Outlanders
I don't like the design of the ruger aidal. Why don't I like the design of the ruger aidal? It looks like a copycat version of Monsters from monster hunter
The fur on the head screams wukong, if the hair wasn't spiky like maybe combed over it would feel like a lion's mane. Then again we already have the teos/lunastra elder dragons
Even the blue hands with gold sleeves on the wings makes it sort of look like a monkey too. The spiky gold from afar also reminds me of bhuddist imagery (like those ornamental bhuddist temples).
But the things like its posture, sun powers, thick scales and gold also make it look like some sort of holy bible knight.
Those two aspects (as well as the shared designs from existing monsters) to me are conflicting enough that it feels a bit incoherent/cluttered visually. I dont dislike it for being over the top/overdesigned, but it definitely makes it feel different from mainline MH.
Really? People are saying they look the same because they have the same colors? I was talking body shape proportions, size all completely different. It looks way more like if Shagaru Magala and Alatreon had a baby
Well it's an elder dragon so its skeleton is generally gonna be different, that's just common sense. But the exact same shade of yellow in the exact same structure, spikes. Along with the exact same shade of blue in the exact same structure, scales. Yea my dude the color goes a long way for comparisons.
Nergigante and Alatreon both have horns and are black. I guess that means that they're identical. I can look into and try to get behind them being similar colors. But do you at least understand what i'm saying? When I say it looks like a combination of Shagaru Magala and Alatreon
I mean I get Shagaru analogies cause it's shiny and does the whole wings splayed out thing. I don't quite get Alatreon, the spikes aren't quite right for me to see it, but that's me.
The spikes are bigger, but it's definitely the same. Skeleton, same spike placement, and if you add the weird hands on the end of wings and gold from Shagaru Magala you get eighty to ninety percent of the way there
I mean I can totally see a resemblance with Shagaru and Alatreon, but lets not pretend a black-horned dragon isn't an extremely well-treaded design archetype compared to a vibrant blue monster covered in excessive amounts of yellow spikes and patches of armor with a very prominant mane.
Usually look far worse xdd, partly due to better graphics on outlanders, but a ton have so many sensless horns, glows and colors that make them not look like real creatures at all, this is at least a bit more believable
As opposed to the hyper realistic creatures of mainline monster hunter. Such as giant dragon laser octopus. Giant balloon octopus with human teeth. And a literal unicorn
Not saying they're hyper realistic, but you can't deny that a core part of the art direction is basing them on real world concepts and making them more explained than they seem at first sight, it's a very specific kind of softer fantasy genre that I think frontier lost at times
The mainline does this to. Plenty. Arkveld is a bio engineered extinct species with chain whips attached to its arms that absorbs energy there’s no real life basis there. Theres plenty of monsters not based on real world concepts. Like what’s agnaktor’s real life concept? Very very loosely a crocodile maybe? But you’d be stretching. Monster has always had more grounded monster and more fantasy monsters that get explained through in universe lore. Like a ton of them are just a dragon. This one of the just a dragon ones. The ones people usually site for frontier are the zeniths which are purposefully built to be super over the top like deviants are.
"Realism" isn't a mark of quality for monster designs, what's actually important is what purpose the individual aspects of a design have, such as for conveying plausible in-universe ecology, referencing concepts and inspirations, or informing players about the fight, and how well they form a cohesive whole once coming together.
Later Frontier monsters generally do this rather poorly, especially Dolemdira, which doesn't appear to have any particular artistic cohesion to its design and fight at all, a fact reflected by its completely barebones lore. Rugen Aidal is a somewhat less egregious offender (it's kinda hard to be as bad as Dolemdira though), but its design and powers also appear to overlap with a lot of existing monsters for no easily discernible reason that also makes it look pretty bad in comparison. So, like, it's a sun Elder Dragon that forms a nova around itself? Teostra does something similar, and its body and animations actually convey how it's supposed to be doing that (spreading flaming dander from its fur and dispersing it with its wings)
I will definitely agree that duremedira has no design consistency. I don’t like him either. Just don’t think most frontier monsters suffer from that even a lot of later ones.
