Review #473: Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate(3DS)

 What is accessibility?

I don't know whose idea was it to make the Azure Rathalos the flagship monster, but I don't agree with it

 I love Monster Hunter, I do, ever since I first played it on the Wii. Think of it as a glorified boss-rush game of sorts: You track a giant monster, you kill it and you scavenge its remains to craft yourself stronger armor and better weapons. But... since the first time I tried out Monster Hunter quite a handful of clones have come out, and I've played a bunch of them, like Toukiden, Soul Sacrifice and Gods Eater and I think there's no going back for me...

 There's a story mode in the game about a beast causing earthquakes on a nearby fishing village, but it's pretty much fluff to get you hunting monsters. What you have to do is accept quests from the Guild Girl and perform them. First things first, while there is a pretty lengthy single player component, the meat of the game is the multiplayer mode.. but the 3DS version has no online, so if you wanna hunt with people ya gotta do it offline. And you should, the game is a thousand times better when playing with people. Unlike the Wii version, you can undertake Online Missions while offline, and even take the two underlings the game gives you on this missions, but be warned, while enemies' stats in online scale according to the amount of players, they are still tougher than their offline counterparts.

Armors are incredibly detailed and badass in this game.

 Before you decide on undertaking this game be careful as it's a brutal grind. The beauty of the game is that it has you hunting very tough boss-monsters that requires the player to learn the monster's tells, patterns and behaviors. And you'll be hunting monsters dozens upon dozens of times since you want its parts to craft better armor and weapons. It feels really good to learn how to take down an enemy, maybe the Pink Rathian killed you on your first hunt, then you managed to slay it with a sliver of health left and then you're taking it down while consuming less and less health items, it feels very rewarding! And besides the satisfaction of getting better, you also get to craft stronger armor and stronger weapons, win-win.

 Well, that's what happens when the game is at its best. The truth of the matter is that you're going to be killing the same monster over and over and over again. This is why so many people sink hundreds of hours into this game, because the parts you need for your weapon or your armor just aren't dropping. It gets so bad that fans of the game call it the 'Desire sensor', the more you want a part the more likely it won't drop. And you also need to gather bugs and minerals for your equipment, and once again, there're rare drops when gathering these, and you must use pick-axes, nets and even fishing hooks to gather these, tools that randomly break. 50% of your time will be spent hunting the same monsters over and over again, 40% will be spent trying to get the mineral or bug that you need and 10% will be spent actually doing new quests. And don't even let me get started on specific drops, for instance, I mained the Dual Swords but in order to upgrade my poison pair.... I had to break a Gigginox's head with a hammer, so I had to learn an entirely different weapon in order to upgrade the weapons I was actually using. The ****???? And even then, I had to do this to have a CHANCE of getting the drop, basically, RNG for the RNG. Heck, sometimes you need to craft poison bombs to kill insects and try to get their rare drops, so now you have to gather materials, for a random chance of getting what you want, then craft traps and then kill the bugs with these and then HOPE that you get what you want.

Multi-player is the way to go with Monster Hunter.

 Another issue I had was with High Rank. Your first hunts, and the first half of the single player component, is spent in 'Low Rank', fighting easy monsters(Well, easy in comparison to what you'll be fighting in High Rank), and then you hit High Rank and... all your armor turns useless. Remember all those times you spent hunting the Rathalos? Well, you gotta do it all over again if you want an actually useful Rathalos armor that looks EXACTLY the same to your old set. At least in G Rank, the rank after High Rank, the armors look different. But not in high rank, oh no. Heck, during missions you are given free supplies, but after entering High Rank supplies will be... supplied randomly, and you'll start in a random area, which kinda sucks, since you need a map if you want to see how the area is divided. The MH community is kinda toxic so you'll be told that 'you should've memorized the areas by now', but it really, really sucks and is such an unneeded complexity.

 A lot of the fun I was having with the game was stilted as soon as I hit high rank. Having to slay the SAME monsters I had been killing, even if stronger and more aggressive, to craft identical looking armor to the one I had before was such a bummer. It doesn't help that for the longest time you'll be fighting the same exact monsters from High Rank. The first set of HR quests only give you the Purple R. Ludroth, Crimson Quropeco and the Pink Rathian, which are subspecies of the Royal Ludroth, Quropeco and Rathian, and only offer slightly different behaviors. It wasn't much fun. The second set of sub quests offered the first new monster, the Plesioth, and then a bunch of new recolors. I mean, subspecies. Finally, the third wave gave me the Zynogre, and so on... High Rank was a mood killer.

