Flagship monster for MH Tri. He was a fan favorite and was supposed to be in Wold, but got cut essentially due to technical limitations, then people were expecting him to show up in Rise, but he never did, and it’s kind of become a bit of a meme.
I'm pretty sure we know the reason was mostly Jin Dahaad being an absolutely buggy nightmare, and that they were in turbo crunch after the feedback from the first open beta test being so poor
From what we understand (there's a lot of research that's gone into it; you would not fucking believe how much of a hot topic Lagi was in the leaks sub) he and one, maybe two other monsters WERE intended to be base-game, and really did just get cut at the last minute. The roster leaked months before we had the beta to confirm it, and according to that leaker, they saw gameplay footage of Lagi itself in a huntable state.
Jin Dahaad was a developmental clusterfuck (basically, Zorah again) and that, plus the beta feedback, plus the fact they wanted a summer release anyway, meant they had to chop a lot of stuff last minute to send out something reasonably complete. That's also why marketing went fucking dead for a couple of months, and why we had so many anticlimactic reveals towards the end- the devs were in serious crunch mode. The final trailer would have showed Lagi and the other monster which was cut.
As to why Lagi, we're pretty sure it's not a tech issue. We've known for awhile the tech issues with the Leviathan rig are solved; Balahara, which uses the belly-dragging Leviathan rig (including a shared animation with Agnaktor iirc), navigates extreme terrain and slopes remarkably well, even if it "cheats" some of the time by swimming in the sand; and Uth Duna, while possibly not using the belly dragging rig (it shares animations with Somnacanth of all things) still manages to pull off a monster with immense bulk that drags itself along the ground. Most notably, one that interacts with water in a very dynamic fashion in a way that makes movement and combat asymmetrical, skewed in favor of the monster in lieu of the player. Sound familiar?
Anyway, based on THAT, the current theory is that Lagi was cut because it's without a doubt the most compelling returner they could possibly include in a TU among the options they had. The other options were either essential/quasi-essential in some way, or would make for a really, really lame TU. "Blangonga is back!" doesn't carry nearly as much hype.
Thanks for the info, do you know why Jin Dahaad was a developmental clusterfuck? It feels like a straight up fight to me with a lot of mechanics we've seen before (like the aoe ulti), and the fact that it has its own arena makes it more predictable to design.
I don’t think it was originally intended to have its own space, I think it more or less was going to be a siege monster that could roam around unlike all the others where you load in somewhere, they kinda found a middle ground here but it’s definitely not the Vision I believe they had. This is all speculation but without him there is no siege monster and that is a staple of the series even if he’s weaker than most in presentation and execution really and not quite a siege he is as similar as wilds has currently
He did at least have an arena well before the last few months of crunch hit- the first beta build, itself at least six months old, probably closer to a year old, when we got it, had data for his arena included. It's probable he's not executed as seamlessly as they wanted, but they did seem to be planning for him to have his own arena from more or less the start.
For a minute, his weird spawn parameters and behavior compared to the other apexes made some people think that EM162 (his monster id, before we got his name) wasn't actually the Cliffs apex at all. A couple of people thought that meant Gore would be the Iceshard apex and Frenzy would be its Inclemency, but that never really made any sense whatsoever.
It's a combination of factors, as far as I can tell. The pseudo-siege mechanics he has, where he can show up as an environmental hazard and be driven towards his arena, plus some ability to interact with other monsters, plus conventional fight mechanics, plus his sheer size, just made him immensely complex to develop.
He's essentially a standard fight, but with a whole bunch of extra mechanics rolled in, that change what he needs to do and when, and those added variables means there's a lot more that can go wrong versus just "regular monster that spawns at x time". It probably doesn't also help that he also uses a spin on the Lagiacrus rig, but considerably larger.
Gotta love late stage capitalism, enshittification of everything we love. Sometimes the workers/developers win though, and when they win, we the players win
Since capital is global and not beholden to any one nation, I doubt the bombs will truly fall, however, if they do, the rich will have already moved to the country that fired them
As for clomare change, portions of the earth will still be habitable, its just that there will be a lot of climate refugees, even from developed nations. We would most likely see massive calls propagated by the wealthy
Ahh yes, getting something that was planned for release, a couple of months later for free, because it didn't make the cut before a deadline is truly the peak of capitalist dystopia.
