So this has been a long time coming. I’ve been tweaking this post for a while and finally now getting around to posting it. Between work, including an event that happened during the first part of may and all the stuff leading up to it and the release of Monster Hunter Tri, I’ve been kinda swamped.
True I’m still running an pen and paper RPG on the side but that’s more of stuff I dream up when I program. So what does the 3rd console installment in the main Monster Hunter series hold? Actually this is the 8th game to bear the Monster Hunter title if you count the other console, PSP and PC release of the series.
Well in the most part, it’s the same game. Which by the way is not a bad thing. The weapons have been reduced down to a smaller list compared to those in the PSP iterations however the damage and mechanics have been tuned a bit. Sadly my favorites, the Gunlance and Bow do not make a return. Well the bow would be a disadvantage in this one since there isn’t enough ledges you can hid on to snipe things from which was my favorite tactics when hunting stuff in United.
Anyway single player story is a lot better with a greater sense of urgency considering your there to help this beleaguered village. Most weapons are available to be made from the start except for Switch-Axe and Longsword. Like usual, you need to hunt monsters to gain materials to make equipment. A standard process for the series. Most equipment requires boss monsters such as Qurupeco or the Great Jaggi however those can only be done initially via quests given by the Village Sweetheart. Yes, they named the guild quest giver that.
One new feature is the ability to do a free hunt on the Deserted Island area (Why is it called deserted if there’s a village on the coast still?) In the free hunt mode, there are no penalties such as 3 failures ends a mission and you can gather or hunt till your pack bulges. The added bonus is that bosses will take up residence in the free area so you can hunt them without having to go through a quest. You can find out what boss monsters are in the island by checking the weather from the village chief’s son. Anything you kill and certain things you gather they can be reported to the village chief’s son to be turned into resources. These resources are used to send fishing boats out to catch stuff or work on the farm or even buy dinner. This sorta takes the place of Poke Points from the PSP series. There is also a new village quest which allows you to gain some new things by gathering items requested by the villagers. Bosses killed during free hunt give you trade goods which can be used to trade with a merchant who stops by every so often. The harder the boss, the rarer the trade good you get.
This time around you don’t have a felyne companion. In the PSP series starting from United, you could bring an Felyne assistant on your quest. This time around your stuck with a Shakalaka. Apparently they appear in the previous console versions of the game. You get him about halfway through the single player game and he gives status bonuses and comical relief to your hunts. Some of his one liners are pretty funny. His personality and abilities are tried what masks he wears. You can gain other masks through the village requests or even the merchant that stops by. Some are aggressive, some are passive so you need to be sure you have the right mask on before you head out.
Another new feature which I have mixed feelings about is the underwater combat. You can now swim underwater to fight monsters. This has both good and bad effects to the game. The good is the ability to dodge above or below a monster however the camera doesn’t like to respond right underwater sometimes causing a bit of disorientation when keeping track in a very mobile fighting situation. Second is the oddity of each weapon in the water. Some do not respond quite so well underwater as they do on land. Unfortunately for many, their first test of underwater battles tend to be with bosses on hand and becomes an uphill learning curve. Sometimes the dodge and sheath commands don’t respond the way you want them to which can be bad in boss battles but overall it’s a cool feature. Just needs some work for future games.
Where the game shines is online. With the Wii, most games requires a friend code which needs to be exchanged with someone you want to play with. Monster Hunter Tri doesn’t require that. You simply need to search for the Hunter’s name, or their Hunter ID which is assigned to a hunter which is only about 6 characters long. You can also just head to the server/city they’re at and join the game. Each City allows up to 4 hunters to join with each city gate housing somewhere around 39 different cities. You can join your friends or make new ones here. For those who need a picture painted, this is very much like the system used in Phantasy Star Online with the station/lobby/room setup and damn it, it works!
Most of the facilities you found in offline are here including a few others that weren’t there before. You can make equipment, buy supplies, trade goods for others, and even research artwork to display in your house. The guild offers quests in both arena, standard and event quests. Event quests seem to update every week with different quests coming online or going offline for a while. Event quests is where you can earn special carvings from monsters or rewards which are unique such as rare (and sometimes wacky) weapons or armor. Capcom Unity has a listing of them on the Monster Hunter Community site. There are some quests you can only take online which makes things interesting, especially when you take on a boss bigger then anything you’ve ever faced so far and you have to jump on it’s back to destroy weak spots.
The US and European versions offer the ability to use WiiSpeak however I haven’t figured out how the damn thing works still. I know you have to have the person as a friend within the game, required by Nintendo, but I don’t think I have my WiiSpeak properly configured. For those who did a bit of digging around, the cities originally allowed up to 10 players per city however the number was brought down with the implementation of WiiSpeak. I guess you get a few bad changes with the good. The Wii does support Wireless keyboards. Though good luck finding one locally. I had to order mine from Amazon. Seems like Logitech stopped making them or no one wants to carry them anymore. Any USB keyboard should work. i got the Wireless Logitech Wii version because I nearly took out my Wii the second night playing the game online. Tripping on the USB cable is bad.
Monsters in online mode are tougher and will use more aggressive tactics. That being said, you’ll be able to play with up to 3 other hunters which makes some battles easier. You can knock your fellow hunters over or launch them into the air when using certain attacks that happen to connect with your the others. This can be both good and bad. Though it’s a viable tactic to launch someone into the air to save their butts from being charged down or break a stun but be careful, you might launch them into the path of a charging boss.
Overall, aside from my short stint with Mario Kart, this is the best online experience I’ve had with the Wii and probably one of the few games (aside from Rune Factory Frontier) that I’ve run the system for a good amount of time. The game has a steep learning curve in terms of learning the mechanics behind everything but once you get started, it’s hard to stop.
