Rejoice, for Capcom has seen fit to release a new Monster Hunter game in the West. It doesn't always bother, see--that's why we've skipped straight to Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate without stopping to try Monster Hunter 4 first. You can hardly blame Capcom, though. Over here, the series has never enjoyed the same popularity as it has closer to home, and even among its fans it has a reputation for being difficult to get into, thanks to its frankly ludicrous array of deep combat and resource management systems.

Sure enough, Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate isn't without its challenges, but there's a fantastically compelling game at the heart of it all, if you can see past its steep learning curve. For those who don't know, the Monster Hunter games are action-RPGs, where you do battle against dozens of giant monsters, take their body parts, and use them to fashion new weapons and armour with which to do battle against more giant monsters--except it is much more complicated than it sounds, which is why it’s such a brilliant series is so brilliant, and also why so many people struggle with it.

That said, it's likely you'll spend most of your time playing online, this time without first having to link your 3DS to a Wii U. As great as the single-player experience is, taking your skills and knowledge and using them when you’re part of a team is something else entirely. Progression through the multiplayer missions runs entirely separately from the single-player campaign, despite following a similar tier system where later missions are closed off until a certain number of earlier ones are cleared, and you use the same character throughout. However, the difficulty of multiplayer missions scales considerably to take extra players into account. Just because you've taken down a Great Jaggi in single-player without breaking a sweat doesn't mean you can slack off when hunting one as a team.

Previous entries in the series also did this, but scaled the difficulty up for a full team of four at all times, making it incredibly difficult to hunt with just one or two friends. MH4 Ultimate, on the other hand, seems to scale depending on the number of players in the group. I've spent a good few evenings hunting with just one other player, and the difficulty level was spot-on. Finding your friends is also a breeze, because the game seamlessly hooks into your 3DS friends list and allows you to instantly join any of your contacts who are currently playing online. The drama of a good hunt is definitely best shared with friends, and hearing everyone roar in unison upon taking down a particularly ferocious beast is one of the finest experiences videogames have to offer. Unfortunately, to hear those roars you have to use a third-party service like Skype, due to the curious omission of voice chat.

Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate manages to expand upon the things that people love about the series, while simultaneously making concessions to those getting involved for the first time. It's an absolutely astonishing time-sink, but it rarely feels like a grind; when the game gets its hooks into you, you can expect to find yourself engrossed for at least 80 hours. Those who become truly invested can expect to find their in-game clock running into the hundreds of hours. Sure, Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate isn't without some of the series' time-honoured idiosyncrasies, but it's the most streamlined and accessible game yet, and one that's hard not to truly obsess over.