I doubt it’s even that, the game is just blatantly unfinished. No way they purposefully cut a 90% complete Lagiacrus to “drip feed” content when HR Zoa Shia wasn’t even finished for the base game.
Capcom pushed this game out the door to meet the fiscal year deadline when it obviously needed more time.
For us mere mortals working 9-5 jobs and playing for a few hours every evening and on the weekends, there's more than enough content in this game. MFs make the grind their full time job and complain when they run out of things to do.
I mean you’re describing my gaming time allotment as well. I certainly haven’t no-lifed this game except for release weekend.
The game is very good and what we do have is extremely high quality. It’s just disappointing the game wasn’t able to release in a feature complete state. Doubly so that we’re getting drip fed the content that should have already been there because they didn’t want to delay it.
This "feature complete state" is just a wishlist that players made up based off their experiences with previous titles. It doesn't take into account the ambition of the current title, the changes that were made to systems throughout the game, the development costs, time, and resources. It's simply just entitled gamers wanting more. You were informed of the content available, you saw the price tag, and you made the decision to purchase the game. That's all you're entitled to as a consumer. This notion that content is being intentionally withheld from you is ridiculous.
The game is very good and what we do have is extremely high quality.
This is what you paid for. It's wild that people can say this about a game in one breath, and then complain that the game isn't feature complete in another. You are not entitled to more content simply because you want it, or because you feel like it was supposed to be there. Even it's 100% facts that this update was intended at launch, it's still doesn't change the fact that consumers aren't entitled to it. This attitude needs to stop. If you feel like these games aren't good enough value for what you're paying, don't buy the game.
Crazy I thought this game shoulda have came out last year for the anniversary. Seems like its harder and harder to get games out on time. What went wrong?
I don’t think anything went wrong per se, it’s just that making games takes longer and longer these days. Especially when devs keep scaling up game worlds and graphical/animation fidelity.
This game was obviously a massive undertaking just at a fundamental level with the new super complex maps and all the new systems, and they decided to barely pull assets from the only other MH in this engine (Rise) which means most of the roster had to be made from scratch on top of all that. February was probably a pretty generous internal estimate to hit the end of the fiscal year but they really should have shot for June or something to give them some breathing room. Or just sucked it up and delayed the game.
Edit: also it goes without saying that hindsight is 20/20, maybe they were legitimately on track for a feature complete release in February but then Jin Dihaad’s tech issues fucked them over. Still should have just delayed it in that case so we could have a release with a complete roster of 31 monsters, an actual HR final boss, and a hub. With Mizu and whatever else coming as TUs anyway.
I honestly wouldn't mind if we had the new combat style and the new world with the old graphics, pretty monsters are cool, but give no tactical advantage whatsoever
I'd actually love a reskin that made wilds look like tri
I think Monster Hunter fans are kind of used to not having the best 4k graphics, but i know lots of people who say that graphics are an important factor when rating a game. (Ik, i dont even know 0,00001% of people who actually play games, but i hope yk what i mean)
They however probably wanted to appeal to that demographic as well with the mainline titles like World and Wilds, since Rise looks a bit more 'cartoonish'(?) Just what i think the reason for those beautiful graphics is
EDIT: And yess, pleaaassee, tri style graphics, I'd die for them tbh (i am super biased as a third fleeter)
Oh absolutely, they're beautiful, the monsters look incredible and the detail is insane, but I'm not gonna notice the big lizard's second eyelid while I'm in the process of bonking it with a slab of iron
I agree. Many of us grew up with N64 graphics being peak, I personally am fine with not having the absolute best graphics for everything. Then again, I play on console and didnt spent $800 for a graphics card.
this is lagiacrus, right? i’ve never played tri so my lagiacrus identification skills are lacking, but if it is, i’m overjoyed. i don’t even have a system that can run wilds, im just happy such a great design is back. namielle feels like it was meant to fill that void in world, and although it’s probably my favorite elder, it’s not the same.
