Flying wyvern ecology : Espinas in Monster Hunter
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- čas přidán 25. 01. 2023
- One of the few Frontier originals to make it to mainline, Espinas was quite the event in Sunbreak. But why is he such a sleepy wyvern?
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![Monster Hunter Frontier Z: Zenith Espinas G400 (辿異種エスピナス) [4K]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/7NbXIPtGIOo/mqdefault.jpg)
Espinas normally: I rest
Espinas when the wind is louder then usual: you dare face me
GET OUT I'M TRYING TO SLEEP YOU OVERSIZED JEWELRY
He got beef with kushala, he think the wind is cuz of him
Espinas is my spirit monster. Dude just eats and sleep his whole life. I’m glad that you made a video on him.
Me after the Christmas dinner.
We need more espinas less of these I’m an anime beast and more I hibernate all year give me a minute
@@diaborodevil3161 agreed
op when he finds out about sloths
@@lemeow4426 Monster, he said
I like the idea that Espinas has beef with Kushala not because it's a direct threat to it, but that it's more of a nuisance to its day to day lifestyle. It's a interesting dynamic that makes sense as to why one would be a certain way to something else in which it is not normally to really anything else.
Reminds me of the relationship between owls and raven/crows
It’s also just incredibly in-character for a slumbering giant like Espinas: his hatred for Kushala stemming from the idea that he’s an intolerably noisy neighbour.
I like to think because espinas has to wake up during storms or risk accidentally drowing in it's sleep, and all the thunder and wind doesn't help. And once a monster understands that kushala are always in the area during these really crappy times, they learn enough to hate them and will attack on sight to attempt to scare it off and move the storm along so it can get back to bed.
*thunderstorm*
Espinas : fk off im trying to sleep
I love that so much haha
I like the thought that Espinas is one of the very few Large, High-Threat Level Monsters that aren't really any sort of threat to human settlements, and if anything an Espinas chillin' near a village would be beneficial due to it being a deterrent to other powerful monsters from coming into it's territory.
It's probably not like an Non-Breeding Season Mizu where you can just up a pet it, but probably more of a World Kushala where it's rather chill with humans unless you go poking it with a pointy metal stick
I like seeing the calm side of monsters.
Not every wyvern/dragon has to be a mindless rage-beast that lives for blood. Seeing Espinas as more a very calm creature that only fights if it must is a nice thing.
Not to mention the benefit of keeping down the population of "pests" like the neopterans, poisonous amphibians, raptors and possibly snakes.
I like to think that the frontier canon is like looking at the natural world of MH through a mythological lens, like what regular villagers dream of when thinking of stories from hunters and filling in the gaps with vivid and exaggerated fantasy
Frontier is mostly canon though
Theres litterally a fliying wyvern akantor like that is a hunting horn.
@@athos9293 Actually is not
@@athos9293 oh cool, baseless accusation
They just harvested the wrong kind of mushroom before listening to the hunter's tales
Tegus and Espinas(es? Not sure on its plural form) also have something else in common. They both give me a strong compulsion to pet them.
Forbidden pincushion
Except that,unlike the Tegu,Espinas will see you as food and would probably eat you if you kame to close,
Also forbidden pincushion.
Funnily enough Espinas is already a plural name, it means thorns in Spanish. The singular would be Espina but since they didn't call it that I assume that in the MH world the same word is used for both the singular and plural of the monsters. Like the word pants.
You'll need an amputation to treat the venom
Tegu are great pets reptiles wise
I believe the Kushala Doara interaction might be a reference to a bit of lore of an Espinas beating one due to his use of poison and Kushala's weakness to it.
Even so, the idea of Espinas getting rid of Kushala to not scare his prey off is cooler
That's the Doylist reason but it's still nice to look for an ecological one.
Still the lore should have a reason to exist so we know why it can win but now we also know what makes them fight eachother
@@epicazeroth can't it be both?
The lore of the Great Forest is that Espinas defeated an Elder Dragon due to its outstanding defense. That's it. Though it is most likely Kushala.
I love how you can see him eat poisonous frogs to gain it's poison
The Sleeping Giant of the Great Forest, I love this thing so much and so glad they brought him into the mainline. I hope they bring some of the more subtle monsters from Frontier so that our prickly boy doesn't feel alone...
I hope most of the Frontier monsters don't appear in the mainline games, as most of them look like they belong in a Fire Emblem game, not in Monster Hunter.
However I think Hypnocatris should return, as well as that Fish-like Psuedo-wyvern. Those ones would suit the mainline games very nicely
@@unicorntomboy9736 huh what if there was a monster hunter x fire emblem game something like Tokyo mirage sessions
@@diaborodevil3161 I suppose something like that could be a fun idea for a dedicated spin-off game
Give us pokaradon
@@unicorntomboy9736 Pariapuria? The puking axolotl? Yes please.
We desperately need another Stench-specialized monster.
The way you described Magnumdongalo
is just perfect 👍.
I like to think that Magnamalo and other Rise monsters aren't depicted literally, but filtered through the experience of the people of Kamura . It's like how the movie 300 is not based on actual events, but an exaggerated retelling of actual events.
@@ArifRWinandar maybe if magna ever comes back, he can get the Iceborne Zinogre treatment and look more like an actual animal
You know, I’ve always wondered if it was posible to ‘domesticate’ an Espinas, not as a pet but rather a village guardian. They seem like a monster easy to bribe with fresh meat and a comfy stable and in return the village gets a pretty good deterrence against any other monster that might try and rampage through. It might take some training to make sure the lazy wyvern doesn’t go into deep slumber to often so it can wake up in time to fend off the attacker, but it seems posible.
Good luck with that one though...
@@Dualbladedscorpion7737 maybe if it was found/caught young and raised in and around the village. a wild adult/sub-adult would be to, well, wild for that to work. think like how for old falconry they'd steal an egg from a nest and hand raise the chick
@@Bonedragon1300 Monster Hunter Stories does basically that exact thing.
