I think it's notable to mention that, even as destructive as Elders are, even ones like Shara, they're still animals that play a role. The official books reveal that the Highlands and Vale are the result of an exploding Zorah Magdaros, one whose blast was equal to that of the Zorah we repelled. That launched Corals into the air, and corpses fell into the pit below. Giant Dalamadur died in the pit eventually, and Shara was born there, and Shara in turn helped to create the Vale as well. Shara is said to destroy ecosystems from their foundation, yet also create the foundations for new ones. The Vale would go on to affect the entire New World, being where things, not just Elders it seems, go to die, fuelling the continent with Bioenergy. There's a comment by one of the characters in the book, that's them wondering if Xeno'jiiva was responsible for organizing the flow of Bioenergy in the New World. While they claim Xeno had become unsustainable, even being called greedy, we know they're a species, so it's interesting to consider. Elders can certainly be destructive, but it is through destruction that there is new creation, and other than many being living forces of nature, I feel that's a theme many of them have. I'll end this rambling with dialogue from the Commander at the start of World "It's not about hunting down elder dragons, or punishing them for the damage they cause. The Commission seeks an understanding of their place in nature...and ours. That's the point. The elder dragons ARE nature, and its as futile to try and punish nature as it is to run from it. But KNOWING nature... Now that's something we can do. We're going to face a lot of tough decisions moving forward. But before you take life, or move to defend it... understand it. That's what makes you a Hunter."
This exactly. I think tomkon also misunderstood the thing about calling Safi as sapphire star betraying humanity. I feel like the people before the fifth fleet gave that name to Safi because he is akin to a force of nature, it lures both hunters and elders in and becomes an anchor but in the same way burns them if they got to close. Also yea Safi and Shara still have a purpose in the ecosystem, the tale of the five briefly mentioned it in a fantastical manner along with the other elders. My head cannon is Safi is responsible for drawing bioenergy (both via the “leylines” and elders/monsters) to recharge the new land. And Shara is basically the terra former for the initial landscape. The way i see it we hunt those elders to halt progression and preserve the current ecosystem, if let on their own there will be new worlds yes, but most of the current one also will be gone. The cycle of the old world burning and new world emerging would be so quick that only those that can adapt fast enough get to survive (similar to what’s basically happening in the guiding lands). Also yep the fifth is there to understand nature, aside from hunting there are taking pictures, investigating tracks, etc. Considering the next title is going to be named Paradise i’m really hoping we get permaculture simulation on -steroids- bioenergy where we manage the desired ecosystem by hunting/capturing/driving away monsters.
Elder Dragons aren't really animals the way other monsters are, I'd say. They're forces of nature that can cause cataclysmic events that reshape ecosystems dramatically. Like the asteroid that (may have) wiped out the dinos or the tectonic shift that broke up Pangea but still nature adapts.
@@johncronk8867 I think that Safi affects the environment quite the same (I even think it's the adult version of Xeno ?), but is less destructive, more controlled, as it has grown to its adult state. Add to that that the Safi feeds on energy, and that the place we fight them on is already almost exhausted, I think Safi has managed to understand how much energy it needs to heal and/or feed so it would not have to destroy other ecosystems by wasting the energy. After all Xeno was a newborn on a land so full of bioenergy it created a whole crystal biome underneath a cristal mountain and a volcano, just beside the river of life. Safi seems to have lived here for decades, dispersing its shreded skin all over the place. I think it's also its birthplace since the geology looks like dead crystals and the placement near what's probably the river of life (surrounding the 3rd zone) just mirrors where Xeno was found.
hunters also seem to be the natural predator of a lot of elders, so its not just research, but also keeping the population of particularly destructive ones in check
My favorite line comes from The Seeker after you slay Safi'Jiiva. He remarks that Safi takes any lands its on and molds to fit its needs despite how selfish that is. Which in turns makes him see that humans have also been doing the same and how they might be more alike than we think. Which personally also makes me like Nergigante because its a mirror of the Hunter as a Monster. Taking down threats to the ecological world similar to the 5th Fleet Hunters
See now that is the proper angle to the old meme of "are we the true monsters here" for this franchise. We are definitely monsters, but the choice comes in what we do with that power, either succumbing to greed like the unnatural Elders or being a guiding and protective force like Nergigante. Well in lore at least, this is still a game and so aside from the in-universe reason of crafting better gear to better do your job the hunting for fashion is just game fun.
its just fantastic, to have a franchise that doesnt really have a good story, or any story for that, to tell everything with the beasts we hunt, the world, the ecosystem and how it works. not to forget that if they lay out some lore bits here and there, its pretty much always a fascinating bit in which one craves more. world is truly one of their best games, in monster design alone
Nah, Capcom tried wayy too hard on making Nergigante likeable and people fell for it lmao. Capcom: "Let's have Nergigante finish off Shara Ishvalda instead of the hunters"
I don't really think Nergigante could have killed Shara Ishvalda without the hunters interference. Shara's rock armor and it living mainly underground is a great protection. But by playing dead and waiting for the hunter to break the rock armor and weaken it, then ambushing Shara, then it might be able to kill Shara. It might have tried it to do it anyway but seeing the hunter it might have had an idea to let the hunter do most of the work. Also after that it didn't attack the humans but just grimly looked at them and then flew away. It's not a mindless beast. It calculates every move it does.
That is the thing about elder dragons. While an alien intelligence they are at least as intelligent as humans. Maybe more so in some cases. But they generally lack two traits that allow humans to dominate in this world of monsters. Tool use and language. Few, if any monsters demonstrate tool use(fatalis does as it will melt to armor and weapons of hunters to its hide to make itself stronger but this is part of the reason it is so feared. It absolutely will play by the same rules as humans. But this is an anomaly.) and while monsters may possess some means of getting across general concepts they generally have no means of directly and easily giving detailed information. But this does not mean the beast is not carefully thinking through what is going on and what to do. It just does so from its very solitary point of view.
@@jacobfreeman5444 I think one of the most intelligent monsters has to be Ahtal-Ka. It is not only able to use tools, but also to build a giant mecha. Not even humans in Monster Hunter have mechas themselves.
@@obambagaming1467 yeah, that one is a trip. The insect monsters really seem out of place sometimes because they seem to out perform the godly elder dragons in odd ways. Really hammers home the point not all the dangerous super powers are of dragon descent
@@jacobfreeman5444 I’d say Velkhana also shows tool usage, to a lesser extent. It wears frozen magma and ice as armor, and creates a makeshift weapon out of ice and its tail. -I don’t really know if using elemental powers like that actually counts as tool usage but I’m biased since Velkhana’s my favorite monster from World lol-
I think Nergigante is a force for Balance, even in the original story; If put into perspective with Xeno'jiiva luring elder dragons, Nergi forcing them back away from the xeno coccoon, even if that causes some storms elsewhere, saves the ecosystem from disaster. Humans attacking and caupturing Zorah Magdaros would make Zorah die(and therefore release its energy) in the middle of the ecosystem, cauzing widespread damage, so he stops them, thinking Zorah is headed to The Rotten Veil, to die naturally and spread its energy harmlessly. It keeps driving elder dragons Away from The Elder's Recess, and when you nearly kill Shara Ishvalda, it swoops in and comes to help end it once and for all, roaring out its victory to you... but not attacking, for in this fight, you are on the same side.
I wouldn't say Nerg is trying to actively help. He is doing what he does to survive, hunting Elder Dragons. It's simply that the ones most appealing to him are the the ones that are particularly lush with Bioenergy, as that is what keeps him going and fuels his constant regeneration. Balancing the ecosystem is a byproduct of his hunting habits, not an active goal he strives for.
@@ShadowKaiserineven without his actions being eventually kind of makes sense nergigante sees you as competition for zora elder dragons huddling up in one place perfect hunting ground and why attack a bunch of hairless apes when you got a full-course feast
Xeno feeding from Elder Dragon energy also explains why Safi has that western-dragon look despite being an alien. He tries to make himself the emperor of monsters because he doesn't respect Fatalis at all and the reason for this is that he is not part of that world's evolutionary tree. Sorry for the bad english.
It's worth pointing out, shara is literally a Buddha, every inch of it is steeped in Buddhist iconography and meaning and even it's name which takes the word for heaven and the name ishvara which is an alternate spelling of Shiva. His head is a lotus which are tied heavily to the Buddha and bodhisattva, and even it's transition is a reference to craving Buddha's from rock, revealing the Buddha from within. You mentioned it's teeth, that's also a reference as shara has 40 teeth matching the Buddha. Even it's eyes reference the Buddha's enlightenment as even when closed, they're looking straight at the camera, not at the player character, meaning shara ishvalda at no point is paying attention to your character, it's enlightened and knows that we exist out in the real world and is breaking the 4th wall as it stairs us down and fights specifically with us.
Shara has 8 wing fingers -> eightfold path Shara Ishvalda’s official render sits upright, and his chest and abdomen are sunken in, creating the image of an emaciated ascetic Buddha Arena is also literally a zen garden which Shara rakes with it’s fingers
Going further into the Shiva aspect of Shara Ishvalda’s name, Shiva is the lord of destruction in Hindu and Buddhist myths. His dance increases in frenzy as he drums the destruction of the world, which in turn creates a clean slate for Brahma to work with, which is very reminiscent of Shara Ishvalda collapsing ecosystems to create new ones. Shiva, being the symbol of the end of cycles, will also visit cremation sites. He and sometimes Shiavites (his followers) will smear human ashes on their skin, giving them a grey pale complexion. Shara Ishvalda is also predominantly a pale grey color. Shara has some blue in his palette too, which is not only tied to the legend where Shiva swallowed poison that turned his throat blue, but also the fact that most deities in hindu myth are shown having blue skin. In Hinduism blue is a symbol of infinity and divinty. Humans cannot perceive infinity, so we default to the color blue, hence why the sky is blue on a clear day according to hindu myth
A bit late, but I’m pretty sure Shara’s eyes DONT actually track the camera at all, they track the player, it’s just an unintentional quirk of how they’re modeled.
The firsth time i saw the cutscene i screamed YES EAT HE'S ASS. I was so frustrated for all the try's i had to make (im italian, so sorry if i wrote something wrong)
not only that, they are also one of the coolest monster the franchise ever created, which is an achievent, for there are soooo many and the people still had so much imagination for them to create such masterclasses
@@saverionicolai5098 instead of “he’s” the right word would’ve been “his”. Other that minor error your English is so good I honestly thought that was a typo.
I just love the idea that despite all the seemingly stronger monsters and dragons that exist at the end we realize that the true apex predator does not have or need fancy elemental damage all he needs is to be very angry very fast and very pointy
It does help that Nergigante has some insane regeneration capabilities as well compared to normal elder dragons. Dude can just regrow spikes almost instantly and recover from being 'killed' in a rather short time.
@@Tazkar Maybe it was just playing dead, i wouldn't doubt that a creature that hunt powerful Elder dragons with brute force and regeneration also would need to be intelligent enough to use some gimmicks to give it the edge in tougher situations
@@Baddaby he is by far my favorite fight in game it’s really fun because you get a lot more windows to combo off his part break knockdowns and more importantly he does not chain attacks in a way that cc lock one shots you off a single mistake but he still is really dangerous and you have to take him seriously unlike a lot of the base world monsters
Iceborne blew my mind twice 1: When I noticed during my first hunt that Shara's eyes follow thr player rather than the character. That freaked me out on an unholy frightening level. 2: When I realized that Nergigante was the protector of the natural ecosystem rather than its disruptor. I was so shocked and he went from being my favorite monster to fight to my favorite monster period. It's basically the Batman of the Monster Hunter world and I freaking love it! Once stories 2 came out, he was my first priority to make part of my team.
@@anormalhumanhopefully8570 they are still made to look like they follow the player which is really cool, even if technically its just a neat little visual trick.
"to an unholy frightening level"...really? its just a cool 4th wall breaking moment but thats just it, it has been done thousand of times and even in paintings
@@bpmfj5422 Yes, breaking the 4th wall is very common. Its a trope. But the combination of this being my first MH game, on top of the crazy design of the monster, the struggle to survive along with the sudden realization that it was following me, freaked me out. Its cool if it didn't bother you. Don't care. But it freaked me out when I first saw it because it was something I wasn't expecting during a high tense situation.
800h hours and I never even considered any of this, I feel like I now understand a part that I had always ignored of one of my favourite games. Great video!
Interesting thought if you look at both bosses in another perspective: - You hunt in the New World and explore each new monster they give you and every old one. You end, fittingly, at the newest thing the world could give you: an alien. - After you've hunted aliens, what's next? You're guided by Nergigante into the fight against Shara Ishvalda. You transcend and then fight Gods. And after the gods, you reach "paradise" - The Guiding Lands. And then you fight the demon itself - Fatalis. From the perspective of player progression and discovery, the player has explored every avenue possible - from the realistic to the strange, then towards discovering a new species in the form of aliens, and finally reaching the Gods' pantheon for discovery. Isn't that neat?
Thats actually a neat perspective given Fatalis was NEVER part of the dev plan to start with. Ol Fatty was only added because they showed what a HD rendered Fatalis looked like during the celebration of the series (that was a nice video) and everyone went nuts. Frankly the fact that we got 2 of the 4 Black Dragons in MHW:IB is insane looking back on it.
Another interesting thing that happens in Iceborne that fits this interpretation is the role Velkhana plays in it. For the majority of the story we believe Velkhana to be the Old Everwyrm and hold it responsible for the ecological threat brewing. In our rush to stop it, we slay it, only to find it out was not even the cause of the danger. It essentially became collateral damage caused by the hunter's quest to quell the Old Everwyrm
I mean that's pretty much how most monster hunter stories go. The flagship is the threat that we have to hunt only to then realize there's an even bigger threat that we need to fight.
To be fair, Velkhana was still invading and freezing everything in it's path on the main continent of the New World. Even if Velk wasn't the one blasting obnoxious tunes, it was still turning Anjanaths and such into popsicles. Elders have been killed for less.
You need to rewatch the cutscenes. It was never implied that Velk was the source of the song, she was just a threat to the base since she was acting erratic
I think that one other interesting clue is the name of Arch Tempered Xeno quest: "Like a moth to the flame"...we the hunters are the moths, lured by Xeno's light, the Sapphire Star. Also, and this is much more known, Safi Jiiva's final attack is known as Sapphire of the Emperor. Also, God I love Shara's design! Truly feels like a God. You're not fighting a monster, but a divine being.
I think the most interesting thing about Nergigante is that there is ever only one which your hunter fights again and again the entire game. Nergigante's regenerative abilities and its dramatic entrance against Shara Ishvalda imply that each time Nergigante is killed by you or in a fight with another elder dragon, it comes back to life to fight once more. Alone, covered in scars, broken spikes and blood; Nergigante's story is the wheel that turns and is the namesake of the final quest. Unrelated but it was impossible for me to love the story of Nergigante and then try to move on with Magnamalo. Magnamalo had no relevance to the wind serpents and was only ever a "bad guy" in the context of the story. It was only ever a scavenger and its death changed nothing. Flagship monsters are not guaranteed to be thematically involved with the story but Nergigante set a very high bar.
you're actually not too far off- Nergigante reproduce via a spike with an absurd amount of accumulated bioenergy inside of it, which eventually breaks off and grows into an identical copy of it's parent. Ruiner Nergigante is likely the direct offspring of the one we fight in base World.
