User blog:Cottonmouth255/Discussion of the Week: MH4U Bosses

Hello, and welcome... to Discussion of the Week: MH4U Bosses!
Greetings, and many great hellos! I'm here with the next DotW blog, unfortunately pretty late in the week. Sorry about that.

With the announcement of a Western release of MH4U a while back, I thought I'd center this DotW on the awesome new monsters that we'll get to fight come 2015. And here they are!

Aruserutasu Subspecies
Aruserutasu is the first of the new bosses that can be fought in MH4. This Neopteron spearheads the comeback of these insect-like bosses - literally! Look at that canopy! While the original green one was impressive, with his amazing aeronautical prowess and maneuverability, his new subspecies seems to be substantially interesting as well. This bronze-colored insect burrows under the ground and has a prong-like double horn, but yet still flies. Does he have the astounding agility of his green brother? We'll see.

Kechawacha Subspecies
The original Kechawacha was a bright orange, cute, and cuddly Fanged Beast with a foul temper and a flying squirrel/lemur-like design, which was cool in its own right. The Kechawacha Subspecies, on the other hand, is more intimidating than adorable. He shoots not water, but fire, from his trunk, and his ears are heavily armored! Not to mention that when the ears are folded, the yellow pattern and fang-like projections make him look a bit like Venom from the Spider-Man franchise... too bad he doesn't shoot webs as well, like his distant cousin Gogomoa.

Tetsukabura Subspecies
When the original Tetsukabura first hopped out of the Underground Cave's swamp, we knew that playtime with the likes of Great Jaggi and Yian-Kut Ku had just come to a screeching halt. The Amphibian class is brand-new and never before seen, and thus the Testukabura brothers come bursting with all kinds of unpleasant new battle mechanics. The toad hefts massive boulders with his tusks, and can hop amazingly high into the air like all frogs. Unfortunately, that also means that anything beneath him (you) is crushed like a bug.

Oh, and the rocks he hefts explode violently, which is just pleasant.

Nerusukyura Subspecies
Speaking of bugs, you simply can't progress through the game without tangling with this multi-legged freak. The undisputed queen of arthropods in Monster Hunter, Nerusukyura and her subspecies are closer in size to Aragog than a standard creepy-crawly. Nerusukyura might only have six legs, but she can still do all the classic spider things - leap tremendous distances, move at terrifying speeds, launch webs, and inject deadly venom. Something Monster Hunter needed from year one, these arachnids are fast, sly, agile, and in my opinion, scary enough to give a spider enthusiast arachnophobia.

The subspecies in particular is awesome-looking, wearing the skin of a Khezu and injecting a paralyzing neurotoxin through her back spines. But how does she hang from a web in the desert when there's no ceiling?

Zaboazagiru Subspecies
Move over, Cephadrome - this land shark is one you don't want to mess with! This monster is probably the most dynamic of all, being able to change forms constantly in order to gain the upper hand. While the original was predictable when he went from normal to icy to beach-ball-like, the Zaboazagiru subspecies completely scraps the idea of predictability and inflates/deflates whenever he wants! Unlike most desert subspecies, the Zaboazagiru Subspecies spits blasts of water, not sand. And assuming his roar is identical to the Frozen Sea Zaboazagiru, he gets bonus points for that high-pitched, keening screech that never fails to make my spine shiver.

Honestly, this monster looks a lot more fun to fight than his blue cousin.

Garara Ajara Subspecies
The original was perfect the way she was - awesome design, battle music, habitat, array of sounds, and even name. Everything fit together like clockwork! She's also the only Snake Wyvern boss to date - but wait! Hold it! From the frozen depths of the Frozen Sea emerges the Garara Ajara Subspecies, using her scales to reflect blasts of water that bounce around everywhere. However, the subspecies doesn't seem as interesting as the original. While the colors and habitat fit together, the creature itself just looks and sounds more suited to fighting in a jungle environment.

But I can't help but wonder, how will Capcom make the water-reflecting mechanic work so that it is actually deadly, and not a weird gimmick?

Generu Serutasu Subspecies
Remember Aruserutasu? Well, at a later point in the game, his brutal mate appears alongside him and will do literally anything to send you running with your tail between your legs. The Diablos of the insect world, this monster is absolutely infamous for her violent ways of capturing, mind-controlling, and then slaughtering Aruserutasu. However, this olive variety seems a lot worse than the beetle-green one. She has an extended pair of tail pincers, all the better for digging into the sand and pulling out an unsuspecting male. And if she's like the original Generu, this subspecies will be twice as tough once she has an Aruserutasu Subspecies under her control.

Steve
I doubt any of you were expecting this to be the owner of that mysterious footprint that was released a while back. It could have been a new species of Bird Wyvern (a roadrunner would have been fantastic), but instead, we get something that looks ten times more badass. This new Flying Wyvern has a prehistoric-looking design, almost like a pterosaur, and attacks swiftly and brutally from what little was revealed in the trailer. "Steve" has some kind of relationship with the Rath family, but it isn't a very friendly one. Either he raids their nests, competes for food and territory with them, or - heaven forbid - preys on the adults themselves. Could the everlasting reign of the King of the Skies and the Queen of the Land finally be coming to an end with the inclusion of this mysterious new monster?

Questions

 * Which is your favorite of the new monsters?
 * Least favorite?
 * Do you prefer any of them over their original counterparts?
 * Which are you looking forward to fighting the most?
 * Finally, do any other new monsters deserve subspecies?