@@johncronk8867 I mean, master Hojo has a baby Tetsucabra, anything is possible I guess?
...And so we have Monster hunter stories 3 for all consoles and PC coming out in 2069!
i gotta say that magnamalo part happened exactly how i tought it would
A monster as strong as an elder that behaves like a normal large predator (i.e. being sleepy and averse to aggression until provoked) feels like a bigger paradox of a MH monster than... whatever the Frontier elders did. It shows that realistic animal behaviour does not ruin a video game monster design.
I'd like to see the wolves come back if their fights could be improved, and add some emphasized weather effects to spice up the fights!
ya. that was kinda one of the things I liekd in world...was nice getting to watch a monster and not have it just automatically murder me...shame Rise got rid of alot of the "ecology" in favor of faster fighting
Yeah espinas is one of the monsters from frontier that really fits with the ecology of the main series and I'd like to see some more that also fits like akura vashimu, odibatarasu, baelidae, etc. But outside of that I'd like to see doragyurosu too.
@@antwanmuura7091 we probably won't see Belidae since Tencent owns that one. When MHOnline got shut down they had beef with capcom.
Having played frontier (Best game, 10/10, would recommend if you like the mix of classic monhun and new monhun but with more classic references and ties) I'd say there's sort of an issue when it comes to the fight and design of frontier monsters.
You see, as frontier progresses, your hunter also gains new abilities and the game sort of has more heavy balancing as it shies away from old school 2nd gen monhun.
Most importantly there's the frontier evolution trend, which is to say that as the game goes on, the monsters vary more and more between how good they are designed and how oddly they are designed, but the fights just skyrocket up and up in terms of the enjoyability and straight crazy fun challenge it presents.
Very different from the janky frustration of Mainline classic monster hunter and more pretty much the idea that it's very skill based, so if you slip up too much, it's all your fault.
Now obviously at some point in the game, usually ending PAST G rank, you start getting wombo combo one shot madness. However, most crazy fights are usually their own questline. The base questline of monsters, their fights, and their designs, are pretty much all from good to straight Amazing.
People usually think Frontier gets crazy immediately or relatively quick, but not everything in the game is absurd, it's more or less that some monsters have more emphasis on their battle spectacle than others, but it's still not to the extent that some presume.
In this example. the Orugarons have a sh*t *ss fight, like actual hot garbage. OG Espinas's fight was VERY hard and quite annoying in some cases.
Take a more epic fight like Rebidiora though and all of a sudden it feels like I'm having a blast. Or even a spectacle battle like the big Siege Monster Keoaruboru, which is an INSANELY fun siege, but sadly is actually TOO easy and fun, so it ends up ending a bit quick or Keo topples too much.
So yeah, what most people forget is that the hunters grow with the monsters in Frontier, and the hunters in mainline have grown a LOT, enough to match Frontier's level. Every weapon has counters, I-frames, mobility has increased ten fold in all weapons, and many other quality of life changes Frontier had also now exist in Mainline.
I gushed in my own comment plenty, but the message I stated there was essentially "See Frontier as nothing but potential and opportunity for growth". We got Three World's Divine Protection as a one slot deco skill from Frontier in Sunbreak in the form of Defiance, and yet it's still not broken enough for most of my sets to forgo stun resistance 3 for it.
We've just reached that level, Frontier is fair game. We shouldn't see the so called 'flood gates' as being an omen for surges of muddy water, but more so a hope for seeing an old face return in a better light, regardless of how it appeared at first.
tldr; Espinas originally sucked *ss to fight, but was a cool monster biologically, we should be EXCITED to see them try to glow up a monster that already had one of the best fights with great spectacle and modernize them to fit in with the world of monster hunter, it can only ever get better.
@@galaxyknight2869 I agree completely with everything you've just said. I even say some of the Zeniths are fantastic for main line despitetheir designs. Zenith Tigrex was the first time ever I had genuine fun fighting a Tigrex of any kind and Zenith Midogaron put a massive smile on my face as I fought it cause it was just that cool. The Zenith blights can die tho, they were ridiculously annoying, needing 55 in an element resistance is a bit much for main line having 30 sounds way more feasible unless you run the Furious skill in Rise
I don't know what else to say other than another great video from Mr Unnatural History Channel
Espinas is essentially the giant cave bear of the Monster Hunter world. I think it was thought to be extinct until our hunter protagonist rediscovers it on Sunbreak
For a monster I originally saw as just a reskinned Rath, Epsinas has grown on me a lot. I’m particularly fond of the restraint they had in its design (especially compared to a lot of Frontier’s designs) and lore. It being able to brawl with Kushala but not being some Elder Dragon eating badass (inexplicable elder dragon stomping wyvern with spikes. . . Hmmm) who shakes the world with its every step was great and made the world seem more complex as there wasn’t some strict class-based hierarchy to power. Its design also felt reasonable, like everything was purposeful with its features feeding into each other and playing off each other sensibly. It really does show that when Capcom wants, they can create crazy designs that feel practical, and when they don’t Frontier gets a new world-busting super dragon.
I also gotta say that I wish we saw a bit more of human cultures in Monster Hunter. I can imagine warriors attempting to poison darts off Espinas’ barbs as it dozes - as real world cultures have done with poison dart frogs - maybe saying a prayer to the sleepy wyvern before going off to battle; Nomads of the steppe attempting to ward off wandering Tigrex from their herds with instruments made to imitate its gargantuan roars; Merchant-owned mines and outposts paying a tax to placate migrating Teostra, leaving tributaries of gunpowder on beaches and strands to keep them away from more profitable resources. The list goes on.
You should write some fanfiction with this premise I would certainly read a semi ghibli (or more grim) take on the daily life of a tropical fishing village in the world of monster hunter.
Maybe there’s a mystery monster causing problems, maybe not, maybe the guild shows up and starts bossing everyone around, who knows? I really would encourage you to try it out, even if it’s a quick short story.
