User blog comment:BannedLagiacrus/Monster Appreciation Week: Coral Pukei-Pukei/@comment-4969421-20200207185328

Another case of ContrarianQueen. Coral Pukei just doesn't do it for me. With the color scheme being pretty much the only aspect I liked of the standard Pukei species, it being turned into basically a feathered cheeto doesn't really improve the monster for me. It looks so jarring. Like yellow, orange and red aren't colors that contrast with each other, but in this case they do anyways because the monster is way too bright and saturated. It makes what would be a good color scheme into something painful to look at. It doesn't evoque its element (it looks like a fire monster instead) nor its habitat (I dunno man, this color combination is not something I'd associate with corals). I guess it gets marginally better when it's enraged since the transition between colors isn't as harsh, but it doesn't save it from being the Ronald McDonald of Bird Wyverns. Now don't get me wrong. I think Coral Pukei is objectively a good subspecies. Like regardless of how I feel about the coloration, it's undeniably a completely different fight from normal Pukei. Differentiating itself from the base species is gameplay-wise something all subspecies should strive for and Coral Pukei manages to do this very sucessfully. It not only has an almost entirely different moveset but mechanically it also introduces changes, so while the fight has a similar dynamic to green Pukei (both have to find water/berries to power up), the end result is different. In addition, Pukei mainly attacks by spitting poison at you with its mouth and only uses its tail rarely, while Coral uses its tail more than anything. Its moveset, while mostly new, is admittedly kinda bleak in the creativity section, in that it barely deviates from simple water beams, but hey. This is a nitpick more than anything. Besides the move where it splits its water beam in two by slowly putting its tongue in between is genius and it actually makes you feel dumb for not seeing it coming. Now, here's the dreaded "That said". That said, the fight, while good, has one big flaw: Part breaking. Taking the commitment of wounding an specific body part earns a reward, either literally or by making the fight easier. Part breaking is an essential mechanic of Monster Hunter's gameplay. In some select cases however, it's not really that well done, usually because that Commitment/Reward balance isn't held. Any remotely experienced player sees a monster whose fighting style revolves around attacking with one of its body parts, and their first thought will probably be to, well, get rid of it. That's logical. The problem with Coral Pukei is that the moment it loses its tail it straight up loses more than half its moveset with nothing to replace it, and the fight is entirely trivialized. And this something that happens very soon since the tail is also very weak to damage. So you fight the entire (literally) monster for the first five or so minutes, and then a gimped and pathetically easy version of it for the remainder of the hunt. I understand why it's a weak hitzone since the tail is obviously also one of the riskier parts to attack, so something they could do is either: Make it much tougher to break; give it a moveset that isn't as dependant on the tail; give it altered, weaker versions of its tail attacks that it uses when it's severed; or just simply make the tail cut an HP treshold like Elder Dragon horns. So there's still an incentive to cut the tail, but doesn't remove any sort of threat this monster might pose.

Fortunately, there's monsters that get the whole part breaking mechanic perfectly right, such as the subject of the next MAW. I don't think it's without flaw, but Coral Pukei is a good subspecies, that I happen to dislike. The magic of subjectivity.