"But wait!" you ask. "If this is the third entry to the franchise then you should cover Monster Hunters 1 and 2 first!". I actually can't. The first two Monster Hunter games were released on the PS2 and this game is on the Wii U and 3DS. Plus, technically speaking, this isn't the third entry at all. It's an HD remake of Monster Hunter Tri. And in the time span between Monster Hunter 2 and Monster Hunter Tri the "real" third entry was released, Monster Hunter Freedom. Which also got a remake in the form of Monster Hunter Freedom Unite. So technically speaking, Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate is the SIXTH installment in the franchise. If I did my math correctly. I could be wrong. Math has never been my strong point (I've always been good at writing and English though!). But it doesn't really matter what order you play the game's in because the story is basically nonexistent!
In case you don't know what Monster Hunter is, it's an Action-Adventure franchise (made by Capcom!) with mild RPG elements starring the Monster Hunters, elite warriors trained to fight basically anything from brightly colored raptors, to giant sand-whales, to fire-breathing dragons. The core gameplay normally involves fighting increasingly powerful monsters and using the loot you get for defeating them to make weapons and armor to make yourself more powerful, which in turns let's you stand a chance against even stronger monsters, and the cycle repeats until you beat the game. However! There's no EXP or leveling up at all. The idea being that making armor and weapons is the only way to improve your stats, in addition to being prepared for anything. And when I say anything, I mean ANYTHING. Need a moment to heal? Bring a Flash Bomb to blind the monster so you can have a breather. Need to repair your weapon? Bring a Whetstone. Need to capture the monster alive? Bring a trap and some means of tranquilizing the monster.
If you never played a Monster Hunter game before, know this. This is a franchise that demands patience, preparation, and skill. There's no "dodge stats" or anything similar. The only way to avoid damage is to memorize the monster in question's attack patterns and position yourself accordingly. That said, it's a decent starting point into the franchise, thanks to a very thorough tutorial, and introducing the Great Jaggi, a very weak boss monster that is commonly used as target practice.
Up to four players can take on hunts together.
The story of Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate kind of takes a back-seat to the gameplay. Which is unfortunate, since there's a surprising amount of lore in the Monster Hunter universe. Basically, after creating your character, you are sent to a place known as Moga Village to serve as that town's Monster Hunter, which is equal parts guardian and protector as well as a big-game hunter. Moga Village has recently been plagued by supernatural earthquakes and a good chunk of the story revolves around finding the cause of the earthquakes and putting a stop to them. It's simple and mostly exists to give you a goal besides beating up dragons, dinosaurs, werewolves, and whatever the heck Gigginox is to become stronger. Oh, and the whole time you'll be accompanied by Cha-Cha and Kayamba, a pair of tiki-men-like creatures that can support you by using healing/buffing spells and distracting monsters.
But as any decent Monster Hunter fan will tell you, do not play Monster Hunter for the story. They rarely differ from that style I just described (however, Monster Hunter 4 and Monster Hunter Stories put a heavier focus on the story than the rest of the franchise). Play it for the addicting, but somewhat repetitive gameplay. With that said, I do have to voice my opinions concerning the story progress method. You see, the way progression works is you select Quests from a menu, which sends you to one of six different locations to complete a task. These tasks can be as mundane as collecting a certain type of mushroom or as intense as fighting multiple giant monsters simultaneously while on a time limit. It can get repetitive easily, but it works. Unfortunately, some story moments are tied to Villager Requests, where have to gather specific materials and a form of currency known as Resource Points (rewarded for slaying monsters while in Free Hunt mode) to upgrade Moga Village. In retrospect, the Villager Requests feel like padding to lengthen the main campaign.