I think the point you made about the Raths not having a metabolic spike has one potential caveat: the metal raths. The metal raths in 5th generation have their super fire mode, where their fire is larger and hotter, but especially in Sunbreak, causes especially Gold Rathian to also use more advanced and powerful physical moves like the tail spin compared to the tail flip. So at least in the rare species can signs of the metabolic spike be found.
Food for thought
It's probable that the metal Raths go after much stronger prey and have to compete with much stronger predators. The average Rathalos may encounter a Nargacuga or a Laguacrus while on the hunt, while Gold Rathian is seen taking on a whole ass Kushala Daora.
Espinas has quickly shot up to one of my favourites, with it and its Subspecies becoming my secondary favourites after Bazelgeuse and its Variant! I just love this defensively oriented wyvern who takes life one pace at a time. It serves as a great contrast to Bazelgeuse, as Bazelgeuse goes ham on fighting anything that could be a problem and bombs everything while Espinas is content to let its innate defenses ward off aggressors and just slowly takes prey by waiting patiently.
Imagine being so strong that all you need to do is sleep and your body kills anything trying to attack you. That's why I love Espinas.
Can't remember where I read it but apparently small creatures and even Bird Wyverns get themselves killed on it's spikes+venom so whenever it wakes it always has a free meal somewhere for barely any effort. The whole thing with Daora is due to lore from Frontier where a Daora and Espinas were battling for territorial dominion of the Great Forest and the Espinas won. It's also naturally got the tools to stop Daora such as a hard shell that isn't affected by wind blasts and venom to turn off it's offenses.
Magnamalo:..... 💀💀💀
no but fr you are totally right. yes frontier has some good monsters and ideas but we can't port the crazy multi element dragons to the main series it just wouldn't work thematically.
Espinas was the perfect choice, he's pretty grounded but still has a very memorable design despite being another flying wyvern.
frontier does have some gold but it's hard to find with all of the monsters that just wouldn't fit in the mainline series.
If monoblos comes back, it should be the size of the hermitaurs skull shell because we've waited for so long and a decent revamped and some restyle in the fight
This channel is part SpecEvo essays on fictional creatures, Review type essays on documentaries and the occasional animated series/movie, and a TINY bit very noticeable part salt towards Magnamalo
Espinas has become one of my favorite monsters of all time when I met him in Sunbreak. When he was announced I was scared shitless of the multi-status fireballs setting some precedent and putting Sunbreak down the Frontier root of overcomplicating fights with multi-element attacks, but it was misplaced. In fact I think the team might've been worried it was too much, since Espinas's poison is really short in duration compared to other monsters, which with hindsight is a shame since it's not particularly punishing. I also don't have gripes with the Flaming Espinas cutscene due to what we already know about Teostra's and Espinas's species. Teostra as the emperor of flame is still more than warranted, since it probably has the best mix of insane fire capabilities combined with being a very frequent user of them. We know from Hunters of the Guild for example that these monsters, as rare as they are, hold their reputation from how prolifically they use their flames. Meanwhile, Flaming Espinas is not that. Does he have some of the most powerful fire of any monster? Yeah, definitely. However, like most of what Espinas does, it only shows its full power when pressed. That Teostra MADE him do that nuclear fireball. Like you said in the vid, shoutout to Espinas for being almost a cathartic monster. It's a bean that just wants to chill, but if you piss it off, it becomes one of the most powerful flying wyverns known to exist.
I love Espinas very much. He's a chill dude that sleeps all day and is very much non-threatening unless you give him a reason to. He's so relatable. I hope we get revisions of more Frontier monsters in the future. I know some people don't like Frontier's designs but imo, The designs started to get wacky in G-Rank and the High Rank designs were pretty tame and comparable to mainline.
Monsters like Pokaradon, Baruragaru (Barlagual), and Gogomoa are really good designs that with a few revisions, could make awesome fights for new installments of the series. There is a whole back load of monsters Capcom can use and revisit, why not use them.
Having Baruragaru on mainline would be dream come true for me. Despite debuted on like 2nd half of Frontier where the "spike" design started getting out of hand, its design feels more grounded and won't be out of place in main entry. It would fill the same role as Khezu & Gigginox as "pale, creepy cave monster based on leech."
Sunbreak aesthetic could've been perfect to have it as the Nosferatu, but I assume having 2 vampire-based monsters in same game, especially when 1 is flagship, is not good idea, so let's see what future hold!
honestly, sometimes I wonder if people hated on some of the Frontier exclusive monsters primarily due to them being exclusive to it, and how it's gameplay developed compared to the still relatively grounded combat in the mainline series, cause there's a treasure trove of amazing monsters they could bring over, I agree
Barlagual definately has a decent chance because it has a localized name.
@@bluegem8582 The hate for the monsters, as I've personally seen since long times back at least, was mostly from some few content creators making dumb reaction videos to level 9999 beyond endgame level crazy fights and then proceeding to judge the entire game's identity on those battles without thinking a second about the 12 years of balancing, rebalancing, fine tuning, QOL changes, and great decisions that brought them to the point of just prolonging the game on Powerful monsters.
Playing frontier opened my eyes so much that I legit can't even when someone starts saying Frontier made bad decisions, it's inherently dumb to say a game that almost held the title of "Longest living online game in history" was doing bad or made poor design decisions they should've worried about.
The game played like a dream, if anything the grounded monsters early in the game suffer from classic 2nd gen monster hunter jank, while the experience of fighting the newer mid to late game monsters feel like a blast, these fights are so gog damn fun, who gives a sh*t if it has two horns instead of one? Bring the thing back so I can relive that amazing battle again!
The HATE is unwarranted, the disliking of the designs is fair enough, because they weren't focused on the designs. Just as Espinas went from a crappy fight and a basic monster to a fun fight and a rather quick and unique monster, a monster that had more to its name would have a lot more potential porting over.
fun fact, my high school math teacher is named Espinasse...
that's it...
that's the story...
