Monster Hunter 3 is as big and stunning as the creatures inhabiting its hostile world
Monster Hunter 3 doesn't focus much on plot development as its script basically serves as a support for the game's main activity, taking down gigantic beasts. For some reason, a long time ago, a tribe of fisherman decided to establish a floating village on the shore of a region inhabited by a wide variety of monsters, ranging from docile herbivorous to angry carnivorous dragons. To make matters worse the waters on which this peaceful village stands are now the home of the most dangerous of all monsters known to man: the Lagiacrus, a huge sea serpent that has the power to send strong electric waves through the waters. Fearing to be brought to their doom by the lurking beast the villagers receive a rookie hunter sent by the Hunter's Guild with high expectations. However, before facing the ultimate challenge the initially unskilled soldier needs to sharpen up his abilities by going after smaller, softer prey that is neither small nor soft.
Due to the game's incredible deepness things start with a very long tutorial that is made up of a series of missions. From the get go the game lets players know that to become a good hunter it is necessary to dedicate great amounts of time in order to climb up the game's extremely long learning curve until all of its nuances and details are truly comprehended. The tutorial will most likely drown most gamers in a flood of information, most of which will only be understood as time passes and new challenges are presented. Still, the initial stretch of the game – while clocking in at about four hours – does a good job in explaining the basics and showing what needs to be done in order to accomplish several different goals. By the time the chain is released, hunters will feel prepared and extremely excited to tackle what is ahead of them.
During your time on the village the guild will present you with three basic types of missions: hunting, capturing and gathering. On all of them hunters will be directly transported to the base camp on the region of the missions, and from that point they will have fifty minutes to get things done, otherwise they will return to the village in a not-so-glorious way. On hunting missions your goal will be to take down one, or more monsters; meanwhile, on capturing missions hunters need to weaken the mighty beings to a point where they are vulnerable enough to be captured by a shock trap. There is a catch, though, as the game does not display health bars for the monsters, as a consequence noticing when a beast is weak is a matter of closely watching their behavior while looking for limps and other signs of fatigue, as some monsters have exclusive ways to show that they are close to their last breath.
Gathering missions are easily the least-exciting of the bunch, but most of the time those only serve the purpose of getting to know a new hunting ground while looking for resources like mushrooms, stones, or even carves that can be taken from monsters once they are down. There aren't many of those missions in the game, but chances are hunters will spend a good amount of their time looking for mining spots or killing monsters in order to acquire new carves, as all of the game's best weapons and amor require a certain number of specific carves and minerals in order to be forged, some of which are extremely rare and will probably require more than three successful hunts before being found.
While three hunts may not sound like much, it is important to consider that defeating one of the game's sixteen boss monsters for the first time will usually take up all of the missions fifty minutes; actually, it is not that hard to run out of time on initial hunts where hunters are still learning the monster's pattern of attacks and how to avoid their different devastating strikes. Being successful on a first hunting attempt is extremely rare, and players will have to cope with the frustration of spending fifty minutes on a battle only to fail at the end and have to start all over again, leaving the battlefield with only a bag full of experience for a next try. It is the tough reality of a hunter, and the demanding nature of this franchise. Those who are patient and succeed in dealing with lots of inevitable defeats will get unparalleled enjoyment out of this thrilling adventure.
Monsters are not the only adversity you will encounter on your hunts. Even the scenario's environment will directly affect the movement and endurance of hunters. There are five hunting grounds in total: Moga Woods, Flooded Forest, Sandy Plains, Tundra and Volcano. Each of those featuring unique monsters, resources, missions and dangers. Before visiting the Sandy Plains, for example, it is advisable to take some bottles of cold drinks to avoid fatigue as the heat will vastly reduce your running abilities if you are not carefully prepared. Monster Hunter awards careful planning either if it is by studying a monster's pattern or taking the necessary precautions like stocking up on recovery items or other tools before a hunt, otherwise even a fishing mission can become very dangerous.
