Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate (Review)
Mar 29, 2013 14:17:33 GMT -8
┌༼ຈل͜ຈ༽┘, praise luke, and 6 more like this
Post by Deleted on Mar 29, 2013 14:17:33 GMT -8
Back in 2010, Monster Hunter Tri was released outside of Japan, as it came out in 2009 there, and on the Wii. It was supposed to be a Playstation 3 exclusive, however the costs for development were too much and so it came to the Wii instead. The game was a success in Japan, hitting 1 million players. Outside? Well, 900,000+ outside... Not bad, considering Monster Hunter was never popular in the Western areas.
However, due to the success of it, Capcom decided to make another game, but on the PSP. That game? It was Monster Hunter Portable 3rd, which came out to be the highest selling game on that system. It still is to this day. However, it never came out to the West due to Sony and Capcom butting heads, especially when making the HD Version for the PS3. Due to this, you'll see why Monster Hunter 4 is coming for the 3DS later this year or possibly in 2014.
Anyway, seeing the success of the Wii version, and due to tradition of the series, they've decided to make a "G" version, or an "Ultimate" version. All it basically entails is: new monsters, or previous monsters, weapons, armor, and areas to fight monsters in. With this, I welcome you: Monster Hunter Tri Ultimate on the 3DS and Wii U! In Japan, it's called Monster Hunter 3G and Monster Hunter 3G HD Version (Wii U).
Story:
Monster Hunter has never been too keen on story, but that's not to say there isn't a story. On the contrary, Monster Hunter Tri Ultimate basically takes the story of the original game. The story is this (Spoilers, sweeties):
You're a new hunter that helps this village on a deserted island called "Moga Village". Moga Village is a port village, with many connections to places such as hubs, farming areas, and hunting areas. Now, it's all a lovely place... with the exception of an earthquake that has destroyed parts of the village.
At first, the elder of the village believes the Lagiacrus, a monster that is classified as a Leviathan, is the one wreaking havoc on the poor village. Since you're a beginner, you're not going to fight it straight away - that will kill you! Instead, they make you gain experience.
Along the way, you come across one child-like... thing... called a Shakalaka. It's name? It's name, or his name, is Cha-Cha. You become his "minion" as you all go fight together and he will gain experience. Then, when it comes down to it, you will fight the Lagiacrus. At first, you'll repel it, or make it run away.
You think you're done? WRONG! There are still earthquakes and you, along with the elder, realize the Lagiacrus didn't cause the earthquakes. What's worse? Cha-Cha is gone! No, Cha-Cha! Yes, I love the little guy... sue me.
Anyway, as you go along by yourself, without... Cha-Cha!, you meet up with another Shakalaka named Kayamba. It turns out they're both children from the Shakalaka tribe that set out at the exact same time to grow up, finding their own masks. They hate each other, but will work together for you.
Luckily, you'll reunite with Cha-Cha and you find out that the true cause for his disappearance is that he left to find the monster responsible. It's a HUGE dragon that nearly killed him! Poor, Cha-Cha... As time passes, the Guild you're part of tells the villagers to evacuate. Yet, they don't. The reason is that they want to provide you support as you fight the legendary dragon, now known as Ceadeus. The village elder tells you that he was once a hunter that looked for the cause of his ancestor's demise, turning out that the Ceadeus caused the ruins of Moga Village to sink.
Once you repel the Ceadeus, you're now a hero! It ends with a celebration, with Cha-Cha and Kayamba dancing with the kids.
At first, the elder of the village believes the Lagiacrus, a monster that is classified as a Leviathan, is the one wreaking havoc on the poor village. Since you're a beginner, you're not going to fight it straight away - that will kill you! Instead, they make you gain experience.
Along the way, you come across one child-like... thing... called a Shakalaka. It's name? It's name, or his name, is Cha-Cha. You become his "minion" as you all go fight together and he will gain experience. Then, when it comes down to it, you will fight the Lagiacrus. At first, you'll repel it, or make it run away.
You think you're done? WRONG! There are still earthquakes and you, along with the elder, realize the Lagiacrus didn't cause the earthquakes. What's worse? Cha-Cha is gone! No, Cha-Cha! Yes, I love the little guy... sue me.
Anyway, as you go along by yourself, without... Cha-Cha!, you meet up with another Shakalaka named Kayamba. It turns out they're both children from the Shakalaka tribe that set out at the exact same time to grow up, finding their own masks. They hate each other, but will work together for you.
Luckily, you'll reunite with Cha-Cha and you find out that the true cause for his disappearance is that he left to find the monster responsible. It's a HUGE dragon that nearly killed him! Poor, Cha-Cha... As time passes, the Guild you're part of tells the villagers to evacuate. Yet, they don't. The reason is that they want to provide you support as you fight the legendary dragon, now known as Ceadeus. The village elder tells you that he was once a hunter that looked for the cause of his ancestor's demise, turning out that the Ceadeus caused the ruins of Moga Village to sink.
