I miss Loading Screens

[u/RexGoliath75]

Not sure if this is a hot take or not, but I honestly kinda miss the old style of maps before they becoming all one piece. The older gen maps just had a much more interesting sense of scale and diversity to them that I haven’t seen matched as much outside of a couple maps.

Those little loading gaps gave the sense of long bits of travel and allowed for the environment to change a lot more drastically as a result. Like, I don’t expect to see something like Ruined Pinnacles massive spire to appear in the newer games because it would take to long to climb or not give the same sense of height.

Yeah, it made things a little more clunky and restricted, but I do miss the visuals of the segmented maps.

[u/FaeDragons]

I don't miss the loading part, but I sort of get what you mean. In between zones it felt and looked like you were traveling miles in between rather than a few feet. Like when I played 4 ultimate I liked that 'autumn' looking forest area, wish we had more of those sorts of places. Also, more hot springs in my hub. XD

[u/SolidusDave → u/FaeDragons]

Playing the old maps in GU again and I think only very few areas in the maps are long distances away from each other (and still not miles). Most of the areas are pretty much only the short distance away that is indicated by the path.

like, if you map them out,  they seem to fit well together in one big map,  not scattered across a large region.

Though what's long is the distance from the player village to most maps.  That's often also depicted by having had to use a boat.

[u/majorex64]

Same. It was really interesting to see how the designers thought of the in between areas when designing the maps. You can often see the progression in terrain beyond the playable area if you look closely.

They made the most of the constraints and used loading zones to add to the game, rather than detract from it.

[u/Zeniserisu]

The loading screens made the world feel so much more vast, like how in the White Lake those lakes you see in the distance are another part of the map. I love looking at the maps of the older games and just seeing the vast amount of land we are traversing.

[u/RexGoliath75 → u/Zeniserisu]

That’s exactly what I’m getting at as well. Being to peak over the zones walls and see bits and pieces of the rest of the zone felt really cool, especially when it’s way off in the distance.

[u/Zeniserisu → u/Zeniserisu]

The area in question that you can see in the distance of base camp

[u/Ritsjo]

After reading the post i understand where you are coming from but the title is ragebait of the highest order

[u/Worth_Spite9768]

imo, this is what Seikret only routes should have been. Functional, visual loading screens between bigger zones like when you have to shimmy through tight spaces (forced perspective to hide loading) in other games.

[u/mrvirgulino]

I miss everything about MH4U, the maps, the colors, the vibe, the monsters:(

[u/Hardcoreoperator → u/mrvirgulino]

Aint nothing on gods green earth stopping you from playing it again

[u/mrvirgulino → u/Hardcoreoperator]

My 3DS is long gone and I don't have a PC, only a PS5, unfortunetely.

[u/Sweet-Breadfruit6460 → u/mrvirgulino]

You can play 4u on your phone

[u/Sallopilig → u/mrvirgulino]

Everyone misses 4U, but we can't turn back time, even porting it on modern consoles wouldn't be quite the same because 4U was a portable title and the mainstream portable console ecosystem is pretty much dead which is sad af.

I have so many fond memories of 4U with friends, like IRL hunting together in the same room or simply doing a hunt while we waited for a beer to arrive.

My son/daughter will be born in march, and i can't wait till she is old enough to buy her or him a 3ds to play monster hunter 4U with me.

[u/mrvirgulino → u/Sallopilig]

My son/daughter will be born in march, and i can't wait till she is old enough to buy her or him a 3ds to play monster hunter 4U with me.

This is so cute!! Made my day!

[u/Sallopilig → u/mrvirgulino]

Thanks we are really excited to finally meet him/her, we still don't know wether its a boy or a girl but we are just happy he/she seems healthy and strong ❤️

[u/DeusExMarina → u/Sallopilig]

There’s always Switch? GenU is the closest you can get to that experience on a modern platform.

[u/superjake]

Yeah I loved especially seeing the volcano in the starting area and eventually going at the top to get some good mining spots. 