The activities of Moga Village are not restricted to hunting, though, and as a prominent figure its inhabitants will be counting on the hunter to solve their problems and improve things around the area. While you are not out defeating a huge lava dragon you may feel the need to assign the village' s fishing fleet to another region, talk to a traveling captain to exchange commodities for rare goods coming from other regions, address villagers' requests by killing monsters and harvesting some goods from the dangerous outside world or even run your own farm to grow mushrooms, insects and other stuff that may help you in acquiring a new item or solving nourishment problems while out in the wild.
The game's biggest issue is probably its control scheme. It is far away from being faulty or insufficient; on the contrary, its biggest problem is that there are way too many things to do while out in a hunt, and because of that the setup is not even close to intuitive as some commands had to be awkwardly mapped to the Wiimote and Nunchuck combo. Accessing a menu, for example, will require players to press the 2-button, and items can be used by pressing the C-button and navigating through an item list with the D-pad, only to then use the chosen item with a combination of the C and A buttons, everything being done while the game is not paused and a angry monster is charging towards you. In the end, the controls are a reflection of the title's gameplay: they present players with a long learning curve, but when it comes to controlling your character that is not exactly what you are looking for. However, it is important to note that after some hours of gameplay, performing those actions becomes as natural of an activity as jumping on a Mario platformer.
Monster Hunter 3 marks the introduction of underwater hunting to the series, and its on the swimming controls where players will encounter most of their problems. The addition of a third axis of movement has not been handled very well as the upwards or downwards movement, like the game's camera, is controlled by the D-pad, while the direction you are swimming to is determined by the control stick. Therefore learning how to swim properly will require a lot of fumbling with two different directional interfaces. Thankfully, by the time big battles underwater begin to happen most gamers will have that combination mastered. Some players will also have to get used to not having a lock system to target enemies: a choice that may seem unusual by modern game developers, but that is vital to Monster Hunter and gives the series its very unique exciting gameplay.
Monster Hunter 3's offline mode is compelling enough to entertain players for over fifty hours, but it is by no means the game's highlight. That particular title goes to the online mode and its ability to join up to four players on a single hunt. In addition to featuring most of quests found on Moga Village, the online city also has an exclusive group of quests presenting a couple of big monsters that only appear there, due to the fact that they can't be brought down by a lonely hunter. Going on a group hunt is easily the best Nintendo Wi-Fi experience you will find on the Wii, and one that is up there with the kinds of interactions provided by Xbox Live and the Playstation Network. There are no friend codes to memorize, searching for your friends can be done via nicknames, and communication can be achieved through a chat or with the use of WiiMotion Plus. As if all of that wasn't enough, there are also Event Quests that change every once in a while and powerful items that can only be found through a lot of online grinding. The online cooperative mode is more than a perfect fit for the challenging characteristics of the franchise.
The visuals are as mesmerizing as the game's scope. The level of details employed in the rendering of the monsters is easily the most amazing visual component one can found on the entire library of the system, the creatures look unbelievably life-like in their movements, grunts and attacks, something that only takes the intensity of the battles to a whole new level. The environments have received a similar degree of treatment, they are huge and mesmerizing, but all those wonders come at the cost of constant load times in between the different subareas that make up the large hunting grounds. It takes a little bit away from the feeling that beautiful landscapes with impressive effects like the Flooded Forest are one big connected area, but that was a sacrifice that had to be made in order to achieve the level of detail Capcom was looking for. As for the soundtrack, the game doesn't have many tunes, instead it bets on environmental sounds and sound effects, all of which work very well with the game's overall mood.
When it is all said and done, Monster Hunter 3 is not easy to recommend to everyone out there. Those who are brave enough to deal with the long hardworking hours required to grasp all of the game's deep mechanics, to get the hang of the control scheme and to overcome each one of the game's sixteen gargantuan challenges will find an engaging and addictive title with over one hundred hours of gameplay. The effort put on the game's offline and online modes is outstanding and so are the visuals. In addition, there is an Arena Mode where two friends can locally fight a monster on a small arena, a rare gem on these days of online-multiplayer only. If you are looking for the ultimate Wii software exclusively aimed to fulfill the needs of those thirsty for a tough game, look no further, Monster Hunter 3 is exactly what you have been searching all this time.
Actual Score: 9.4