User blog comment:BannedLagiacrus/Monster Appreciation Week: Gypceros(4th Gen)/@comment-5020152-20150412214000

GYPCEROS (aka THE FLASH)

Concept: Basically a harder Yian Kut-Ku. Admittedly, Gypceros does have radically different abilities, and is a heck of a lot more aggressive, but I’m still unsure as to whether or not Capcom created him with Kut-Ku in mind. They’re just so similar concept-wise – goofy bird wyverns that steamroll you when your guard is let down. 4/10

Design: Gypceros is a rubber ducky combined with a turkey vulture that was dipped in poison and blown up to tremendous proportions. He is seriously that ugly. He’s got beady red eyes, big feet, a ridiculously weird-looking tail, and a really bad dentist (just look at those teeth). Gypceros is also really clunky-looking (thanks to how thick and rubbery his skin is) and manages to look blue and pink look awful together. To be honest, though, the theme of ugliness kind of fits this monster, and makes him a heck of a lot more intimidating than Kut-Ku. His flasher is pretty cool, too. 3/10

Sound: Gypceros’ noises are a bit hard to describe, but putting it simply, they’re mostly a range of squawks and caws. His sounds are loud, rough, and aggressive-sounding, which adds to the intimidation factor. The Sunken Hollow music suits him a lot more than the Ancestral Steppe and Primal Forest themes. 7/10

Gameplay: He doesn’t just look and sound intimidating – Gypceros attacks in a bumbling, relentless, almost drunken manner that can really scare newbies. His favorite attack is an all-out charge forward while hacking up blobs of poison everywhere. Fights with Gypceros can be tedious, though, because he’s fairly defensive and can easily repel duller weapons – not to mention the aforementioned all-out charge that he pulls out of nowhere every ten seconds, making it extremely hard to keep up with him. But undoubtedly, the thing that makes Gypceros an absolute CHORE to hunt is the combination of constant poison, blinding bursts of light from his flasher, and his tendency to steal your items by pecking at you. Blinded -> poison -> stolen Antidotes is a process that takes the annoying level to the max, and Gypceros’ high amounts of health and defense adds insult to injury by prolonging the experience way more than it needs to be.

Oh, and did I mention that he can play dead? That means every Gypceros you hunt might actually be THE SAME ONE OVER AND OVER AGAIN. Gypceros isn’t a turkey, he’s a cockroach. You can’t kill him. 2/10

New Stuff: Gypceros can run up walls. I’m not kidding. In complete defiance of gravity, Gypceros can run up, down, and even around on vertical surfaces. You could be sitting on a cliff, drinking up an Antidote or something, and then he comes charging right up the cliff to interrupt you. In High-Rank and G-Rank, Gypceros can charge up his flasher whilst pecking at you. Fortunately, though, his venom doesn’t get any more potent like Gigginox in 3U. These are very interesting changes, and you have to wonder why a rubber vulture, out of all other monsters, was given the ability to defy gravity. 8/10

Equipment: Gypceros equipment does Poison damage, his armor negates Poison, and… that’s really it. His G-Rank armor is interesting in a weird way, looking like something out of medieval times. His various weapons seem kind of average, though. I’m pretty sure there are better Poison weapons out there. (His upgraded Hammer has a great name, for the record. “Pitohui Bird Mace” is a shout-out to one of the only species of real-life poisonous birds.) 5/10

Cutscene: The hunter walks into the empty area, only to be ambushed by the Gypceros. He rushes forward and begins to scale the walls, only to fall and knock himself out when he reaches the ceiling. The hunter approaches the unconscious Gypceros, and is almost swatted aside when the wyvern wakes up. An interesting little introduction, and the way Gypceros rushes around is definitely still scary. 6/10

Summary: He’s ugly, he’s got a ton of tricks up his sleeve, and he’s got enough health to make sure you won’t be done with him any time soon. Everything about Gypceros is plain unappealing, from the poison to the item-stealing to the flasher to the fact that you can’t even kill him. But at the same time… he’s kind of cool. Overall 5/10