Capcom is the king of game naming. Just looking at the Street Fighter II games,
we got such gems as:
- Street Fighter II
- Super Street Fighter II
- Street Fighter II Turbo
- Street Fighter II: Championship Edition, and my personal favorite,
- Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix
This naming convention is continued with the Monster Hunter
series:
- Monster Hunter
- Monster Hunter G (screw numbers, letters are how Capcom rolls!)
- Monster Hunter Duo (screw letters, Latin is how Capcom rolls now!)
- Monster Hunter Portable (Freedom in America)
- Monster Hunter Portable/ Freedom 2 (ok, numbers are now retro-chic)
- Monster Hunter Unite
- Monster Hunter Tri (Latin is back like disco)
- Monster Hunter Portable 3rd (ordinal numbers are all the rage)
- Monster Hunter Portable 3rd HD (the only "portable" game for a non-handheld system), and now,
- Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate
Confused about what you’re getting? Understandable!
The
Monster Hunter series is built around “generations,” much like the Street
Fighter series or the Final Fantasy games (FFX and FFX-2, FFIV and FFIV: The
After Years, FFXIII and—eh, you get the idea).
There are similarities between all games in the series, but the story,
the setting, some weapons, and most of the monsters are unique within each
generation. The current generation is
the third. It includes Tri, Portable 3rd/
HD, and now, 3 Ultimate. What this means
is that 3 Ultimate shares a lot with its predecessors in the 3rd
generation of Monster Hunter games. How
much of the game is new? Is it worth
buying if you already have a previous game in the 3rd
generation? All will be answered in
time.
Before
comparing/ contrasting 3 Ultimate with older games in the generation, I should
probably explain the game to a Monster Hunter neophyte. In Monster Hunter games, there are two venues
of gameplay: offline (story mode), and online.
In offline, you will be prompted to perform a series of quests (usually
involving killing a large monster), culminating in a boss monster fight (called
an “elder dragon”). This will save the day,
and you’ll be rewarded with a pretty cutscene.
And then the game will continue to offer you quests and chances to
upgrade your equipment for as long as you want.
It is not unlike a story-driven MMO: you’ve killed the Lich King, you’ve
beaten the game, but before you finish your armor set, you need one more
piece. Just one more raid. Monster fights tend to be long and difficult,
lasting anywhere from 15 minutes to 50 minutes.
Each monster has a pattern to his attacks, which gives battles a certain
Dark Souls quality—just charge in swinging and you can expect a swift death,
but spend the time learning a monster, and you might just pull it off. The 3rd generation games have
added underwater combat (absent in Portable 3rd/ HD because the PSP was
unable to handle underwater controls with one analog stick). These take some getting used to, but adds a
new level of depth to an otherwise played out gameplay schema of dodging,
blocking, attacking, and running for your life.
Online
mode is similar to offline (take quests, kill monsters, make equipment), but
with a few differences. First, the
monsters are harder (Capcom does expect you to fight the monsters with three
friends, after all). Second, you have
access to higher tiers of monsters than in offline. With few exceptions, these high level
monsters are the same as normal, just harder.
The benefit to these fights is that the monsters drop special parts,
used to craft high level equipment not available offline. Third, there is no story online. Zilch.
Nada. It is sandbox play in its
rawest form. If you love the game for
the story, online is not for you. If you
love the game because you want to fight monsters and make the best equipment,
online is where it’s at.
On the
subject of online, there is a baffling difference between the 3DS and the Wii U
versions of 3 Ultimate: Only the Wii U can actually go online. The 3DS can do local multiplayer with other
3DSs and Wii Us, but only the Wii U can access the series of tubes that connect
gamers worldwide. Why? I have no idea. The 3DS is more than capable of online
gaming; Star Fox proves it (and offers voice chat!). As a sort of bandaid, Capcom offers a free application
for the Wii U that lets you connect your 3DS online through a Wii U (think Ad
Hoc Party on the PS3). This requires a
hardwired connection between your Wii U and the internet, however, which means
you have to buy an additional dongle (the Wii U has no ethernet port). This begs the question: if you already have a
Wii U, why not just get the game for that instead of the 3DS? The answer: I don’t know. Unless you have disposable income to buy
dongles for your Wii U, and absolutely HAVE to have the game for a portable
system, there is no real benefit to the 3DS version. It is a shame, because as with all online
games, the more people available to play with, the better.
So what
is different between each third generation game? The most obvious difference (if you have the
Wii U copy) is high definition (I have not played Portable 3rd HD
because I don’t know Japanese). This is
a benefit and a curse. It is obvious that
Capcom made high definition textures for Tri and keep them around, because some
things are quite nice looking (most big monsters, armors, etc). The extra graphical power of the Wii U (and
surprisingly, the 3DS) is used to nice effect for things like real time
shadows, self shadowing, and reflective water.
These touches are small, but give the game a nice “pop” over its Wii and
PSP predecessors.
