#when i played prey i read all the lore pages and the ONLY real life text in that game had the fly

[zaph1337]

Monster Hunter Rating 37: Red Khezu, the Charging Wyvern

TRIGGER WARNING: BLOOD

I don’t normally talk about the monster’s qualities in the introduction, but I have to here to make sure that no one’s gonna get hurt because of this. This is a monster that’s veiny and blood red, and combined with Khezu’s design, it’s pretty disturbing. The weapons, however, are probably worse, as they have a cracked, fleshy aesthetic that looks like it could start bleeding at any moment, and I’ll put the trigger warning a second time once we get to talking about them in case it slips someone’s mind. Might seem overkill, but with a situation like this, you can’t be too careful, which is also why I’m gonna put this review under a “Read More” so anyone who doesn’t want to see it doesn’t get an eyeful while trying to scroll past it. Now, let’s talk about Red Khezu proper, shall we?

(How it appears in Monster Hunter Freedom 1)

(How it appears in Monster Hunter 4)

Appearance: See what I mean? This thing’s made to look like it had its skin ripped off, which is not a look you want to have unless your intention is to scar someone or their children for life. The MHF1 render conveys the skinned appearance better than the MH4 one, in my opinion, because it’s a deep red, like the kind you’d see in gore in PlayStation era games. The MH4 render reminds me more of a particularly red worm or lamprey...well, until you get to the body. Then it looks like someone plucked a chicken and painted it red. It probably looks more visceral in-game.

I think I prefer the standard Khezu design, to be honest. The pale complexion combined with everything else gives me Silent Hill vibes, and even though I haven’t played any of the games, I’ve watched videos on them, and I appreciate all they’ve done for the horror genre. Red Khezu, on the other hand, doesn’t give me that same impression, and I don’t know of any horror series’ I’m interested in where such a vibrant red on a fleshy-looking monster is part of the aesthetic. Still, it does its job well. 7/10.

Behavior/Lore: So, here’s something interesting: Red Khezu aren’t a subspecies. They’re what Khezu are supposed to be like; the Khezu everyone views as being “normal” are actually albinos who likely only got more populous than the red ones because they spend most of their time in caves, where anything that would want them dead likely wouldn’t be relying on visual cues to hunt anyways. That said, both types of Khezu leave caves to eat non-cave dwelling monsters and, surprisingly, mushrooms, which Red Khezu have been seen feeding on in the Swamp region. Unfortunately for them, being so fatty means that once they leave their cave, they put themselves at risk, ‘cause a lot of monsters want to eat them, including the Rath pair.

For some reason, Red Khezu are much more aggressive than the albino variety, and they even have increased muscle mass, which allows them to not only visit cold regions (which white Khezu can already do), but even stay in them during the winter months (which white Khezu can’t do). I don’t know why albino Khezu aren’t like this, ‘cause I can’t see how albinism would affect your muscle growth and temperament, but I don’t make the monsters, I just critique them.

I’m really glad that this is more interesting than “Khezu+.” The fact that Red Khezu aren’t a true subspecies is a neat idea, and considering that the Ecology page on the common Khezu doesn’t mention any omnivorous tendencies, it’s likely that Red Khezu even have a different diet than their pale cousins, which is something that I don’t think the previous G monsters had. While making them more aggressive than albino Khezu is to be expected at this point, it doesn’t take away from anything, so I’m not going to gripe about it. When you combine all of this with the qualities they likely share with albino Khezu, you get an interesting counterpart for what was already an interesting monster. 8/10.

Abilities: If you thought that keeping warm was the main benefit of having more muscle mass than a common Khezu, I have to question your educational history; Red Khezu are physically stronger than the albino variety, and their electrical organs are superior as well. Not only are their electric attacks stronger, they can also use electricity to incapacitate prey in ways common Khezu can’t. Also, their skin seems to be very elastic, as Red Khezu can stretch their necks out much farther than their pale brethren can. I think more needs to be stretchier than just the skin, but whatever. As a final note, for some reason they’re immune to fire, but this apparently comes at the cost of being weak to water.