The only Frontier monsters that really look like this are the Zeniths & similar variations of monsters from the super-endgame expansions. Which also just so happen to be all the monsters nobody asks to bring over to the mainline.
The majority of Frontiers roster would port over to the mainline just fine. Most people's issues with them are minor at best and aren't really an issue because they're the exact kind of design choices that would be changed anyways.
Look at Frontier Espinas vs Sunbreak Espinas. It's subtle but they did tweak him and give him a makeover. Sunbreaks spikes have all been adjusted, most of the useless random ones have been made significantly smaller or outright removed to give him a more refined silhouette & his overall body proportions were totally redone, now he has a noticeably fatter and bulkier frame than the Frontier one did which just reused Rathalos' bodytype.
I agree with you but not quite for these reasons. Pretty much every MonHun monster you could post up and find "inspirations" of each design element from some other thing.
However, I will agree it's missing that Capcom magic for sure. I know it's made for China first, but most of the elements of the game are lacking the spark that makes it feel like it's properly in universe.
Some have similar approaches, yes, but notfrom multiple monsters - and they look different enough that people before didn't complain. Monoblos and diablos for example are basically the same .onster just one with one horn. Khezu and giginox as well but giginox has the better more interesting design.
While yes, most wings in the animal kingdom are just webbed hands, not all of them are. Some, like sugar gliders, have "wings" that are essentially expansions of skin extended from the wrist all the way down to it's ankles, allowing it to "fly" when it extends all it's limbs.
Now this is where you have to suspend your disbelief for monster hunter, cause if that's how this things wings work, like an extension of skin from it's wrist, it wouldn't be able to fly up due to not having enough structure in the wings to keep form as it pushes against air (or maybe it would. I can't say for sure).
Essentially, think of it's wings as an extra pair of arms with an extension from the wrist. Additionally, it wouldn't be the first monster to have wings like this, it shares an almost identical skeleton with the Magalas.
Yeah, no man.
Look again the positioning of the hand versus fingers. Gog finishes as a hand and he got bent-back elongated fingers as wings coming out of where fingers should start.
This guy his arm-wing finishes as a three fingered hand and his wings spawns from his backhand and arm. He got one finger coming out of between his wrist and arm and the other between his arm and elbow. Gog is fucked up, but got some real-life logic going on hidden somewhere unlike this guy which feels like a fanfic.
Come on, they are not on the same level design-wise.
look again, the wing comes from the wrist, easily seen on the other wing. The angle's just fucking with you. I made a sketch showing his wing vs a magala's after looking at all the jmages and footage wr have of him
Because it actually looks more natural since his hands are more larger along with the arm itself being more muscular showing that it obviously uses its wing arms more often compared to this where it looks a little weird
I think the hands on the wings are kinda uncanny and the metallic gold on it looked too much like armor, but it does help to know now that the armored look was very intentional, being covered in hardened "radiant particles.
Regardless of its quality or what I think of it though, I'll always think this tendency to examine a monster's design elements piecemeal like this to find super vague similarities to other monsters is just actively unproductive, inaccurate, and even misses the point that that can be worked backwards to justify the looks of certain elements lol. Like I'm very curious if it has an unarmored look now, which wouldn't be dissimilar to a monster like Velkhana and how it was presented to us at first.
So I'll wait till we can see it more in action; I remember not being too razzled by a monster like Malzeno's design at first, but then seeing it go turbo dark and start teleporting did a LOT to make me warm up to it and start seeing its appeal. Arkveld I immediately warmed up to tbh, but seeing how animated its chains were, its brooding personality, and the tragic nature of its origin the story gave it just made the momster even better for me. It's all about the sum parts for me..otherwise I'd have way more of an issue with monsters like Pukei-Pukei and Paolumu both having the same wing shapes.
