Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate: not so Great Jaggi

Day three and I’m feeling pretty good about this whole monster hunting thing. I’ve got some materials, I have a companion and my reputation among the village’s residents is starting to grow resulting in more quests coming my way. I head on over to the guild hall to take a look at their quests and come across what looks like a pretty easy endeavor. Someone wants eggs for an omelet. Eggs? How hard can it be to deliver some eggs?

After the jump, it’s actually pretty hard…

The quest giver doesn’t want just any eggs, she wants gargwa eggs. Gargwa are large, ostrich-esque birds that usually hang out in pairs. I don’t know which area of the Ancestral Steppes they stick to but I need four eggs so as long as I find two pair I can load up on eggs and be on my way. The first area has none, the second area has none and the third area doesn’t have any either but it does have a Great Jaggi. Jaggi are the rats of Monter Hunter in that you usually fight them early on and they don’t present much of a threat. In the game they look like the frilled dinosaurs that killed Newman in Jurassic Park. A Great Jaggi is a much larger version and is usually the first big beast you come across in MonHun games. I already killed one in a training quest so this shouldn’t be a problem.

Unfortunately the gulf between “shouldn’t be” and “isn’t” is a particularly large one today and this thing messes me up pretty bad. I end up on the cart nursing my wounds and my broken pride. I try to take the blasted thing on again and end up restarting the quest in frustration. Again I head to the area, again the Great Jaggi shows up and again it messes me up. I don’t know if this is the Muhammad Ali, “I’m the greatest” of the Great Jaggis or what but this thing is exponentially more difficult to deal with than the one I killed in training. Again it bests me and again I restart in frustration.

And so goes the better part of my Sunday morning. I restart, it nearly carts me so I restart again. At one point I manage to get through its usual stomping grounds to where the birds are, see and egg and pick it up only to find out that big birds lay big eggs and you can’t keep these stupid things in your item pouch like every other collectible I’ve been tasked with finding thus far. I have to carry the damn thing all the way back to the delivery box before I can get another one. Even worse is that if you’re running, say because you’re afraid that a giant dinosaur is going to murder you at any moment, and you run out of stamina you drop the egg.

I restart, fight the thing, restart, upgrade my weapon, fight the thing, restart, have a meal, fight the thing, restart, curse the heavens, fight the thing and finally, finally get it to the point where it limps off. The game tells me to find it in its lair and finish it off so I stand in front of the little cave it scampered into pushing forward with all of my might wondering just why in the hell I can’t go into the monster’s lair. Completely lost for what to do I go through my inventory, find some meat that is supposed to be good in traps and place the meat on the ground. Nothing happens except for the wasting of a perfectly good piece of meat.

Well maybe the beast is gone for good and I can go and get some eggs. I’m heading back with my cholesterol laden treasure in my arms but who comes bounding over the ridge all healed up from a nice afternoon nap but my friend Mr. Jaggi. As it’s difficult to watch one’s stamina while carrying an egg and keep a monster from biting you I shut the game down in frustration. Even if I could manage to deliver the one egg I have, repeating this run three more times while the clock relentlessly counts down and Mr Jaggi tries to kill me most likely won’t end well. Clearly I have reached the limits of MonHun’s improved accessibility and I’m back to where I’ve always been with this game, dead, frustrated and unsure how to proceed. My career as a hunter of monsters looks to be over before it really began.

Next time, the return of the Jaggi
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