After 10 million phone owners around the world jumped into the new mobile experience of Monster Hunter Now, Niantic and Capcom decided to “Celebrate” by granting us a one-time offer of two special carving knives, two potions, and one thousand bonus gems for the price of $7.
If that doesn’t sound like a steal that’s because dozens of players believe it isn’t for a good reason. Commenters on the Reddit thread discussing the celebration have shown disinterest and criticism of this “overpriced microtransaction” and Niantic’s apparent greed.
Should You Go For This?
The 10M Downloads pack is more or less the same as the Starter Pack but with less value. One less potion which is important in taking hits and recovering in battle. The two carving knives are only useful if you manage to get lucky with a decent role of materials to double the rewards. Finally, the bonus gems are only handy for doubling material rewards and obtaining items like wander drops and paintballs.
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That said these bonuses are few and far between and for $7, you are much better off either sticking with the Starter Pack or not buying any of it at all. Several comments from Reddit already expressed how unnecessary this pack is and that despite the consensus that Monster Hunter Now has “the best gameplay on mobile” It’s apparent that Niantic still misses the mark on other major aspects.
Do these packs matter?
Honestly, there are much worse monetization schemes from more expensive video games. The issue here according to the comments on Reddit is that they “can’t even buy anything really useful with this overpriced pack like in Pokemon Go”.
Monster Hunter Now may have a funny way of rewarding its download count but it’s still a game that can be played without needing any of these packs. Niantic does a good job emulating the Monster Hunter grind of finding monsters, killing monsters, getting their parts, and making weapons/armor out of it in mobile form.
Even the frustrations of wanting a certain material and not getting it during the hunt are the lifeblood of the experience. In short, this celebration was fairly lackluster and fans have a right to slam it.
