Monster Hunter 2 a must have for the hardcore gamer.

If you liked the first game this is a must have, most items, more monsters and more quests. With more items come more item combination possibilities and with more monsters come more carves and thus....more weapons! also the game introduces some new weapons. The katana, which is a greatsword offshoot with faster attacks but the drawback of not being able to chain limitless attacks together. The hunting horn has just as much power but you can play it to give you and your party bonuses (higher attack, faster running, temporary unlimited stamina, etc.) This makes you like a essentially like a bard in Dungeons and Dragons. The gunlance is essentially a shotgun type cannon with a big bayonet attached to it. It is quiet similar to the lance save that it can shoot at super close range and has one of two different moves. The bow and arrow is basically a most mobile small bowgun with the ability to add different coatings to your arrows (power[increased attack>, poison, paralyze, sleep} instead of the option of different bullets. There have been some other changes to some things such as the light bowgun, which now has a rapid fire function. Also you can upgrade your armour to increase defense or add decorations to your armour and weapons to increase skills by just those couple more to get the bonus {heat resist, poison resist, attack up(sml,med,lrg), etc.) Overall I loved this game and would recommend it to any hardcore gamer seeing as it isn't necessary to play the first one to jump right into this one. Though I would give them fair warning about the steep learning curve associated with the camera control. The difficulty of the camera control is the only thing that gave this game anything short of a 5.0, imo.