I love how you pointed out Espinas's paunch, it really fits with his lethargic lifestyle, even if it is not confirmed to be a fat store. Also, dang, first Espinas and then Astalos consecutively, you're doing vids on my top 2 favorite monsters.
Love Espinas, in my top 5 for Sunbreak. In game I love it's fight, design, and equipment. I love how it has the right adaptations and power to contend with Kushala Daora and high level monsters but primarily spends time resting. Outside of the game his inclusion means anything is possible and the his reveal was quite the experience
I think espinas is a good designed monster with some ecology behind it and I’m honestly really hoping we get akura vashimu and kamu orugaron. They would fit in pretty well.
I've had a theory on Magnamalo btw, which is that he's primarily a scavenger focused on stealing kills.
A few reasons I posit this:
1. If the primary goal of a Magnamalo's design shifts from being someone who has to get kills to someone who has to secure kills, then the design immediately becomes incredibly effective. He's extremely intimidating, with large exaggerated teeth, armblades, horns and tail, glows with a purplish fire and can shock/chase off other predators/scavengers from corpses with his explosions (sound/light). Suddenly what is a disadvantage during hunting becomes an advantage during securing carrion. Some of his exaggerated swagger might also come from them being social animals, as they can afford to be social and flashy since they presumably aren't active predators.
2. Him eating carrion also makes a lot of sense given the major ability of a Magnamalo is concerned with "digestive gases" which sounds weird to me as a med student
[as normal digestion is enzymatic breakdown into simple components and doesn't involve actual gas formation; true digestion (or more correctly respiration) occurs at tissue level by aerobic breakdown and forms CO2. Putrefaction however is full anaerobic breakdown and does involve methane formation among other things, its caused by the same bacteria (clostridium) that is involved in post-mortem putrefaction and decaying processes and also gas gangrene, meaning they can also infect and break down bone.]
If magnamalo ate slightly old corpses they would be rich with colonies of bacteria in process of decaying a corpse which a Magnamalo would have maybe co-opted in a kind of caecum-like (a part of the large intestine, it used to be used for digestion of cellulose assisted by bacteria, it's vestigial like the appendix (which is attached to it btw) right now, its in cows) area in his body where a Magnamalo would collect clostridium-analogues and absorb byproduct gases from it. I'd imagine that the colonies aren't left to thrive and are either kept in check or culled by his immune system, which would make sense as scavengers have very robust immune systems and keeping clostridium colonies is not a good idea, which is why it regularly needs to eat corpses. I'll call this the CC (clostridium caecum) for now.
3. Magnamalo due to living near Kamura probably has a decent amount of corpses to feed on too, considering there's a fairly good hunting village next to it and that the area is subject to rampages caused by elder dragons.
4. There's also a real life analogue to this, which is slightly hilarious in retrospect. That analogue is a T-rex. Now most paleo enthusiasts will probably mention that a T-rex being a scavenger theory is heavily contested and as of right now is not the predominant theory insofar the hunting habits of a T-rex is concerned. However I bring this up because I'm not an ecology expert, but people who presumably are ecology experts do/did believe that large land based vertebrates with seemingly carnivorous adaptations could be scavengers. It's slightly hilarious too because Tigrex looks like a T-rex but is closer to a tiger in behaviour, and the opposite would be true for Magnamalo were this theory would be reasonable.
The neatness of the clostridium-caecum theory is what I really like about this from a biological perspective.
GENIUS theory. Lovely. Well done
Would explain how such a powerful monster is so rare there only enough food in one region
I thought that Magnamalo was a Flying Wyvern specialist, using it's unique propulsion to get a body that is far bulkier than most Flying Wyverns into the air to directly contest them with the edge of its higher mass. Then its overexaggerated features would also make sense to guarantee that it would be able to land some kind of meaningful hit no matter how it makes contact, since it can't easily turn and aim strikes as it's careening through the air. It would also explain its advantageous turf wars with various Flying Wyverns like Bazel, and somewhat even matchups with Elder Dragons. Most flying monsters aren't equipped to easily deal with a large bulky predator in midair. It would also explain why every single one of Magnamalo's turf wars are against some manner of flying monster, and he never directly engages a grounded monster of his size like Zinogre or Anjanath.
@@soltheshinydrifblim7183 I actually had a second theory on this one too, but the problem with magnamalo is that violently slamming into the ground (which I assume is how he ambushes flying wyverns and instantly kills them) is very antithetical to magnamalo's vested interest in keeping its crest intact (it is a sign of reproductive health, losing them also causes it to lose social aspects and it doesn't regrow).
If that wasn't the problem, my other theory would have been that magnamalo was an inactive lure hunter who used his tail as lure (to act as a small glowing animal to a nocturnal flying wyvern) which seeing this could swoop down to try to hunt it, before realising that it is actually a magnamalo. It is a pretty prehensile tail, maybe even initially used to mimic animal behaviour and movement and later getting adapted to be a weapon by plate growth and that it was already used for fire. While this specific kind of low-energy opportunistic foraging and predation is rare in land vertebrates, it is pretty common in fishes, certain turtles and arthropods. Magnamalo being countershaded is only justifiable in this hypothesis too, as he'd appear flatly colored against a top down purple light.
@@theformation3781 I'm not sure if it would be very damaging to its crest because he appears to be plunging down claws-first in his turf wars at the very least, sorta like a Superman kinda pose, so it might keep his crest perfectly safe.
That magnamalo bit at the end made me die 🤣
I hope we get a video about magna just for the disses
@@julianswinton5355 omg yes it'd be about an hour of him just pointing out every little detail 🤣 I feel like we'd have a lot to say about the "hands" especially sense there's a literal overgrown pinky nail as a blade
@@thatnoctutnallizard4600 Or just the sabretooth it has to atract mates so it protect them from damage only to pull them out when enraged where it gets damaged. Also sucker has more and bigger spikes then Espinas himself and a crown for no reason except to go with the samurai theme
Oh he's an edgy wierdo for sure, but ny God that theme music!
@@masterrafferty4065 it is a good theme to be fair.
