There are plenty of mightier, meatier monsters to be found out there in the wilds of Monster Hunter World's Astera. Like Tobi-Kadachi, the mutant squirrel bastard who'll stun you with the spark in his tail as he leaps from one tree to another, or the fire-breathing Anjanath who'll happily one-shot fledgling hunters. Later, there are the grand towering Elder Dragons that'll knock you this way and that as you whittle away at their generous pools of health on hunts that sap up the best part of an hour, all before you pick yourself up from the forest floor, dust yourself off and, like a kid stepping off a rollercoaster, say to yourself let's do that again.
But still, it's the humble Paolumu I've ended up loving the most. A mid-tier monster who prowls the Coral Highlands - a stunning otherworldly tangle of clashing pinks and purples that looks like it's been culled straight from some 60s sci-fi gem - Paolumu is a masterpiece of offbeat imagination told through exquisite design and animation. A cutesy flying wyvern with a neck that can puff up until it looks like a child's swim ring, the Paolumu is a bat/hamster hybrid who's a joy to fight. I spent half a day happily dancing alongside them and repeatedly slaying them, just so I could plunder their remains for a full kit of gear; a fluffy number that serves some campy Barbarella fierceness. There are sturdier, more useful armour sets out there, but that's not really the point of Monster Hunter. It's all about doing things with a little bit of class.
And Paolumu gets to the very heart of why I love Monster Hunter; it's silliness delivered with an awful lot of style, and all built around one of the most compelling loops you'll come across in gaming. Hunt monsters and strike them down, so that you might craft trousers from their carcass that'll help you best other, greater beasts whose corpses can then be used to craft more powerful trousers still. Rinse and repeat, until you realise you've clocked up a good 100 hours and found yourself looking at the family cat, wondering what kind of perks you might earn if you skinned them and turned them into a hat.
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