Monster Hunter Tri

[Andrew_Fireborn]

So, I've picked up my copy Tuesday, and I've sunk the better part of a day into it so far this week. (Hit 350 on Monster Hunter Freedom Unite this last week as well...)

For those who have never played a Monster Hunter game:

Monster Hunter is a game that can be boiled down to "Hit Beastie with stick until it stops moving; turn beastie into new, bigger stick; repeat." Which accurately describes the 'grind' portion of the game, but the challenge here is squarely in the "Hit Beastie" bit.

It's an action game about fighting monsters that start at station wagon size. There're about 7 different weapon types, all of which are balanced extremely well. To the point that there's not really any solid consensus as to what weapon is best. They all have fairly different styles, which further muddies that matter. For my 2 cents, I enjoy the mobility of the Sword and Shield, the attack chaining of the Longsword, and the sturdiness of the Lance.


For vets:
1) Underwater combat works pretty well. The camera's vertical speed makes it a little wonkier than it should be, but all in all it works. I found the Royal Ludroth easier underwater, while Gobul ended up being harder for me.
2) Gunners now have 8 more inventory slots for ammo only. Although Light and Medium bowguns seem underpowered...
3) Light and Medium bowguns now have attack dodges. Light does a slide step much like the lance's dodging, and the medium does a regular roll. Heavy bowguns still stall you until the recoil's done.
4) The Farm takes village resource points to run, but you have more options on what you want to grow. (Almost every combination item.) There doesn't seem to be any ore from the farm though.
5) Various miniquests show up to upgrade various parts of the village. Mainly the farm's Plant, Bug, Mushroom, and Honey production facilities; the village's Hunting fleet (Fish, minor treasure, or minor monster bits) or your sidekick's masks.
6) Instead of the felynes of MHFU, you get a Shakalaka as a sidekick. He gets a fair number of different masks which perform different functions. So far there's the basic one, one which gives him the ability to display the locations of the monsters, and one which functions like the BBQ spit.

Haven't used the switch axes yet (can't even make one until 3* quests.) nor can I build long swords yet... (4*) The moveset changes on the weapons has made everything much more varied while still staying in their old flavors.

Stun moves were added to the SnS, Greatsword, and Lance. The Hammer retains it's domination on stun though, but at least it's not a monopoly anymore.

There're only about 18 boss monsters this time around, (compared to the ~36, 40+ counting color variants) but they seem much more varied than MHFU's menagerie. Though, I've only fought the Great Jaggi, Royal Ludroth, Barroth, Gobul, and Quropeco as of yet...

Their move sets are much more fluid... and I haven't found a real exploitable pattern to any of them yet.

[Gramzamber]

Played this for the past couple of days, still not very far into it but it's fun.
Switch Axes are a blast, and both the axe and sword settings are more easily controllable than regular long swords which is surprising. Though it has this "reload" thing that I don't quite understand yet (what is it reloading?).

Biggest monster I've gotten so far is the Quropeco and dear god is it an annoying little coward.
Has this move where it fakes a distress call of another monster and calls it in to help it, really frustrating when it's low on health and some giant bastard lizard charges into us.
I'm not the only one who hates this thing either, last match I had against that thing with 3 others, we killed it, carved it then spent the remaining minute kicking it's corpse. Which is always satisfying.

Speaking of which the online part is clunky to get into (why isn't there an online lobby?) but once you get a good group together it's great.

[Ford Prefect]

Switch Axes are even bigger nonsense than Gunlances, but boy are they cool.

[Stark]

It's not out here wah!

The inch-thick layer of dust on my Wii hopefully won't stop it working.

[Gramzamber]

It's not out here wah!

The inch-thick layer of dust on my Wii hopefully won't stop it working.

It didn't on mine.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

Bloody kids these days. I've still got a save file on my PS2 card from the original Monster Hunter, with a huntress in full kut-ku armor. Never did manage to get further than having my ass handed to me repeatedly by the Rathalos. Maybe I'll give this new one a try.

[Andrew_Fireborn]

Farming looks to be a lot more painful this time around...

I've got quite a few uses for "King's Frill" lined up, and it's a 35% chance from breaking Great Jaggi's face...

Similar for Flintstone, which unless I can mine it at the volcano, means fighting the boomchicken a lot more for a similar chance on breaking either of his wing flints...


And since they're both break only items, they don't show up when coming back from freehunting in Moga Woods...