Monster Hunter Tri hands-on report: too hardcore for Wii gamers?
Hands-on with Monster Hunter Tri at Cockatoo Island, SydneyMonster Hunter Tri is an important game for Nintendo – an exclusive and hardcore action RPG with a massive Japanese following, but after trialling it at a recent Nintendo event, I’m not convinced that it will be an altogether popular game here.
In short – it’s just not accessible enough. Nintendo is claiming it’d take around 100 hours to accumulate enough loot to be able to defeat the more difficult monsters, and I’m just not sure many people will be able to achieve that landmark.
When it takes some 50 minutes to kill the harder creatures, your patience and commitment to a game will be sorely tested. Challenging games are good, but Monster Hunter Tri doesn’t really let up – it’s relentless from start to finish, and I imagine a lot of people will simply give up long before everything in the game is completed.
The game controls are a little clunky, too. The heavier weapons take an age to swing, and while they might pack a greater punch than the lighter weapons, they’re just frustrating to use.
Monster Hunter Tri also introduces swimming and water-based monsters for the first time in the series. I wish they didn’t. The monsters are difficult enough already that struggling with the swimming controls just adds another unnecessary layer of difficulty to the game that pushes it over the “entertaining” category.
The good news is the game really is gorgeous – it’s by far the most visually impressive Wii game to date. The world really seems to breathe, and although there’s a fair loading time between each area you visit, there’s also a real sense that the world you’re in is alive – the consistency across the game is compelling.
The various monsters you’ll be fighting are rendered equally well. For the most part based on dinosaurs, the creatures are suitably epic in size, and when they do finally fall down, you’ll have a heck of a feeling of accomplishment.
There’s also a wealth of customisation options. No two characters will be the same, with a wide variety of weapon and armour choices to choose between, and if you don’t like what you’ve got, you can always craft something different.
It’s easy to see why this series is so successful – anyone with the patience to sink their teeth into it are set for a rewarding and immersive experience. Online play helps, bringing a decidedly MMO-flavour to the experience that, as an added bonus, won’t cost a cent to use (unlike in Japan), and there is a definite thrill in taking on the bigger beasts as a team.
Nintendo is also pricing the game fairly, and bundling it with the new (and ultra-comfortable) Classic Controller Pro for under $100. With Nintendo’s weight behind the game, Monster Hunter Tri should find itself a faithful community in Australia. It’s just that the casual Wii players are going to be put right off with this one.
Comments
people tend to give up on monster hunter before they reach the epic battles that are sooooo satisfying, also, the heavy weapons are use by starting an attack so that the monster will get hit on a weaspot while turning, you just needto be tactical, you simly cant treat it as a hack and slash....be tactical
I completely agree. It's just like Ironbeard said:
"In life there're hunters, and there're Monster Hunters... and then there's wee little babies crying for their mom"
If you can't handle a simple game like Monster Hunter, you probably shouldn't be writing game reviews. just sayin'
Whoever played the demo and wrote that review is an idiot and apparently knows nothing about the monster hunter series.Its people like them that make it so hard for them to translate games for the fans in the US.
The learning curve is slightly higher than most games, because it is an immersive world . Without the depth that harder controls ( and along with harder controls comes more choice and freedom ) bring to the table you cannot create an immersive game.
Its not as if you have to use " qcf + A + R ( 2sec hold ) + Up " to do a single slash, but learning the combo's is and timing a part of the game and this one is designed for the long haul, not for the 2 hour novelty of games like Call of duty modern warfare 2.
If you can't give this kind of game a chance, don't review it. It clearly has a huge following already so to say that its "bad" means that your doing something to skew your own perspective on it.
So Arty, when are you coming back to Hyper?
Poorly written tripe. Why do you guys keep hiring such talentless writers who obviously know nothing about videogames?
Yeah, Matthew Sainsbury is a pretty odd choice for a gaming site...
Oh damn, someone took what I said word-for-word literally, and here I was thinking I'd managed to exaggerate to such a degree that that would never happen icon_biggrin.gif
The real reason DDR isn't real dancing is pretty simple. Adjudicated DDR (i.e, you get points for performing well, and you fail if you don't) fails to involve too many of the vital elements of dance for DDR to itself be real dancing. Floorcraft and Lines being the two most important ones I'll cite here, but not the only ones. They're also the two that people who took my original comment literally might understand icon_biggrin.gif.
Floorcraft - effective and safe use of floor as a dance space simultaneously with other performers. Ballet has it. Folk Dancing has it. R & B and Hip Hop have it. Street Latin has it. Dancesport definitely has it. DDR doesn't. DDR takes place within a confined area with you as the only performer within that area. You know what that's closer to? Gymnastics, or, specifically, rhythmic gymnastics.
Lines - the use of arms and legs and the rest of the body to achieve aesthetic impact. Again, all forms of Dance have it, and the competitive equivalents of those dances grade competitors on it. DDR doesn’t. There is no difference in the scoring of DDR whether you achieve good lines or not. Here, DDR fails to be like gymnastics too, because Gymnastics involves lines.
So, what is DDR? It's not Dance, it's not Gymnastics. It's actually really simple if you think on it. DDR is aerobics. Playing a game of DDR is an aerobic workout, and DDR follows all the traditions you'd find in an aerobics workout at your local gym.
It's no comment on the quality of the games. As far as I'm concerned, anything that gets kids active is better than nothing, but DDR is not dancing.
That said, people who think DDR is dancing really confuse me. Surely, if you're going to pretend you're dancing, you'd rather do it in a social outlet, with real people. Spasms of multicoloured code are hardly a replacement for real people.
Oh Arty,
I wanna feel the heat with somebody
Yeah I wanna dance with somebody
With somebody who loves me
Please come back to my aarrrrms...
What's with all these replies? It's a bad article, we get it.
Lousy Wii gamers being too soft.
MH series is phenomenal and more people should be forced to play it!
Hi Arty!
Oh....oh my.....
Buddy, there's something known as a "learning curve." It's where you get better at a game through practice. This is probably the core ideal of Monster Hunter; you don't get stronger because skill is what matters. That and timing. Shiny new weapons are always nice, but not as necessary as one might think.
And did you say an average of 50 minutes to a monster? Please. Within 8 hours of gameplay, you can easily whittle it down to no more than 20 or 30 minutes a monster. When you've really got some time logged, you're hacking down dual-monster quests in 20 minutes.
Perhaps it's simply the nature of today's gamers. If you can't stick to a game you spent $50 on for at least 3 or 4 hours, just to give it a try, I really don't understand you.
In any case, I think vids speak louder than words.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiBJA0uzsgk
This was the strongest version of the monster. And this kind of skill is not really all that rare. Any seasoned hunter worth his salt can do that kind of thing.
I know this is a really, really, REALLY old article, but I need to put forth my own two cents; Monster Hunter is a game for gamers. Q.E.D, not shiftless soccer moms or whiney fourteen year olds who need something simple. It is, and always has been, a tactical Action RPG geared toward people who want to feel like they're actually achieving something. It's not a hack n slash, it's an experience.
SO GET OVER IT.
"The heavier weapons take an age to swing and are just frustrating to use" ??
Are you serious? I'm glad I had a read of the other comments after reading this dribble to see that I'm not the only one who thinks this guy needs to stick to reviewing more of those shoot em up 12 second attention span games.
THEY ARE HEAVY WEAPONS. Personally I found the epic build up to every mighty blow from a great sword endlessly satisfying, and NOTHING beats charging a bad ass slow as hell attack for 8 seconds to see it land in the sweet spot as the monster dives at you. HIGHLY rewarding game, not for today's small minded lacking in patience or ability generation.