Once you repel the Ceadeus, you're now a hero! It ends with a celebration, with Cha-Cha and Kayamba dancing with the kids.
Sniff... what a touching story. Okay, so the story is just a simple slay the dragon or the village will be destroyed, but the characters make it all up for an interesting plot.
However, if you want a true story, then you might just not find the game fun whatsoever.
Gameplay:
The gameplay has always been rather controversial for most people. It involves a lot of grinding. No, I don't mean that kind of grinding, pervert. I meant the game grind, where you fight, fight, fight, and fight a monster over and over again to get stuff from them.
The whole point is that you don't level up, except Cha-Cha and Kayamba, so you'll need to rely on your armor and weapons to give you certain stats. Each monster has their own attacks and patterns, which is little to say the least, and come with their own strengths and weaknesses. Once you kill a monster, you usually carve from their corpses stuff like scales, bones, and hide. You use those to create armor and weapons. Depending on what part of the armor you're going to get, you might need to get different items for that specific piece. The same thing applies to weapons.
You can upgrade your armor and weapons for added strengths and defense. Now, the one thing people often criticize would be the animations. Your character has so many animations such as flexing after drinking potions, getting up, recovering from being hit, striking the monster, or setting down a trap. If you don't master the animations, you will end up losing portions of your health and time from the quest.
When hunting monsters, you usually have 50 minutes to kill or capture the monster. In order to even do the hunting, you'll need to go up to the Guild Sweetheart, who gives you the missions, and you choose one. 3 strikes and you're out. Literally. If you lose all your health 3 times, the mission is considered a failure. Also, not only that, you lose 1/3rd of your prize money. Waste those 50 minutes and the mission is also considered a failure.
Compared to Tri, Tri Ultimate is relatively "entry-friendly", meaning you start out with 50 defense and armor, with 12 standard weapon sets of each type. The weapons in the game range as: Sword and Shield, Dual Swords, Hammer, Hunting Horn, Lance, Gunlance, Long Sword, Great Sword, Bow, Light Bowgun, Heavy Bowgun, and Switchaxe.
Each weapon has different amount of damage, sharpness, and animations. This means, they all are used differently.
Lastly, the armor sets all have different skills. Armors come in two different styles, the Blademaster Set and the Gunner Set. The Blademaster set has more defense, but the Gunner set has higher elemental defense. Each armor has different skills, as said before. One armor set can have a certain knack for elemental attack and another can have you run without losing too much stamina. Each will be important and you'll love a lot.
Presentation:
The game is beautiful, though you can tell it uses the 3DS and Wii assets, just high-def for the Wii U version. The 3DS version and the Wii U version are still beautiful, but in the case of the Wii U - it doesn't look as good as it should be, though it looks better than the PSP HD Version game... By far.
The areas are vastly different, ranging from a mountainous island to volcanoes. They all look different and different monsters will be there. Some monsters may be there, but usually the harmless ones.
The armors and weapons all are distinct from one another. Since weapons can be upgraded, some weapons will retain their aesthetics, yet they'll look different to other weapons. The armors are all unique and they each have their own aesthetics, and skills.
The most important thing are the monsters. They are vicious! You can tell they're the ones you're out to hunt, as they each have their own little cutscene. Some are easy, but some are just tough as Hell. With Monster Hunter, some monsters have their own subspecies that maybe more powerful than the original. Remember the Lagiacrus in the story? Well, imagine fighting two more powerful ones. Now, these subspecies do their own attacks and behave vastly different from the original species.
You will enjoy fighting the monsters from their behaviors and appearances. However, as said before, you can tell some look low-poly due to the Wii U version being a 3DS up-ressed.
Music:
We can't forget the music, now can we? Nope. Monster Hunter has music that fits a certain area. An example would be the Tundra area, when you fight a boss monster, you'll hear a piano with orchestrated/orchestral pieces behind it as it sounds like something for ice. Some monsters are the flagship monster for each area, as you can tell by their names in the soundtrack.
However, some monsters will have their own themes and when you fight them, even in areas that use the themes for it, that monster's theme will be the one you'll hear for the fight. It's amazing!
If you want an example, here it is:
Want another? Okay!
See how epic the music is?
Conclusion:
The games are a blast to play! It's entry-friendly and those new will find it a welcome compared to Tri and it's veteran only players. However, it maybe too easy for veterans, but the G-Rank will kick it up a notch for you. Trust me.
The story may not be as developed, but with promises of a more story-oriented Monster Hunter coming in MH4, we might see that soon. The game is fun, both offline and online. With the 3DS being local only and the Wii U being local and online, you'll have a fun time playing with your friends on both sides of the spectrum! The graphics for the Wii U are rather good, but could have been better.
The 3DS and it's controls are something you'll need to get used to, but you'll easily get into it.
For the 3DS version: 9/10
For the Wii U Version: 8.5/10
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