In March 2013 Capcom saved a huge game drought for Nintendo’s new console the Wii-U. Games were constantly being delayed or cancelled, and most of Nintendo’s ‘’Launch Window’’ games were nowhere insight. Nintendo’s console needed a title with longevity, and depth. Enter Capcoms enhanced port of a past-gen Wii game: Monster Hunter Tri. After a 1 year of owning Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, and only spending 170+ hours with it. I am happy to say that I am glad Nintendo, and other third parties dropped the ball when it comes to game releases in this case. If it was not for the absurd game drought, I may have never given this game another chance.
Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate is a third person action-role playing game. Where you assume the role of a hunter within the game’s world. You travel to an island in distress, where violent earthquakes have happened. These quakes threaten to destroy the island and its inhabitants, and its your job to figure out who or what is causing them. And that is about it for story: A hero comes to town, fights the ultimate baddy, and saves the day. The story though thankfully isn’t what is going to get you to delve deep into monster hunter. The two things that will gravitate you towards a game like monster hunter are simple. You will love the great satisfaction of defeating or capturing these massive monsters. Or by the ‘’carrot on a stick’’ game design implemented within the loot collection design that monster hunter creates.
Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate follows a traditional loot-game design formula such as Diablo, or Borderlands. Unlike those games though, you are not given specific weapons or armors for defeating enemies. Instead you are given materials needed from hunting large monsters each quest in the game tasks you with hunting. This allows you to craft specific pieces of armor or weapons. To put in the simplest form: You will hunt monsters, defeat them, gather materials, craft armor and weapons from those materials, hunt stronger monsters, lather, rinse, and repeat.
Hunting monsters gives you the choice of two distinct goals to choose from game. Your goal is to kill the monster designated in the quest or capture it. Your choice on how you want to dispatch these monsters will either stem from the goal of the quest itself, or whether you are looking for a specific material for a weapon. The great thing about the loot in monster hunter is that there is so much depth to them. Weapons varying from the slow, but highly damaging Long-Sword. Or the party buffing and healing horn that plays completely differently. With the large choice of weapons included in Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, you will easily be able to find a weapon that supports your play style. And that doesn’t even include the varying types of damage they each deal. This does not mean the regular damage of the weapon itself, but the different types of elemental damage found on them. Figuring out what weapons workout the best from a damage perspective for specific fights will be key, when it comes to how successful your hunts will be.
The great depth doesn’t just stop their at the weapon variety though. The role-playing elements of the game are highly involved when it comes to armor choice. Rather than a traditional leveling system found in most role-playing games. Monster hunter 3 Ultimate doesn’t use a talent tree or experience bar. Instead the leveling system in terms of quests is known as HR(Hunter Rank). Your HR will dictate what level of monster you are able to hunt, and how difficult they will be. Your characters stats and abilities are determined by the armor combination you bring into each hunt. The typical stats are all here: specific elemental resistances, stamina, defense, health, etc. But you will also be selecting other specific abilities and bonuses based on your gem choices. Certain armor sets will have a set number of gem slots that can be filled. It will be up to the player when it comes to deciding what abilities and stat boosts will be best for the weapon-class they are playing as. Certain amount of points given to certain abilities will offer extra bonuses to the player. Just as a side note you will need specific materials from monsters, to craft gems. This system gives player a lot to experiment with when it comes to building the best character for their weapon-class and play style.
Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate is definitely one of those games that gives you great value for the price. I can easily say that the main story mode in the game will run you at least 30-40 hours, and that is if you don’t tackle a lot of side goals, or grind for specific pieces of loot in the game, But that is not all. Once you have completed the main story, the game offers even more single player content that is far more challenging. Things such as multiple monster hunts or even new sub-species of monsters to hunt. The game also offers online multiplayer, and is where you will put most of your time into this game. Though there aren’t a great variety of modes on offer. The game does give you the option of up to 4 player multiplayer hunting with voice chat. The players are able to do quests available to you or the other players based on their HR. Grinding HR will become even more important post-game. This is because certain quests are only unlocked at specific levels of HR. As long as you enjoy the content in the game already on offer in single player, You should easily get great value for your dollar in this game. And it is easy to see why so many players end up putting a great deal of time into these games.
Though the game is loaded with depth and content, one area Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate is lacking is in the controls. The problem with them is that they do not offer the most intuitive experience at times. The controls will not come naturally at first, and they do have a bit of a learning curve. Things such as cycling from one item to another in real-time during a fight, and learning exactly how all the weapons attack, and feel is very daunting at first. Once the player has the controls down though, they feel incredibly comfortable, and natural to the player. One problem with the game-play though is the needless animations the game has. While part of the game is learning how to work around the animations, and timing your item usage during certain fights. The problem stems from needless additional animations your character will make. Such as consuming a potion, it healing you, and then having your character performing a flex animation that keeps your character locked in place and open to taking an attack. Though they are easily worked around once the player has a good understanding of them. Needless animations, and unintuitive controls may drive some new players away, despite how satisfying the combat in the game is.
When it comes to visuals of the game they are disappointing. It is clear that the only real effort that came from the upgraded visuals of the Wii-U version went into the detail of the monsters, and not the environments. The environments in the game are really not that much more detailed than the original version of the game. The only real upgrade to environments are the lighting, and colors are noticeably better. Thankfully though the monsters look wonderful, beautifully animated, and are full of detail.
Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate is not a game for everyone. The game offers a great deal of content to the player. Though there is a great barrier of entry here for some. This is because a lot of the mechanics in the game are not well explained to the player. Things such as having to break specific parts of a monster to get materials required for certain pieces of armor. Or what benefits the stat boosts from gems provide, and where to find specific items is not explained properly to new players. Monster Hunter is a game with so much to it. It seems as though Capcom still has a lot to work with when it comes to explaining certain mechanics to the player. A Wiki or FAQ on the game is almost always required for new players. Unless of course you have a friend who is already well ingrained in the games depths. Certain players who are not willing to go to these lengths to figure out the ins and outs of the farming techniques or crafting depths may want to steer clear of the game.
Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate is the perfect game for players who want great ‘’bang for their buck’’. It offers a great deal of content to the player, that will last them hundreds of hours. But certain unnecessary animations, and unintuitive controls may come off as cheap to some. The environments look woefully outdated considering the era of gaming we are in. And a lot of the systems within the game take a lot of dedication, and time to learn. But with all that said, these faults whether they be small or large to some do not detract from all the wonderful things about this game. The monsters are extremely satisfying to defeat. The animations, designs, and detail on the monsters are wonderfully diverse. The game has an incredibly deep and satisfying crafting system that easily keeps the player engaged. And the addictive nature of creating your own character to suit your play-style is very fulfilling. If you have the time and the patience for a game likes this, I highly recommend you look into the monstrously wonderful, addictive, challenging and at times incredibly frustrating world of Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate.