I’m interested to see how they adapt him for Wilds. If that’s what this is. Half of his move set is built on being able to fight monsters while swimming under water, which was a big part of Tri. His on land move set largely was just a variation of Royal Ludroth’s moveset, IIRC. I could be misremembering as I have not touched Tri since, you know, before MH4 released.
The person is asking what this is, and the most crucial part of the information is what is this monster. You can just say my bad, edit the comment, and move on lol
Here is a little run down, copy pasted from what I sent to one of my friends:
Lagiacrus was something they wanted to add to MH World. It was in the very first REVEAL TRAILER for the game. But it never got added- they couldn't figure out a way to get it to stop clipping into the environment. Come the DLC, Iceborne, they tried again but STILL couldn't get it to work.
Next game comes around, Rise. They made it their MISSION to try to get Lagiacrus in. A huge portion of the base roster are Leviathans, which is what Lagiacrus is, so it was clear they were working hard on the skeleton.
it was obvious from the get go getting Lagiarcus in was a important to the devs, so much so they made ALL the maps areas that monsters can enter near completely flat, that way there would be no clipping.
Then, Lagiacrus couldn't get added. It was too large, which caused clipping issues despite ALL this. Come the Rise DLC, they try again. Didn't work, they coulden't get Lagiacrus to work properly.
MH Wilds comes around, people are expecting SURELY they will get him in this time, right? Nope. He didnt come with the release, despite almost half the population of the base game being Leviathans. It was obvious Lagiacrus was another major goal on the devs mind.
First title update announced; Mizitsune. A Leviathan. But also one from Rise. No signs of Lagiacrus
If I recall, Agnaktor was going to be added in Sunbreak but the volcanic map was too small and tight for him. I believe Magma Almudron was explicitly made to replace Agnaktor in the roster slot. It was made smaller then base Almudron specifically cus they needed a small fire leviathan for the volcano.
I do not remember where I got this information however and I have heard plenty of people argue otherwise, so its possible this was common fan theory that was never actually confirmed by the devs. If anyone has a link to a dev talking about Magma Almudron and Agnaktor in Sunbreak please LMK.
Regardless, but I am certainly happy to transfer my Lagiacrus cope to Agnaktor.
I wonder what the justification for Pyre Rakna Kadaki is then. It has to be the most superficial monster in the expansion.
It's like a Gen 2 subspecies that snuck into the modern design philosophy
Small note but I do really generally hate seeing the smaller species and not having the bigger version in the game.
Seeing Jaggi and Jaggia in Rise made me nostalgic for 3 as well; since it was my intro to the series and doofus Great Jaggi is first thing you hunt iirc
I guess maybe there is some lore that not necessarily EVERY smaller species has the possibility of becoming a greater version of itself depending on the environment but it always strikes me as odd to see one without the other, another example from rise being the Jagras or Zamitrios.
Would’ve loved to see a big ice shark thing in rise, or whatever Agnaktor is (never fought either greater one)
This caused me physical pain because I didn't look up the full monster list first. I saw Uroktor, got real excited, and then kept wondering "okay, when does Agnaktor show up?"
lmao imagine if uth dunas whole purpose is lagiacrus test run the biggest fattest fuck of a leviathan, surely they can add lagiacrus and finally they are going to
Two of the four regional apexes are massive fucking leviathans. You can FEEL the devs frustration with Lagiacrus lmao. They were definitely forcing themselves to learn the skills needed to make him work.