Red Khezu do what I wish more subspecies’ do, which is take the basic abilities of their weaker forms and mix them up, not just make them more powerful. The new ways they can manipulate electricity and the extended reach of their more elastic necks likely make battles with them stand out more than the ones you have with some other G monsters. 7/10.

Equipment: Like I said at the beginning, TRIGGER WARNING FOR BLOOD. These weapons look just plain nasty, which, while potentially being part of their appeal to some people, will likely make others very queasy or worse. I’ll start with the least disgusting one, the Hunting Horn called the Blood Horn:

“Red Hunting Horn made from wrapped Red Khezu hide. Its color is very unsettling...” The color is unsettling? Not the fact that it literally has a mouth? Okay, in all fairness, the color of the wraps makes it more gruesome than the Khezu Horn, which just looks like it’s covered in bandages; these look like bandages that were soaked in something, and they were probably white before they were applied. Make of that little observation what you will. Now, here’s where things start getting nasty--this Long Sword from MHO:

...I can’t say I know what that implement is, but I do know that the Red Khezu skin is wrapped around it in a very unsettling way; until I saw the little bit of metal that was exposed at the sword’s base, I thought that those spikes were independently attached to the flesh instead of being the teeth of a full blade. And speaking of unsettling, the sheathe looks like it’s bleeding. That comparison to cracked flesh I drew earlier makes more sense now, don’t it? I’ve got one more weapon to show you guys, and it’s probably the nastiest one of the bunch: the Red Khezu Sword and Shield from MHO. If you’re already uncomfortable after looking at the above weapons, you might wanna scroll past this:

The reasons I find this the most gruesome of the weapons I’ve shown are A: the “sword” is a surgeon’s saw, which adds to the whole “twisted hospital” vibe that Silent Hill likes to use, and B: the shield literally has the Red Khezu’s “face” stretched over it, and the mouth is...what are those black things holding the mouth shut? They’re not sewing lines, ‘cause they’re way too big. Wait, the way the two on the left are angled, it looks like they’re 3D and not flat--are those things made of metal, like the shield? ‘Cause there are a few implications for that, and they’re all unpleasant. Moving on to the armor, the only renders the wiki had are the men’s sets from MHO. Here’s the Blademaster set:

This isn’t as vibrant of a red as Red Khezu normally are, but it does look like raw meat or exposed flesh, so that’s...cool? The fact that there’s nothing obscuring or darkening the face like in other games with Khezu armor makes it look kind of silly, though; it’s like a fleshy raincoat, which is equally parts disgusting and hard to take seriously. As for the Gunner set, it’s very different from the Khezu R Armor I showed off in the Khezu review:

To be fair, this does look a lot like the normal Khezu Gunner armor, so expecting it to look like the R Gunner armor is silly. There are a couple of neat things here--the arm guard has a spine embedded in it, and the right arm has a glove with claws (or at least long nails)--but for the most part this doesn’t stand out too much to me. It does look like someone cooked the meat for a few minutes, though, so it’s probably not violating any health codes.

Honestly, I prefer the standard Khezu equipment to this, but that’s mostly because there’s much more of it than Red Khezu equipment. Plus, outside of the ones from MHO, the weapons the devs recolored for Red Khezu don’t really look that unnerving. The red’s a bit too vibrant, so it doesn’t really fit the filthy hospital aesthetic that made Khezu weapons so eerie, and the armor looks gross, sure, but that’s all it has. Still, the MHO weapons are their own kind of disturbing, but the fact that the majority of Red Khezu weapons are in a game that most people don’t even consider a real MH game is depressing. 6/10.

Final Thoughts and Tally: After sifting through so many monsters that did so little, it’s nice to get something that stands out like this. Don’t get me wrong, I still prefer normal Khezu over red ones, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like Red Khezu at all; I just think that the albino ones have more going for them. 7/10.