Monster Hunter Freedom Review (PlayStation Portable)
~by tankMage (July 2025)
Score: 8.6/10
Hunt monsters so you can hunt more monsters!
Monster Hunter has become a fairly well known franchise over the years, but this was not the case back in 2006. The original version of this game was a rather grindy and very niche Action RPG which only a few curious gamers, such as myself, knew about. Monster Hunter Freedom is a port for the PSP which doesn’t quite measure up to the PS2 original in technical terms, but compensates for its short comings with a few quality of life improvements, new bosses, and new equipment. Overall, Freedom is a great port that manages to succeed where many handheld titles fail.
Before we go into the review, it’s probably worthwhile to talk about the original Monster Hunter and its progeny. Monster Hunter originally came out on the PS2 and marks the start of what has been sometimes called “The Boss Hunt Genre” though I do not know of many games that fall into this category aside from Monster Hunter. At any rate, the idea was really novel: Players would go out on missions in search of a large monster, which often took several minutes to defeat. The mission target was often very dangerous and required preparation and planning to slay. Completing a mission rewarded the player with materials. Said materials could be used to create more powerful weapons and armor, which were vital to progress. Players could hunt alone or in groups of four online.
MH1 had a lot of quirks that were later corrected as the series evolved. For example, the camera had to be controlled manually via the D-Pad, attacks were executed with the right analog stick as opposed to the face buttons, and players were often forced to repeat basic missions dozens or even hundreds of times just to get materials for items like healing potions. On top of that, you had to have an internet connection to play the online quests which accounted for two thirds of the game.
In 2008, the online service for Monster Hunter was discontinued and the handful of players (including me) were left out in the cold…luckily Monster Hunter Freedom for the PSP was there to save the day. Freedom made it possible to do advanced quests regardless of whether you had an internet connection or not and it didn’t rely on a central server, which is a huge win. It also had some extra content as I mentioned earlier. The PSP port of MH must have done well, because an even beefier version of it called Monster Hunter Freedom Unite was released for the PSP along with a sequel. While both PSP versions are good, they have their own issues, though I’ll focus solely on Freedom in this review.
Pretty good for a handheld port…
The PSP was powerful by the standards of 2006 and, at least on paper, looked like it was slightly more advanced than the PS2…ah the days when hardware evolved at a breakneck pace. It’s impressive that a game made for a console was able to be ported to the PSP very faithfully, but it did have a major obstacle that caused problems: screen resolution.
The PSP’s resolution was roughly more than half that of the old NTSC format. PSP was also widescreen, thismeant a lot of changes had to be made to the original NTSC/PAL assets to fit them onto the smaller screen. Consequently, the backgrounds (which were quite striking on the old NTSC version of the game) look pretty weird and distorted. The same problem also plagues character models, weapons, and everything else, but they fared better than the backdrops at the end of the day for whatever reason.
Players and devs also had fewer buttons to work with on the PSP than they did on the PS2. Ironically, this issue didn’t hurt the game much. The right stick was used to attack in the original Monster Hunter, which was a kind of strange choice. For PSP, the attack commands had to be moved to the face buttons, which is arguably an improvement. As far as I can tell, the only thing that was sacrificed was the kick and rifle butt actions which could be used by pressing a button while the player’s weapon was sheathed or while the player had the bowgun ready. Both actions were pretty useless, so no big loss. Oh and they also removed the signal button, which was kind of useful for alerting other players to threats.
Which way to the town?
One thing I really don’t like about this port is the removal of the town where players would meet online. There was something about the online hub and its winding alleys that I really liked. It was also a place to keep extra vendor NPCs and the like. For some reason, they replaced the town with an awful looking guildhall behind the village chief. At the same time, NPCs that would have been found in town were vomited out into the village, making it look crowded and basically ruining its rural vibe.
The removal of the town isn’t a big deal, but I can’t help feel that some vital was lost with it. It’s kind of a moot point since you’ll probably not be playing this game online anyway.