It isn’t all pretty though. It is obvious that some textures are hold
overs from the PS2 games, and they look downright ugly (barbecue some meat and
enjoy the blockiness). The Wii U uses
proprietary Blu-ray discs, which means they can hold 25 GB of data. Why Capcom skimped on these older textures is
anybody’s guess. Another less-than-attractive
element of the game on more powerful hardware is that there are some low poly
count models (mainly landscape—this made sense for the Wii, but surely the Wii
U can handle less blocky terrain). In
the end, Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate is still a Wii/ PSP game, just upscaled for
the Wii U. If you come expecting Arkham
Asylum quality graphics, you will be disappointed. If you come expected something nicer than
Tri, you are in for a treat.
Another difference is the quantity
of monsters and areas. Monster Hunter
Tri was criticized for having a lack of monsters. Compared to previous generations, there just
weren’t many monsters to fight, and when fighting monsters is the entire
premise of the game, that is a problem.
The reason Capcom offered was that they focused on quality over quantity
with the third generation monsters. This
is true, and it shows in things like improved animations, AI, tightened
hitboxes (try Monster Hunter Unite on PSP/ Vita—the difference is huge), and better
overall models and textures. But in the
end, excuses don’t get me hooked on the game: monsters do. Most of the new monsters were added with
Portable 3rd and brought into Ultimate, but there are two unique
monsters to Ultimate. In addition, there
are “subspecies” monsters (sorta like palette shifted sprites in a NES game:
they’re the same monster, but tougher and a different color) rounding out the
roster, and making Ultimate a far deeper and more satisfying experience than
Tri or Portable 3rd. Aside
from arenas (single zone areas where you fight a boss style monster), there is
only one new area in Ultimate, and that is taken from Portable 3rd. It is unfortunate that Capcom did not devote
any resources to creating truly new areas, but still, all of your major biomes
are covered: frozen tundra, volcano, tropical island, forest, etc.
Yet another difference is the
controls. If you have the Wii U version
of the game, you are given a wide variety of control options: the gamepad, the
Wii U Pro Controller, or the Classic Controller Pro from the Wii. This is especially nice for those of us who
played Tri, since we can use the same controls we are used to. If you have the 3DS version, things get a
little trickier because the 3DS only has one thumb stick. The circle pad pro is supported, which helps,
but its bulk makes it difficult to carry your 3DS in a pocket. Like the PSP Monster Hunter games, the d-pad
can be used to control the camera, but the placement of the d-pad on the 3DS makes
this less than ideal (PSP Monster Hunter players will recall using “the claw,”
where you wrapped your left index finger around the system to control the d-pad
while leaving your left thumb free for movement). Also like the PSP games, you can use the left
shoulder button to center the camera behind you. Two new ways to control the camera include a
touch screen d-pad (if you’ve ever used a touch screen d-pad . . . yeah, it’s
kinda like that), and a “monster lock on” option. This option, turned on via the touch screen,
does not work like Legend of Zelda “Z Targeting.” Instead, it changes the left shoulder button
from centering the camera behind you to focusing the camera on the
monster. This makes the game playable
without the circle pad pro, but is less than ideal. The game really needs dual stick
controls. Apologies to your bulging
pockets.
Finally, both the Wii U and the 3DS
make use of the touch screen. You can
move the HUD (map, health and stamina bars, and inventory) entirely off the
main screen if you so desire. I’m not
entirely convinced this is desirable though.
In a game where one well-placed hit from a monster can knock off three
quarters of your health, you really need to be able to monitor your vitals
without looking away from the main screen.
The inventory is accessible via touch controls, but accessing an item is
a multi-step process. Ultimately, it is
just faster to access the inventory the old fashioned way. Other reviews have criticized Capcom for not
using the touch screens in a bolder way, but I think this is unfair. We’ve had touch screen consoles since the DS
(and now iOS/ Android gaming), and the DS has shown that some games can be
built around the feature wonderfully (the DS Zelda titles come to mind), some
can use touch screens but come out flawed (Metroid Prime: Hunters), and some
can use touch screens very little and still excel (like the DS Castlevanias, or
New Super Mario Bros). Every Wii U and
3DS game does not need heavy touch screen usage, just like every Wii game did
not need motion controls. 3 Ultimate
uses the touch screen little, but in this case, less is more.
The story is an area of complete
disappointment. If you are a story
driven player and you’ve played Tri, don’t waste your money. With one exception (I won’t spoil it), this
game *is* Monster Hunter Tri (story wise).
It is confusing why Capcom would change the story with Portable 3rd,
but not 3 Ultimate. Surely the story
line is the least cost intensive part of the development of a Monster Hunter
game; why not just change the storyline?
How to conclude? If you’re a fan of the Monster Hunter series
who played online and who didn’t pay much attention to the single player of
Tri, then this is a great game for you.
If you’ve never played a Monster Hunter game before and want to try one,
this is the definitive version. If you
played Tri and want a new story, or if you insist on playing your 3DS without a
circle pad pro, then you might want to look elsewhere. These aren’t the monsters you’re looking for.