@@cometstar4077 Hell, it may even be the parent of the one we fought. Ruiners are old and grizzled Nergs who've survived God knows how many battles over several years so it wouldn't be too far fetched to assume the Nerg we beat up in Base World was Ruiner's kid.
actually, nergi, like every monster, is a species. Meaning there are far more than one of them. You have just encountered several different nergi in your time playing the game
This perfectly sums up why I actually enjoyed MHW and Iceborn's stories so much. Sure, the characters aren't given any specific names, but the story wasn't really about them specifically. The story more broadly was a lesson in how we should view our relationship to nature. The beauty and power of the natural world, and the fragile balance that it maintains, but also that in seeking to maintain that balance we shouldn't allow hubris to get the better of us. It's actually a very poignant theme for an era in which humanity is coming to terms with climate change and ecological destruction, especially for a game that has traditionally just used it's story to give you an excuse to beat the shit out of giant dinosaurs.
It's always been weird to me that people get upset or throw around "no character development!" just because a character isn't named. Naming a character doesn't implicitly mean it has any more depth than calling it "sisterly 5th". The number of named characters...even important ones in some games...that have less development then a lot of MH characters is honestly staggering. MHW didn't need to name the characters, because the characters weren't what the story was about. They were just carriers of relevant exposition...and even in that some of them had decent character development.
The nameless complaint is weird as someone who has played the series a long time. I guess we got such an influx of new people with world they didn't think that it had always been that way.
I still find it really stupid that Ruiner Nergigante didn't get a special cutscene when you unlock the MR 100 quest. This is supposed to be the same Nergigante that you've been fighting this entire time in one final fight and they gave it nothing
I love how everyone keeps dismissing the cast as meh characters, when they're all an extension of this wider concept. Each of them representing different archetypes and ways to tackle this deeper theme. The handler is the reckless desire to take dumb risks to fuel curiosity, Excitable A-Lister is the optimistic yearning for adventure, The Tracker is the diligent explorer, The Seeker is the desire to find answers to deeper questions, The Admiral is our sometimes arrogant desire to tackle anything that comes our way head on. It just goes on. And their interactions also reflect this, like the Handlers immediate friendship with the Tracker.
I never really paid attention to the story. I was like "Hunting monsters is the focus of the game, I don't really need a story" but it's actually a pretty good story and you did a really good job emphasizing that.
I can't help but feel bad for nergigante. It's trying to solve the same problem as us but we kill it anyway. I know this happens to a lot of flagship monsters but this happened to nergigante on three separate occasions.
I felt awful for viper- tobi kadachi even more. In the cutscene it appears 1. Were in its specific domain basicly its home uninvited 2. It prob would let us alone if we do run away as tobi seems not keen to predate or attack hunters . So it felt like i was beating up a monster thats usually peaceful in its own home.
@the immortal eye unfortunately that happens to a lot of other monsters. Remember when we had to hunt an odogaron because the handler wanted us to save the tracker when was handling the problem my herself. She even said afterwards that she was hiding and waiting for the odogaron to leave the area. We basically beat up an animal to save someone who wasn't in danger.
@@spacemegalodon5049 ye but tobi just feels even more chill than Odo, he tends to still be defensive and aggro so it makes sense he has a "kill on sight " mentality by the guild, but tobi barely threatens us and even is suggested to not see us as prey or more than an annoyance.
@@theimmortaleye7511 On Unnatural History Channel’s video on Odogaron, they proposed that the reason Odogaron is so aggressive is the same reason the Mustelids that it’s based on are so aggressive: several of their senses are actually quite poor, and due to that, it makes it seem like other creatures are just popping in out of nowhere right next to them. To them, they were basically just ambushed, and attack because they are literally a Cornered Animal in their perspective. It’s why Odogaron will stay around if Vaal Hazak is on the map; Vaal Hazak is covered in corpses and absolutely saturated with Effluvium, which renders it basically invisible to Odogaron, who’s strongest sense is the sense of smell.
@@johncronk8867 ye i watch him too and.love that theory . Just according to the notes and capcom hes suppose to have "short man syndrom" and be a psycho But jeah odo also is a good doggo😂 and with that theory even sadder as hes misjudged by the guild similar to deviljho
I pretty much never once got bored of the story, half the time it was extremely immersive to me encountering all the creatures in an uncharted continent and the older fleet of hunters were all interesting to chat with to get the lore. I felt like Nigel Marven in Walking with Dinosaurs. And then Iceborne came in and it suddenly felt intensely ominous like you were digging too deep into the world and growing too proud, its starting to show its dangers and its complex system that humbles you alongside the much later endgame elders, it was truly an experience to remember and its themes about humans and monsters coexisting is one of the reasons why I love Nergigante so much.
I know I'm a year late, but I thought it would be neat to mention that the way the MH team got Shara's eyes to follow the camera like that isn’t by some kind of special tracking code, but by simply modelling them as concave (instead of convex like the other monsters). This creates an effect called the "Hollow Mask" illusion, which tricks your brain into thinking that something is turning to face you, when it’s actually completely stationary.
This is not true. This was a misconception created by some modders who spoke too soon after opening up one of Shara's models. Yes, Shara has concave eyes, which enhances the effect. But it also does track the camera. The same modders who made the claim later debunked their own claim, but nobody listened, because "the Hollow Mask effect is used to exacerbate the feeling created by the eye-tracking" doesn't sound as clever as "there is no eye-tracking, it is just the Hollow Mask effect". The version of Shara's real body that exists inside of the rock armor does not have eye-tracking enabled. The version that we fight after exposing it is a different model, and does have eye-tracking, which has been confirmed to be set to seek the camera POV instead of the hunter's position like most monsters' eye/face-tracking does. This isn't "special tracking code", it is an extremely simple, tiny adjustment to the existing code that gets used whenever a monster needs to face the hunter. That's part of why it was so easy to overlook.
I'm not going to lie, I like all of this EXCEPT the "Shara's eyes follow the player" bit. I think the reason Shara appears to be looking at us rather than our hunter-character is the same reason you might go to some gimmick festival that claims to have a painting whose eyes follow you but they really don't. What appears to be the "pupil" is sunk way into the back of the monster's eye, which would cause it to appear to follow you whenever you shift your position around the dragon's head. It isn't the pupil that is moving, it's our perspective of where it is because of where we think it is (on the outside convex surface of the eye) compared to where it ACTUALLY is (inside the eye, in the back of the concave). I love your explanation of how and why we become "the Sapphire Star" though. I always thought that part was so corny and never liked it, but put in this context it feels like it makes a lot more sense. A thing you may have missed when you mentioned that it turned out Nergigante was part of the natural processes of this world to, is that it really put into perspective the timescale we live on vs the timescale nature exists on. The balance and unbalancing of nature may be part of a natural process that takes hundreds of years to see out, something humans wouldn't be able to comprehend after just arriving there for a few weeks, so a creature causing chaos like Nergigante seems un-natural but that is purely due to how our view of timescale differs from nature's. If you look at that, then it's easy to draw the conclusion that Xeno'Jiiva is the same way. After all, it too existed on this continent before us. Perhaps it is also a natural creature here that has existed for generations long before humans arrived and the chaos it caused by drawing elder dragons away from their natural habitats is another ebb and flow in the perfectly natural processes of this island. Just as we learned with Shara Ishvalda, we may not have stopped a Calamity at all, but we may have rather helped to enforce a bigger one over the longterm. But I think another lesson can be learned here. Not about whether or not humans are the caretakers of the planet, but rather the idea that Monster Hunter has tried to enforce since the very beginning: that Humans are neither above NOR below nature, but simply a part of it. We may cause chaos by our arrival in this previously untouched-by-civilization New World, but that chaos, too, is part of nature on that grander timescale. We are not the only ones who have to learn to co-exist with nature, not at all. Nature, too, has to learn to co-exist with the humans who want to live alongside it. I think the real lesson is that no matter what happens, everything that not only the big monsters do, but us as well, everything is part of the natural cycle of not only the island but the planet as a whole. We are not above it nor below it, we are part of it. In a way, you were right about how Shara taught us to not fall into hubris, and it was the opposite of the lesson Xeno Jiiva taught us for a reason, because it wasn't about one side being right and another side being wrong, but about how the extremes of either end are BOTH wrong. We cannot just sit idly by and allow things to happen of their own accord (because then we aren't participating in nature), but we also cannot assume we are the sacred, sole purveyors of balance in the world (because there are forces far stronger and beyond our understanding than us).
Most Elder Dragons in the games are essentially treated as gods in our view: Teostra and Lunastra could be the god and goddess of flame, or sun and moon, respectively. Kushala Daora, a god of wind or storm. Vaal Hazak, a god of death, Velkhana of ice and cold, Kirin of lightning, and even Fatalis could be essentially the God of Destruction in MH universe due to it's land-devastating power. In that sentence, i think Nergigante's role in nature is actually a peculiar one, because he is the god of one thing. Now, this may sound like a stupidity, but if you give it thought it might make sense, so be calm and hear me carefully. Nergigante is not a god of earth, of destruction, extinction for one extent, but regardless of this, Nergigante is "our" god, he is a "God of Hunters and Humans". He is a god that represents exactly our role and our power in life. How so, you might be asking? There are essentially two factor that interpret that: The first is the hunter part: His role; To make sure Elder Dragons do not cause any harm to the ecosystem, and even to the world, more than they naturally could do, Nergigante hunts the Elder Dragons and devours them so that their remaining strength is not expelled to the outside. This rement to our role (as hunters) to defeat monsters (and elder dragons) to prevent them from causing a bigger harm, and "inherit" their power by crafting their equipment and using their power the correct way, much like Nergigante who devours them for nutrients to sustain him and continue hunting them. The second is the human part: His ability; For a monster who fails to imitate sonic the hedgehog in appearence, unlike shadow who properly did (this is a joke for few), but still follows the way of the hedgehog, should anyone or anything try to harm it and break it's spikes, he can then heal itself by generating a new layer of spikes harder than the last. That IS his skill as a god. He doesn't bend fire, he doesn't roar and the sky opens, He doesn't store electric energy in it's horns, nothing like that. Just like us, humans in real life, our wounds and Nergigante's are naturally healed as time progresses alone, the only difference being that Nergi's regeneration is significantly faster than that of a human, but outside of that, he represents our "Natural ability" of recovery. Nergigante's role in the life of monster hunter is pratically being a 'test' for us hunters, because if we can't kill Nergigante, who is not a dragon who bends an element, then this essentially proves that we are not even capable of killing a Dragon that does bend an element, like Teostra or Kushala. If we beat him, on the other hand, it proves the exact contrary and let us roam free to kill the dragons in his stead so he can feast later (if he survives, of course).
TLDR, Monster Hunter stories rarely have very memorable or deep fleshed out characters, because the story isn't really about the player and the characters they travel with in every game. The story's are usually about the monsters, their relationship with the world and the hunters, and how they've Impacted both. It's ultimately a story about the balance of nature. Rather then people.
Shara's eyes don't actually actively follow the camera, but they DO incorporate another reference to buddhist mysticism in the way they create the illusion of following the camera. It's often done on paintings and statues where the eyes are concave so they look to be following you.
I do always find it interesting how when It comes to criticizing Monster Hunter World's story a few people point out the fact that the characters don't even have names, but personally I have always felt like that's one of the least important criticisms when it comes to explaining why MHW's story is bad. A character doesn't need a name to be interesting or compelling, in recent memory The Mandalorian is a great example, he does have a name but his name is not treated with importance of any kind, I've forgotten his name but I have not forgotten the character. There are many more characters who don't actually have a real name beyond a title yet are compelling, names are relative human constructs that help us see humanity in something better, but It is not required to help one see humanity. I would like to point out that in the Monster Hunter series alone there are compelling characters who don't have names, MH Generations and MH4 has NPC characters without names who have compelling yet not complex lines of dialogue that are enjoyable to read, these characters sometimes go through mini character arcs and end up developing, Monster Hunter Rise does this with it's NPCs as well, Monster Hunter World however does not.
well, monster hunter human characters are pretty much never intersting and at most, funny to have a cutscene with (like our boulder punching rajang slayer general). the actual characters are, like present in the video, the monster and the world
I love how every Elder Dragon is massively powerful, with radiating auras that lesser beings would be destroyed by… And the being that stops them, that is the Hunter of these horrible gods, is the Monster Hunter equivalent of a really, REALLY big wolf. Not a deity, not a legendary hero, nothing like that. When gods run amok, when titans rise and skies fall, the last line of defense isn’t a BIGGER or overall more destructive monster… But a mid-weight brawler. Who punches above their own means in order to kill the wild gods, and then just flies away. God is dead, Nergegante killed it, and then went to go pick his teeth with a Kirin.
Thanks for expanding on the story! This really helps me to process the experience. It's a shame the subpar characters and dialogue let down the other story elements, because the underlying themes were definitely worth digging into. I personally was really pulled in by most of the stuff you mentioned. I didn't understand the Sapphire Star motif completely, but it wasn't lost on me when the other characters started addressing me by the name. Paired with the otherworldly nature of the Xeno'jiva fight, it really gave me a sense of ascension and personal responsibility at the end of World. The humans (and palicoes) have always been hand-waved as amazingly strong and resilient, but this was the first Monster Hunter I played that seemed to push the idea that the player character is something really special. In the past games your hunter was characterized as "the village hunter" and even after beating the big bad you mostly just upgrade to "village hero". World makes you feel like something more than human by the end, reminiscent of other, less grounded RPGs. It's a weird fit for Monster Hunter until Iceborne turns it on its head as you've described. The cutscene before Shara Ishvalda still sold me on our hunter being on another level than other humans, and as a result the final fight lived up to a battle between gods. However the ending absolutely sent the message that "with great power comes great responsibility". I felt that no matter how powerful or divine either Shara or myself were, we are still part of a greater web of life. It was the most player character development and the most mature environmental theme that I've encountered in Monster Hunter.
Having names does not make the story better. No MH isn't known for having great stories but, the lore and what is left to find or learn through hunting helps you understand the bigger world around you. MH mainline share a story line and though you aren't the same hunter though them all. Wold tied together the stories from 3u and 4u. The story and the maps of World are engaging, yes there are some silly characters that aren't that deep but it is by far the most engageding on the overall world.
I’d say the lack of names helps Worldborne. If all characters had names, they’d be looked at and derided as bland characters. With just the job titles, it really helps pull everyone together and strengthens the character of “The Commission.”
