![Monster Hunter Stories [The Adventure Begins] -- #15. Hunting High and Low](/images/yt/34/monster-hunter-stories-the-adventure-begins-15-hunting-high-looow.jpg)
Monster Hunter Stories [The Adventure Begins] -- #15. Hunting High and Low
1Looking for more and more once again!
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Well, after that exhaustively lengthy jaunt in the wilds pillaging the homes of the locals for their unborn young, it only seems fair that we be set upon the task of hatching eggs en masse. I mean, you can hold triple digits' worth of Monsties in the stable, but an egg carton only holds twelve?!
I'm... not totally positive, and I'm sure most of it is actually just confirmation bias and an unhealthy amount of placebo effect... but I think that the stat "bonuses" that show up as you're hatching an egg are totally random, not based on hitting the "right" pressure points or hitting a good rhythm... so there's really no sense in anguishing over anything other than cracking it open and seeing what you get.
However, the most laborious and gut-wrenching part of the whole process is the naming. Naming is hard! Do forgive me if it so happens that I don't always come up with the best... and you absolutely cannot change those names later! Woe is me that I'm bound to make mistakes, for that matter... that Monstie is ruined for life!
This is especially important when it comes to the whole eugenics angle... you can't know what kind of configuration of genes a hatchling will have until you check it out... which comes AFTER the names are assigned. Meaning you'd better make EVERY name count, to some degree... or else you'll never know what you'll be stuck with carelessly.
The most significant find in this whole group is that I've gone and jumped the line and managed to find a BLUE Yian Kut-Ku, well ahead of ever even finding one to do battle with!
For those not in the know, Monster Hunter has made a habit of featuring "subspecies" of monsters... more or less the palette swaps to get more out of economized effort in development. In the earliest days, they'd generally just be a different color, universally simply representing a marginally stronger variant to accompany its more exotic hue. As the series carried on, subspecies would start to take on different characteristics and attack patterns to justify their place in the food chain a little more creatively.
Acutally, they never really called the oldest instances anything significant... not even "Blue Yian Kut-Ku"... it'd just be a "Yian Kut-Ku"... MAYBE a different-colored icon on the quest briefing, if you were lucky... but more likely in the oldest cases to be called out for its unusual color by the flavor text provided by the client and little else. (The monetary reward would at least generally be higher, I suppose.)
Anyway in THIS game, besides being regarded as a wholly different creature for the pilfering from its cozy warm natural abode, at the very least... it would appear that Blue ones use a stronger attack that might also cause a burn to its victims. So then... there's actually no real reason to have one of each, except maybe the marginal boost in muscle for having a fully fleshed-out posse in tow.
What with all the egg-hatching excitement, it's hard for me to shake the feeling that I've forgotten something important... something... egg-centric... ... ... but I guess it must not be that important if I had forgotten so easily!
Forget about that, though! Redeeming subquests after a hatchfest is easy experience gains for everyone in the party! Just like babies taking candy from strangers! ...if that "candy" was arbitrary point allocations converted straight into an early immediate power boost, I suppose.
An immediate boost that makes them all the more battle-ready! Besides being higher in the pecking order than the critters we already found, it means that they'll be that much more prepared to take on the big baddies that roam the countryside, raking in ever more battle experience and becoming a fearsome squad of fierce fighters in no time!
What's this? Follow that bird! It's trying to escape! ...so... terribly scathed, as it is! After we carved who knows what delicate innards out of it! If it still lives, we must seek it out and end this once and for all!
More importantly, we must follow it home and see if there aren't any quality younglings lying in wait within their hard-shelled housings, ripe for the picking!