremely fast and dual wields automatic pistols, has a potty mouth.

MASK de Smith, a mexican wrestler, the favorite of the kids, he never takes his mask off, and will blow anything up with his twin granade launchers, and anything that survives will have to deal with his arms.

Kevin Smith, a british albino who never speaks, you wont see him when he stabs your from the back, because he can turn himself invisible, he never runs out of knives. he may be gay.

and Garcian Smith, an afroamerican whose job is to clean the messes who the others leave, he uses a silenced pistol, and is the link to the boss, Harman Smith, an old, Wheelchair bound man, who uses an anti tank armor piercing rifle, when the old man awakens, he's unstoppable.

Now this is a real team, no agendas or forced diversity, this was the crazy world of 2005, assassins come in all shapes, they won't look at you twice before they gut you either.

The enemy is no less charismatic, The heaven smile, awful beings with a perpetual, grotesque smile, they come in all shapes and colors, they're invisible, but you know there's one near when you hear Kun Lan's disturbing laugh, they all have his voice. How to fight them? easy, Garcian's got a ring who can turn then visible, all there's to it is to aim and shot them until no more blood remains in their bodies, if you hit their weak spot, you can get all that delicious thick blood and use it to upgrade your abilities in a nearby TV, if you shot them anywhere else until they die, they will yield no thick blood, but thin blood instead, that powers your special attacks and can heal you when needed.

Between the abnormal amounts of paranoia an invisible enemy causes, the awkward control scheme and the both incoherent and completely understandable mess of a story, there's a lot of fun to be had with Killer7's shooting, logic based puzzles and moments, it remains as one of my favorite games, there will never be something quite like it.

"Harman, the world won't change. All it does is turn. Now, let's dance."

Touhou Project

The Touhou Project is a shoot-em-up video game series developed by ZUN, who does all the graphics, music, art, plot and coding.

The series has a long story, the games have been released almost yearly since the first installment for the pc in 1996 and the fanbase is very dedicated to it, creating massive quantities of art, manga/comics, music remixes and fangames for the relatively obscure status of the series

The games have something that make them incredibly unique from the classic Shmup genre and even other "bullet hell" shmups, from the big all female cast to the immediately recognizable music style and enjoyable story lines, the touhou games combine gameplay with elegance due to how it handles bosses and level design.

Levels for the most party are your typical shmup, they start easy and become increasingly difficult, the enemies can be quite uninspired but do their job when pacing the game.

The bosses however, are a completely different beast, not only they pose a big challenge, they are actual duels, since the 6th game of the series "Spell cards" have become a recurring concept, where the boss unleashes a intricate, beautiful, and mortal attack, that while being difficult, are completely fair (most of the time) and designed to be beatable, without pure randomization, making the tough battles have a sport-like feel, and challenging the player to do better and learn from their mistakes.

Spell cards can be beaten in two ways, emptying the boss current HP meter or just waiting until the timer ends, there can be more than 1 spell card per battle, usually incresing the further you get in the game, and beating them without losing a live or using a bomb (which are actually spell cards of your own), nets you a score bonus and other benefits for playing fair and square.

Spell cards are brutal, mesmerizing, and most importantly, fun, not only they put the games to a league of its own, but combined with the interesting playstyles and gimmicks of each game, they are of the most interesting and fun games of their class

The main games usually stay similar, with unique tricks, like having dual characters, bewitched weapons that have fun effects, tying your bombs to your strength meter, and other stuff.

Some spin off really take the genre for a "spin", for example:

-Fairy Wars, where you can freeze enemy bullets in place and freeze any that touch the aready frozen bullet, creating screen wiping chain reaction that also give you experience and level up your normal shooting power.

-Shoot The Bullet, a pokemon snap-esque take, where you must take pictures of the enemy and the range of the picture also erases bullets for protection, this one comes in bite sized challenge battles with no regular stages, just set spell cards from which you have to dodge and take good shots

-Impossible Spell Card, where the bosses ditch the fairness in their attacks due to the misdoings of the main character, short battle based like Shoot the Bullet, you have a set of cheating items you can use to overcome the unfairness of the almost unbeatable spell cards (they aren't actually impossible).

All in all, extremely fun series, worth checking out, but be prepared to play on easy mode and run out of continues many times.