If you notice with shara, when it does most of its big roars like when it first loses its rocks. It looks reminiscent of a budda with the wings acting as the arms or lotus petals of the budda, which is shown in its armor and weapons along with their names. Also what ever happened to the mhw theory about zora being escorted by nergi to kill xeno via the energy burst?
By far my favorite thing about Monster Hunter is the core idea that humans aren't the only ones at the top of the food chain. Since there are bigger threats to the environment than us, humanity is pushed into a protective role rather than a dominant one. That's something you don't really get in real life, since we very much are the world's worst enemy. I can't help but think we'd be playing a very different role in our lives if there was something bigger than us at the tip-top like the Elder Dragons...
Going off this, I find Rise's and Sunbreak's story to be in a similar vein, but with irreversible consequences. Rise pits humans versus nature. A massive migration simply known as The Rampage that is nothing less than hordes of Monsters fleeing from the landscape of fear that a potential reunion of Narwa and Ibushi creates. With the opportunistic hunter that feeds off it, Magnamalo, taking most of the initial blame as it is seen as invader. We oppose them, representing an immovable object to their unstoppable force. Then we are called to Elgado, turning into an unstoppable force ourselves and the ecosystem is the immovable object. Yes, we do this because Monsters from The Kingdom are swapping over into our familiar lands, but that is not where it ends. Malzeno is first seen as the source of the problem, this view changes into it keeping things in check by the end of the story. Keeping the Qurio from running rampart and feeding Gaismagorn endless life energy. Similar to how Xeno rerouted the Elder Crossings for its own benefit. But with Malzeno in a similar function as Nergigante now being removed and the definitive start and end point of the Qurio in Gaismagorn gone, these flying tick leeches seek out new hosts to form a symbiotic relationship with. They disrupt all of the ecosystems, afflict so the large Monsters and pushing them into a Frenzy we have to stop. Until Risen Elders emerge where there had only been Gaismagorn and Malzeno before, leading to further disruption due to our interference. Our own hubris backfires massively and now there is no Nergigante to right our wrong. Lastly, there is the timing of the first crater and the last Rampage. Both happened 50 years ago. Meaning that this sort of "reset" that our Divine Serpents desired might represent a counterbalance to a Qurio plague like the one we are witnessing now. We know from the Relic Records of the Shrine Ruins and Rampage that it has happened before. But with the Allmother laid to rest before her offspring could clear the Swarm, we are doubly left to our own devices.
Fun fact: shara ishvalda isn’t actually looking at the player, it’s eyes are just convex, which makes it look like it’s watching the player, but it’s not
Comment on a year old video, yay. You've got a few things wrong in the analysis: Humans have been in the New World for somewhere between 30 and 50 years (The Field Leader was born in the New World), since just after the strange migrations started; we are the Fifth Fleet to arrive at the New World. Nergigante are indeed a force of balance, and you seem to be forgetting/ignoring that Elder Dragons posses intellect close to human, so they seem to understand that the Research Commission is looking for something, and potentially even observes them taking on a role much like their own, hunting prey that abandons its natural habitat and causes trouble in a new one. Humans hunt prey much bigger than them, unlike the Nergigante which is barely able to harass prey bigger than itself despite its overwhelming might; they accomplished something it couldn't do, turn Zorah Magdaros away from the Everstream. Being able to learn from this, the Ruiner Nergigante in the Origin Isle where Shara is fought, allows the Hunter to "cut Shara down to size" so to speak, so that it can finally get past the rock armor and kill the monster that has come outside of its natural habitat (the depths of the world, where it swims within the crust and eats ores, secreting tar, much like an Uragaan, collecting its rock armor) due to the influence of Xeno'Jiiva/Safi'Jiiva. Humans are indeed merely another link in the food chain - the Field Leader, born in the New World, says as much when the possibility of an evacuation due to Velkhana is discussed; "We are a part of this environment, and we must protect it" - and they've proven to be able to become a potent corrective force after their initial, highly disruptive history before the games. This has been the recurring theme of every monster hunter game, to my knowledge: Humans do not stand apart or away from the ecosystem, they are a part of it, and their intelligence and resourcefulness is being put to use by the world to maintain balance where new forces disrupt it. Parasites like Xeno'Jiiva or Gaismagorm, or monsters with apparent malicious intent like Dire Miralis or Fatalis, or monsters simply too dangerous to be allowed to proliferate due to biological quirks, like Shagaru Magala.
This lines up with what I already believed: Nergigante is the main protagonist of World and You Can't Change My Mind Something else I've loved about World from the very beginning was that its approach to hunting monsters was motivated by ecological study, rather than humans just going out and mindlessly being badasses and killing shit to wear their skin. It actually mimics that IRL hunters make some of the best conservationists. From the outside, its easy to say that because they kill animals they don't care about them, but if a hunter wants to continue hunting, then they need to protect the populations and wellbeing of those very same animals. This means many hunters are often some of the best advocates for maintaining ecosystems. (Yes there are exceptions that are horrifyingly unethical assholes, but there always are in any group). I feel like the story gets a lot of flack, but I think its also because its coming out in an era where we can expect excellent stories to be told in video games. But what World does that is incredibly respectable is that it sets up its rules for the world, and exists within those rules. For example it sets up the idea of a leyline system of bioenergy flow and then can go back and link much of what's happening to that same idea. It doesn't come from nowhere. The characters are also simple but they all have motivations, flaws, development, and journeys. They aren't static and many of them learn lessons and grow as people. They don't need names to express that. And even if the story was nonexistent completely, the world and environments are so stunning I would never get tired of running around them. The coral highlands and the rotten vale are so original in their beauty and execution. They're spaces I enjoy just EXISTING in. Thanks for coming to my TED talk. Have a great goddamn day.
I think that the problem with the story of monster hunter world iceborne is that it focus on the characters - from witch, are bad and blend - instead of focusing on the ''world'' itself. Environmental storytelling is the strong type of storytelling for this type of game and i hope capcom realises that.
I personally wasn’t dissatisfied with Nergigante stealing the limelight. Regardless if he finished them or not, we alone took down Shara. And now a squad of some of the best hunters are present along with us. If anything Nergigante saved Shara, would’ve probably ended up being a slower death if it was from a group of hunters. What I liked about the ending, was that it showcased the natural cycle before us. The circle of life, nature, and how fragile ecosystems can be.
Actually, I think Nergigante couldn't kill Shara Ishvalda because of his rock armor. That's why he pretended to be dead so we take the rock armor off and weaken the elder dragon then Nergigante took the opportunity and killed its prey. it's actually much more satisfying when you think about it like this!
I get that the story isnt that inyeresting in mh games but imo world one was awesome and I cant help but want a world 2 cuz of that. I know Capcom will never miss when it comes to gameplay so I just want to see more of the Research Commission's journey in the new world
Another point is that Shara comes back to life. Similar to how the hunter can’t ever die in game. And you can re-hunt the same elder dragons over and over. If previous monsters mocked the player, shara mocks the game. Shara even takes advantage of the cutscene almost.
Not to mention all the cave paintings or carvings, from those the lore can be deep and wrinkly with ever such juicy info that can maybe unlock the third hidden camp in the Guiding Lance, I believe that there is third camp. The most intriguing cave carving is in rotten vail where the cake bird is riding the mossy pig. Good video.
Monsters aside. For me the Third Fleet Master was just... Waifu material. She's laid back, but she's still a researcher. The first time I saw her after falling from the Great Ravine, I found it hard to return to Astera... If only we had the companion system in World. Or see her move more. I dunno, I just love her and the later half of the low rank story.
Monster Hunter stories are never about the story, theyre a vessel to give reason to why you're fighting specfic monsters, why they're a threat etc. I dont think any veteran MH fan has more than a passing interest in the story (mostly just focusing on the world building aspect of it more than anything else) and is more focused on gameplay and i believe the dev team knows that and expends their efforts where it will be most appreciated. TL;DR MH devs know their niche and build on it and that's good
A personal theory of mine is that the myth is just that, a myth taken from old humans. Xeno'jiva doesn't take after the sapphire star, I think it is the sapphire star from the myth. Similarly, I think Shara Ishvalda is the dragon that became the mountains. When you knock off its armor and reveal its true form, it raises up, just like the dragon of the myth. I am hoping that wilds might give us more of the other dragons from the myth.
interestingly enough that whole "story being shit" etc etc etc is just people just wanting skip cutscenes to hunt and kill which goes against the narrative of the game Ludonarrative Dissonance? or even more story telling at work? as gameplay wise we kill everything that shows up bigger than a deer....which...isn't balancing nature
Not given names past their job titles I think is a cultural writing convention. I can think of a few Japanese stories in which everyone is referred to by their title and names probably don’t even exist as a concept. Goblin Slayer would be the first to come to mind. Maoyu: Archenemy & Hero would have been the first time I noticed it way back when that was first released as an anime in 2013.
All the video and the comments are opening my eyes again about this game and its world. Simply WOW. I really love Monster Hunter community. Thank you guys and thank you Tom once again!
A more intresting thing about safi/xeno'jiva is that they have connection to the sapphire star but the connection is that it's the complete opposite of the sapphire star, witch means that the sapphire star was more like nergigante, a dragon that's a protecter of it's planet that could slay every thing that could harm it's planet, the exact opposite of safi/xeno'jiva, they're only mission is to harm the planet as much as it can to make it it's terrotory
Man I couldn't tell you how many people I've introduced to the the series who never gave a half a shit about the story or lore. I've always appreciated the humble narratives in the games, and it really rubs me the wrong way to see these noobies mashing through every single dialog box.
i actually liked the plot, it was simple enough to follow and cool enough to work, i like it more than Rise's story i mean jesus christ with World & IceBorne, the story was about discovery, with several mysteries that get answered with even more mysteries, it's a fun one and always kept you guessing until the big finally meanwhile with Rise we get "the rampage is a thing, Magnamalo exists *kills it* do it again i wasn't looking, oh there's Ibushi, what does he want? let me tell you right now rather than finding out yourself" it's kind of not a story at all, SunBreak did better with the story but it's nothing to write home about still, and the Qurio kind of just become a BIG deal near the end, like if they were THAT big they could have had more of a presence rather than the very end game
5:32 that's not the sapphire star symbol, it has too many points. Almost all monster tail stumps look like that in-game. They're based on actual lizard stumps. So nice video, but that connection is one that just simply isn't there.
I'm not a fan of nearly any of the characters, but the serious handler is more tolerable than normal handler and The Tracker was always pleasant to see
I kinda feel like Velkhana was trying to say "screw off, the situation will sort itself out like it has done every time before" and then we kill it because we thought it was the problem lmao.
MONSTER HUNTER WORLD/ICEBORNE actually one of the most well phase storyline in the series, while the plot it's not great, it does create a really interesting build up that pays off in the end by giving us an incredible spectacle.
I think something to consider is that the Jiivas might not actually be parasitic as you described them. Perhaps from our (the guild's) limited perspective, they could be, but there's something more important at play here. I'm sure you've all heard about how "Jiiva" means life, but in the context of Jainism which is the origin of that word, Jiva represents more than just something being alive. It also represents a spiritual existence that's required in order to be capable of transcending the cycle of death and rebirth... which is exactly what Xeno'jiiva is causing the other monsters to do. It's serving the role of guidance once again. The Sapphire Star, but not for humanity this time.
Your wrong about the “only been there a week” thing at the end of the video, commission has been there for 50 years and it took those 50 years for nerg to originally pop back up again after the first fleet encountered it and start bullying shit
You know that makes me wonder, what if they pushed this with ruiner nergigante than you were threat to be treated as unbalancing the eco system. And locked him him behind mr100 to says nergi was hunting the dangerous element, the hunter.
I think we all knew how the story was going to be. Hunters aren't here for story. We're here for big monsters, and big weapons to bash their skulls in. Give us a good ui (already done) and give us some absolutely baller gameplay (iceborne) and we'll be a kid on Christmas morning.
small fyi : if you remember a sword and shield called 'grand barong'. Its a basic bone sns, nothing too crazy, but the naming here, 'barong' refers to mythical being in balinese hinduism in which the picture were shown in the video, around 9:26
11:00 you interpreted this wrong. you see, this was meant to draw a line between adaptability and fantasy. ruiner nergigante is a creature that has evoled from its previous state to be stonger harder faster. nergigante specifically was advertised as very adaptable, so when Shara ishvalda, a freak of nature and by no means could have been of this world comes along, it has a battle with the peak of its eco system, adaptability verses fantasy.
Yes and no. Nergi is, pound for pound, stronger than Shara. Nergi could easily kill Shara (with no rock armor). The problem is Nergi can't get to Shara. Nergi knows where Shara is and wants to stop them, but can't dig down through all that dirt, rock and armor to kill it. Lucky for Nergi the hunter is there to help draw it out, tear off its armor and then beat it up. Nergi fakes its death to draw Shara out in the hopes of a cheap meal, then comes in for the kill when Shara is most vulnerable. Two quick bites to the neck and the problem is solved. Nergi could have killed Shara without help. And even if Shara knew Nergi was hunting it, the smartest move would be to stay underground and keep messing with the everstream. It's not a matter of iconography, but what would two intelligent elder dragons realistically do in this situation.
I like most of the points in this video, but i have to disagree on two fronts. The first is that xeno'jiva is supposedly the sapphire star the people have always been following. No, it is not. Seeing it as similar to the sapphire, as it fulfills a similar role is fair, and maybe its kind was even the inspiration for the idea, but the people never saw the sapphire star as an actual creature, while they talk about the stars guidance, but as a principle. And while xeno might be a corrupted version of that principle, that doesnt devalue the principle itself. The people didnt learn to not rely on divine guidance, because they never did, they relied on a focus point to not be lost in the chaos that is life, and you becoming the sapphire star at the end is a natural extension of that very principle. You give the people hope in hopeless situations, as a star gives people, who are lost, hope to find their way again. The second is on the designs of shara ishvaldas two forms. You say the first form is more unnatural than the second, but i disagree. The rock form reminded me of things like shells and animals who take rocks, twigs and leafs to protect their body. Unnatural yes, but very much seen in the behavior of many animals in nature. Looking back at older monsters, its not even that impressive, with something like atal-ka literally maneuvering a mech in a semi-believable fashion. Sharas fleshy form however seems unbelievably unnatural, because i cant imagine a single reason why flesh and muscles should develop in those forms. It feels as if sharas body was deliberately formed the way it is by a higher power, and that makes it way more unreal to me than an animal using rocks to form an armor.
