While I haven’t been playing Monster Hunter as long as a majority of their fanbase, I’m thoroughly enjoying Monster Hunter 3U for the 3DS. This game has a great learning curve and is a lot more forgiving than Monster Hunter Tri in that respect. A lot of the beginning monsters in MH3DS have been weakened from Tri, giving the player a lot of practice on sheathing, running and attacking before they get to the real tough beasties.
A few annoying things that are consistent from Tri are the fact that you cannot combine multiple items at once and the heavy reliance on gathering. You also cannot play online with anyone if you’re using the 3DS version unless you’re in the same room with them. I understand this is a tactic to get people to buy the WiiU so you can play online with your friends, but it’s still irritating. However, if you do have a WiiU and a 3DS you can link your profile so that you can play with your character on the go. I think that’s really smart and a neat feature…so long as you have a WiiU.
I’ve been told that the heavy reliance on gathering and collecting resources is part of the game’s core. The Monster Hunter series is enormously popular in Japan where this kind of gameplay is praised, while gameplay in US is more rushed and upgrades are thrown at you after every level. In Monster Hunter your gear is dependent on slowly defeating monsters and getting their armor and weapons as well as using weapons with elements that the monster is weak to and armor to resist their elemental damage (if they have an element). Character progression isn’t based on levels, rather than the gear and weapons you have.
I also love the addition of Kayamba, the other Shakalaka who assists you on your battles with monsters. As you fight harder and harder monsters, you need all the help you can get and I’m glad that they give you a small aid to help you not get mauled in the first 10 minutes.
The story isn’t really relevant to the game and it’s obvious they didn’t try that hard since it was the same for Tri. Basically you’re a hunter who goes to a small village to help get rid of monsters who are harassing them. That’s not where the appeal of the game is. The appeal rests with the awesome and creative monsters that you get to battle as well as the RPG style progression.
The gameplay was hard to get used to when I first started playing Monster Hunter Tri for the Wii, but when I picked up MH3U for the 3DS it was exactly the same and I got used to it really quickly.
The ability to get the camera right behind you by pressing the L button is probably my favorite aspect of the gameplay. However swimming and using the touch screen keypad proved to be difficult. I think that if I bought the circle pad pro swimming and moving the camera around wouldn’t be so irritating. I don’t think the graphics are that bad for the 3DS. The WiiU version is really pretty despite the obvious repeating textures on the ground, but it could have been better.
There’s a huge amount of content, which means that the game will be entertaining for a long while. You’ll definitely want to come back and play it. The standard monsters have subspecies, which have different attacks, colors and carves, which usually lead to better weapons and armor.
That’s the Brachydios. The flagship monster of the game. 