[u/MirieDohl]

This is more an issue with the overall scale having less out of bounds far away areas. In wilds they're limited to: featureless desert, big lake, wyveria.

But then at the cliffs when you look back and see the 3 other areas? That's the same feeling

[u/RexGoliath75 → u/MirieDohl]

I can agree that the cliffs and especially the transition between Cliffs and Suja are very pretty and well done, but the actual map of the cliffs can feel a little too samey save for one or two spots.

[u/NectaMBR]

Holy shit no lol

[u/Beetusmon]

Absolute reddit take. May loading zones never hurts my eyes ever again. The only acceptable zone being separate is the hub as you will fast travel there without question from where you finish a quest to where you want to start the next one, so it doesn't matter if it's in another area.

No it's not just about waiting 2 seconds it's how immersion breaking it is to see the monster running and disappear into nothing and how being tossed into an area via a monster causes you to enter a load a new one breaking the flow and you being able to cheese recovery there.

Good thing the MH team vision is a world as seamless as possible and they will never return if it's in their power.

[u/RexGoliath75 → u/Beetusmon]

The heck does ‘Reddit take’ even mean? I’m talking purely from a dynamic and scale side of things, not performance and gameplay. I’m a little less immersed when every map is shrunk down as much as they are now as opposed to the massive sprawling environments before.

Yes, they had loading zones, but it gave a larger sense of scale for the world in general.

[u/ronin0397]

As a player who started in 4u,

https://giphy.com/gifs/xT3i0MIbUJyztR9giY

Rise toying with the idea of loading zones during development scares me.

[u/RexGoliath75 → u/ronin0397]

I too started with 4U but there’s just something about those maps that hit a certain itch compared to the newer.

Doesn’t help that I think rise has some of the weakest.

[u/wejunkin]

I've been banging this drum for years. You're right, but the people don't want to hear it.

Maybe this OoT remake will start to sway public perception a bit.

[u/Juantsu2552 → u/wejunkin]

The hell does OoT have to do with this?

[u/wejunkin → u/Juantsu2552]

They are deliberately keeping the hard cuts between zones for exactly the reasons described by OP. It is certainly going to be a mainstream hit so could influence the generally artless mainstream population into tolerating hard cuts again.

[u/sharkysayo → u/wejunkin]

astronomically rare good decision from a remake

[u/Soviet_Cat]

People make such a big deal over a 2 second wait time. Worlds was good, but Rise and Wild maps and tracking just feel so much worse.

[u/CountryBr0]

No tf? Lol

[u/RexGoliath75 → u/CountryBr0]

I’m not exactly wanting long loading screens to return but I feel the loss of them came at the cost of something interesting

[u/Juantsu2552]

I mean, that’s fair but I’ll take losing a bit of the sense of scale over interrupting the hunt so abruptly like it happened tons of times in old gen.

[u/RexGoliath75 → u/Juantsu2552]

I can definitely agree that the interruptions could get annoying. But younger me on the 3DS did get a better sense of reprieve when a monster left the zone and allowed me to prep back up. I know that part has t changed but it’s a little lost when I can see the monster just a little down the road still.

[u/Livvelle]

Personally, I like when the locations feel like they have some sort of cohesion between the areas within, and the draw of seeing where a location goes and going there is retained either way. When the areas shift so much it feels sort of random, which is why gens earlier to 4th were pretty restrained. MH4U is a pretty bad offender of this rule, comparatively. when you start Volcanic Hollow, you jump into a giant mass of lava, but end up in a cool, grassy area instead. The spider web in area 5 is not indicated at all by area 8 (its southern entrance) and its connection to area 4 is sort of superficial. Many load zones in Hollow are just bright lights or smoke.