His rivalry with Kushala may be fear on Kushalas part, as his weakness to poison means its better to take out Espinas when they can than risk accidentally getting ambushed or something. This in turn means Espinas getting more agressive towards the thing killing them
Espinas and Basarios/Gravios could share a common ancestor judging by not only their physical appearance but also their elements. Both release a plethora of elements for self defense- it’s possible that this organ is around the gut and both use it for elemental defense
They do actually share a Common Ancestor. It’s mentioned somewhere in one of the Frontier books that are super rare nowadays.
@@radianceakatheradiantmeepl1004 gotcha. Maybe they both share the same type of organ used for their elemental abilities?
@@TsulaAngenati2292 You’re also Forgetting Diablos and Monoblos in the Equation. They do indeed share a similar gut but different elements.
@@radianceakatheradiantmeepl1004 true. And I meant that they both are some of the only monsters with multiple ailments so it’s possible they use a similar organ they got from a common ancestor to make these
@@TsulaAngenati2292 Their ancestor ( or what’s closest to their ancestor) is Gureadomosu which is probably where the elemental organs for Mono/Diablos, Gravios, and Espinas come from.
I would like to note regarding the Espinas v Kushala beef, Kushala is likely an extremely loud animal due to its manipulation of the air through which sound travels, and it may be simply too overwhelming for an Espinas to sleep in a Kushala’s presence. In world, Kushala expels gusts of wind even when laying down and when I fought him, I can hardly see, hear, or hit anything without a gun. I don’t know how kush’s like in rise but in world, he throws visual and auditory distortions everywhere during his fight in addition to him hardly touching the ground(that or hbg is just loud lol).
If I remember right, canonically there was just one famous (in-universe) example of an Espinas fighting a Kushala. The local settlement was being plagued by the storms of a Kushala, and it seemed they may have to evacuate-but suddenly, in their darkest hour, the normally peaceful-as-a-lamb Espinas emerged from the forest…
And they were *immmensely pissed.*
A great battle broke out between Espinas and Kushala, and the Kushala lost and fled! The people cheered and began to look at the sleeping giant in a new light: thus Espinas gained the title of “The Lord of the Great Forest.”
Espinas also nearly hard-counters Kushala with its adaptations. The horn, jaws, and spiked tail club are extremely good weapons for dealing with Kushala’s steel skin, Kushala is infamously weak to toxins, and the extreme weight and armor of Espinas means it’s basically unaffected by Kushala’s winds compared to most other monsters.
Your ongoing running hatred for Magnamalo just makes me wanna see you try to do an unironic breakdown of it.
Even the edgy cursed samurai armor cat might have some surprises... Right?
Espinas always reminds of bears. He's sleepy and relaxed unless he's hungry or your startle him, than he'll ruin your day
I like the magnamalo bit. Gave me a good laugh 😂
I do love that Espinas got introduced into the main series with the vast majority of its unique personality intact. NGL I hope people warm up a bit more to the Frontier roster; sure there was some... questionable stuff from a mainline perspective, and fights that just wouldn't work well without significant change, but also so many unique mechanics and ideas.
I love how this angry dragonfruit woke up in Sunbreak and immediately became the best Flying Wyvern
The comparison between tegus and Espinas is great; my blue tegu only does eat and sleep, but very chill when she's awake.
Would be interested to hear your opinion on Narjaraala. Probably one of the more unique monsters that never really got a chance to shine, imo
Kamu and Nono Orugaron, also the Kamu variant, Midogaron, are fantastic fights.
I remember my first fight with them and it was a dance! Especially when one died the other stopped fighting you to grieve its fallen partner. It was the first monster that I felt bad about killing.
I dont get why people hate on frontier so much, when we've had pretty out there designs even in mainline games. What about vaal hazaak or glavenus?
You aren’t the only one, I promise you that.
"magnamalo..."
peak comedy
16:51 Fun fact: in quite a few European myths/legends a popular theme for dragons was their blood being poisonous. Not sure if it was an intentional nod by the developers but its cool nonetheless.
All that said I absolutely adore Espinas. His design is peak (especially in rise), and his sleepy behavior speaks to me given how tired I am after a long day at the campus.
Well there IS the legend of the Espinas that kicked a Kushala's rear right out of the Great Forest and its entire species was subtitled "The Lords of the Great Forest", meaning they essentially have a sort of guardian role to anything stirring up trouble.
Is it possible that the Kushala was the aggressor in that fight? This idea might take the "grandeur" from the dragons, but the dragons are filled with a sort of magic energy see world borne. Kushala seems to be incredibly weak to toxins, and Espinas' whole stick is to be extraordinarily poisonous. A high yield low effort food source could be Kush young and with Esp being as durable as it is might be able to nest raid rather efficiently. What we could be witnessing is the Kush being territorial, since we don't really have a location for breeding grounds it could be either trying to lead it away from potential or force it out.
Interesting theory for sure - though right now we don't know enough about elder or kush reproduction to commit much to it. But not impossible at any rate!
Great video as always. Feels like every 2 weeks monster hunter lore expands
On a side note: I don't know why people dislike frontier so much, of course there is the more over designed monsters, but most base monsters can just have a behavior change and they would be a fine mainline monster, hyujikiki as an example can be changed to a herbivore and it would pass as a fine monster hunter version of a porcupine.
Literally all people think of when thinking of frontier are zeniths, (which were made to be over the top), and the insane aoe of endgame attacks, which after nearly a decade of powercreep is honestly not that bad in how rapid it is, like, lmfao sunbreak would reach that level of powercreep in a third of the time if capcom let it.
God, I love this guy. Him and Barlagual were the frontier monsters i wanted most in the main series, and I am so happy that we got him.
27:58 The weather idea seems like such an interesting idea for the next game
Great vid. I took notice of the mentions of Espinas during the Narga and Yian video and almost made a comment about him, but lo and behold he was next up after the Yians.