Hunter Farmer
If you played the very first MH game, you likely remember what a headache it was getting potions, ore for weapons, and ingredients for things like ammo. The action really sagged when you had to replay beginner missions to gather materials for basic supplies. Of course, many of those items could be bought if you had enough cash, but getting money requires supplies so new players were forced to grind.
Freedom introduced a farm that allows players to mine ore, grow certain plants, fish, and gather mushrooms. While the farm is fairly limited, it helps cut out some of the monotony of gathering supplies and acted as a framework for other Monster Hunter games to build on. Imperfect as the farm may be, it’s a great addition to the game.
Content, content, content!
I’ve come to dislike the word content. It’s a word that is devoid of any substance. Content can be good, bad, or completely neutral. It also comes with no expectations attached to it, unlike words like art and entertainment. All too often, content is just empty clutter that is churned to make money and fill space.
So how does the term content relate to Monster Hunter Freedom? Well, Freedom has plenty of content, especially compared to the original game. While some of the new content is fairly good, the rest is basically clutter.
For example, there’s several subspecies of famous monsters like Rathalos and Rathian. Whether you love them or hate them, subspecies like Azure Rathalos and Pink Rathian brought something to the table with their increased strength and new movesets. Then there’s monsters like the Blue Yian Kut-Ku, which doesn’t differ much from its standard counterpart aside from having more HP and being more aggressive. Considering the fact that most of the new monsters were little more than texture swaps and the varying degrees of design quality, I have to say the inclusion of the subspecies adds clutter to the game rather than quality.
A training hall was included in addition to the new subspecies. In training, the player can fight slightly weaker versions of bosses while learning little tips and earning extra cash. Players can even forge special equipment using coins won from training sessions. All in all, I liked the training quests and they were a great way to make money and learn the game without having to grind materials, since everything you need is provided free of charge. Admittedly, bowguns are my weapon of choice and they were extremely expensive to field in the original Monster Hunter, so I’m probably biased.
Cooking was added as well and I really don’t like it in this game. You have to hire cats to cook food that may or may not give bonuses to your hunter… imagine the amount of hair your hunter must scarf down every day. There’s really no way of telling what kind of bonus you’ll get unless you take careful notes of what meals you ordered. The feline cooks even have skills and levels, which make the system even more annoying. Sadly, the cooking feature falls into the clutter category. On the bright side, later games really improved on the system.
Finally, they seem to have added a lot of online quests to the game. Many of the new quests are simple gathering expeditions, which are another nice way of getting materials, while many other new quests involve battling the aforementioned subspecies. I confess that I did not play very many online quests, mostly due to the fact that there’s no one to play with, but also for the sake of efficiency. I easily put two hundred hours into the original game and don’t want or need to do the same for this one. Plus, the online quests are pretty tedious when done alone. That said, a lot of the online quests seem to be clutter.
A victory for preservation?
Earlier I mentioned that it is no longer possible to play Monster Hunter’s online quests through normal means due to the servers being shut down. Freedom remedies this with its modified Guild Hall, which I also mentioned. While I’ve criticized its execution on several points, I also have to add that it’s better than nothing and this version of the game is far more playable in 2025 than the PS2 release. So Capcom and the MH Freedom team deserve some credit for fixing an error they made in the past, even if the end result is less than ideal.
Should you play this version over the original and Freedom Unite?
It’s really strange to me that there are two releases of Monster Hunter on the PSP. From what I understand, Monster Hunter was a huge hit in Japan (rightfully so) and Capcom has a long history of milking success, so maybe I shouldn’t be surprised by the situation. I’ve only played a bit of Freedom Unite and I have to say it’s the better game from what I’ve seen. Freedom is very transitional with all the half baked ideas or introduces. At the same time, it’s also a bit closer to the original Monster Hunter, so Freedom may be the better choice if you’re looking for an experience that is more faithful to what someone who was lucky enough to play it back in 2005 would have had.
In the end, both games are good, so it’s hard to go wrong. I will say that I wish they included the town in Monster Hunter Freedom, because it would have made up for the loss of an entire online world, albeit a small one, but that was not the case. At least what we have is good enough.
Thanks for reading my Monster Hunter Freedom review!
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