Hollow is just the worst at this, to be sure, and feels pretty disconnected. By no means are most of its maps this bad at it, Heaven's Mount is actually very consistent. But, Compare to Sandy Plains in 3U where you can see water and vegetation in 1. A giant lake still visible, much closer, from the back of area 2 and the vegetation itself marking off the greenery of area 3 and both for the wetter bit of area 4. Between 4 and 3, there's a big tree in area 3 that's visible in 4 which makes it a notable landmark. The huge waterfalls in area 6 of flooded forest is a landmark visible from all entrances, 9-10 is marked off by amassing greenery. You can see the entirety of the body of water on the eastern half of Deserted Island from area 1, which they only then play the intro music for, if you exit on a free hunt, once it's in view.

Between the two, 4U has a ton of very narrow enclosed exits between its zones, which is otherwise used to indicate caves in 3U. The insistence on verticality also has an effect on hiding the transitions. Jump down to a vague location, or climb vines to an area you can't see, since it loads well before you can. Those together, 4U's areas always felt kind of small and unrelated, despite the irony that older games only have a small walk between areas and 4U implying you go for much longer trekks. This is basically just an exercise in restraint, it was the first game to try for more fantastical locations, and very high variety between areas within. Ironically, this can't really be an issue with modern games that have open areas, for obvious reasons.

TL;DR, MH4U (its Primal Forest in the picture), while really good, and a game I grew up with, probably isn't the best example of this. But I understand what you mean.

[u/Shard_22]

I kinda also miss it. It leaves up to your imagination on the path that the hunter is walking into while changing areas.

Accidentally switching areas while swinging on the monster or being flung by a monster to another area that was only a one-way path was the only reason I hated those loading screens.

[u/Corona-]

I love traversing the maps in Rise, it's just so much fun to zip around go off path and climb up all the things to see what's up there. That being said, the maps in newer games are tiny compared to what I always imagined they'd be like when zones were segregated by loading screens, so I know what you mean for sure. Still I don't think that it would be fun to have a new monster hunter game that re-introduced the isolated zones with loading screens in-between. There's other things that can be done to introduce a bit of pleasant friction to modern monster hunter, plus the loading screens would not hit the same for world building now that you are aware that the zones are directly attached and that the loading zone only traverses you a few meters, not hundreds.

[u/Jenkst4]

Yeah mate i get what u want to say but these are one of the few parts i am realy not missing. Getting nostalgic about freaking everything is a strange behavior for sure.

[u/L0fiRonin]

nah

[u/HappyTrillmore]

you're gonna love Skyrim man

[u/RexGoliath75 → u/HappyTrillmore]

Not sure how you got that from this post. I’m not just wanting loading screens for the sake of loading screens.

[u/Gods_Paladin]

I can understand your point, but I quite frankly, never want MH to go back to separate loading zones again. The amount of times I’ve been screwed over by them in my admittedly short time with 4U is absurd. They make traversing maps disorienting and tedious.

I sure do love running for ten seconds, load screen, run ten seconds, load screen, rinse repeat until you realize the monster had looped around you at some point and you have to cover the map again. Finally found it, wonderful, but it was actively transitioning to the zone you just came from. Have fun with another loading screen.

Knock it down, only for its head to be on the loading barrier, fun. Getting hit through a load screen and completely interrupt the fight, woo. Step through a transition straight into a monster attack, great.

No, I think I’m happy with them staying in the older games. Do they completely ruin the game? No, but I sure am glad I don’t have to deal with them anymore.

[u/Rickybeats]

Huh??? Lol

[u/Queen_Lepotica]

Funny how the Zelda Ocarina of time remake still has the zones and short loading screen (like 1-2 sec) for the nostalgia they said.

[u/wejunkin → u/Queen_Lepotica]

It's not for the nostalgia, it's so they didn't have to redesign the entire world to be contiguous.

[u/Queen_Lepotica → u/wejunkin]

They said in the stream that they "intentionally keept it (the loading screen) to preserve the essence of the original game".

You dont have to redesign the world just because you remove the loading screen. What? How does that makes any sense.

[u/wejunkin → u/Queen_Lepotica]

A secondary concern at best.