Exploiting an enemy's elemental weakness can make the hunt a whole lot easier.

 And the sad part about it is that other MH clones 'fixed' these things by being more streamlined. You don't need a map item to see how areas are connected, gathering materials doesn't require you to carry tools that randomly break, you don't need to break parts with specific weapons or damage types to obtain certain drops and the drop rate is much more lenient. Monster Hunter is needlessly complex in some aspects, which will certainly be a major plus for a certain niche.

 Also, keep in mind that the game will barely explain its mechanics to the player.  Like the stamina bar, which after a while decreases permanently unless you cook certain supplies, of course, you're not told which supplies fix this or how to make them until you actually make them. There's a bunch of capture missions that need the player to trap the enemy, but these traps have to be crafted, since they aren't readily available, and you're never told how to, you just have to try different things together. Fun. And you can't carry many traps with you, if you place the trap and the enemy runs away you're screwed, since you can't remove the trap and you can't place another one until that one breaks after seven minutes. A problem that is easily resolved in multiplayer, when every player can carry their own set of traps and each one can place one.

The Lagiacrus was the MH3's flagship monster. Never forget the original.

 Hopefully you don't think I'm over, because I'm not. The game is very tough, VERY tough. Not only can monsters get pretty brutal, you also have to contend with other factors besides your stamina meter, things like your weapon's sharpness. As you hit the enemy it will lose its edge to the point that your strikes will be deflected, so now you have to search for an opening and try to sharpen it back to shape. Healing can be hazardous too, since enemies have a sixth sense and they will go directly towards you if you try to drink a potion. It's a very brutal game, but it's quite fun whenever you get to fight a new monster, with new behaviors and attacks, and then get to craft a badass new set of armor and weapon. Single player offers you two companions in the form of Kayamba and Cha-cha, a pair of useless little critters. You can 'equip' them with dances, such as healing or buffs, but it seem like they'll never use the dance that you need. You get poisoned, so drink an antidote and seconds later they cast their antidote dance. Thanks for nothing. You'll soon learn not to really on them, but hey, at least sometimes they can act as diversions for you to chug a potion down your throat.

 Monster Hunter 3 also introduced underwater combat and... it's trash. Look, the controls are pretty cumbersome, but you can get used to them. The 3DS version has a pretty useful lock-on mechanic, so even if you don't have the analog-nub(I didn't!) you can press L to move the camera behind you or towards your enemy. It works really well, I promise, but when you add swimming and underwater combat into the mix... it gets really bad. To say that underwater monsters were my least favorite would be an understatement.

Don't rely on your Single Player minions, they are horrible.

 I'd also like to comment on how the game has worked ever since Monster Hunter on the PS2: Each Area is divided in various different, numbered areas, and are interconnected in different ways. The problem is... enemies LOVE hitting you through areas, which means sitting through TWO different loading screens, one when you get hit INTO another area and another one when you return to the fray. It's pretty annoying, and you also need to factor in that monsters love to get inside this transition zones, so it's pretty easy to be running towards a monster only to accidentally transition into another area, so having to sit through two loading screens again. And then you have to try to lure the monster out of that transition zone so that you can hit it.

 This is getting pretty lengthy, but I almost forgot to touch upon weapons. There're about a dozen different weapon types and each of them work very differently. Dual Swords are fast, and are built around Demon and Archdemon modes, in which you have to enter Demon stance, that drains your stamina constantly, and hit the enemy enough times to enter Archdemon stance. Or the Great Sword that works around charging your blows. With the long sword you have to build up a meter to unleash an special combo so that you can slowly go up the unleashed 'levels' to do more damage. Trust me, there's a ton of different ways to play, and Ultimate gives you one of each, so try them out until you find your best fit. Heck, I'd say that it's useful to learn at least to different weapons, since some weapons work better for certain monsters. But also keep in mind elemental weaknesses and strengths, unlike its clones, Elements DO matter in this game and can mean the difference between a long, tough fight or a short skirmish.

Meet Zynogre, the Japanese realese's flagship monster.

 Monster Hunter is a very fun game when it's at its best, but when it's not... I was bored outta my mind. Honestly, I'd rather play more streamlined clones, like Toukiden and Gods Eater, which give you better and more useful allies, are kinder with monster drops and gathering materials, are more streamlined when it comes to crafting what you need and even when you have to fight the tougher version of older monsters at least reward you with different looking, even if only in color, equipment. I don't regret my time spent in Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, but boy, could the have trimmed a lot of the fat....
 7.5 out of 10