Here's what always annoyed me as a fan of the series since starting with 3U: World critics: World has an awful story, the characters don't even have names Same people: 4U has such a great story, Rise has a better story because of named characters Me: Wait a sec, 4U's characters didn't have names either...and neither did any of the characters in the past games before Rise/Sunbreak What World's story has, which 4U also has, is excellent presentation. And a story's presentation matters just as much as its substance. Both have be good for a story to be truly great. So sure, World doesn't have a great story on the whole, but it's good enough to keep the player interested and earnest enough that you actually feel a bit moved sometimes (the VAs did a great job and the music direction is fantastic), and that's what you want in a Monster Hunter game. Also, 3U still has the most charming story with Moga Village and the whole Lagiacrus/Ceadeus situation. I think 3U/4U/Iceborne all have "effective" stories. GU and Rise/Sunbreak a bit less so. I like GU's fated four monsters and the hub monsters are ridiculous if fun to fight against (Nakarkos/Valstrax/Ahtal-Ka), but that game's sense of story and context for the adventure was mostly nonexistent since it's a fan service sort of title. Rise/Sunbreak had the potential to be the most interesting story of them all but it's a schizophrenic game that after initially releasing with an incomplete story just abandoned the eastern mysticism and rampage mythos for a more traditional Monster Hunter story and setting (and it's hard not to see the obvious inspiration the qurio draw from the frenzy virus). It has characters with more personality, but the story didn't do them justice.
Personally I don't think the story was bad at all, it's just not overly complex. But the narrative is more about the Monster Hunter World, rather than any individual characters. The Characters are just vehicles to help build the world more rather than central figures of the plot like in most stories. The narratives main purpose is also to provide a path for the player to go hunt down big monsters.
My leading theory is that Xeno’jiiva was hatched way too early, so the form we could be seeing is a fetus, not fully developed or grown, and Safi is what it was supposed to hatch in, or a small Safi with little control over its energy or little power, the reason we see Xeno hatch and use a bunch of destructive energy is because of the amounts of bio energy it absorbed, causing it to overload
If you know the lore behind MH, but it is incredibly important that the Guild exists and hunts the monster that they are involved with. As the Guild was reformed into protecting the people and the monsters alike, hunting those that would stand as an imbalance or a threat to the world or the ecosystem. The Guild exists for a good reason and their actions now are to make sure they don’t repeat what the humans did back during the Great Dragon War and the Ancient Civilization. Now I know they haven’t really been brought up in the games but it’s clear that it happened and should be brought up.
The first time i fought shara i didnt know what to expect, once i killed nerg and the quest changed to kill another thing next without me getting back to the village i already got caught off guard, by looking at that giant walking rock all i could say to my friends was "look, its linda cute, all slow and walking like a stupid little thing, i love this thing" And once i broke the rock armor and shara became horrors beyond my compreheension i got so scared of it i couldnt attack Anyway, fun fight 10/10 would never do it again
Coming here to say I was actually very critical and disappointed by World's story, but as you say in this video, I was kinda in my own negative bias, blinded to the ambitious themes it tried to tell. I thought it was weird that the Fifth Fleet had arrived to protect the new world, but in the effort of doing so, ended up interfering with the nature of the new world without seemingly being aware of it. Seeing this video actually put a much less negative perspective on the same idea, instead inviting the idea that perhaps this was intentional and was meant to be a commentary paralleling the real world, but was just fumbled in execution. I do have to give World props, the foundational idea is actually really good putting it the way you did in this video! It was honestly very thought provoking and excellent video.
this is so true, a part of the reason why i still play world until now is also because how deep the story actually is, and to this day i still think that World is the best MH game capcom has ever produced. thanks for making our point in a video, although it's years overdue, but better late than never !! p.s. somehow this ended up in my recommended list when i did not even watch a single MH content for like months
Let's be honest... We're not here for FNaF Lore 2. We're here to fight oversized dudes with oversized weapons. We should be complaining that Lagiacrus didn't return yet! *THIS IS ENFURIATING!*
4:20 A little problem with this analysis is that that "Extra fantasy" aspect doesn't just apply to Xeno'jiva but to all Elders in general, while most regular monsters try to have some in-game biological explanation to them, Elder are meant to be a "It just existe duh" feeling to them. Stated by Capcom in their 15th Anniversary Book
Saying that a character have 0 development because they don't have a name is not true at all. Look at Goblin Slayer for example, the main characters are literally named: Goblin Slayer (duh), High Elf Archer, Dwarf Shaman, Lizard Priest and Priestess, but that doesn't mean they have no development through the story xD
11:25 I'd like to point out that the Field Team Leader outright tells us that he was BORN on the New World at the beginning of the base game. So saying that "Humans have been stomping around for a week" is simply wrong. The MHwiki says that "Every ten years, a new fleet is sent to the New World to help the Research Commission." which means that by the time our character arrives to the New World, the first fleet has already been there for 40 years.
People who want to know the theme of World/Iceborne should look no further than the word that is repeated over and over throughout, from quest names to battle themes. Even the final area at the end of Iceborne. "Guide Zorah Magdaros" is the objective of the quest to get him back out to sea. "Guiding Lamp to the Otherworld" is the name of Xeno'jiiva's theme. "Guidance" is the name of the credits theme sung by the Diva. "To the Guided, a Paean" is the name of Shara Ishvalda's quest. "The Guiding Lands" is the name of the island that is created from Zorah's demise. Even that returning phrase, "May the Sapphire Star guide your way." Zorah guides us to the new world, and we in turn guide him away from Xeno and the land's destruction. Xeno'jiiva, the flame that draws the moth, the false guide into death. And then Shara's song guides us to the frozen continent, to the knowledge that all that's happened is an old tale begun long before the commission ever set foot on the new world. And Nergigante guides us to the Guiding Lands, the journey come full circle as Zorah's death creates new life and a new ecosystem. The end credits theme of Iceborne is called "Tales spun through song." Fitting, don't you think?
Lets be honest, nobody ever cared about any of the MH games stories. They all were identical anyway (World being an outlier). Village/group of people faces problems caused by monster(Moga and the earthquakes), Hunter gets send to fight monsters, hunter faces the first possible culprit(Lagiacrus), it was not the real culprit, elder dragon is real culprit (Ceadius), job is done.
There's a line said by the commander after the ending that says someday, something like the nergigante will hunt us down in order to guard the ecosystem and we will lose to it
One of the things I love about monster hunters as a series is it's setting. This isn't our world, a normal world that was /suddenly/ invaded by large world ending monsters. This is a world where such monsters are BORN. this is where they evolved. The entire world is built around the existence of these monsters and what they do. It was, for lack of better words, built to handle such behemoths. Much like in our own world, humans in monsterhunter don't always look at the monsters as a part of the world, but a problem in the way of their goals, ideals, or livelihoods. We as players have to consider this as we progress through World's story, especially when it comes to Elder dragons. In our world, nature has a system to prevent stagnation in the short and longterm of life and evolution. Be it plagues, storms, disasters, or what ever else, change constantly drives our world. In MH, the Elder dragons are that system. Walking cataclysm, they can force entire ecosystems to change in the beat of a wing, but the key is they've been doing it for eons. The world adapts, it bounces back from an Elder Dragon. But humans aren't as flexible or far sighted. They see a burning lion and think "he gonna burn my house down, better merk him for parts" without considering the local plant life more then likely adapted to it's migration and has either evolved a resistance, or a dependence on it burning shit down. I just love the setting so much quq
"None of the characters are interesting" Blud forgot how a fair bit of the playerbase actively wanted the annoying ass handler to actually get shanked for how suicidal she is just jumping into danger non-fucking-stop in mhw.... That and we got robbed of serious handler in ib. orz
I feel like this video is a bit short sighted. The video claims abiguity, but I feel like it's plainly stated. Lets recap. The elder dragons go to die in the rotten veil away from everything else since they explode. Nergigante was already doing that job. We learn later that Xino is an alien... Hence the name... That is feeding off the elders. Nergigante would have stopped Xeno. But since we killed him, we have to stop Xeno ourselves. Later again. We wound Nerg, so now we have to stop Shara since its going to sink the island. Nerg did that for us. Proving his role is to keep everything in check. This leads us to conclude that Nature itself would have solved all problems if we didn't interfere. However we did, creating problems, which we had to solve. Here is the conclusion. Either Humans do nothing and everything is fine. Or Humans interfered, and everything is fine. The message of the story is telling you that humans are apart of nature. We are one with the monsters. The video is just a few steps short of comming to the conclusion.
What you talk about in the intro is endemic to the entire series. The main plot is pretty trash across the board, so you see a lot of people saying Monster Hunter has NO story and NO writing, or that the writing is entirely shit. But MH is probably one of the top three videogame franchises in terms of worldbuilding (Dark Souls, for the record, definitely does not even place, yet it is _notoriously_ one of the best game series in terms of worldbuilding- Which simply speaks to how striking its characters are and how good the writers are not at worldbuilding but at inciting curiosity through the _way_ the story is told), and that worldbuilding is fully integrated into almost every detail of the game, from tiny elements of monster design most people would miss to the UI itself. Incidentally, while not every game has had them, "weird" environmental themes and messages have been present since _the very first game,_ with Lao Shan Lung being a juvenile dragon that was vilified because the path along which (as it turns out) it was fleeing for its life happened to bring it into conflict with a human fortress, and Fatalis, the monster that was hunting it, being a very overt reflection of the hunters themselves, killing not for food or territory but for the joy of killing, and melting its prey to its own hide to form an "impenetrable" armour. Also, a few issues: The Elder Crossing was a perennial mass migration of elder dragons that started about 50 years before the game, not an ecological phenomenon that had been happening on the geological timescale. Xeno was the only reason it was happening in the first place, though the original myth was probably based on the Elder Crossing occurring thousands of years prior (it would not be the only elder dragon with a very long life cycle, as ordinarily the Magalas only appear every thousand years or so- Gore seemingly only metamorphoses into Shagaru if it is "slain," and the strength of hunters in this era is why the Magalas have been able to consistently breed and proliferate, their presence balancing the ecological impact of mankind). Incidentally, the New World appears to be one giant impact crater, so it's possible that Xeno/Saafi ordinarily spend a large portion of that life cycle _in space_ and that their egg falls to the planet as a meteor, which reinforces the imagery of the sapphire star. People have been in the New World for decades already. Each commission was launched 10 years apart, so 40 years to be exact- The Huntsman or Commander (don't remember which) says so explicitly during the Zorah Magdaros quest ("It only took forty years"). The commissions also roughly correspond to the generations of the series, though the fifth fleet corresponding to gen 5 (World itself) is staffed by characters who got their start during the events of the fourth generation (like the Ace Cadet), indicating great hunters are sent to the research commission in the New World after making their name, and also driving home how serious the matter must be to the guild. Nergigante has probably been visiting the New World as long as the elder crossing, so only about ten years more than people have been there. Nergigante was never really a negative or disruptive factor in the ecosystem, and while that's not obvious if you take everything at face value (or probably if World is your first MH), it's obvious if you're familiar with the series and its tropes. It keeps monsters from dying in the Vale because when they die in the Vale and get broken down by Effluvium their bioenergy joins the everstream and flows directly into Xenojiiva's gullet. It's attacking Zorah Magdaros to prevent its life energy from reaching the everstream because if it did the entire continent would explode- It has the same goal as the hunters who are trying to divert Zorah out to the open sea to die. It's also hunting Shara Ishvalda, of course, because Shara's presence is having disastrous effects on the ecosystem. Most elder dragons represent a kind of natural disaster and naturally play a part in balancing the ecosystem on a large scale, and nergigante is the "extinction dragon," whose role is to remove invasive species from the ecosystem by hunting them to extinction.
I find it a bit odd when people say Monster Hunter's story is "boring" or "nonexistent". It feels a bit like watching a nature documentary and saying "Well that story sucked!". It's just about the ecology of a fictional world. As a side, I'm surprised you didn't draw parallels to the real world failures of humans intervening with nature. There are hundreds of instances in history of human's thinking they know what they are doing by sticking their hands into ecosystems but end up creating far worse situations than they were trying to solve. Typically the extinction of other species.
Its silly to me that people approach the series with the blanket mindset that "it isn't about story." I do believe it's straight up plot isn't efficient and is even pretentious in MHW, but the games DO have atmosphere, themes, and symbols to convey a story. They aren't super deep, you're not gonna find the next Evangelion. But if you open your mind, there is something there. The story just isn't told well in a traditional sense
Honestly I really dislike nergigante mainly because of its role in the ecosystem. It’s design does not suit a “ecosystem balancer” especially because of the elders he supposedly can kill. I will never believe nergigante can take a full health shara ever. It just isn’t logical. It’s like saying a wolf can take a grizzly bear when we all know it can’t. Nergigante should have been larger and it would have suited the role. Nergigante is slightly larger then a teostra yet it’s strength apparently matches and even surpasses a creature that is 3x it’s size and carry’s tons and tons of rock as armor, and can just tank smashes from it. Makes no sense. Now for elders his size it makes much more sense like teostras and kushala. Even zorah because he tried to wait it out instead of kill it. But him being able to apparently kill elders that are much more destructive and physically capable is beyond me. What’s next? Nergigante killing gogmazios?
The story is exactly what it needs to be. It baffles me why people dislike the world/iceborne story so much. It's a game about hunting, slaying and then using the pieces of said slain monster as weapons and armor. The story explains the ecology of the world and how the monsters are affecting it by the events unfolding. What more story do you need? Are you the same type of people that think Diablo 1's story of "Bruh, there's this evil on the 16th floor, go kill it please" is also bad?
I think it's notable to mention that, even as destructive as Elders are, even ones like Shara, they're still animals that play a role. The official books reveal that the Highlands and Vale are the result of an exploding Zorah Magdaros, one whose blast was equal to that of the Zorah we repelled. That launched Corals into the air, and corpses fell into the pit below. Giant Dalamadur died in the pit eventually, and Shara was born there, and Shara in turn helped to create the Vale as well. Shara is said to destroy ecosystems from their foundation, yet also create the foundations for new ones. The Vale would go on to affect the entire New World, being where things, not just Elders it seems, go to die, fuelling the continent with Bioenergy. There's a comment by one of the characters in the book, that's them wondering if Xeno'jiiva was responsible for organizing the flow of Bioenergy in the New World. While they claim Xeno had become unsustainable, even being called greedy, we know they're a species, so it's interesting to consider. Elders can certainly be destructive, but it is through destruction that there is new creation, and other than many being living forces of nature, I feel that's a theme many of them have.
I'll end this rambling with dialogue from the Commander at the start of World
"It's not about hunting down elder dragons, or punishing them for the damage they cause. The Commission seeks an understanding of their place in nature...and ours. That's the point. The elder dragons ARE nature, and its as futile to try and punish nature as it is to run from it. But KNOWING nature... Now that's something we can do. We're going to face a lot of tough decisions moving forward. But before you take life, or move to defend it... understand it. That's what makes you a Hunter."
This exactly. I think tomkon also misunderstood the thing about calling Safi as sapphire star betraying humanity. I feel like the people before the fifth fleet gave that name to Safi because he is akin to a force of nature, it lures both hunters and elders in and becomes an anchor but in the same way burns them if they got to close. Also yea Safi and Shara still have a purpose in the ecosystem, the tale of the five briefly mentioned it in a fantastical manner along with the other elders. My head cannon is Safi is responsible for drawing bioenergy (both via the “leylines” and elders/monsters) to recharge the new land. And Shara is basically the terra former for the initial landscape. The way i see it we hunt those elders to halt progression and preserve the current ecosystem, if let on their own there will be new worlds yes, but most of the current one also will be gone. The cycle of the old world burning and new world emerging would be so quick that only those that can adapt fast enough get to survive (similar to what’s basically happening in the guiding lands). Also yep the fifth is there to understand nature, aside from hunting there are taking pictures, investigating tracks, etc. Considering the next title is going to be named Paradise i’m really hoping we get permaculture simulation on -steroids- bioenergy where we manage the desired ecosystem by hunting/capturing/driving away monsters.