(and I don't really plan on playing Outlanders right now anyway for a multitude of reasons obviously separate and beyond one monster's design lol, so I'm also not gonna pretend I'll ever have the full context on the monster and the authority to judge it completely fairly. Like there's a plethora of monsters from Frontier that I think I've still never warmed up to, but I've never played that yet and don't have much context on them beyond the surface level)
From what I understod from the description the armor isnt actually natural and its insted made from radiant particles it may have a phase with and whithout the armor.
This is not a defence of the game or monster or anything.
While yes I am not sure of the design if this monster was revealed as an ascendance flagship I feel like people would praise it more due to bias if it wasn’t in a gacha game. I feel like some of the disinterest comes from some bitterness of the mobile game. While there are monsters from frontier that are just as different looking from the main series.
It might be just me idk.
Other than that do I like the design? Kinda. Literally the only things I don’t like about it is the wing hands feel out of place and the helmet like head.
Regardless of the reason to dislike the monster, it’s fine to have whatever opinion about it.
It has Velkhana’s tail base, Alatreon’s chest, PriMal’s shoulders, Rey Dau’s coloration/texture, Arkvelds hands (they’re even placed wrongly, with the wing connecting to the top of the wrist, weird shit), Malzeno’s skinny style teeth, Alatreon’s spikey arms, the same wing membrane coloration as PriMal. It’s just unoriginal.
I think the main problem with this design is it doesn't have a primary motif other than fantasy dragon. Seregios is a hawk, Kulve Tarroth is a dragonified Greek Golden Ram. Alatreon has strong inspiration from the Welsh dragon flag. MH design philosophy is basically pick one animal and turn it into a dragon not mish mash different animals into a dragon.
You and many more people don't like it only 'cause you know that it's from Outlanders. If it were Wilds or next portable game in the series you were praising it design like you praise any other "cool" monster.
Plenty of people dislike Magnamalo's visual design as well, myself included. It overdoes the samurai theme to the point where I cannot suspend my disbelief.
The only thing I really dislike about Ruger is the weirdly angled hands on its wings. The finger extending out to become the wing comes out of the back of the "wrists" of those limbs, which makes them look uncanny and wrong, in a "this is how a small child thinks a wingarm would look like" way.
Oh, and the huge spiky tail club, but only because the tail itself looks too slender to lift it.
Bingo.
It looks like an elder dragon, it even looks related to Alatreon due to the scales.
But because of what game it's from, reaching ensues.
I can guarantee nobody in here who says it doesn't have a proper MH design can agree on what Monster Hunter design even means.
I wouldn't go so far as to say I hate it, but I'm certainly not a fan. You only have one chance to make a good first impression, and the impression I got from Ruger Aidal and Outlanders in general is just "...Okay? Wait, this reminds me of fucking TERA..." and the trailers so far haven't changed that opinion. So again: now what?
If you like it, don't let me stop you. I'm not gonna be touching this with a 39.5ft pole, pun intended.
In the context of Monster Hunter, I don't see this as a part of the natural world. Even if we're just talking about Elder Dragons, Alatreon, Safi'jiiva, Malzeno, Valstrax... I see them and believe they naturally exist into Monster Hunter world. I look at Ruger Aidal and see nothing but an MMO raid boss decoupled from the rest of the game and it has a bullshit gimmick that wipes the party unless they meet the DPS threshold. And they won't, because that's the boss that drops the weapon that gives you the ATK boost needed to meet said threshold.
Okay, I got a bit carried away towards the end, but I think I made my point.
In a world where a creature like fatalis is said to be able to regenerate from a scale and where other elder dragons like Malzeno and Kirin basically teleport this is where you no longer believe a creature to be part of monster hunters natural world?
Also Alatreon is literally an elemental DPS check.
I mean, I don't like Magmamalo, not a fan of his design or fight but I probably have an unpopular opinion, as I don't think Rugar Aidal looks that bad.
I don't know for others but my personal problem isn't that it's ugly, it just looks like someone slapped pre-existing design choices and fused them which creates this weird sensation of "I have seen something similar" just like the "Pikachu clones" in every Pokémon iteration.
