User blog comment:BannedLagiacrus/Monster Appreciation Week: Ahtal-Ka/@comment-24734669-20181116160136

Ahtal-Ka is actually a pretty great monster, as well as a surprisingly good final boss (at least after we got the boring piece of crap that was Nakarkos)!

First off, the concept of a hyper-intelligent mantis that builds stuff is really great, and she executes it well, for the most part. Also, before we go into further detail, she's so far the only Neopteron to have a roar that staggers you (not to mention it's awesome as well); as well as this, her theme has some Egyptian motifs to it, which fits her really well.

Now we get into the fight. In her first phase, she attacks like how a mantis normally would, jumping around the place and using her claws to slash you. However, she can also fire silk from her abdomen (inflicting Web Bound); as well as this, she can hook onto and pull giant pieces of metal out of the ground (complete with a mesmerizing twirling of silk) and onto her body, and she can swing them around in order to crush hunters. One of her moves involves her doing a giant forward flip and chucking the object on her across the map, which is seriously really awesome!

Then, in her second phase, she pulls a giant mech out of the ground and enters it, and a sandstorm ensues once it activates. This would normally be really cool and make for another great phase, but, unfortunately, the mech is where she falls short. Although the mech has a great theme and a great roar as well, its fight is unfortunately very limited; the only attacks it uses are a crushing slam attack even slower than that of Gammoth (not to mention it creates a massive opening half of the time), an upwards sweeping silk beam, and an attack where it throws debris off its body before using a sideways sweeping silk beam. What's strange is that, in order effectively board it, you have to wait for it to do the single arm crushing slam, or knock it down by attacking... its middle finger. You then have to attack Ahtal-Ka's eggs, which, TBH, isn't all that fun unless you boarded the mech by having it do the crushing slam attack, in which it will actually try to get you off either by shaking itself or by attempting to smash you with its gigantic, spear-like tail.

In all, while the mech is much less boring and stupid than Nakarkos, it is still not very fun.

Her third phase plays out like her first phase; however, it has a longer (and better) version of her first phase theme, and it involves her entering Rage Mode (complete with awesome glowing eyes) and attacking more aggressively. She also gains some new attacks, like some sort of weird pheromone emission, as well as an attack where she pulls a second scrap of metal out of the ground and shoots it at you like a missile. Pretty nice, if I say so myself.

Her fourth phase is basically her second phase except the mech can now shoot 3 silk beams at once, it gains a sideways crushing slam attack that doesn't get it stuck in the ground (and sometimes causes a massive earthquake), and it gains a charge attack. Better than the second phase, but still not the most fun thing in the world.

To end it all, she starts a 5th phase where she enter Rage Mode and carries a wheel on her back. This is her best phase yet, as she can kick some massive butt with the wheel. Not only can she throw it around like she would with any regular object, but she can also roll it across the area while clinging onto it with a thread of silk (which makes for an awesome steam-rolling attack). She can also create multiple threads of silk across the area and attach pieces of scrap metal to them before firing them all at the hunter, and she can attach 3 of them around her and spin them around in order to knock hunters away. To make things better, the MHGU version of Proof of a Hero plays in the background, making the final stretch that much more epic.

In all, Ahtal-Ka is the best final boss we've gotten since Gogmazios, and, while she is not as good as Gog, she is still great in her own right and a massive improvement over that dumb bag of osteoporosis that was the final boss of the previous game. For a long time, it would be hard to even think of any recently-released final boss (other than Gogmazios) that would be as good as her... that is, until Monster Hunter: World released Arch-Tempered Xeno'jiiva (which was a tremendous improvement over the regular one) just yesterday.

As for later, thank god you're doing something else for Thanksgiving week; I don't want to ruin the joy of Thanksgiving by talking about how utterly disappointing the stupid pickle is.