Even the other leviathans feel like they're trying to test the waters, forgive the pun. Balahara has movements that would be analogous to swimming near the surface of the water, while Hirabami's movements tests how one would freely swim in water
Jin Dahad was probably the proper test. If you pay attention during the fight, you can see how he adapts things like foot position, head movement. If you knock him out and he's against a wall, his head leans up the wall rather than clip into it to meet the "standard" knock out position for example. It's quite impressive work compared to where they started with World
i had a moment when i noticed this, when i was super close to KO’ing Dahaad, only for his head to fall right up against the wall, about 20 feet over my hunter’s head.
once i got over my kneejerk frustration, i was pretty impressed they coded him to function that way in the map. that, plus all the times he crawls around on the walls and ceilings
I had that happen to me last night, for probably the fifth time so I've clearly not learnt my lesson. As I was hitting him I even thought to myself "I probably shouldn't do this while he's facing the wall", the hit connected, KO procced, and sure enough, there goes his head half way up the wall and even a Horn can't reach THAT high.
So I guess with Jin they just completely gave up on caring about clipping? It spends most of the fight with its tail clipping in to the walls in my experience. When it doesn't it spins like a top to constantly keep it's tail away from people. Then he sticks his head in a wall once in a while for no reason.
I've not seen that happen myself (don't doubt it though), but it may be that part of Lagi's problem was that its torso was clipping into the ground, which is a bit harder to ignore than the ends of tails
I've really not see that much clipping with Jin, though I did notice there's a lot of work into making sure his feet can adapt being in different terrain levels, and if you knock him out when he's close to a wall his head and/or tail go up the wall rather than clip into it which is a lot of progress
Since it's now been officially unveiled this ain't a spoiler any more.
Lagiacrus was actually meant for base Wilds, it had to be delayed because after the OBT they had to crunch on preformance as well as Jin Dahaad who was near unplayably broken just 4 months before release.
So technical difficulties got in the way again, not even its own this time. But yes, finally, Lagi will be here!
(Also before you assume, Mizutsune was actually always meant to be a TU. Lagi likely got pushed later cause they'll have to re-balance it for postgame instead of progression.)
I don't think it's really leaks to say this now - analysis of the game files suggested that Lagiacrus was basically guaranteed to come. In fact I believe he was originally intended to be part of the base roster.
Look up the prototype videos. If you search reveal trailer, you will get the reveal trailer and a much more finished product. The prototype was about 5 mintues of an Anjanath chasing a hunter up the giant tree in the ancient forest, ending with the damn break you can do in the final game; washing everyone down to a lake where Lagiacrus beats the shit out of Anjanath.
I might sound ignorant but i dont understand why they cant get it to work, they already got plenty of huge monsters to work like safi or jin dahaad which has a very similar build to lagiacrus and it works almost pefectly, tbf those are raid bosses but still
I did play both, but honestly, I don't count them for monster appearances, that game design allows for having almost the entire mh roster with more ease.
He was the flagship for an older title in the series (mh3). The way they paced the difficulty in those older titles is a bit hard to convey to newer players, but essentially your first encounter with him is when you are a fledgling hunter completing gathering quests (back in the old days you wouldn't really fight a large monster until rank 2 if you believe that lol). He ambushes you during that, and it was a very memorable moment. Totally get the lack of interest on your part though, definitely more of a treat for old farts lol.
Personally, first game being monster hunter tri I loved seeing lagiacrus on the cover of the game.
Other than that I agree with it not being particularly special, the design just tickles me in a way others don't, IMO it has some sort of edge to it while remaining a relatively simple design.
I love his look, it's a big blue sea crocodile that glows and produce thunder.
Its fight was also really cool underwater, imo people who complain about underwater were just not using the talent to swim faster...
His fight on land was obviously way worse than underwater but it was designed long ago when monster hunter was far from what it is now, it can be modernize really easily.
Lagiacrus made it to 3rd place in the official popularity pool despite not being seen in a main game for almost a decade and having a big part of the community who started with world, at which point it was already missing for a long time. A lot of people must find him interesting to have such result.
As to why is he more interesting than Dalamadur I don't know, things like these are very emotional, Lagi is my favorite monster while Dalamadur doesn't do anything special to me
Sorry for actually trying to understand what people like about him. I'm not trying to poop on anyone's happiness, just trying to understand and yet your comment didn't help me.
What do you like about him? What specifically makes you want to fight him again over other monsters?
Well first it isn't my job on the internet to make people understand stuff.