Now something important to note is that there are no less than twelve weapon types in the game. And the first rule of a Monster Hunter game is try out all twelve weapon types at least once. Each weapon type comes with it's own unique strengths and weaknesses as well as different combos to perform. And some weapon types, once you learn how to use them properly, can cream certain monsters more easily than others. Example, once you're decent at the Hammer, (which sacrifices range in exchange for the unique ability to literally knockout enemies/bosses with successive attacks), the Rathian boss becomes a cakewalk (especially a Thunder element Hammer, but more on that later). Likewise, using the Gun-Lance against the Barroth boss is ideal, thanks to the Gun-Lance's shotgun-esque burst attacks shredding through Barroth's armor. Or you could just stick with the weapon you feel most comfortable with. That's normally what I do (Switch Axes for Life!). After all, while some weapon types have an easier time with certain opponents, it is POSSIBLE to defeat just about any monster with just about ANY weapon type. As long as you know what you are doing.
Which leads me to a gripe I've had with the entire franchise, at least up until Monster Hunter: World since Capcom basically removed the problem in that game (apparently). The Armor needed to use Melee weapons, and the Armor needed to use Long-Range weapons, are separated. This basically means that if you stick with one category, but want to try out the other category, you're going to need to make a whole other armor set just so you have decent stats to support the other category. This system has always annoyed me, as it made some weapons excessively difficult to use. And if you want to keep both categories up to date you're going to need to do twice the amount of material grinding!
Speaking of grinding, something that might turn some people off is the amount of grinding you have to do. Mostly because A) some materials are obnoxiously rare. And B) You will never get every material from a monster in one go. So chances are if there's a weapon or armor set you want, you're going to have to fight the same monster repeatedly until you have enough materials to make those weapons and armor. Thankfully, Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate's main campaign is pretty forgiving when compared to other campaigns in the franchise, so newcomers shouldn't too much of a problem. What I mean when I say that is you can go a ludicrously long time without updating your gear.
Speaking of Armor, another thing to note. In addition to providing stat boosts, each set of armor comes with Skills, passive abilities that further enhance your character. However! The Skills only activate if you are wearing entire set. So no, you can't mix-and-match armor pieces to look cool. Example, The Wroggi Armor has the skills Razor Sharp and Poison Immunity, which increase the power of cutting weapons like Greatswords and Dual Blades and give you a complete immunity to poison respectively, but only if you wear all five pieces of the Wroggi Armor (Helmet, Chestplate, Belt/Faulds, Gloves, and Boots!) at the same time.
Anyway, on to the highlight of Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate... The boss battles! Now, something you must know about the franchise as a whole is that they are most well-known for having fantastic boss battles, and this game is no slouch in that department. First of all, if you think you can just hit a boss a couple (hundred) times and kill it like that, that's not going to happen. Most, if not all of the monsters can only be (safely) damaged when you see an opening in their attack patterns. And you have to be prepared for just about anything. After all, some bosses can paralyze you, cut your stats in half, poison you, set you on fire, and *hip check you across time and space. Plus, while most bosses are really fun to fight, there is definitely going to be a "White Whale" moment for you. In my experience and learning about other people's experiences, there's always going to be that one monster that you despise for creaming you but that same monster will inadvertently teach you how to get better at the game. Or you get so mad you give up and trade in the game, which is really childish of you to do so. Besides, I live with the philosophy that "challenging" does not mean "bad". Of course, a good video game has to strike a balance between being rewardingly challenging and downright unfair, which I think Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate does rather well.
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Just a quick note, you can eat/drink at the Canteen (which is literally a glorified bar) to receive special buffs at the beginning of a hunt. Some buffs are basically mandatory for some Quests, most notably Gathering Quests. But if there's one thing that always grinds my gears, it's the underwater combat... *shudders*
To get a full grasp of the underwater combat, we must understand the history of Monster Hunter Tri When Monster Hunter Tri was being developed, Capcom wanted a way to add verticality so hunts didn't always take place on a series of platforms. Underwater combat was born, and became a major selling point of Tri, as it was the first game in the franchise that allowed the Hunters to go in deep bodies of water. Unfortunately, many players, myself included, found it to be clunky and awkward to control, as well as shortening almost every weapon type's combos, which render the more combo-focused weapons like the Sword'n'Shield kind of useless. That's not even mentioning how difficult it is to see underwater, as for some inexplicable reason, the camera has a bad habit of getting stuck at awkward angles, obscuring your vision. Especially in the Flooded Forest area. Understandably, Capcom has never included underwater combat ever again, and in it's place came a parkour system that lets you climb up walls and do all sorts of crazy stunts.