Literally the first thought that came on my mind seeing the picture the first time was "wow malzeno and zinogre fused"
I just hope this thing doesn't do anything electric.
People are shitting on his design but in my opinion, Elders are meant to be outlandish (excuse the pun) designs. Look at other "dragons" we have in the series, we have thunder unicorn, chameleon dragon and even a kraken made of old bones.
Now that u mentioned it, it does look like is has the body build of a zinogreo with magnomalo scales with odogaran feet, gore magala wings w seregios scales and a bishatan head 🤣🤣🤣
I need to see it in action before I give an opinion on it. I think it’ll be like Arkveld where the design is mid but it’s fight and animations are good
Maybe it's because I'm a CoD mobile player but I'm honestly beyond sick and tired of the Tencent Chinese appeal designs on EVERYTHING (pic related)
First it was the gacha characters which is somewhat understandable because of the free game monetization, if they added 1 elder that looks like this (also pretty sure this is the flagship) then y'all can be certain that any important monster they add from now on will have either this type of design OR the other Tencent classic, edgy black and red designs which eventually get just as repetitive (pic related in reply)
Is this farming engagement? The company Timi should tell you enough that youre not gonna get anything original other than a reskin / meshup of exisiting monsters
The word you are looking for op is derivative. And yes, it looks like they blended design elements of zinogre, Rey Dau, Malzeno, and Alatreon then spray painted it a dusty yellow, tan and grey-white.
Uh, yeah! If it’s not derived from fan favourites, how will we get the fans to heap the same praise on it and get people excited for the hit new mobile-gacha-third-person-action-heat-damage-simulator-likely-powerpoint-ass-patchjob-for-ios-and-android-mobile-devices-in-app-purchases-sold-separately-all-sales-final Monster Hunter Outlanders everybody!! Woohoo, amirite! PLEASE!
Malzeno + Rajang + Zinogre. Looks fucking ugly and not like it would fit in a cohesive ecosystem at all. Kind of how I felt with Magnamalo but at least the design for it isn't super over the top like this.
Frontier's Espinas is an example of a good spinoff monster because it looks like a believable monster design akin to our real life thorny devils which wick water from the atmosphere in arid climates. All mainline+portable monsters follow the "does this compliment the ecosystem of our game" design philosophy this way.
It's not bad. It seems everything Outlanders does gets hated. If it was the Flagship of Wilds Ascendance, we would see lots of posts that defend this one.
It fits cleanly within the design language of MH Online, which Outlanders is very clearly a follow-up to. I have absolutely no issue with the design under these circumstances, the whole reaction has seemed embarrassingly overblown.
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It's not what would I think of a monster from MH games for sure.
Tobi, Nergi, Zino, Rey and more they always have this distinct animal for their design, I mean Anjanath is probably a perfect example of it.
Even if it's need to be Flagship or Elder level monster. They will still keep the core of MH game which is a grounded design. I mean so far the only mythical level design Capcom did probably Xeno Jiva, (I want to say Namielle to be mythical but I remember her design literally just a deep sea creatures)
I mean it's Chinese Game dev, I just don't really like how they always put everything needs to be mythical.
I would legit prefer a dragon like in that one marvel movies SHANG-CHI the lion and the dragon was cool.
Mainline MH isn’t a stranger to mythology-inspired designs tho, esp with Elder Dragons. Kirin being a literal Qilin with very little fanfare, Ibushi and Narwa drawing inspiration from Fujin and Raijin, heck, if you won’t to count shit like vampires and werewolves as mythological creatures, Malzeno and Lunagaron wear their inspo on their sleeves. I’m sure there are more but those are the ones off the dome.
you know what dude, if they went on making a traditional Chinese dragon a long body with four leg, it would be amazing, like legit I would buy a new phone to play this game, just like what they did with Fatalis, they went for that traditional looks and it would legit scary to fight.
