Presentation
Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate looks great on the 3DS; as it being my first ever Monster Hunter, I was surprised in how much detail was actually put in the environments and even more importantly; the monsters themselves. There are two main area's the player will be interacting with which are the small village the player gathers their quests and saves their game and the outer zones where the monster hunting actually takes place. The Outer Zones detailed as they may be do seem a little constricted so if you are the type of player that is into sandbox/open world games, then this is something like that but a little constricted. The village on the other hand is fairly open even allowing the player to go out into the first outer zone anytime they want to collect materials and have a little fun slaying small monsters. Another thing to mention is that the text seems to be a little blurry; almost like the game designers just condensed down the Wii U version and didn't decide to clean up the text which can make it hard read some things that may be important for missions.
Gameplay
The small village is the central hub for the player and where all the planning for each hunt takes place. There are several area's where the player can customize their character to crafting armor or to creating potions. The outer zones is where the action takes place. The Monsters are made with care and each and everyone is special to drop materials for the enormous items that the player can create. The actual controls are simple but at the same time difficult. There are two main attacks the player has, which are a standard forward attack and an upward attack for flying monsters. That is another thing to mention; there are a huge arraignment of weapons to be used from dual wielding swords to an interesting weapon called a Gun Lance. The difficulty of the game mainly comes from what I figured to be the camera. The camera is controlled on the touch screen while the characters movement is controlled by the analog stick. I found this difficult to maneuver from incoming attacks which ended up making me fail quests while having a severely cramped hand. So to get the "full" experience I highly recommend the circle pad pro. It is a bulky extension but the extra joy stick to move the camera around made this game much better. There also is a multiplayer that allows up to four people to go on missions together. The 3DS version does not have internet service to play with people all over the world like the Wii U does but it does have local play that can also link up with the Wii U. Be warned though, the quests difficulty are significantly higher than the regular stories quests so taking the full four is highly recommended.
Final Verdict
Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate coming from a first time player is a great game full of collecting and hunting that can last for hours and hours, but to get the full experience you may or may not need to give up an extra twenty dollars for an extension that makes the game play how it was supposed to play. In the end though this is a great game that should not be passed up.