As for the presentation, the graphics aren't the best in the world. There's some wonky texture pop on some early-game weapons and some areas. Something that I don't see a lot of people talk about much are the region designs. I really like this even with the sub-par graphics. The amount of detail put in these areas is kind of overlooked, in my opinion. Special mention goes to the Misty Peaks region, which isn't unlocked until you unlock the High Rank difficulty. Some of the later weapons and armor also look really cool, if a little over-the-top. The bosses themselves have some impressive and memorable designs, and are beautifully animated as well.
But the music? Oh man, the MUSIC!!! Oh, you have no idea how much I LOVE the music in Monster Hunter! The music, by itself, is more than enough reason to play this game (at least until Monster Hunter: World comes out). I am dead serious when I say that. Most of the soundtrack is orchestral and grand, but there are exceptions, like how "Moonquake" is very tribal in nature and features ominous chanting in a mysterious (albeit fictional) language (then again, it plays when you fight the final boss, and the first rule of any final boss in a Monster Hunter game is that their battle theme must include ominous chanting in a mysterious-but-fictional language), or how the Zinogre Battle Theme uses electric guitar during the main chorus.
Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate is a pretty great game in it's own right, in addition to being a solid remake of the original Monster Hunter Tri. If you can get past the sub-par graphics, clumsy underwater combat and repetitive nature of the game, it's worth a Tri. Geddit? Of course, there's basically no reason to play this once Monster Hunter: World releases this January, unless they leave out some fan-favorite monsters from this game like Deviljho (aka G.I. Jho, aka JhoJho's Bizarre Adventure, aka the Pickle-Saurus). Why Deviljho has so many nicknames is a mystery. I give Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate a 8/10.
*-For those of you who don't get the joke, there's a very entertaining and/or frustrating (depending on who you ask) glitch with the Plesioth boss. You see, one of it's attacks involves hip-checking you. The glitch here is because of Plesioth's unusual hitboxes, it's possible to get hit by the hip-check even if you are nowhere near it, or even behind it. Hence, Plesioth became the Jar Jar Binks of Monster Hunter, being almost universally hated by the player community because of this glitch. In fact, Plesioth's infamy is so great that Capcom included a fishing minigame in Monster Hunter 4 where you can fish up Plesioths and they die the moment they leave the water. Poetic Justice at it's finest.
P.S. I just now realized that all of the gripes I have with Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate are fixed in Monster Hunter: World.
EDIT: It just now occurred to me I never explained what I meant when I said " Example, once you're decent at the Hammer, (which sacrifices range in exchange for the unique ability to literally knockout enemies/bosses with successive attacks), the Rathian boss becomes a cakewalk (especially a Thunder element Hammer, but more on that later)". Basically, every individual weapon (NOT weapon TYPE, but the weapon itself) normally comes with an element attached to it. And adding even more to the "be prepared for anything" mentality Monster Hunter has, certain monsters take extra damage from certain elements. Example, Rathian is weak to Thunder, hence why I said that a Thunder element Hammer would essentially curb-stomp it. Some monsters might have multiple weaknesses as well, or possess the ability to change their weaknesses on the fly (Barroth is the most infamous example of this, being weak to Water when it has Armor on, and weak to Fire when it's Armor is destroyed). Unfortunately, since monsters don't have health bars, and the only way to see how much health they have left is to check their body language (limping means 25% health left, for example), the only way to tell what a monster is weak to is to either A) fight the monster with weapons that have the same base damage but each have a different element and time yourself, B) Google it, or C) check the armor you get from the loot of that monster, as the elemental weaknesses on the armor will mirror that of the monster you got the materials from (in other words, Rathian Armor will be just as weak to Thunder as a real Rathian). Sorry for not remembering this info earlier.
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