Espinas is definitely one of my favorites. He's a tough, if at time irritating fight in the early game of Frontier, and gets beefed up to keep up with the end game with the assorted variations. Strangely enough, I think Espinas' old groggy phase in Frontier is a lot like what fatigued monsters ended up like, so another potential score for things introduced in Frontier that got put into mainline.
As for the whole Frontier debate of it's craziness and all, I hold that Frontier progressed much like any other MH game, mainline or portable. Every game necessitates a continually ramping up in scale and wackiness.
We go from hunting naked chickens to a civilization-wiping straight-up stereotypical dragon in Gen 1.
From silly song birds to master of all elements dragon in Gen 3.
From big lizards to gigantic alien-esc laser-shooting fetus dragon that'll grow up to suck energy out of the ground through it's fingers and terraforms ecosystems in World/Iceborne, screen-nuking particle effects and all.
It's been a constant in every MH game, even moreso now that expansions serve to make the G-Rank escalation contained within the same game. The big difference is, is that Frontier as an MMO never got that 'reset' that normal MH games do that comes with moving onto the next game. They were stuck continually ramping it up and up to keep the playerbase around. Obviously I'm just explaining why Frontier ended up as it did, good and bad, I'm moreso just saying that it isn't really as far-removed from the structure of any other MH game when you get right down to it.
In the end I think Frontier is fine just existing on it's own. It offers up a very unique experience and still has much more worthwhile it can bring to the main series. Maybe it'll be Barlagual or another monster, maybe it'll even be Tonfas. It's an undeniable part of MH history that isn't going to go away any time soon.
Frontier is a go, bois.
I'm glad to see Espinas finally in a mainline game after being shafted from FU. But pandora's box is now open for all the *other* Frontier monster's to show up
I wouldn't say Pandora's box is open just yet. Espinas is one of the tamer ones and was originally going to be in MHFU.
@@nuke2099 I guess I was being hyperbolic when I said that.
I'm just fearing that... *they* might end up in the mainline games, or at least the portable games like Rise.
(Which, I know its a "seperate tineline", or whatever, but as far as I can tell is still canon)
@@reallycantthinkofausername487 not all of the Frontier Monsters are as bad as most people make them out to be
@@utahraptor2000 Sorry for not seeing this for 3 months lol.
But, I never said they were all bad, I stated in the comment I'm glad he's in the mainline because I like Espinas. Most of the original Frontier monsters are pretty good.
It's just when we get to the later monsters, zeniths, and 90% of Frontiers Elder Dragons that I have a problem
@@reallycantthinkofausername487
I don’t agree with that personally. But whatever, i just think Frontier just gets waaay to much bad press, and the monsters generally aren’t that much different then the mainline ones in terms of how grounded they are, and as for Elder Dragons… they’re Elder Dragons, if any monsters in the franchise are allowed to be a little more nuts and crazy powerful it’s them, that’s the point of Elder Dragons as far as I’m concerned, they aren’t and shouldn’t be 100% grounded and dare i say they’re supernatural in certain aspects, but they still are animals at the same time which is what makes them so great. As for the designs, that’s really a product of the engine they were made in, look at the 1st/2nd Gen Raths compared to 3rd Gen, they look awful and spiky as hell compared to their glow up a whole Gen later. And if any Frontier Elder deserves a shot at mainline MH it’s Guanzorumu, he’s friggin gorgeous and his design is very tame, the spikes aren’t that exaggerated on him, but also add to his regal appearance, and his ecology is something that if given World level treatment would be a spectacle to behold, and he’d look stunning with a 5th Gen Visual Upgrade.
All in all i just think Frontier gets too much harsh and frankly imo undeserved judgment, and it gets tiresome seeing people tear into a game they most likely ever played for themselves, and given the fact we have monsters in mainline that are just as crazy as some Frontier monsters ( Icborne Alatreon, Fatalis, Safi’Jiiva, the Searpants, Sunbreak Amatsu, Malzeno, Gaizmagorm Deviants, Glavenus, Valstrax, Risen Shagaru, Risen Crimson Glow Valstrax) those criticisms have no ground to stand on anymore and come off as ignorant.
Like a lot of people I never played Frontier and so I only recently heard about Espinas from your Nargacuga video. But after seeing this video he's probably one of my new favorites.
Frontier has a fair few grounded monsters that can be brought in. Would love the scorpion and rock crab.
this channel is absolutely one of my fav online period these vids are awesome and honestly just a relaxing fun watch/listen
Been listening to these a lot while I'm working and gotta say this one's my favorite so far. Good stuff man!
Respectfully, I do disagree with your opinion on Frontier. But hey, your opinion is your opinion! It's a nice change of pace, honestly- utterly ridiculous is nice in short bursts.
Ok, now I really want to fight a Diablos in a raging sandstorm.
The one major problem with its charge is that it's super predictable. To the point that it's more of a good practice monster for learning new moves than anything else.
But throw a blinding sandstorm into the equation. Maybe mix up the timing of the charge. Man that'd be fun.
Be cool to see heavy storms that ground most flyers but which create effectively a level 1 Bubble effect on grassy terrain and a slowing effect on muddy terrain for the hunter.
They could bring back the hot and cold effects with ice storms and heat waves/eruptions. That way they're just a sometimes thing instead of a mandatory wasted inventory slot when entering certain biomes.
So glad your channels growing you deserve it!
I’m glad we agree on Magnamalo.
Another great video. I really like Espinas especially after its graphical update in SB, it looks really good, and I quite enjoyed the fight. Plus it definitely has some of the best ecology of any Frontier monster. As someone who has fought Frontier Espinas, I'll say you aren't missing much. To me anyway it just seemed to charge constantly which often left it sitting miles away from me, which wasn't fun to chase down, although I know some people much prefer the Frontier fight.
