When Classic Prowess Meets Unlikely Origins: The Bizarre Appeal of Monster Hunter Wilds’ Most Impressive Palico Armor

The Rompopolo. It sounds like a bouncy, rounded microscopic rooster creature or something, doesn’t it? It’s a fantastic word to say – assonance flourishes in every syllable, and the vivid, repeated sound of ‘poh poh’ at the end gives it a childlike cartoon flair, reminiscent of Pokémon’s water starter Popplio, for example, or Studio Ghibli’s Totoro.

What this term would not evoke is a massive inflatable mosquito beast with pin-prick red eyes and loose patches of blue and purple skin all over its body, the stuff of nightmares. The Rompopolo is repulsive, and I detest every aspect of it – the way its long, pointed insect beak clicks and pokes at you with its whipping, toxic tongue, the short, thrusting spikes of its spindly, needle-like arms, and most notably, the manner in which it plunges its stinger-tipped tail into the sludge of Azuz’s oil basins, gulps up the goo in huge, throbbing swallows, and gradually fills its saggy, withered skin until it is stretched to the brink.

It’s right up there with the Khezu – the blind, unsettling white worm with an enormous gaping crimson mouth lined in a lipstick-like trim – as one of Monster Hunter’s most horrifying and grotesque creations for me. Under any other circumstances, I would steer clear of this repulsive creature altogether. However, Wilds has made the unfortunate choice to hide one of the best armor sets for your Palico cat companion within the depths of the Rompopolo, meaning I have had to defeat this grotesque mosquito-raptor multiple times in a row just to claim its rewards.

Because honestly, how could you resist outfitting your Palico as a tiny cat-shaped brain in a jar wearing a robotic suit? It’s not possible!

To be fair, it’s not just the Palico Rompopolo armor that caught my interest. The Hunter armor you could potentially craft from its hides, claws, and toxin sacs is quite dapper as well, especially the male version that features a long plague-doctor gas mask and a bulging neck pillow that adorns your torso. Far better than the female shower cap version, for sure. The male belt attachment is remarkable too – a lengthy half skirt with scissors, syringes, and various medical instruments all affixed to the exterior as if you are about to dissect your next monster carcass and conduct some dubious experiments, pumping it full of who-knows-what with the tubes connected to the back of your gloves leading right to the claw-like tips of your fingers.

The challenge is that most of these pieces, for both Hunters and Palicos, require Rompopolo beaks – a rare crafting material that’s tough to gather on any hunt. You could design the Rompopolo Palico supersoaker-style bazooka with just one Rompopolo claw, for instance, while its Mr. Freeze-like robotic body – complete with bioluminescent tubes connecting its neck and legs – demands one of its hides. Both are required components you might scavenge from its remains after defeating it, or you may have to chip away bits from it by attacking the gaping, bloody wounds you inflict during battle.

However, the cat brain helmet requires a Rompopolo beak, and I had to defeat three or four of these oversized mosquito-raptors before I managed to obtain one through the RNG of the game’s carcass carving. And once I embarked on this quest, it only felt right to complete the Hunter set, which needed even more beaks to obtain its plague doctor helmet (naturally), as well as its greaves and vambraces. By the time I finished, I had taken down half a dozen Rompopolos, and I promised myself never to go near it again.

I usually don’t invest so much effort into crafting specific armor sets in Monster Hunter. My Hunter and Palico typically look like they’ve just rummaged through the TK Maxx of Monster Hunter discount bins, grabbing whatever mismatched clothing they can find. A few bone plates there, some big tufty fur pieces here, maybe a shiny shoulder pad or two… you understand what I mean. Rarely do I go all out to complete a set, either for myself or my feline companion. But there was something about that ridiculous cat brain in a jar that I simply couldn’t resist. Its red, squishy gray matter still has little, bright cat ears, for goodness’ sake! And I can’t get over how adorably plump the suit appears. It looks strangely soft and cuddly, even though the glass tubes and the jar head would undoubtedly feel hard, cold, and clammy against the skin.

Overall, I truly appreciate how Capcom’s developers have skillfully derived such distinctive and exquisite apparel alternatives from one of these menacing and hideous creatures. It’s not a sentiment isolated to Monster Hunter Wilds, I must emphasize – everyone knows the primary motivation behind playing this game isn’t exactly to conquer larger dragons, but to carve them up and create the most outrageous outfits conceivable from their hide and bones. For instance, Wilds’ Ajarakan, a massive rocky gorilla who can ignite his rugged surface with volcanic energy, essentially transforms you into the titular demigod from Asura’s Wrath, while the enormous spider-crab Nersyclla suggests that you could evolve into a genuine Gundam-like mech suit.

They exude cool and envied aspirations every time you glimpse them in the armor preview menus, though I must confess that some armor sets are nearly too distracting for their own good. This is why I typically only craft the pieces I find most appealing, as running around as a bloated mech-human in a game focused on hunting mythical dinosaurs doesn’t quite sit right with me in any way.

The Rompopolo armor, however, surpasses expectations. While the cat head in a jar flirt with the edge of breaking immersion for me, the Hunter armor strikes the perfect balance between allure and realism. The plague doctor ensemble, with its beak-like gas mask, toxic tubes, and complex gadgets, couldn’t be a better representation of what a mutated mosquito might look like if you peeled off its skin and looted its organs to strut down the runway with, and it’s far from out of reach.