Jul 132016
Celebrating over 10 years of incredible orchestral tunes, from the original PS2 title through the latest MH Generations. With guest Yuri Araujo!
0:00:00 – Main Theme (MH)
0:10:07 – Forest and Hills / Rathalos (MH)
0:11:46 – Yian Garuga (MH)
0:23:30 – Desert (MH Dos / Freedom 2 / Freedom Unite)
0:25:03 – Teostra (MH Dos / Freedom 2 / Freedom Unite)
0:26:37 – Nargacuga (MH Freedom Unite)
0:39:31 – Deserted Island / Lagiacrus (MH Tri / Portable 3rd / 3U)
0:40:35 – Zinogre (MH Tri / Portable 3rd / 3U)
0:43:19 – Brachydios (MH3U)
0:53:15 – Seltas / Medium Monsters (MH4 / 4U)
0:56:15 – Ancestral Steppe (MH4 / 4U)
0:58:44 – Shagaru Magala (MH4 / 4U)
1:07:28 – Astalos (MH Generations)
1:09:47 – Glavenus (MH Generations)
1:18:00 – Victory! (MH4)
Yay! More VGMpire! I am not going to take any more episodes for granted. This is manna from heaven. 🙂
Thank you guys!
Yes! I was waiting for a Monster Hunter episode! Perfectly timed as usual!
Prefect thing to listen to in the last couple days before MHGen release. Wouldn’t mind a Monster Hunter related podcast on the regular 😉
Some of these songs had some very John Williams sounding bits. The later songs sound like they could come from any movie soundtrack, but the earlier ones still had some gamey qualities. It’s nice to hear discussion about series that the guys know well and are enthusiastic about, but this unfortunately fell into the “lots of info that doesn’t sound very interesting to a bystander,” for me. Good to have some VGMpire, though.
Yay Yuri! There’s nobody who knows more about MH than he does. Besides the devs 😛
Yuri also pretty much got me more into Monster Hunter. I’m still quite the noob despite playing a smattering of MH Tri / 3U and 4U, but I’m planning on devoting a lot more time into MHG.
I had a chance to get into the series back in high school, but for whatever reason I didn’t — I remember seeing magazine ads for the first game back in the day, and I was fascinated that it had online – but for whatever reason it just didn’t work out and I never bought it. I then played a bit of a demo for MH Freedom on PSP and like what I played, but the lack of interest in my friends circle dispelled things.
I recall playing the demo of Tri on Wii and I really dug it, but again, never really took the plunge until recent years. It helps now that a large portion of my office have adored the game for years.
Music-wise, the series is very rich! Composers like Kouda had worked a bunch on Darkstalkers and MvC1 in the past, and Tetsuya Shibata (husband of BoF4 composer Yoshino Aoki, I might add!) was part of the original MH games as well as Devil May Cry 3. “Main Theme / Proof of a Hero”, “Seltas” and “Settlement of the Sun” are some of my fave tracks from the series. The games always have these wonderful swells and really uplifting orchestral stuff, it’s really majestic and I’d love to see a live orchestra perform it! I also love the orchestral sting that plays when a big monster spots you — it’s the perfect “ah crap, it noticed me, here it goes” feeling.
Anyhoot I hope I get to play MHG with a bunch of you. Tweet me your 3DS friend codes!
Also need to give shoutouts to Shota & Video Game Orchestra for knocking Monster Hunter’s (and many other Capcom titles’) music out of the park with their Capcom Live series, particularly their rendition of the Zinogre Theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEQx2BvotjM
Hey, Brett, would love it if you did an episode on the forgotten Konami arcade follow up to Sunset Riders, called Mystic Warriors. The soundtrack is absolutely amazing. One of the best video game soundtracks.
Hi Brett,
Just wanted to say that I’ve been waiting for this episode for the past 2 years ever since I first “got” monster hunter (I owned it a year before that but it didn’t click until I gave it a 2nd shot).
Didn’t realize you wanted to keep work and “fun” separated while working at Capcom, like you had mentioned on your Megaman episode, so I retroactively apologize for tweeting at you ever so often to do a MH episode 😛
Awesome! Thanks for hanging in there Brett! And what an episode! Monster hunter really is one of the great things in life. This wasn’t played but I always loved the song that plays when you fight the Barroth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIABEQ87a3U
Like the rest of the tracks, it perfectly captures the danger and excitement of the MH world. Someone give us Monster Hunter Go so we can really make fools of ourselves.
Mario Mania, MoHo Madness? Please let Darksiders Dimentia be next.
Only real interaction with Monster Hunter was the Rathlos/Tigrex cameo in MGS: Peace Walker, but this music is some good fighting tunes.
So excited when I got that notification of a new VGMpire this week!
It was cool that you did Monster Hunter because I knew of the series by name only, literally – not even box art or screen shots. I always had assumed it was just a Pokemon clone so never looked into it.
Brett, loved the episode. Like Aguilurion, I had never even looked at a screenshot to this series. So glad I stuck around to listen! The music is amazing on these. It’s definitely cinematic, but not in that homogenized Zimmer-esque mood noise that plagues so many AAA titles these days. It’s GOOD orchestral music, with memorable melodic lines, great arrangement, and a genuine stirring of excitement and peril. It reminds me of the rowdier offerings of great action composers like Michael Giacchino, James Horner, and Jerry Goldstein. I don’t know if I have the stamina to get sucked into another series, but I am definitely going to give the soundtracks a go.
(Full disclosure: while I can’t stand the “Zimmer style” that’s in so many games and movies these days, his score to Interstellar is one of the best film scores I’ve heard in years and you all should give it a listen)
Well, this episode finally did it. After so many years of blowing off MH as a game that was to complicated or time consuming to play, this VGMpire intrigued me enough to run out and purchase 4 ultimate. And it’s complicated and time consuming, and I love it. It’s kinda hard to pinpoint what does it for me in this game. The way everything is so involved and unique, the way weapons all act like different fighting characters. either way it is lovely.
Great episode guys! I’ve always admired the Monster Hunter series from afar but never had the chance to dive in, but there are some fantastic artists and musicians working on that series
Also heads up: I know VGMpire mostly covers the music of yesteryear, but recently I started up a subreddit dedicated to music from the last couple of years called . I feel like a lot of modern composers often get overlooked, so I’m trying to give them a little more exposure. Hope you find something new!
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