Secondly, I can't speak for why people want to fight him.. I think its moreso he is a flagship that hasn't gotten a ton of love lately (Hasn't been in a game since 2017's MHXX or 2018's MHGU which is still the "old" style of MH).
You say you aren't trying to ruin anyone's parade yet you say he is boring and has a boring design. What's your favorite Monster? I can choose to crap all over it if you like for no reason or we can accept people just like things and you don't need to understand why, ever.
is it really a big deal for someone to find out why their opinion is different from others? your last response is really just a "let people enjoy things" and its not really bringing any points to a contructive discussion
You're free to crap over any monster you want. I just stated how I feel about Lagi cause I don't see anything special about him that would make him be so extremly loved. Like there are so many cool and diverse monsters in all of the monster hunter series. Stuff like Valstrax, a fucking dragon with jet engine wings, the black dragons, you know stuff like this. Those kind of monsters are so unique in their design and fight so I can understand when people would want such monsters back. Compared to such monsters, Lagi is not really special. He's just a big leviathan.
I actually hoped to find out from others, why he is so loved by the community and if there's more to it than simple nostalgia. It's genuine curiosity from my side but instead of giving me your opinion, you come back with such a comment.
The fight is VERY fun. He's much stronger than the hunter underwater, giving him the advantage. Then he goes on land where the hunter has more of an advantage, but lagi is no slouch.
Lagiacrus's inital apperance in the series, Tri, gives it an incredibly cool introduction. Since it is the first large monster players encounter in the Village questchain, the theme for Deserted Island is assosciated with it heavily.
Also since it was capable of underwater and land combat, it was the monster to take advantage of that game's very underused gimmick. (of the 18 monsters in Tri, only 4 could swim. 3 could change between sea and land and only 2 did so by choice). Combine that with a fight that took advantage of the parts break matters angle Tri pushed incredibly hard, it's a memorable fight against a monster that is set up very early into the game.
To put his popularity into perspective, despite having been in only Tri, 3U, Gen, Gen Ultimate. "Tremors on Land and Sea - Lagiacrus" was voted the 2nd best monster theme in the Monster Hunter 20th Anniversary and Lagiacrus itself ranked 3rd in the Hunter's Choice Top Monster poll beneath Zingore (a monster that was designed to replace Lagiacrus in Monster Hunter Portable 3rd owing to the lack of underwater combat) and Nergigante (the flagship of the then most recent monster hunter game)
Basically, the first big wall in people's first Monster Hunter and he skipped the last 2 games. If Anjanath skipped Rise and Wilds, people would be demanding his return in whatever the next game is.
I personally think Lagiacrus is lame, but I started with gen 1, so Tri throwing out all the old monsters and replacing them with worse versions always felt lame to me.
I'm hyped for the new monsters, I just find specifically monsters in Tri unappealing. I guess, maybe it's because I'm not a fan of leviathan skeleton in general, I tend to dislike leviathans in every game, and in Tri they were half the roster. I also hate new raptors that they introduced in Tri with a passion (Jaggi, Baggi, all that). I think they are like a bad joke compared to old preys and dromes. Probably my most disliked monster in the series.
I do think that the T-rex skeleton is awesome and I love majority of 3rd gen monsters that use that skeleton, especially Deviljho. Except Brachydios. The fight itself is alright, but I can't get over how stupid he looks. But that's not a Tri monster, so that's beside the point.
Lagiacrus is a fan favourite monster that hasn’t made an appearance in roughly 12 years since Monster Hunter Tri (and in 3U, Gen and Gen U, thanks to those who pointed it out to me)
A fan favorite monster, BUT he was fun because of the underwater mechanic. Dude probably is getting entirely reworked for dry land combat, so he's kind of just a new monster
He was in GU, which doesn't have underwater combat. They also had ivory lagaicrus, a variant that prefers the land to water as a base to work off of when they put lagi in a game with no water combat
I'm a rise baby (went back and played some gu and all of world/iceborne), but from what I've heard, ivory lagi is not a fan favorite hunt. I'm guessing it will be a combination of the original underwater fight and ivory
The creature teased at the end of today's presentation is known as Lagiacrus, a leviathan known for generating lightning and is often the apex of many an aquatic ecosystem.
