User blog comment:Lord Loss/Discussion of the Week: Giant Monsters/@comment-11112316-20131020181125

Ah, Lao Shan Lung. How I love you, you huge Godzilla reference! Admittingly, the fight isn't anything to tout about, and you're going to have to farm him a lot for soem of the rarer items, but I can forgive the boring fight for the awesome concept and amazing theme. In my honest opinion, Lao's final theme (the original version of the Monster Hunter theme) still stands as the best out of all the renditions of it. Overall, he's my second favorite of the giant monsters, and I sorely miss his absence.

Can we all agree that Shen Gaoren is, by far, the most boring giant monster? There's absolutely nothing that I can really say is good about it besides the decent theme. The fight is more irritating than the other giant monsters'; the equipment is pretty useless in comparison to other, more easier to get monster equipment; Shen is just a giant crab that's an interesting novelty at first but gets old really quickly. I never saw the point in adding Shen in the first place.

Yama is a great monster for a myriad of reasons. It's one big reference to H.P. Lovecraft, has a good theme, and for a first for giant monsters, is an actually fun fight! Yama's fight is oft compared to a Zelda boss fight, and I can certainly see the resemblance. There's a pattern to be seen, and if you follow it, you'll do fine; if you don't, then you'll get wrecked. Simple, but in a game suffering from a plethora of reaction time heavy, random monster patterns, I'll take what I can get. Unfortunately, I never found a great use for its armor and weapons, but the fight was so much fun I farmed Yama anyways. My third favorite of the giant beasts.

Hey, remember Lao? Yeah, let's just change him into a giant sand whale and make the fight take place in a boat but generally keep the strategy the exact same. Honestly, I just don't care much for the any Mohran. Sure, they have great themes, but personally, I'd take Godzilla over boring sand whales anyday. Fight's a bit more engaging, though, and I can say its still better than Gaoren.

Now, HERE'S what a giant monster should be like! Ceadeus manages to outcompete even Godzilla in terms of...everything. An ancient sea deity whose tepid horn scraping causes earthquakes? That in itself is an interesting concept, but Tri made the fight, the music, and just the sheer aura of the beast something truly meritorious! A great fight with a true deity of water coupled with the tribal singing and rythem really makes me fall in love with the monster. Truly, Ceadeus and Lao are two of the few creatures I honestly feel bad for hunting, since they're both ancient and normally benign beings. A+ job, Capcom, and I hope to see our sea god again!

Honestly,I'm not getting any vibe from Dara. I've said before that I thought it was honestly a forgettable final boss and Elder Dragon, and after seeing more of the fights...I still stand by my statements. Forgettable themes that sounds generic compared to previous monster themes, forgettable 'giant snake that makes mountains' design and concept, being the 'real' final boss when in all honestly Shagaru Magara would have been more appopriate...I just don't find Dara anything special. Sure, the fight is more involved than Lao, Shen, and Gaoren, but that isn't enough for me. A slight step above the Mohran, but it's not a monster I really care about.