Capcom have updated their official website for Monster Hunter 4!
You no longer have a single town to call home. Instead, you travel as part of a caravan troupe which will flit between one of several villages. This caravan will also act as your base camp when you go out on a quest. There are six members of your troupe, excluding yourself.
Firstly we have a man dressed in a red vest with a matching hat who leads the caravan troupe. We’re not sure what else he does, aside from look cool with his pet hawk.
As always, there is your guild liaison sporting green. She’ll be the one to go to for quests.
The merchant in Monster Hunter 4 has a distinct blue-and-purple theme and is in possession of a giant key. The Felyne cook will be making a reappearance as well.
In this instalment of the Monster Hunter series, there will be two people working the blacksmith. These are a burly, dark-skinned man and his daughter; she will be the one handling any weapon upgrades.
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Screenshots have been uploaded of Naguri Village, an underground village built on top of a magma flow inside a volcano.
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A new monster has been unveiled as well. The Gore Magara is a black dragon covered in scales, some of which are so thin they appear to be hairs. It can use these hair-like scales as a form of sense perception to detect everything going on around it, including the heat and terrain of the surrounding area. The Gore Magara is also capable of inflicting the new Feral Wyvern status (more on that after some Gore Magara screenshots).
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The Feral Wyvern status is new to the Monster Hunter series. While the hunter has it, they cannot naturally regenerate health at all, even if there is a red portion on their health bar. A special purple bar (pictured below) will show up for the duration of the disease, telling you how badly the hunter has been affected by the disease. When it fills up, which it does by taking continual attacks from your foe, you’ll find yourself with an outbreak on your hands.
After contracting the disease, but before it develops into an outbreak, it is possible to give it to other monsters by attacking them. Successfully giving the disease to a monster will give you a power up and increase the sharpness of your weapon.
Finally, we have lots of new screenshots for the village of Barubaré, the first one you’ll come across in Monster Hunter 4.
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Monster Hunter 4 is set to release in March for Japanese 3DSs.
Thank you to Jodie Langford for lending her translating skills to this article.