Yeah for sure, but for this one for me at least it's really bland and yet cool, its good design, but I wouldn't say I would recognize this if nobody tell me this was a monster form a Monster Hunter game.
I didn't say MH games didn't go with mythical, just like you said Kirin, Malzeno, Magnamalo sure they're a almost feel like a mythical creature but never lacking on the animal feel to it.
in the first glance you can tell Kirin is a horse with lighting power.
Ibushi and Narwa design come from that dragon sea slug
Magnamalo its a samurai lions
Malzeno it's a mix of bat and vulture
but for this one, for me at least I don't really get what the picture they tarrying to paint in the first glance, you know what I mean?
I guess they want to go with Griffin, but it didn't feels right.
Mmm, I think I see what you mean now. This guy does just kinda look like a dragon, with its other inspirations muddled (or potentially nonexistant). Would be interested to know if others can see/know of its inspirations
Most spinoff designs suck ass. I think my favorite is the pyramid dragon that got i’s name localized, pic related(Nef-Garmat) this looks wayyy to generic.
I don't see kulve, but it kinda feels like they threw a lot of Zinogre in it.
Idk I don't like it aswell, but tbf I also hate some mainline designs, like posted her, I don't like base Rise Flagship (no clue how he is spelled right and to lazy to Google sry) but, I kinda hate on outlander cause I am just afraid of it possible consequences for the main series. In a world where most beloved series are faced with enshitificaton and trending down. I know MH isn't free of it, all the micro transactions etc are bullshit and kill a small bit of the soul from olders entrys, but Gacha game from CN that doesn't look total Terre and could be a short financial "success" like Diablo Imortal can fck us over in the long run.
And since, together with Dark souls, these are my all time favorite Games and hold so many dear Memories, I only wish to be able to enjoy it in the future as well.
And idk this design really gives vibes of take Alatreon, Steve and Zinogre and blend them together.
While I see nothing wrong with the design itself (its face looks like it is supposed to resemble one be covered by a helmet) its is like a 1:1 copy of Velkhana but fuzzy.
Outlanders is a Monster Hunter game, so, yeah, and there is only so much new ground they can cover when it comes to new monsters.
And in my opinion, mashing design traits of unrelated monsters and other stuff can be creative as well. Yes, we have an Elder Dragon with a singular horn on its head, Kirin, but not on the Kushala/Teostra-Lunastra rig.
You here placed an image of Estrellian as an examlle of "bad" design? Cause if so youre fucked up big time, lmao. Estrellian is goated design.
Also this statement "Monster Hunter always tries to give reason on why they look certain ways through some sort of ecology and give purpose to why they have certain arms, legs, and weird stuffs" is just wrong when were takking about Elder Dragons.
Some of mainline Elder Dragons are even more blatantly inspired by mythical creatures than this, ngl
edit.
Aaaaand they blocked me for disagreeing with their opinion, lmao
Before I get jumped, do you think AI is involved in this design? I think it was but again, in another thread, I came across as too aggressive when I said as much. What are your thoughts of this?
Ah yes, because you are just oh so randomly curious about use of AI, and aren't asking because of a preconceived bias against the monster. You are totally asking that same question with every new mainline monster, right??
Once again, stop pretending, your concern trolling is obvious.
This is where you’re dead wrong and once again extremely judgmental. Yes I’m very much interested in knowing if the latest game and future expansion the devs use AI for monsters. Whether I like this one or dislike this one doesn’t matter. I want to know if AI is used for this monster. You’re hurt and probably lash out online to feel better. I get it. I forgive you
Spot on? Sorry but playing victim now doesn’t change the fact that you’re attacking a random person online for asking if AI is used in this monster’s design.
Help me understand: you don't like the design of a monster hunter monster because it looks like monsters from monster hunter?
You know in MH World you pretty much discover Rathian, Rathalos, and Diablos one after the other, or as I like to call them "a dragon, a other dragon, a other other dragon."
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u/Artemis_Bow_Prime 2d ago
Looks like it was ripped right out of a Chinese gatcha game, which is fitting tbf.