I do wonder if Espinas is heading towards becoming flightless. It has such a low energy lifestyle outside the rage mode, that I feel like the metabolic cost of flight must be pretty hard on Espinas, requiring a lot more food than usual to recoup the losses. Plus the fact that it likely never *needs* to fly, especially in dense jungles. Espinas is probably an extremely energy efficient walker like Tyrannosaurus, allowing it to find food and mates without flying to them, so at this point the flight to me feels like a holdover from its ancestors that will eventually dissapear, like Gravios or the Blos wyverns. I do think it will likely retain the wings as the aforementioned wyverns do for shedding heat, particularly during the Enrage, as well as potential intimidation against other large predators to avoid expending energy in a fight.
Espinas' Theme in sunbreak is easily among the top 3 of the DLC. Probably number 2 behind Malzeno's theme
Who's No.3? Astalos?
@@redstinger0966 one of Gaismagorm's themes. I don't like Sunbreak rendition of Astalos theme... Nor do I particularly enjoy Astalos itself.
@@merouln700 Ah, I see. I like Gaismagorm's themes as well.
@@merouln700 Gaismagorm's theme just feels... Sinister and MASSIVE, which of course fits him really well. He's definitely one of, if not, my favourite final boss
The video was great man, I love Espinas so much so it was great to see a video done on it, great work once again
Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it!
"Crown Of Thorns." I mean all things considered, to me he is the son of god.
Rise was my intro to the series and when sunbreak released espinas and the crabs quickly became my favourites, espinas especially moreso for its behaviour and personality. So it was a nice surprise to see so much hermitaur in this vid, i hope there will be a crab video someday.
I quite like Espinas. The weapons also have really cool design, and them having the hidden poison attribute is neat. I'm not a huge fan of Frontier, but the early Frontier monsters like Espinas were still pretty much in line with main line designs.
I never have a problem with Frontier's Elders (except for that liquid metal and ice/fire edgelord thing). There's one i quite love is Inagami, it's not the super edgy anime world ending garbage but a quite tame elder dragon in design and lore too, it only hostile because the village near it take advantage to use it's power. Inagami is the only elder i would love to see return the most in future game.
Btw great video as usual.
Inagami was cool, its funny how it uses Kirin/Kelbi Skeleton and to be honest i like it, deffinitly the easiest Elder to Adapt compared to Mercury Dragon(Seriously everything should die from Mercury Poisoning) and Ice/Fire Edgelord over there
Awesome video, you're my favourite monster hunter CZcamsr and consistently make great content.
As im playing through frontier, i agree that a lot of the early content (stuff you would kinde find in LR - HR) and the GR monster that weren't design for the endgame, could easily be brought to the newer monster hunters as there fights weren't at all overly flashy.
Now also seeing how they redesign Espinas (in comparison to Lavasioth), a more spiky monster, to this quite natural looking creature, as they lessened his features, its quite obvious, that a lot of the exaggerated traits that "plague" the designs of a lot of frontiers roaster, is mainly because of gameplay reason and and the old framework it is working with. As might i remind you of how spiky and exaggerated 2nd Gen rath looks in comparison to his redesign in 3rd Gen. and 5th Gen.
The thing about the Flaming Espinas cutscene is that we don't actually know if the Teostra was actually killed or even wounded by the fire blast, it can be inferred that it did but it's not quite concrete, at least in my opinion.
on the MH frontiers line of thought, some monsters where quite good and even biologicaly interesting like mud crab Taikun Zamuza, Gasurabazura sand viper t-rex, Barlagual leech, Pokaradon walrus & Forokururu hummingbird being my picks for an "who gets to come to main MH?" event.
MH online also would has some "gold among the feces" cases like Lightenna, caeserber, Slicemargl and even Estrellian.
seeing any of these guys get some attention in your ecology videos would be a blessing since they clearly are a cut above the rest of the monster they share a origin game with & show that not ALL monsters from these 2 games are an unredemable mess of colour and design.
I'd be okay with mud crab coming back if he stopped cracking at the orange phase, or just give some more extreme part breaks for him.
Blue lightning crab is a bit too far for me
Hard agree on Forokururu. I'd also like them to being back Inagami, since It looks surprisingly grounded for what I believe to be a Frontier Elder.
Heck yeah, glad you did a video for espinas, they are so unique and relatable to many due to its lifestyle. Also love the fact that you compared them to tegus mine acts quite similar to an espinas lol. The most hilarious part of this video to me was the magnamalo part since I feel the same way towards it. Great video for the best monster !!!!!!!
Magnamalo honestly feels like a child’s creation rather than a carefully thought out monster with ecological niche.
27:24 😂 real talk though I love Espinas I didn’t know about him before Rise but I fell in love with his design. great analysis as always
Espinas my beloved
Espinas reminds me a lot of Greenland sharks. Very slow and lumbering but very big and have poisons in there meat that are toxic. They don’t spend much energy taking huge prey so they eat either what’s right in front of them or whatever is dead on the floor.
the nargacuga-espinas-hypnocatrice rock-paper-scissors analogy is amazing
I had been waiting for this video. Espinas has been one of my favorite monsters for years!
I had a feeling you'd upload today. I'm glad I was right!
Espinas has become my favorite monster in the series (I'm sorry Lagiacrus) and so I was pretty excited for this video. I enjoyed his fight and the triple element fireballs made Espinas more unique from most other monsters. Flaming Espinas might not be as good as the original, but the weapons having poison built in without showing a number made those weapons more interesting, especially outside of Dual Blades. Every Flaming weapon can poison so it makes them quite unique.
Also when you said, "Magnamalo.......❌" it made me laugh way too hard, that was great. 😂
Green sleepy boy
Garuga getting his just reward for waking up Espinas is ALSO gonna be sweet Justice.
On Rath thermal regulation, maybe their expression of control over body temperature factors into aspects displayed by advanced subspecies such as flame auras, or perhaps it ties into the common Rath practice of throat warming in preparation for fireball expulsion and helps aid in catalyzing the chemical reaction responsible, which would tie back to your point of only doing so when under duress or otherwise necessary.
Magnamalo.. X.
Yeah. I agree.