Elder Dragons aren't really animals the way other monsters are, I'd say. They're forces of nature that can cause cataclysmic events that reshape ecosystems dramatically. Like the asteroid that (may have) wiped out the dinos or the tectonic shift that broke up Pangea but still nature adapts.
@@anonymouswhite7957 Safi literally does what the researcher suspects Xeno to do, but on a smaller scale. We see it ourselves.
@@johncronk8867 I think that Safi affects the environment quite the same (I even think it's the adult version of Xeno ?), but is less destructive, more controlled, as it has grown to its adult state. Add to that that the Safi feeds on energy, and that the place we fight them on is already almost exhausted, I think Safi has managed to understand how much energy it needs to heal and/or feed so it would not have to destroy other ecosystems by wasting the energy. After all Xeno was a newborn on a land so full of bioenergy it created a whole crystal biome underneath a cristal mountain and a volcano, just beside the river of life. Safi seems to have lived here for decades, dispersing its shreded skin all over the place. I think it's also its birthplace since the geology looks like dead crystals and the placement near what's probably the river of life (surrounding the 3rd zone) just mirrors where Xeno was found.
hunters also seem to be the natural predator of a lot of elders, so its not just research, but also keeping the population of particularly destructive ones in check
My favorite line comes from The Seeker after you slay Safi'Jiiva. He remarks that Safi takes any lands its on and molds to fit its needs despite how selfish that is. Which in turns makes him see that humans have also been doing the same and how they might be more alike than we think.
Which personally also makes me like Nergigante because its a mirror of the Hunter as a Monster. Taking down threats to the ecological world similar to the 5th Fleet Hunters
See now that is the proper angle to the old meme of "are we the true monsters here" for this franchise. We are definitely monsters, but the choice comes in what we do with that power, either succumbing to greed like the unnatural Elders or being a guiding and protective force like Nergigante.
Well in lore at least, this is still a game and so aside from the in-universe reason of crafting better gear to better do your job the hunting for fashion is just game fun.
its just fantastic, to have a franchise that doesnt really have a good story, or any story for that, to tell everything with the beasts we hunt, the world, the ecosystem and how it works. not to forget that if they lay out some lore bits here and there, its pretty much always a fascinating bit in which one craves more.
world is truly one of their best games, in monster design alone
@@Exel3nce Why do Iove A about my
Creatures
B?
Creature
C?
Creatures
D?
Creatures
E?
CREATURES!!!!!!
Nah, Capcom tried wayy too hard on making Nergigante likeable and people fell for it lmao.
Capcom: "Let's have Nergigante finish off Shara Ishvalda instead of the hunters"
@@MillenniumEarl014did you even watch the video
I don't really think Nergigante could have killed Shara Ishvalda without the hunters interference.
Shara's rock armor and it living mainly underground is a great protection.
But by playing dead and waiting for the hunter to break the rock armor and weaken it, then ambushing Shara, then it might be able to kill Shara.
It might have tried it to do it anyway but seeing the hunter it might have had an idea to let the hunter do most of the work.
Also after that it didn't attack the humans but just grimly looked at them and then flew away.
It's not a mindless beast. It calculates every move it does.
That is the thing about elder dragons. While an alien intelligence they are at least as intelligent as humans. Maybe more so in some cases. But they generally lack two traits that allow humans to dominate in this world of monsters. Tool use and language. Few, if any monsters demonstrate tool use(fatalis does as it will melt to armor and weapons of hunters to its hide to make itself stronger but this is part of the reason it is so feared. It absolutely will play by the same rules as humans. But this is an anomaly.) and while monsters may possess some means of getting across general concepts they generally have no means of directly and easily giving detailed information. But this does not mean the beast is not carefully thinking through what is going on and what to do. It just does so from its very solitary point of view.
@@jacobfreeman5444 I think one of the most intelligent monsters has to be Ahtal-Ka.
It is not only able to use tools, but also to build a giant mecha. Not even humans in Monster Hunter have mechas themselves.
@@obambagaming1467 yeah, that one is a trip. The insect monsters really seem out of place sometimes because they seem to out perform the godly elder dragons in odd ways. Really hammers home the point not all the dangerous super powers are of dragon descent
@@jacobfreeman5444 I’d say Velkhana also shows tool usage, to a lesser extent. It wears frozen magma and ice as armor, and creates a makeshift weapon out of ice and its tail.
-I don’t really know if using elemental powers like that actually counts as tool usage but I’m biased since Velkhana’s my favorite monster from World lol-
Agreed
I think Nergigante is a force for Balance, even in the original story; If put into perspective with Xeno'jiiva luring elder dragons, Nergi forcing them back away from the xeno coccoon, even if that causes some storms elsewhere, saves the ecosystem from disaster. Humans attacking and caupturing Zorah Magdaros would make Zorah die(and therefore release its energy) in the middle of the ecosystem, cauzing widespread damage, so he stops them, thinking Zorah is headed to The Rotten Veil, to die naturally and spread its energy harmlessly. It keeps driving elder dragons Away from The Elder's Recess, and when you nearly kill Shara Ishvalda, it swoops in and comes to help end it once and for all, roaring out its victory to you... but not attacking, for in this fight, you are on the same side.
I wouldn't say Nerg is trying to actively help. He is doing what he does to survive, hunting Elder Dragons. It's simply that the ones most appealing to him are the the ones that are particularly lush with Bioenergy, as that is what keeps him going and fuels his constant regeneration. Balancing the ecosystem is a byproduct of his hunting habits, not an active goal he strives for.
@@ShadowKaiserineven without his actions being eventually kind of makes sense nergigante sees you as competition for zora elder dragons huddling up in one place perfect hunting ground and why attack a bunch of hairless apes when you got a full-course feast
@@brightbound3309 And also, that one hairless ape just beaten you to (almost) death, so why the hell bother with more if you can't even handle one?
its also especially interesting to note that Safi'jiva's (xeno'jiva's adult form) arena-wiping attack is literally called "sapphire of the emperor"
Xeno feeding from Elder Dragon energy also explains why Safi has that western-dragon look despite being an alien. He tries to make himself the emperor of monsters because he doesn't respect Fatalis at all and the reason for this is that he is not part of that world's evolutionary tree. Sorry for the bad english.
Your English is totally fine, and great thinking! I like that idea a lot.
Xeno’jiiva was designed to be alien-like, but not an actual extraterrestrial.
@@johncronk8867 is it said anywhere that says it isn't? If not I think it's still a viable and plausible theory.
@@johncronk8867 well, ok then
@@cragraven thank you man
It's worth pointing out, shara is literally a Buddha, every inch of it is steeped in Buddhist iconography and meaning and even it's name which takes the word for heaven and the name ishvara which is an alternate spelling of Shiva. His head is a lotus which are tied heavily to the Buddha and bodhisattva, and even it's transition is a reference to craving Buddha's from rock, revealing the Buddha from within. You mentioned it's teeth, that's also a reference as shara has 40 teeth matching the Buddha. Even it's eyes reference the Buddha's enlightenment as even when closed, they're looking straight at the camera, not at the player character, meaning shara ishvalda at no point is paying attention to your character, it's enlightened and knows that we exist out in the real world and is breaking the 4th wall as it stairs us down and fights specifically with us.
Shara has 8 wing fingers -> eightfold path
Shara Ishvalda’s official render sits upright, and his chest and abdomen are sunken in, creating the image of an emaciated ascetic Buddha
Arena is also literally a zen garden which Shara rakes with it’s fingers
Going further into the Shiva aspect of Shara Ishvalda’s name, Shiva is the lord of destruction in Hindu and Buddhist myths. His dance increases in frenzy as he drums the destruction of the world, which in turn creates a clean slate for Brahma to work with, which is very reminiscent of Shara Ishvalda collapsing ecosystems to create new ones. Shiva, being the symbol of the end of cycles, will also visit cremation sites. He and sometimes Shiavites (his followers) will smear human ashes on their skin, giving them a grey pale complexion. Shara Ishvalda is also predominantly a pale grey color. Shara has some blue in his palette too, which is not only tied to the legend where Shiva swallowed poison that turned his throat blue, but also the fact that most deities in hindu myth are shown having blue skin. In Hinduism blue is a symbol of infinity and divinty. Humans cannot perceive infinity, so we default to the color blue, hence why the sky is blue on a clear day according to hindu myth
Very, very goddamn cool. I thank all three of you for sharing.
@@PrismaticGeyserr also, it reminded me of the 1,000 hands, since both wings are akin to large, batlike fingers with the 5th being a stub
A bit late, but I’m pretty sure Shara’s eyes DONT actually track the camera at all, they track the player, it’s just an unintentional quirk of how they’re modeled.
That Nergigante cutscene with Shara is genuinely one of my favourite moments in any game's story ever. Thank you for the video.
The firsth time i saw the cutscene i screamed YES EAT HE'S ASS. I was so frustrated for all the try's i had to make (im italian, so sorry if i wrote something wrong)
not only that, they are also one of the coolest monster the franchise ever created, which is an achievent, for there are soooo many and the people still had so much imagination for them to create such masterclasses
@@saverionicolai5098 instead of “he’s” the right word would’ve been “his”. Other that minor error your English is so good I honestly thought that was a typo.
@@MoonbornUwU thanks man.
@@Exel3nce That cutscene and the ending credits after was probably the closest I've felt to having an almost spiritual experience in a video game.
I just love the idea that despite all the seemingly stronger monsters and dragons that exist at the end we realize that the true apex predator does not have or need fancy elemental damage all he needs is to be very angry very fast and very pointy
But most importantly...very hungry
It does help that Nergigante has some insane regeneration capabilities as well compared to normal elder dragons. Dude can just regrow spikes almost instantly and recover from being 'killed' in a rather short time.
@@Tazkar Maybe it was just playing dead, i wouldn't doubt that a creature that hunt powerful Elder dragons with brute force and regeneration also would need to be intelligent enough to use some gimmicks to give it the edge in tougher situations
In-game though Nergi is a cakewalk, especially compared to some other endgame monsters
@@Baddaby he is by far my favorite fight in game it’s really fun because you get a lot more windows to combo off his part break knockdowns and more importantly he does not chain attacks in a way that cc lock one shots you off a single mistake but he still is really dangerous and you have to take him seriously unlike a lot of the base world monsters
Iceborne blew my mind twice
1: When I noticed during my first hunt that Shara's eyes follow thr player rather than the character. That freaked me out on an unholy frightening level.
2: When I realized that Nergigante was the protector of the natural ecosystem rather than its disruptor. I was so shocked and he went from being my favorite monster to fight to my favorite monster period. It's basically the Batman of the Monster Hunter world and I freaking love it! Once stories 2 came out, he was my first priority to make part of my team.
The eyes do in fact NOT follow the player, they don't even move, it's just an optical ilusion
@@anormalhumanhopefully8570 they are still made to look like they follow the player which is really cool, even if technically its just a neat little visual trick.
"to an unholy frightening level"...really? its just a cool 4th wall breaking moment but thats just it, it has been done thousand of times and even in paintings
@@bpmfj5422 Yes, breaking the 4th wall is very common. Its a trope. But the combination of this being my first MH game, on top of the crazy design of the monster, the struggle to survive along with the sudden realization that it was following me, freaked me out. Its cool if it didn't bother you. Don't care. But it freaked me out when I first saw it because it was something I wasn't expecting during a high tense situation.
@@anormalhumanhopefully8570 ofc they move, are you high ? (nothing personal) even the video shows it
800h hours and I never even considered any of this, I feel like I now understand a part that I had always ignored of one of my favourite games. Great video!
Interesting thought if you look at both bosses in another perspective:
- You hunt in the New World and explore each new monster they give you and every old one. You end, fittingly, at the newest thing the world could give you: an alien.
- After you've hunted aliens, what's next? You're guided by Nergigante into the fight against Shara Ishvalda. You transcend and then fight Gods. And after the gods, you reach "paradise" - The Guiding Lands. And then you fight the demon itself - Fatalis.
From the perspective of player progression and discovery, the player has explored every avenue possible - from the realistic to the strange, then towards discovering a new species in the form of aliens, and finally reaching the Gods' pantheon for discovery. Isn't that neat?
Thats actually a neat perspective given Fatalis was NEVER part of the dev plan to start with. Ol Fatty was only added because they showed what a HD rendered Fatalis looked like during the celebration of the series (that was a nice video) and everyone went nuts. Frankly the fact that we got 2 of the 4 Black Dragons in MHW:IB is insane looking back on it.
Another interesting thing that happens in Iceborne that fits this interpretation is the role Velkhana plays in it. For the majority of the story we believe Velkhana to be the Old Everwyrm and hold it responsible for the ecological threat brewing. In our rush to stop it, we slay it, only to find it out was not even the cause of the danger. It essentially became collateral damage caused by the hunter's quest to quell the Old Everwyrm
I mean that's pretty much how most monster hunter stories go. The flagship is the threat that we have to hunt only to then realize there's an even bigger threat that we need to fight.
@@SCF721 Velkhana: “Guys, Shara is weak to Ice; let me handle it…” *gets killed*
Hunters: “Ok then, lets turn your body into a hammer!”
To be fair, Velkhana was still invading and freezing everything in it's path on the main continent of the New World. Even if Velk wasn't the one blasting obnoxious tunes, it was still turning Anjanaths and such into popsicles. Elders have been killed for less.
Kinda like Tris story, the village thinks its Lagi thats causing the earthquakes, but its actually Ceadeus
You need to rewatch the cutscenes. It was never implied that Velk was the source of the song, she was just a threat to the base since she was acting erratic
I think that one other interesting clue is the name of Arch Tempered Xeno quest: "Like a moth to the flame"...we the hunters are the moths, lured by Xeno's light, the Sapphire Star.
Also, and this is much more known, Safi Jiiva's final attack is known as Sapphire of the Emperor.
Also, God I love Shara's design! Truly feels like a God. You're not fighting a monster, but a divine being.
I think the most interesting thing about Nergigante is that there is ever only one which your hunter fights again and again the entire game. Nergigante's regenerative abilities and its dramatic entrance against Shara Ishvalda imply that each time Nergigante is killed by you or in a fight with another elder dragon, it comes back to life to fight once more. Alone, covered in scars, broken spikes and blood; Nergigante's story is the wheel that turns and is the namesake of the final quest.
