#I think I'll default to spoilering after the description from now on with how long these posts are becoming. Don't want to make the tags

[seregios-seer]

Monster Review: Ceadeus

Now this is what underwater combat is. Ceadeus is so impressive and cool and I love him so much that even though the fight can be underwhelming at times the sheer spectacle of it all is enough for this elder dragon to coast through as one of my favorite monsters! I think that Ceadeus does the underwater leviathan in such a unique and impressive way that I have found myself literally fixated on this thing. The massive horns, fur and beard, and bulky tail make Ceadeus stand out as a monster from the generic sea dragon, and the fact that it's, y'know, MASSIVE already biases my opinions. Although weirdly enough, and I have to include this just because I think about it often enough it's a defining aspect of Ceadeus in my head, but I think it'd be spongy to the touch. Like waterlogged mattress foam, y'know? Ok with that out of the way I also want to say that the fact everything about this encounter, from the music, arena (I could do whole posts analyzing these so deeply), and even that you can't kill Ceadeus the first time around is designed to bolster that incredible grandeur makes this an incredible experience.

3U (DB): So the first thing to discuss is obviously phase one of the fight, where you trail Ceadeus through underwater cavern systems, attacking whenever you can, and more or less being completely ignored. Now there's obviously not too much to actually engage a player during this segment, but as mentioned earlier, the specatcle of seeing this hulking beast slide out of the shadows and through the deeps so casually is enough to do me in, and I'm not really that upset by this segment (moreso upset by the fact I didn't realize it can be skipped when Ceadeus is already in area 3). The slow intro to Ceadeus' attacks and movement is unique, and the way you have time to analyze and really appreciate the creature you're fighting is something I wished more focal-point fights had. But as you progress, you become more aware of how Ceadeus moves, and it makes the second phase far more natural to work around. Speaking of, in that second phase, Ceadeus begins to go on the offensive, and that's when the fight hits its peak. So, the arena itself is grand and incredible, honestly on of my favorite parts is just looking around in it, but more importantly, there's a submerged dragonator towards the top, and slightly right of that, an underwater ballista. The dragonator is a massive boon, but shockingly hard to hit the lean Ceadeus with, even with how massive he is. The ballista is nice if you've procured ammo beforehand from the Argosy Captian, but I don't really think it's worth it if you need to gather ammo in the arena. That's mostly because Ceadeus has two beam attacks it uses pretty frequently, and even from across the arena it means you can't really gather ammo in bulk without likely getting hit. Both water attacks can inflict waterblight, have really long windup periods, and deal pretty massive damage if you're hit. The first has Ceadeus stay in place, and blow the water straight forward, sliding back from the force, meaning you can't really attack the head safely during this fight, but anything behind that is pretty much free damage. Second is the sweeping beam, where Ceadeus arches its head and swings it down, making a massive vertical pass at everything directly ahead of and above/below it. This also has Ceadeus stay mostly in place, so if you're to the side of the attack, you can get a lot of easy hits off in this time. Aside from those are the physical attacks, one where Ceadeus lurches forward, and this particular move seems to always hit everything to Ceadeus' right and almost never anyone on its left, so if you keep to that side of the dragon, you'll be good. Ceadeus is also massive, so even being slow, its movement, double horn swing, and especially its dash attack (which is actually pretty fast) deal notable damage, and provide a pretty good challenge to the fight. The most dangerous and important attacks are however the aforementioned beams, as with how large the arena is, especially with a third dimension, if you don't want to be near Ceadeus, you don't have to worry about anything else, you can keep away easily. It's not an overly challenging fight, but the insane gravity it has from the story and general importance given to it by everything else, it's still immensely satisfying to fight.

Rating: 9.2/10

THIS is how you do spectacle

#monster hunter #monhun #MH Reviews #ceadeus #I think I'll default to spoilering after the description from now on with how long these posts are becoming. Don't want to make the tags #unusable to everyone else