It's so cool getting a deep look at this guy. I was so hyped for Espinas even before he'd officially been shown of. The speculation that he might show up had me giddy, I was really hoping everyone was right and that he'd make it in. It paid off too, I love the fight. I still find it fairly challenging for me, personally. Espinas can be really aggro and overbearing, and I still have difficulties hunting them solo. Easily one of my favorites, though!
Riiight next to Magnamalo. It's my first flagship, I really can't help it!
Seeing a new vid from you made my night
So, completely off topic, but in your opinion what is the relationship between Gaismagorm and the Qurio, because I think it is canonical that Gaisma eats them to extract "life energy", but it is not clear what the Qurio gets from this, despite being indicated as a symbiotic relationship. what kind of relationship would it actually represent?
Still trying to think that one through! Might do a gais / qurio / malz video at somepoint
@@unnaturalhistorychannel I believe the best explanation is that the Qurios nest in its tunnels or directly in its skin, and the Gaisma takes advantage of when they return to the nest to suck them up
@@unnaturalhistorychannel Personally I think Gaismagorm is actually the one being used and might also being used as a natural host/home breeding ground for them. Think of Alien except the Chestbursters don't kill the host if the host is strong enough.
Whats your thoughts on the citadles monsters and the 3 lords
The Sunbreak team did a weirdly excellent job of bringing Espinas into the mainline series considering how unhinged some of their original designs like Magnamalo and Malzeno are. I never thought a Frontier-original monster would become one of my favorites and I think he has a decent chance of becoming a mainstay. I can't see many other Frontier monsters making it to mainline although the Abiorugu mod for Iceborne looks surprisingly good.
That's because Espinas was made around a time before Frontier went off the deep end.
Fantastic video. Was never a fan of Espinas in the past as I never got to play Frontier, but it's incorporation in Rise was about as perfect as it could be for a mainline series game, with perhaps a more World-like entry fleshing it out more.
Regarding the end bit about monsters having the leg up: this was the idea behind Tri's swimming mechanics and water areas. Monsters like Lagiacrus and Gobul have a huge mobility advantage while in the water while on land they're much less of a threat.
I just realized espinas could probably fend off the other two main elders, teostra and chameleos, with his resistance to both of their main forms of attacks, and the fact he’s most likely physically stronger than teo and his fire repels chameleos
Espinas is one of my favorite "new" monsters in Rise/SB
I didn't play Frontier, so it was my first exposure to it
I love how Espinas is a MUCH better version of my "What if I gave a T-Rex HORNS!?!?" type dinosaur drawings I did as a kid.
It has unique gimmicks that as you point out could be supported by realistic behaviors.
It just felt fresh and different from a lot of the roster and I liked that.
Great vid as always 👍
Another excellent video, as always! I haven't gotten a chance to comment yet on one of your videos, but they're always a joy to watch! This is definitely an underutilized niche within the MH community.
One note on Espinas, I wish you had touched more on the toxic fireball situations. Naturally-occurring poisons are largely--if not entirely--derived from the toxic properties of specialized proteins within organisms. Whether an exotoxin or an endotoxin, this puts a pretty hardy cap on the temperature limits a toxin can be exposed to before the proteins are denatured and no longer have poisonous effects. As such, what benefits would having venomous fireballs produce? How could such a process evolve? How could you even deliver the toxin successfully when enwrapped in flames, which far exceed the temperature limit of any known protein? How could you even get such a concoction to function? This seems like an interesting question to tackle that was overlooked.
Beyond that, a very nice addition to your pantheon! I'm glad that, despite much of the disaster that is Frontier, at least a few of their more grounded monsters are receiving some proper love from Capcom (all we need now is for Hypnocatrice to make a return). Looking forward to Astalos next time!
A perfectly timed ad played right at the Magnamalo part lol.
Also, was that an Astalos roar I heard at the end there? I'm excited for that! I think that Astalos should act kind of as Zinogre's replacement for a few games. Zinogre has been in games so frequently that he deserves a break. Astalos has a cooler fight, design, music, and even gear in my opinion.
Just what I needed right now
Thanks 😊
Every time my boy magnamalo gets spit on I die a little inside.
No wonder I'm a walking corpse.
Something about Kushala and Espinas fighting is that they might do it because Espinas could potentially target youger Kushala, or ones that are in the process of/have recently molted. As with the Hermitaurs, Espinas might be one of the few things that can pierce the thick armor on them, so adult Kushala might try to bother Espinas enough that it leaves it's nesting/molting spots alone.
Aspire to be like Espinas
One of the most potentially lethal things in existence.
Literally just wants to be left alone and eat.
Yea, I really really REALLY hope we get a huge slice of team A in the next game. I absolutely adored the 'you are a visitor of their domain' mindset
Espinas is one of those frontier gems and I only wish we could have had him on FU, let's hope only the gems of frontier get in, I have also acutaly talked about making 2 different cannons for the games so that the 2 can more peacefully co exist and everyone gets what they want, the mainline can stick with grounded ecology and portable can go full anime, I think from 5th gen onwards they should be 2 different cannons
Can you do a Gammoth video? Unrelated but she's my personal favorite.
All the fated four will be covered in time!
@@unnaturalhistorychannel Glavenus is my favourite, (I know, he's a bit much), so I'm excited for that one
My favorite aspect of Espinas are his sounds. His Godzilla like trumpeting makes me wonder if they communicate with each other over long distances given the echo. I'd attribute the rivalry with Kushala to be that of preference. They seem to soften their hide with heat so maybe the colder winds and therefore BIG ice weakness come from how some reptiles hibernate in the cold and Kushala would force an Espinas to die from starvation during a forced hibernation.
I can't recall non-flaming Espinas going in the northern regions of the citadel, whereas flaming loses a lot of that ice weakness in exchange for water, possibly explaining the lack of habitation in humid areas without abandoning the insectivore lifestyle.
I'd wager elemental weaknesses speak more on the environments these creatures dwell in more than not. Rajang, Bazel, and their variants being outliers to this I suppose.
(I somehow slapped this into a short, god BLESS CZcams, because this was made a week ago)