Unrelated but it was impossible for me to love the story of Nergigante and then try to move on with Magnamalo. Magnamalo had no relevance to the wind serpents and was only ever a "bad guy" in the context of the story. It was only ever a scavenger and its death changed nothing. Flagship monsters are not guaranteed to be thematically involved with the story but Nergigante set a very high bar.
you're actually not too far off- Nergigante reproduce via a spike with an absurd amount of accumulated bioenergy inside of it, which eventually breaks off and grows into an identical copy of it's parent. Ruiner Nergigante is likely the direct offspring of the one we fight in base World.
@@cometstar4077 Hell, it may even be the parent of the one we fought. Ruiners are old and grizzled Nergs who've survived God knows how many battles over several years so it wouldn't be too far fetched to assume the Nerg we beat up in Base World was Ruiner's kid.
actually, nergi, like every monster, is a species. Meaning there are far more than one of them. You have just encountered several different nergi in your time playing the game
This perfectly sums up why I actually enjoyed MHW and Iceborn's stories so much. Sure, the characters aren't given any specific names, but the story wasn't really about them specifically. The story more broadly was a lesson in how we should view our relationship to nature. The beauty and power of the natural world, and the fragile balance that it maintains, but also that in seeking to maintain that balance we shouldn't allow hubris to get the better of us. It's actually a very poignant theme for an era in which humanity is coming to terms with climate change and ecological destruction, especially for a game that has traditionally just used it's story to give you an excuse to beat the shit out of giant dinosaurs.
It's always been weird to me that people get upset or throw around "no character development!" just because a character isn't named. Naming a character doesn't implicitly mean it has any more depth than calling it "sisterly 5th". The number of named characters...even important ones in some games...that have less development then a lot of MH characters is honestly staggering.
MHW didn't need to name the characters, because the characters weren't what the story was about. They were just carriers of relevant exposition...and even in that some of them had decent character development.
Leaving the characters nameless has also been a series trope from the very beginning. Rise was the first one to give anybody names at all.
@@CephrainWell, it wasn’t the first one to give anyone a name, but it was the first to give *everyone* a name.
The nameless complaint is weird as someone who has played the series a long time. I guess we got such an influx of new people with world they didn't think that it had always been that way.
I still find it really stupid that Ruiner Nergigante didn't get a special cutscene when you unlock the MR 100 quest. This is supposed to be the same Nergigante that you've been fighting this entire time in one final fight and they gave it nothing
That's why gore magala the goat 🐐
Took me a moment to see what you type but yeah I agree
I thought that the nergi we fought in world and the ruiner individual in iceborne were two different individuals entirely?
@@azuremoon2096 Most likely different ones yes.
lore book mentions that its a another idividual
I love how everyone keeps dismissing the cast as meh characters, when they're all an extension of this wider concept. Each of them representing different archetypes and ways to tackle this deeper theme.
The handler is the reckless desire to take dumb risks to fuel curiosity, Excitable A-Lister is the optimistic yearning for adventure, The Tracker is the diligent explorer, The Seeker is the desire to find answers to deeper questions, The Admiral is our sometimes arrogant desire to tackle anything that comes our way head on. It just goes on. And their interactions also reflect this, like the Handlers immediate friendship with the Tracker.
I never really paid attention to the story. I was like "Hunting monsters is the focus of the game, I don't really need a story" but it's actually a pretty good story and you did a really good job emphasizing that.
I can't help but feel bad for nergigante. It's trying to solve the same problem as us but we kill it anyway. I know this happens to a lot of flagship monsters but this happened to nergigante on three separate occasions.
I felt awful for viper- tobi kadachi even more. In the cutscene it appears 1. Were in its specific domain basicly its home uninvited 2. It prob would let us alone if we do run away as tobi seems not keen to predate or attack hunters . So it felt like i was beating up a monster thats usually peaceful in its own home.
@the immortal eye unfortunately that happens to a lot of other monsters. Remember when we had to hunt an odogaron because the handler wanted us to save the tracker when was handling the problem my herself. She even said afterwards that she was hiding and waiting for the odogaron to leave the area. We basically beat up an animal to save someone who wasn't in danger.
@@spacemegalodon5049 ye but tobi just feels even more chill than Odo, he tends to still be defensive and aggro so it makes sense he has a "kill on sight " mentality by the guild, but tobi barely threatens us and even is suggested to not see us as prey or more than an annoyance.
@@theimmortaleye7511 On Unnatural History Channel’s video on Odogaron, they proposed that the reason Odogaron is so aggressive is the same reason the Mustelids that it’s based on are so aggressive: several of their senses are actually quite poor, and due to that, it makes it seem like other creatures are just popping in out of nowhere right next to them. To them, they were basically just ambushed, and attack because they are literally a Cornered Animal in their perspective. It’s why Odogaron will stay around if Vaal Hazak is on the map; Vaal Hazak is covered in corpses and absolutely saturated with Effluvium, which renders it basically invisible to Odogaron, who’s strongest sense is the sense of smell.
@@johncronk8867 ye i watch him too and.love that theory . Just according to the notes and capcom hes suppose to have "short man syndrom" and be a psycho
But jeah odo also is a good doggo😂 and with that theory even sadder as hes misjudged by the guild similar to deviljho
I pretty much never once got bored of the story, half the time it was extremely immersive to me encountering all the creatures in an uncharted continent and the older fleet of hunters were all interesting to chat with to get the lore. I felt like Nigel Marven in Walking with Dinosaurs.
And then Iceborne came in and it suddenly felt intensely ominous like you were digging too deep into the world and growing too proud, its starting to show its dangers and its complex system that humbles you alongside the much later endgame elders, it was truly an experience to remember and its themes about humans and monsters coexisting is one of the reasons why I love Nergigante so much.
I know I'm a year late, but I thought it would be neat to mention that the way the MH team got Shara's eyes to follow the camera like that isn’t by some kind of special tracking code, but by simply modelling them as concave (instead of convex like the other monsters).
This creates an effect called the "Hollow Mask" illusion, which tricks your brain into thinking that something is turning to face you, when it’s actually completely stationary.
This is not true. This was a misconception created by some modders who spoke too soon after opening up one of Shara's models. Yes, Shara has concave eyes, which enhances the effect. But it also does track the camera. The same modders who made the claim later debunked their own claim, but nobody listened, because "the Hollow Mask effect is used to exacerbate the feeling created by the eye-tracking" doesn't sound as clever as "there is no eye-tracking, it is just the Hollow Mask effect".
The version of Shara's real body that exists inside of the rock armor does not have eye-tracking enabled. The version that we fight after exposing it is a different model, and does have eye-tracking, which has been confirmed to be set to seek the camera POV instead of the hunter's position like most monsters' eye/face-tracking does. This isn't "special tracking code", it is an extremely simple, tiny adjustment to the existing code that gets used whenever a monster needs to face the hunter. That's part of why it was so easy to overlook.
I'm not going to lie, I like all of this EXCEPT the "Shara's eyes follow the player" bit. I think the reason Shara appears to be looking at us rather than our hunter-character is the same reason you might go to some gimmick festival that claims to have a painting whose eyes follow you but they really don't.
What appears to be the "pupil" is sunk way into the back of the monster's eye, which would cause it to appear to follow you whenever you shift your position around the dragon's head. It isn't the pupil that is moving, it's our perspective of where it is because of where we think it is (on the outside convex surface of the eye) compared to where it ACTUALLY is (inside the eye, in the back of the concave).
I love your explanation of how and why we become "the Sapphire Star" though. I always thought that part was so corny and never liked it, but put in this context it feels like it makes a lot more sense.
A thing you may have missed when you mentioned that it turned out Nergigante was part of the natural processes of this world to, is that it really put into perspective the timescale we live on vs the timescale nature exists on. The balance and unbalancing of nature may be part of a natural process that takes hundreds of years to see out, something humans wouldn't be able to comprehend after just arriving there for a few weeks, so a creature causing chaos like Nergigante seems un-natural but that is purely due to how our view of timescale differs from nature's. If you look at that, then it's easy to draw the conclusion that Xeno'Jiiva is the same way. After all, it too existed on this continent before us. Perhaps it is also a natural creature here that has existed for generations long before humans arrived and the chaos it caused by drawing elder dragons away from their natural habitats is another ebb and flow in the perfectly natural processes of this island. Just as we learned with Shara Ishvalda, we may not have stopped a Calamity at all, but we may have rather helped to enforce a bigger one over the longterm.
But I think another lesson can be learned here.
Not about whether or not humans are the caretakers of the planet, but rather the idea that Monster Hunter has tried to enforce since the very beginning: that Humans are neither above NOR below nature, but simply a part of it.
We may cause chaos by our arrival in this previously untouched-by-civilization New World, but that chaos, too, is part of nature on that grander timescale. We are not the only ones who have to learn to co-exist with nature, not at all. Nature, too, has to learn to co-exist with the humans who want to live alongside it.
I think the real lesson is that no matter what happens, everything that not only the big monsters do, but us as well, everything is part of the natural cycle of not only the island but the planet as a whole. We are not above it nor below it, we are part of it.
In a way, you were right about how Shara taught us to not fall into hubris, and it was the opposite of the lesson Xeno Jiiva taught us for a reason, because it wasn't about one side being right and another side being wrong, but about how the extremes of either end are BOTH wrong. We cannot just sit idly by and allow things to happen of their own accord (because then we aren't participating in nature), but we also cannot assume we are the sacred, sole purveyors of balance in the world (because there are forces far stronger and beyond our understanding than us).
Most Elder Dragons in the games are essentially treated as gods in our view: Teostra and Lunastra could be the god and goddess of flame, or sun and moon, respectively. Kushala Daora, a god of wind or storm. Vaal Hazak, a god of death, Velkhana of ice and cold, Kirin of lightning, and even Fatalis could be essentially the God of Destruction in MH universe due to it's land-devastating power. In that sentence, i think Nergigante's role in nature is actually a peculiar one, because he is the god of one thing. Now, this may sound like a stupidity, but if you give it thought it might make sense, so be calm and hear me carefully. Nergigante is not a god of earth, of destruction, extinction for one extent, but regardless of this, Nergigante is "our" god, he is a "God of Hunters and Humans". He is a god that represents exactly our role and our power in life. How so, you might be asking?
There are essentially two factor that interpret that:
The first is the hunter part: His role; To make sure Elder Dragons do not cause any harm to the ecosystem, and even to the world, more than they naturally could do, Nergigante hunts the Elder Dragons and devours them so that their remaining strength is not expelled to the outside. This rement to our role (as hunters) to defeat monsters (and elder dragons) to prevent them from causing a bigger harm, and "inherit" their power by crafting their equipment and using their power the correct way, much like Nergigante who devours them for nutrients to sustain him and continue hunting them.
The second is the human part: His ability; For a monster who fails to imitate sonic the hedgehog in appearence, unlike shadow who properly did (this is a joke for few), but still follows the way of the hedgehog, should anyone or anything try to harm it and break it's spikes, he can then heal itself by generating a new layer of spikes harder than the last. That IS his skill as a god. He doesn't bend fire, he doesn't roar and the sky opens, He doesn't store electric energy in it's horns, nothing like that. Just like us, humans in real life, our wounds and Nergigante's are naturally healed as time progresses alone, the only difference being that Nergi's regeneration is significantly faster than that of a human, but outside of that, he represents our "Natural ability" of recovery.
Nergigante's role in the life of monster hunter is pratically being a 'test' for us hunters, because if we can't kill Nergigante, who is not a dragon who bends an element, then this essentially proves that we are not even capable of killing a Dragon that does bend an element, like Teostra or Kushala. If we beat him, on the other hand, it proves the exact contrary and let us roam free to kill the dragons in his stead so he can feast later (if he survives, of course).
Nergigante is a god slayer. Or god eater.
TLDR, Monster Hunter stories rarely have very memorable or deep fleshed out characters, because the story isn't really about the player and the characters they travel with in every game. The story's are usually about the monsters, their relationship with the world and the hunters, and how they've Impacted both. It's ultimately a story about the balance of nature. Rather then people.
Shara's eyes don't actually actively follow the camera, but they DO incorporate another reference to buddhist mysticism in the way they create the illusion of following the camera. It's often done on paintings and statues where the eyes are concave so they look to be following you.
I do always find it interesting how when It comes to criticizing Monster Hunter World's story a few people point out the fact that the characters don't even have names, but personally I have always felt like that's one of the least important criticisms when it comes to explaining why MHW's story is bad.
A character doesn't need a name to be interesting or compelling, in recent memory The Mandalorian is a great example, he does have a name but his name is not treated with importance of any kind, I've forgotten his name but I have not forgotten the character. There are many more characters who don't actually have a real name beyond a title yet are compelling, names are relative human constructs that help us see humanity in something better, but It is not required to help one see humanity.
I would like to point out that in the Monster Hunter series alone there are compelling characters who don't have names, MH Generations and MH4 has NPC characters without names who have compelling yet not complex lines of dialogue that are enjoyable to read, these characters sometimes go through mini character arcs and end up developing, Monster Hunter Rise does this with it's NPCs as well, Monster Hunter World however does not.
Not giving characters names is a writing convention in Japanese stories.
well, monster hunter human characters are pretty much never intersting and at most, funny to have a cutscene with (like our boulder punching rajang slayer general). the actual characters are, like present in the video, the monster and the world
I love how every Elder Dragon is massively powerful, with radiating auras that lesser beings would be destroyed by…
And the being that stops them, that is the Hunter of these horrible gods, is the Monster Hunter equivalent of a really, REALLY big wolf.
Not a deity, not a legendary hero, nothing like that.
When gods run amok, when titans rise and skies fall, the last line of defense isn’t a BIGGER or overall more destructive monster…
But a mid-weight brawler. Who punches above their own means in order to kill the wild gods, and then just flies away.
God is dead, Nergegante killed it, and then went to go pick his teeth with a Kirin.
Thanks for expanding on the story! This really helps me to process the experience. It's a shame the subpar characters and dialogue let down the other story elements, because the underlying themes were definitely worth digging into.
I personally was really pulled in by most of the stuff you mentioned. I didn't understand the Sapphire Star motif completely, but it wasn't lost on me when the other characters started addressing me by the name. Paired with the otherworldly nature of the Xeno'jiva fight, it really gave me a sense of ascension and personal responsibility at the end of World. The humans (and palicoes) have always been hand-waved as amazingly strong and resilient, but this was the first Monster Hunter I played that seemed to push the idea that the player character is something really special. In the past games your hunter was characterized as "the village hunter" and even after beating the big bad you mostly just upgrade to "village hero". World makes you feel like something more than human by the end, reminiscent of other, less grounded RPGs.
It's a weird fit for Monster Hunter until Iceborne turns it on its head as you've described. The cutscene before Shara Ishvalda still sold me on our hunter being on another level than other humans, and as a result the final fight lived up to a battle between gods. However the ending absolutely sent the message that "with great power comes great responsibility". I felt that no matter how powerful or divine either Shara or myself were, we are still part of a greater web of life. It was the most player character development and the most mature environmental theme that I've encountered in Monster Hunter.
