The wall is something g every Hunter runs I to eventually. It’s that one monster who grinds you into the ground over and over, the monster where you see the dreaded “quest failed” screen more times than you can count, that one monster you just can’t quite finish off. In Monster Hunter Tri and MH3U it was the Lagiacrus. In Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate it was the Gore Magala. This time around it’s shaping up to be the Anjanath.

My usual co-op buddy, Jay, had hand surgery right after Monster Hunter World released. Now that he’s healed up I’ve been helping him catch up to me in the main story. We were having a grand ole’ time hacking our way through the beginning monsters with ease. We both fainted once to the Tobi-Kadachi but managed to hang on for the kill.

Then we got to the Anjanath. The monster that the handler has warned me of every time it shows up in another quest. Feeling confident in my monster hunting skills I brushed off the warnings and was expecting a slightly challenging fight. And then we failed 3 times.

I think the problem is our positioning. Normally we try to get behind a monster as much as possible and cut the tails for the extra carve. Being away from the head is also a good way not to get one shotted when you miss a dodge. But the Anjanath is really tall making it hard to hit the tail all of the time and his feet cause our weapons to bounce so the next largest accessable target is the head. And he gets real angry when you poke him in the head. He spits fire, he tries to eat me, and if all else fails he straight up headbutts you.

But you know what? It’s still fun when you lose. It’s a learning experience and by the second or third fight you start learning the tells of the monster and how to avoid attacks. By our third hunt we had him limping back to his neat to sleep and then he barbequed us. But we had him on the run!

This is the first monster I haven’t hunted solo before grouping up. I don’t know if I could down him on my own but I’m going to try before we play again on Saturday.