meMidgety

Games these days seems to be about accessibility and mass appeal, but no one told the folks at Capcom. One of their newest games, Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, is just as intense as any other action role-playing-game, but is for the new Wii U and Nintendo 3DS. Currently it is the most aesthetically pleasing and playable version of the game up to date. The game's story is predictably linear. You are a new hunter brought into a town near the coast and sent out on quests to unearth the causes of seismic tremors occurring in the town. This makes conversations with non-playable-characters simple and bases most of the dialogue around your equipment. The majority of the characters you talk to take you straight into a menu in which you buy different equipment. This isn't a game you play to hear an interesting tale, it's more about complex and engrossing game play, and addictive weapons and armor combinations. That is where the game makes up for it's linear plot. The gear that you find in this game is completely different from other RPGs out there. For one thing, in Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, most of your gear comes from the monster you hunt. By slaying these giant beasts you get parts that you can haul back to town, and have them forged together to construct weapons and armors with a design based around the monster in question.. It's one thing to look at a spreadsheet of stats about what you are wearing, but it's completely different to be able to preview your selection and know how powerful the gear is just by looking at it. Another thing the game has is the complexity of the monsters within the game. There are over 50 monsters with different natures and roles in their own ecosystem. They behave on their own and a hunter can spend hours watching a target before he eventually unsheathes his sword and takes the first swing. However, most of the time you, the hunter, will startle the beast and it will turn aggressivly on you. The detail of monster characteristics don't just stop at the food they eat or how they react to the environment, monsters also have certain locations on their body that can be exploited as weak spots and criticals; nothing feels better than slashing at a monsters tail and having it fly off, or swinging a hammer the size of a desk at your target's head and knocking it out. That is a main feature of Monster Hunter that other action games do not compare to. Progressing in the game is more personal as you must learn how to dodge, combo, and even spot the weakening of the monster. This is what deters most people from the game because even though you may have the greatest armor that you could get at the moment, the next monster could potentially kill you in two or three hits. The learning curve is steep but the upside to this high amount of difficulty is that you feel more rewarded in your hunt. Victories feel like a more direct result from your personal skill and planning, rather than an assumed eventuality. Even though there is high risk and reward, there is still no escaping the awkward controls that comes with monster hunter. For the Wii U, the camera controls are controlled by either the left trigger to center the camera to where the hunter is facing, or the right analog stick. The draw back is that the analog stick is placed at an inconvenient location not familiar to console players. The controls are worse with the Nintendo 3DS where there isn't even an analog stick to control camera movement. The options for camera control turns to the left trigger and the directional pad under the left analog stick. This problem mean that you will be repeatedly pressing the left trigger, or find yourself choosing to move your character or moving your camera. However, Capcom has addressed these problems with new features that come with the touch screen on these controllers. Old players of the series may notice they may place different tools on the touchscreen, varying from camera control to instant item combinations. This is a great utilization of the touch screen and defiantly makes the game a lot more enjoyable. Along with the optional directional pad that you can put onto the touchscreen, there is a monster camera lock that allows vision on the monster at all times. There are endless combinations of 'panels' one can choose from to customize the touch screen. Despite being frustrating at times to new hunters, this is a great game. The battles are exciting, tense, and addictive. The game play stands out above all else. You, the hunter, actually feel success when you kill a monster. Thanks to the touchpad design for the systems, Monster Hunter feels a bit more responsive and a bit more personal. For some, this game may not be so suitable, but if you’ve been craving an action game which offers up the unique satisfaction of defeating big, truly difficult monsters and carving a new set of armor out of their salvaged skull, get this game now. You won’t regret it.