Having names does not make the story better. No MH isn't known for having great stories but, the lore and what is left to find or learn through hunting helps you understand the bigger world around you. MH mainline share a story line and though you aren't the same hunter though them all. Wold tied together the stories from 3u and 4u. The story and the maps of World are engaging, yes there are some silly characters that aren't that deep but it is by far the most engageding on the overall world.
I’d say the lack of names helps Worldborne. If all characters had names, they’d be looked at and derided as bland characters. With just the job titles, it really helps pull everyone together and strengthens the character of “The Commission.”
If you notice with shara, when it does most of its big roars like when it first loses its rocks. It looks reminiscent of a budda with the wings acting as the arms or lotus petals of the budda, which is shown in its armor and weapons along with their names. Also what ever happened to the mhw theory about zora being escorted by nergi to kill xeno via the energy burst?
I not gonna pretend the story in these games are groundbreaking, but did I enjoy them? Oh god yes!!
By far my favorite thing about Monster Hunter is the core idea that humans aren't the only ones at the top of the food chain. Since there are bigger threats to the environment than us, humanity is pushed into a protective role rather than a dominant one. That's something you don't really get in real life, since we very much are the world's worst enemy. I can't help but think we'd be playing a very different role in our lives if there was something bigger than us at the tip-top like the Elder Dragons...
You really are an underrated creator. Keep up the great work!
Going off this, I find Rise's and Sunbreak's story to be in a similar vein, but with irreversible consequences.
Rise pits humans versus nature. A massive migration simply known as The Rampage that is nothing less than hordes of Monsters fleeing from the landscape of fear that a potential reunion of Narwa and Ibushi creates. With the opportunistic hunter that feeds off it, Magnamalo, taking most of the initial blame as it is seen as invader. We oppose them, representing an immovable object to their unstoppable force.
Then we are called to Elgado, turning into an unstoppable force ourselves and the ecosystem is the immovable object. Yes, we do this because Monsters from The Kingdom are swapping over into our familiar lands, but that is not where it ends. Malzeno is first seen as the source of the problem, this view changes into it keeping things in check by the end of the story. Keeping the Qurio from running rampart and feeding Gaismagorn endless life energy. Similar to how Xeno rerouted the Elder Crossings for its own benefit. But with Malzeno in a similar function as Nergigante now being removed and the definitive start and end point of the Qurio in Gaismagorn gone, these flying tick leeches seek out new hosts to form a symbiotic relationship with. They disrupt all of the ecosystems, afflict so the large Monsters and pushing them into a Frenzy we have to stop. Until Risen Elders emerge where there had only been Gaismagorn and Malzeno before, leading to further disruption due to our interference. Our own hubris backfires massively and now there is no Nergigante to right our wrong.
Lastly, there is the timing of the first crater and the last Rampage. Both happened 50 years ago. Meaning that this sort of "reset" that our Divine Serpents desired might represent a counterbalance to a Qurio plague like the one we are witnessing now. We know from the Relic Records of the Shrine Ruins and Rampage that it has happened before. But with the Allmother laid to rest before her offspring could clear the Swarm, we are doubly left to our own devices.
Fun fact: shara ishvalda isn’t actually looking at the player, it’s eyes are just convex, which makes it look like it’s watching the player, but it’s not
Comment on a year old video, yay.
You've got a few things wrong in the analysis: Humans have been in the New World for somewhere between 30 and 50 years (The Field Leader was born in the New World), since just after the strange migrations started; we are the Fifth Fleet to arrive at the New World.
Nergigante are indeed a force of balance, and you seem to be forgetting/ignoring that Elder Dragons posses intellect close to human, so they seem to understand that the Research Commission is looking for something, and potentially even observes them taking on a role much like their own, hunting prey that abandons its natural habitat and causes trouble in a new one. Humans hunt prey much bigger than them, unlike the Nergigante which is barely able to harass prey bigger than itself despite its overwhelming might; they accomplished something it couldn't do, turn Zorah Magdaros away from the Everstream. Being able to learn from this, the Ruiner Nergigante in the Origin Isle where Shara is fought, allows the Hunter to "cut Shara down to size" so to speak, so that it can finally get past the rock armor and kill the monster that has come outside of its natural habitat (the depths of the world, where it swims within the crust and eats ores, secreting tar, much like an Uragaan, collecting its rock armor) due to the influence of Xeno'Jiiva/Safi'Jiiva.
Humans are indeed merely another link in the food chain - the Field Leader, born in the New World, says as much when the possibility of an evacuation due to Velkhana is discussed; "We are a part of this environment, and we must protect it" - and they've proven to be able to become a potent corrective force after their initial, highly disruptive history before the games. This has been the recurring theme of every monster hunter game, to my knowledge: Humans do not stand apart or away from the ecosystem, they are a part of it, and their intelligence and resourcefulness is being put to use by the world to maintain balance where new forces disrupt it. Parasites like Xeno'Jiiva or Gaismagorm, or monsters with apparent malicious intent like Dire Miralis or Fatalis, or monsters simply too dangerous to be allowed to proliferate due to biological quirks, like Shagaru Magala.
That bit with the sapphire star in xeno's tail stump is so fucking cool, I never realized.
I love that the game explores ecological equilibrium and human impacts
This lines up with what I already believed: Nergigante is the main protagonist of World and You Can't Change My Mind
Something else I've loved about World from the very beginning was that its approach to hunting monsters was motivated by ecological study, rather than humans just going out and mindlessly being badasses and killing shit to wear their skin. It actually mimics that IRL hunters make some of the best conservationists. From the outside, its easy to say that because they kill animals they don't care about them, but if a hunter wants to continue hunting, then they need to protect the populations and wellbeing of those very same animals. This means many hunters are often some of the best advocates for maintaining ecosystems. (Yes there are exceptions that are horrifyingly unethical assholes, but there always are in any group).
I feel like the story gets a lot of flack, but I think its also because its coming out in an era where we can expect excellent stories to be told in video games. But what World does that is incredibly respectable is that it sets up its rules for the world, and exists within those rules. For example it sets up the idea of a leyline system of bioenergy flow and then can go back and link much of what's happening to that same idea. It doesn't come from nowhere.
The characters are also simple but they all have motivations, flaws, development, and journeys. They aren't static and many of them learn lessons and grow as people. They don't need names to express that.
And even if the story was nonexistent completely, the world and environments are so stunning I would never get tired of running around them. The coral highlands and the rotten vale are so original in their beauty and execution. They're spaces I enjoy just EXISTING in.
Thanks for coming to my TED talk. Have a great goddamn day.
I think that the problem with the story of monster hunter world iceborne is that it focus on the characters - from witch, are bad and blend - instead of focusing on the ''world'' itself. Environmental storytelling is the strong type of storytelling for this type of game and i hope capcom realises that.
I personally wasn’t dissatisfied with Nergigante stealing the limelight. Regardless if he finished them or not, we alone took down Shara. And now a squad of some of the best hunters are present along with us. If anything Nergigante saved Shara, would’ve probably ended up being a slower death if it was from a group of hunters.
What I liked about the ending, was that it showcased the natural cycle before us. The circle of life, nature, and how fragile ecosystems can be.
9:43 I would never fight Shara the same after this info. So fascinating yet creepy to think about it 😨
Actually, I think Nergigante couldn't kill Shara Ishvalda because of his rock armor. That's why he pretended to be dead so we take the rock armor off and weaken the elder dragon then Nergigante took the opportunity and killed its prey. it's actually much more satisfying when you think about it like this!
I get that the story isnt that inyeresting in mh games but imo world one was awesome and I cant help but want a world 2 cuz of that. I know Capcom will never miss when it comes to gameplay so I just want to see more of the Research Commission's journey in the new world
Another point is that Shara comes back to life. Similar to how the hunter can’t ever die in game. And you can re-hunt the same elder dragons over and over. If previous monsters mocked the player, shara mocks the game. Shara even takes advantage of the cutscene almost.
Not to mention all the cave paintings or carvings, from those the lore can be deep and wrinkly with ever such juicy info that can maybe unlock the third hidden camp in the Guiding Lance, I believe that there is third camp.
The most intriguing cave carving is in rotten vail where the cake bird is riding the mossy pig. Good video.
Monsters aside. For me the Third Fleet Master was just... Waifu material. She's laid back, but she's still a researcher. The first time I saw her after falling from the Great Ravine, I found it hard to return to Astera...
If only we had the companion system in World. Or see her move more. I dunno, I just love her and the later half of the low rank story.
Monster Hunter stories are never about the story, theyre a vessel to give reason to why you're fighting specfic monsters, why they're a threat etc. I dont think any veteran MH fan has more than a passing interest in the story (mostly just focusing on the world building aspect of it more than anything else) and is more focused on gameplay and i believe the dev team knows that and expends their efforts where it will be most appreciated.
TL;DR
MH devs know their niche and build on it and that's good
A personal theory of mine is that the myth is just that, a myth taken from old humans. Xeno'jiva doesn't take after the sapphire star, I think it is the sapphire star from the myth. Similarly, I think Shara Ishvalda is the dragon that became the mountains. When you knock off its armor and reveal its true form, it raises up, just like the dragon of the myth. I am hoping that wilds might give us more of the other dragons from the myth.
interestingly enough that whole "story being shit" etc etc etc is just people just wanting skip cutscenes to hunt and kill which goes against the narrative of the game
Ludonarrative Dissonance? or even more story telling at work? as gameplay wise we kill everything that shows up bigger than a deer....which...isn't balancing nature
Not given names past their job titles I think is a cultural writing convention. I can think of a few Japanese stories in which everyone is referred to by their title and names probably don’t even exist as a concept. Goblin Slayer would be the first to come to mind. Maoyu: Archenemy & Hero would have been the first time I noticed it way back when that was first released as an anime in 2013.
All the video and the comments are opening my eyes again about this game and its world. Simply WOW. I really love Monster Hunter community. Thank you guys and thank you Tom once again!
A more intresting thing about safi/xeno'jiva is that they have connection to the sapphire star but the connection is that it's the complete opposite of the sapphire star, witch means that the sapphire star was more like nergigante, a dragon that's a protecter of it's planet that could slay every thing that could harm it's planet, the exact opposite of safi/xeno'jiva, they're only mission is to harm the planet as much as it can to make it it's terrotory
Man I couldn't tell you how many people I've introduced to the the series who never gave a half a shit about the story or lore. I've always appreciated the humble narratives in the games, and it really rubs me the wrong way to see these noobies mashing through every single dialog box.
i actually liked the plot, it was simple enough to follow and cool enough to work, i like it more than Rise's story i mean jesus christ
with World & IceBorne, the story was about discovery, with several mysteries that get answered with even more mysteries, it's a fun one and always kept you guessing until the big finally
meanwhile with Rise we get "the rampage is a thing, Magnamalo exists *kills it* do it again i wasn't looking, oh there's Ibushi, what does he want? let me tell you right now rather than finding out yourself" it's kind of not a story at all, SunBreak did better with the story but it's nothing to write home about still, and the Qurio kind of just become a BIG deal near the end, like if they were THAT big they could have had more of a presence rather than the very end game
If only they could have themed themselves into not being dogshit fights that would have been great
5:32 that's not the sapphire star symbol, it has too many points. Almost all monster tail stumps look like that in-game. They're based on actual lizard stumps. So nice video, but that connection is one that just simply isn't there.
I'm not a fan of nearly any of the characters, but the serious handler is more tolerable than normal handler
and The Tracker was always pleasant to see
I kinda feel like Velkhana was trying to say "screw off, the situation will sort itself out like it has done every time before" and then we kill it because we thought it was the problem lmao.
i mean if you read the quests in old mh games you get a realy good story, i loved the mhfu descriptions
I enjoy the story of world, its not to limiting and gives the missions you do a greater purpose
MONSTER HUNTER WORLD/ICEBORNE actually one of the most well phase storyline in the series, while the plot it's not great, it does create a really interesting build up that pays off in the end by giving us an incredible spectacle.
I think something to consider is that the Jiivas might not actually be parasitic as you described them. Perhaps from our (the guild's) limited perspective, they could be, but there's something more important at play here. I'm sure you've all heard about how "Jiiva" means life, but in the context of Jainism which is the origin of that word, Jiva represents more than just something being alive. It also represents a spiritual existence that's required in order to be capable of transcending the cycle of death and rebirth... which is exactly what Xeno'jiiva is causing the other monsters to do. It's serving the role of guidance once again. The Sapphire Star, but not for humanity this time.
i love positive takes. too easy to be negative. your creative ability to weave a positive outlook like this is very nice.
Your wrong about the “only been there a week” thing at the end of the video, commission has been there for 50 years and it took those 50 years for nerg to originally pop back up again after the first fleet encountered it and start bullying shit
Good video though
You know that makes me wonder, what if they pushed this with ruiner nergigante than you were threat to be treated as unbalancing the eco system. And locked him him behind mr100 to says nergi was hunting the dangerous element, the hunter.
I liked the story
😀👍
I did too👍
Wait if nergigante is a good guy why is your next goal to go to the guiding lands to hunt down and kill it
I think we all knew how the story was going to be. Hunters aren't here for story. We're here for big monsters, and big weapons to bash their skulls in. Give us a good ui (already done) and give us some absolutely baller gameplay (iceborne) and we'll be a kid on Christmas morning.
I always love hearing analysis on things i myself failed to read deeply into. It really makes me appreciate things i was lukewarm on before.
small fyi : if you remember a sword and shield called 'grand barong'. Its a basic bone sns, nothing too crazy, but the naming here, 'barong' refers to mythical being in balinese hinduism in which the picture were shown in the video, around 9:26
11:00 you interpreted this wrong. you see, this was meant to draw a line between adaptability and fantasy. ruiner nergigante is a creature that has evoled from its previous state to be stonger harder faster. nergigante specifically was advertised as very adaptable, so when Shara ishvalda, a freak of nature and by no means could have been of this world comes along, it has a battle with the peak of its eco system, adaptability verses fantasy.
Yes and no. Nergi is, pound for pound, stronger than Shara. Nergi could easily kill Shara (with no rock armor). The problem is Nergi can't get to Shara. Nergi knows where Shara is and wants to stop them, but can't dig down through all that dirt, rock and armor to kill it. Lucky for Nergi the hunter is there to help draw it out, tear off its armor and then beat it up. Nergi fakes its death to draw Shara out in the hopes of a cheap meal, then comes in for the kill when Shara is most vulnerable. Two quick bites to the neck and the problem is solved. Nergi could have killed Shara without help. And even if Shara knew Nergi was hunting it, the smartest move would be to stay underground and keep messing with the everstream. It's not a matter of iconography, but what would two intelligent elder dragons realistically do in this situation.
@@impulse3507 mate, i wasn't talking about the logistics, i was talking bout the message
I like most of the points in this video, but i have to disagree on two fronts.
