User blog comment:Lord Loss/Discussion of the Week: Swimming/@comment-1712810-20130125081322

Swimming was without a doubt one of the best things the 3rd generation brought to the series. I enjoyed it immensely. I felt it added a whole new dynamic to the gameplay - combat was different, and exploration was expanded on. We had exclusive materials that could only be found beneath the depths.

When I played MHFU (which was well after I got Tri) I really wanted to explore the waters of the jungle areas and the lake in the Snowy Mountains. I also thought the Mountains Peaks really deserved to have its own underwater areas, it would've been real awesome if they had managed to take the time to put them in for MH3U... alas, Capcom apparently didn't feel it justfiied... nor did they bother making Royal Ludroth's girlfriend of a subspecies aquatic either. That comes off as real lazy to me, but eh... I won't nitpick.

As for the monsters... Lagiacrus is my second favorite monster out of the entire series, and his new Rare species is most certainly the best in my eyes. Epic color scheme, resists shock traps, has a cool attack involving whirlpools, boasts more powerful electrical attacks and his equipment - the weapons and armor - looks fantastic. People seem to complain that he isn't different enough to be an awesome subspecies, but I have to disagree there. For one thing, we're fighting him in the Underwater Ruins, making the fight 100% underwater exclusive. That means fighting this bastard in his prime throughout the entire fight! There's no luring him onto land to take advantage of clumsy landlubber attacks and snag him in a pitfall trap... That alone makes him more engaging and challenging than the normal Lagiacrus, and therefore more awesome. Also, I really don't think subspecies need to be... like, 100% different from the originals to be considered good, but that's just my feeling. Some of my favorites are pretty identical to the originals, only with different color schemes.

Now on Guran-Miraosu... he's easily my new favorite Elder Dragon of the 3rd Generation, and probably one of my top favorite Elder Dragons period. Some may think his design to be too farfetched, but lets keep in mind that Monster Hunter isn't a series that tries to be 100% realistic. In a lot of ways, it is... in other ways, it's ridiculously unrealistic. Jumping off cliffs as a "short cut" for example... somehow doesn't kill us... but how the hell is that even possible? And how in blazes does my tiny Felyne comrade slice off the tails of the dreaded Gravios with just his tiny samurai sword? See my point here? It's a game, set in a fantasy world. So with Guran-Miraosu here, I find his design to be rather badass, and very much unrealistic in an AWESOME way... probably because I'm such a fan of volcanoes. Who doesn't think volcanoes are awesome? This guys shoots fire all over the damn place like it's no one's business, and you can fight him in and out of the water, making the battle rather unique in that respect. I mean, Guran is pretty much just a living, breathing, walking volcano! WHO WOULDN'T WANT TO FIGHT THAT!?

Heh... anyway, that's basically my two cents on this topic. Peace.