Lagiacrus is the flagship monster of Monster Hunter Tri, which was released in 2009 for the Nintendo Wii. The game introduced the Switch Axe, the Leviathan and Brute Wyvern classes, and underwater combat.
- Though underwater combat felt clunky, there remained hope that the mechanic would return with the refinements to movement and combat that later generations brought- that, sadly, had not come to fruition (yet), and Lagiacrus's future past Generations Ultimate (his most recent appearance in mainline before Wilds) remained uncertain.
Lagiacrus's subsequent appearance in the expanded Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate gave us two variants of the leviathan: Ivory Lagiacrus, a more land-based version; and Abyssal Lagiacrus, a rare species only fought in a special arena.
Generations and Generations Ultimate, which were his next appearances, did not have underwater combat. Lagiacrus here was closer to his Ivory subspecies, and is somewhat regarded as his worst appearance.
Prototype footage of Monster Hunter World showed Lagiacrus taking down an Anjanath in a flooded version of the Ancient Forest. This indicated that he was considered for World at one point, but the leviathan skeleton proved to be troublesome, resulting in Leviathans missing World and Iceborne. Leviathans returned in Rise, but no Lagiacrus was to be found.
Despite not making it to the 5th generation of Monster Hunter, Lagiacrus is still a beloved monster. He would rank as the third most popular monster in the franchise's 20th anniversary poll, with Nergigante and Zinogre taking second and first, respectively.
Many in the MH fan base and even some of the dev team have expressed a desire to see Lagiacrus and underwater combat return.
Wilds will mark the long-awaited return of Lagiacrus since Generations Ultimate- a near 7-year gap.
It's a fan favorite monster that's honestly pretty underwhelming. It's overhyped, IMO. The fight was boring and it was only "difficult" because of the clunkiness of underwater combat.
Agreed. I’m convinced it’s only because it was a lot of peoples’ first MH game that Lagi is popular. The design and fight are mediocre at best in my book.
Only flagship that hasn't been brought over to modern MH. Lagiacrus has been a fan favorite since his debut in 3 Ultimate. Most of us are hoping that they bring back underwater fights for him mainly because a ton of us qant to fight his variant Abyssal
Lagiacrus debuted in mhtri, Brachydios was the one added in mh3u
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u/janoDXMHTri Veteran | The King of Long Swords 12d agoedited 12d ago
The Monster Hunter Tri flagship, the croc, the boy, one of the big fan favorites, reaching #3 on the 20th anniversary popularity contest, someone who got asked a million times to be brought since World was announced and 8 years later, it's finally here.
Pretty much the last game Lagiacrus was in was Generations Ultimate, which released in 2018. It was in the original trailer for MH World, but never was in game. It's also a fan favorite (my fave monster, I started with 3U) so people have been WAITING for this guy to come back.
This monster has is a fan favourite but was only ever in 1 game. Monster hunter tri. It was the flagship. unfortunately a big mechanic from that game was the ability to fight under water and due to this Lagiacrus doesn't really fight or even move all that much on land has been shafted since the developers to put a lot of worth into reinventing a moveset for him. Also developer complained thst his long body makes him hard to animate him in a natural manner on land too
Well have you seen the community poll for the anniversary of Monster Hunter with the most popular monsters? That guy was 3rd and except for the other 2 hasn't been around in the last gens at all and it's its first appearance since Generations where it was kinda done dirty (in it's original gen there was underwater combat and that's where it most excelled in and Gen didn't have that and just took the land only part which was very much meh) so it's been 16 years since release, 12 years since we last saw a good version of it and 9 years since we last saw it all together. Saying it's the most anticipated monster to return ever wouldn't nearly be enough.
Don't worry, I'm not new to MonHun and I still don't get why everyone is so excited. Lagi is a certified shitmon without underwater combat, I can't imagine he'll be much better in wilds.
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u/-Erro- 12d ago
I'm new to Monster Hunter and dont know why we are excited.