The first is that xeno'jiva is supposedly the sapphire star the people have always been following. No, it is not. Seeing it as similar to the sapphire, as it fulfills a similar role is fair, and maybe its kind was even the inspiration for the idea, but the people never saw the sapphire star as an actual creature, while they talk about the stars guidance, but as a principle. And while xeno might be a corrupted version of that principle, that doesnt devalue the principle itself. The people didnt learn to not rely on divine guidance, because they never did, they relied on a focus point to not be lost in the chaos that is life, and you becoming the sapphire star at the end is a natural extension of that very principle. You give the people hope in hopeless situations, as a star gives people, who are lost, hope to find their way again.
The second is on the designs of shara ishvaldas two forms. You say the first form is more unnatural than the second, but i disagree. The rock form reminded me of things like shells and animals who take rocks, twigs and leafs to protect their body. Unnatural yes, but very much seen in the behavior of many animals in nature. Looking back at older monsters, its not even that impressive, with something like atal-ka literally maneuvering a mech in a semi-believable fashion. Sharas fleshy form however seems unbelievably unnatural, because i cant imagine a single reason why flesh and muscles should develop in those forms. It feels as if sharas body was deliberately formed the way it is by a higher power, and that makes it way more unreal to me than an animal using rocks to form an armor.
I’m pretty sure nergigante only killed shark thanks to us weakening it
Here's what always annoyed me as a fan of the series since starting with 3U:
World critics: World has an awful story, the characters don't even have names
Same people: 4U has such a great story, Rise has a better story because of named characters
Me: Wait a sec, 4U's characters didn't have names either...and neither did any of the characters in the past games before Rise/Sunbreak
What World's story has, which 4U also has, is excellent presentation. And a story's presentation matters just as much as its substance. Both have be good for a story to be truly great. So sure, World doesn't have a great story on the whole, but it's good enough to keep the player interested and earnest enough that you actually feel a bit moved sometimes (the VAs did a great job and the music direction is fantastic), and that's what you want in a Monster Hunter game.
Also, 3U still has the most charming story with Moga Village and the whole Lagiacrus/Ceadeus situation. I think 3U/4U/Iceborne all have "effective" stories. GU and Rise/Sunbreak a bit less so. I like GU's fated four monsters and the hub monsters are ridiculous if fun to fight against (Nakarkos/Valstrax/Ahtal-Ka), but that game's sense of story and context for the adventure was mostly nonexistent since it's a fan service sort of title.
Rise/Sunbreak had the potential to be the most interesting story of them all but it's a schizophrenic game that after initially releasing with an incomplete story just abandoned the eastern mysticism and rampage mythos for a more traditional Monster Hunter story and setting (and it's hard not to see the obvious inspiration the qurio draw from the frenzy virus). It has characters with more personality, but the story didn't do them justice.
Personally I don't think the story was bad at all, it's just not overly complex. But the narrative is more about the Monster Hunter World, rather than any individual characters. The Characters are just vehicles to help build the world more rather than central figures of the plot like in most stories.
The narratives main purpose is also to provide a path for the player to go hunt down big monsters.
My leading theory is that Xeno’jiiva was hatched way too early, so the form we could be seeing is a fetus, not fully developed or grown, and Safi is what it was supposed to hatch in, or a small Safi with little control over its energy or little power, the reason we see Xeno hatch and use a bunch of destructive energy is because of the amounts of bio energy it absorbed, causing it to overload
If you know the lore behind MH, but it is incredibly important that the Guild exists and hunts the monster that they are involved with. As the Guild was reformed into protecting the people and the monsters alike, hunting those that would stand as an imbalance or a threat to the world or the ecosystem. The Guild exists for a good reason and their actions now are to make sure they don’t repeat what the humans did back during the Great Dragon War and the Ancient Civilization. Now I know they haven’t really been brought up in the games but it’s clear that it happened and should be brought up.
The first time i fought shara i didnt know what to expect, once i killed nerg and the quest changed to kill another thing next without me getting back to the village i already got caught off guard, by looking at that giant walking rock all i could say to my friends was "look, its linda cute, all slow and walking like a stupid little thing, i love this thing"
And once i broke the rock armor and shara became horrors beyond my compreheension i got so scared of it i couldnt attack
Anyway, fun fight 10/10 would never do it again
Coming here to say I was actually very critical and disappointed by World's story, but as you say in this video, I was kinda in my own negative bias, blinded to the ambitious themes it tried to tell.
I thought it was weird that the Fifth Fleet had arrived to protect the new world, but in the effort of doing so, ended up interfering with the nature of the new world without seemingly being aware of it.
Seeing this video actually put a much less negative perspective on the same idea, instead inviting the idea that perhaps this was intentional and was meant to be a commentary paralleling the real world, but was just fumbled in execution.
I do have to give World props, the foundational idea is actually really good putting it the way you did in this video! It was honestly very thought provoking and excellent video.
A lot of people don't understand how important lore is to Monster Hunter. Often dismissing story because they just want to hit buttons.
this is so true, a part of the reason why i still play world until now is also because how deep the story actually is, and to this day i still think that World is the best MH game capcom has ever produced. thanks for making our point in a video, although it's years overdue, but better late than never !! p.s. somehow this ended up in my recommended list when i did not even watch a single MH content for like months
And iceborne endgame is pretty big with Safi and the Black Dragons does have pretty good Lore too!
Let's be honest... We're not here for FNaF Lore 2. We're here to fight oversized dudes with oversized weapons. We should be complaining that Lagiacrus didn't return yet! *THIS IS ENFURIATING!*
4:20 A little problem with this analysis is that that "Extra fantasy" aspect doesn't just apply to Xeno'jiva but to all Elders in general, while most regular monsters try to have some in-game biological explanation to them, Elder are meant to be a "It just existe duh" feeling to them.
Stated by Capcom in their 15th Anniversary Book
Saying that a character have 0 development because they don't have a name is not true at all.
Look at Goblin Slayer for example, the main characters are literally named: Goblin Slayer (duh), High Elf Archer, Dwarf Shaman, Lizard Priest and Priestess, but that doesn't mean they have no development through the story xD
11:25 I'd like to point out that the Field Team Leader outright tells us that he was BORN on the New World at the beginning of the base game.
So saying that "Humans have been stomping around for a week" is simply wrong.
The MHwiki says that "Every ten years, a new fleet is sent to the New World to help the Research Commission." which means that by the time our character arrives to the New World, the first fleet has already been there for 40 years.
People who want to know the theme of World/Iceborne should look no further than the word that is repeated over and over throughout, from quest names to battle themes. Even the final area at the end of Iceborne. "Guide Zorah Magdaros" is the objective of the quest to get him back out to sea. "Guiding Lamp to the Otherworld" is the name of Xeno'jiiva's theme. "Guidance" is the name of the credits theme sung by the Diva. "To the Guided, a Paean" is the name of Shara Ishvalda's quest. "The Guiding Lands" is the name of the island that is created from Zorah's demise. Even that returning phrase, "May the Sapphire Star guide your way."
Zorah guides us to the new world, and we in turn guide him away from Xeno and the land's destruction. Xeno'jiiva, the flame that draws the moth, the false guide into death. And then Shara's song guides us to the frozen continent, to the knowledge that all that's happened is an old tale begun long before the commission ever set foot on the new world. And Nergigante guides us to the Guiding Lands, the journey come full circle as Zorah's death creates new life and a new ecosystem. The end credits theme of Iceborne is called "Tales spun through song." Fitting, don't you think?
Lets be honest, nobody ever cared about any of the MH games stories. They all were identical anyway (World being an outlier). Village/group of people faces problems caused by monster(Moga and the earthquakes), Hunter gets send to fight monsters, hunter faces the first possible culprit(Lagiacrus), it was not the real culprit, elder dragon is real culprit (Ceadius), job is done.
There's a line said by the commander after the ending that says someday, something like the nergigante will hunt us down in order to guard the ecosystem and we will lose to it
One of the things I love about monster hunters as a series is it's setting. This isn't our world, a normal world that was /suddenly/ invaded by large world ending monsters. This is a world where such monsters are BORN. this is where they evolved. The entire world is built around the existence of these monsters and what they do. It was, for lack of better words, built to handle such behemoths.
Much like in our own world, humans in monsterhunter don't always look at the monsters as a part of the world, but a problem in the way of their goals, ideals, or livelihoods. We as players have to consider this as we progress through World's story, especially when it comes to Elder dragons.
In our world, nature has a system to prevent stagnation in the short and longterm of life and evolution. Be it plagues, storms, disasters, or what ever else, change constantly drives our world. In MH, the Elder dragons are that system. Walking cataclysm, they can force entire ecosystems to change in the beat of a wing, but the key is they've been doing it for eons. The world adapts, it bounces back from an Elder Dragon. But humans aren't as flexible or far sighted. They see a burning lion and think "he gonna burn my house down, better merk him for parts" without considering the local plant life more then likely adapted to it's migration and has either evolved a resistance, or a dependence on it burning shit down.
I just love the setting so much quq
"None of the characters are interesting"
Blud forgot how a fair bit of the playerbase actively wanted the annoying ass handler to actually get shanked for how suicidal she is just jumping into danger non-fucking-stop in mhw....
That and we got robbed of serious handler in ib. orz
I feel like this video is a bit short sighted. The video claims abiguity, but I feel like it's plainly stated. Lets recap. The elder dragons go to die in the rotten veil away from everything else since they explode. Nergigante was already doing that job. We learn later that Xino is an alien... Hence the name... That is feeding off the elders. Nergigante would have stopped Xeno. But since we killed him, we have to stop Xeno ourselves. Later again. We wound Nerg, so now we have to stop Shara since its going to sink the island. Nerg did that for us. Proving his role is to keep everything in check. This leads us to conclude that Nature itself would have solved all problems if we didn't interfere. However we did, creating problems, which we had to solve.
Here is the conclusion. Either Humans do nothing and everything is fine. Or Humans interfered, and everything is fine. The message of the story is telling you that humans are apart of nature. We are one with the monsters. The video is just a few steps short of comming to the conclusion.
What you talk about in the intro is endemic to the entire series. The main plot is pretty trash across the board, so you see a lot of people saying Monster Hunter has NO story and NO writing, or that the writing is entirely shit. But MH is probably one of the top three videogame franchises in terms of worldbuilding (Dark Souls, for the record, definitely does not even place, yet it is _notoriously_ one of the best game series in terms of worldbuilding- Which simply speaks to how striking its characters are and how good the writers are not at worldbuilding but at inciting curiosity through the _way_ the story is told), and that worldbuilding is fully integrated into almost every detail of the game, from tiny elements of monster design most people would miss to the UI itself.
Incidentally, while not every game has had them, "weird" environmental themes and messages have been present since _the very first game,_ with Lao Shan Lung being a juvenile dragon that was vilified because the path along which (as it turns out) it was fleeing for its life happened to bring it into conflict with a human fortress, and Fatalis, the monster that was hunting it, being a very overt reflection of the hunters themselves, killing not for food or territory but for the joy of killing, and melting its prey to its own hide to form an "impenetrable" armour.
Also, a few issues: The Elder Crossing was a perennial mass migration of elder dragons that started about 50 years before the game, not an ecological phenomenon that had been happening on the geological timescale. Xeno was the only reason it was happening in the first place, though the original myth was probably based on the Elder Crossing occurring thousands of years prior (it would not be the only elder dragon with a very long life cycle, as ordinarily the Magalas only appear every thousand years or so- Gore seemingly only metamorphoses into Shagaru if it is "slain," and the strength of hunters in this era is why the Magalas have been able to consistently breed and proliferate, their presence balancing the ecological impact of mankind). Incidentally, the New World appears to be one giant impact crater, so it's possible that Xeno/Saafi ordinarily spend a large portion of that life cycle _in space_ and that their egg falls to the planet as a meteor, which reinforces the imagery of the sapphire star.
People have been in the New World for decades already. Each commission was launched 10 years apart, so 40 years to be exact- The Huntsman or Commander (don't remember which) says so explicitly during the Zorah Magdaros quest ("It only took forty years"). The commissions also roughly correspond to the generations of the series, though the fifth fleet corresponding to gen 5 (World itself) is staffed by characters who got their start during the events of the fourth generation (like the Ace Cadet), indicating great hunters are sent to the research commission in the New World after making their name, and also driving home how serious the matter must be to the guild. Nergigante has probably been visiting the New World as long as the elder crossing, so only about ten years more than people have been there.
Nergigante was never really a negative or disruptive factor in the ecosystem, and while that's not obvious if you take everything at face value (or probably if World is your first MH), it's obvious if you're familiar with the series and its tropes. It keeps monsters from dying in the Vale because when they die in the Vale and get broken down by Effluvium their bioenergy joins the everstream and flows directly into Xenojiiva's gullet. It's attacking Zorah Magdaros to prevent its life energy from reaching the everstream because if it did the entire continent would explode- It has the same goal as the hunters who are trying to divert Zorah out to the open sea to die. It's also hunting Shara Ishvalda, of course, because Shara's presence is having disastrous effects on the ecosystem. Most elder dragons represent a kind of natural disaster and naturally play a part in balancing the ecosystem on a large scale, and nergigante is the "extinction dragon," whose role is to remove invasive species from the ecosystem by hunting them to extinction.
Ohh man why did this make me tear up :')
I find it a bit odd when people say Monster Hunter's story is "boring" or "nonexistent". It feels a bit like watching a nature documentary and saying "Well that story sucked!". It's just about the ecology of a fictional world.
As a side, I'm surprised you didn't draw parallels to the real world failures of humans intervening with nature. There are hundreds of instances in history of human's thinking they know what they are doing by sticking their hands into ecosystems but end up creating far worse situations than they were trying to solve. Typically the extinction of other species.
Its silly to me that people approach the series with the blanket mindset that "it isn't about story."
I do believe it's straight up plot isn't efficient and is even pretentious in MHW, but the games DO have atmosphere, themes, and symbols to convey a story. They aren't super deep, you're not gonna find the next Evangelion. But if you open your mind, there is something there.
The story just isn't told well in a traditional sense
Honestly I really dislike nergigante mainly because of its role in the ecosystem. It’s design does not suit a “ecosystem balancer” especially because of the elders he supposedly can kill. I will never believe nergigante can take a full health shara ever. It just isn’t logical. It’s like saying a wolf can take a grizzly bear when we all know it can’t. Nergigante should have been larger and it would have suited the role. Nergigante is slightly larger then a teostra yet it’s strength apparently matches and even surpasses a creature that is 3x it’s size and carry’s tons and tons of rock as armor, and can just tank smashes from it. Makes no sense. Now for elders his size it makes much more sense like teostras and kushala. Even zorah because he tried to wait it out instead of kill it. But him being able to apparently kill elders that are much more destructive and physically capable is beyond me. What’s next? Nergigante killing gogmazios?
The story is exactly what it needs to be. It baffles me why people dislike the world/iceborne story so much. It's a game about hunting, slaying and then using the pieces of said slain monster as weapons and armor. The story explains the ecology of the world and how the monsters are affecting it by the events unfolding. What more story do you need?
Are you the same type of people that think Diablo 1's story of
"Bruh, there's this evil on the 16th floor, go kill it please" is also bad?