Definitely took me awhile to get the hang of Monster Hunter. Then at one point you have this revelation where everything clicks, item management becomes important, everything you collect has a purpose, being prepared beforehand matters, studying a monsters pattern is crucial, and knowing your limits.

Then when your standing victorious over your enemy you prepared for and studied to defeat, and carve that very RARE item you needed the last set piece for your armor you're addicted.

Great article, Patrick. I'm actually contemplating getting a Wii U now for ZombiU and Monster Hunter.

I would love a Let's Play: Dark Souls video series with you in it Patrick after your done with Monster Hunter. I think it would be a great video addition to the site.

I've been playing the living shit out of the 3DS version for over a week. I can only imagine how hopelessly addicted I'll be to MH4 since it'll have online.

EDIT: Oh, and it was Patrick's Quick Look that convinced me to try it.

Quick tips for newcomer

- Don't use Sword&Shield. It's by far the weakest weapon in the game. It can't do enough damage compared to other stronger weapons and can't give you enough protection against strong monsters later in the game.

- Pick other weapons, go on youtube to learn how to play and stick with it.

- When fight Pecco, don't forget crap bomb.

I'm playing it on the 3DS. I sat at a McDonald's yesterday and did some hunts with a friend. We chose McDonalds since it was near the comic shop (comic book day) and it had a second floor. We chose a corner and got some food so we can stay without any hassles. We had a blast playing it. We hunted the Qurupecu and one other monster. Fun stuff.

Another friend just picked it up so we have to set up some gaming sessions for the multiplayer. Maybe if enough people play in NY that are interested we can set up a Monster Hunter Meet Up for Giant Bomb folks.

Really great article, Patrick.

I last tried Monster Hunter when it was on the PSP. Might just have to attempt getting back into it.

Very glad to hear you've enjoyed monster hunter and have managed to penetrate it Patrick, makes me want to play it. Might get a 3DS soon, so maybe. I really hope you give Dark Souls a shot, it really is worth it and not as hard as people believe it is. I'd go as far as saying it's the best game I've ever played. The Souls games are just incredible, really can't wait for Drark Souls II. Go for it Patrick! Some form of footage or coverage of this experience would be great too!!!

A large part must be the console exclusivity, if this was on Sony or Microsoft's systems I imagine it would get a bigger share of the NA player base, I would pick up a copy myself.

If Capcom was really smart, they would make a more user friendly version of Monster Hunter 4 and release it on PS4 and the next Xbox. I know the game could take off, but we don't play handhelds in the US the way they do in Japan. Here a great multiplayer game needs to be on a system with a great multiplayer infrastructure.

I'm very curious how well this game sold on Wii U and 3DS. Hopefully it sold enough to make them give it another try with MH4!

Just providing context to why I haven't played Monster Hunter yet. You don't have to like my answer. I think Monster Hunter looks baller, and is totally in my wheelhouse, but I'm simply not interested in playing on the platforms it has been produced for thus far.

A full-blown next generation Monster Hunter built from the ground-up for PS4? It's almost a certainty that I'd play that. I just don't want to support Nintendo and their business model of selling severly outdated tech at a premium by playing their platform exclusive games (or ports there-of). I don't own a single platform that Monster Hunter is natively produced for.

As long as Monster Hunter is a mobile-only/outdated tech franchise, I'm not going to buy into it. I don't understand how Capcom didn't try to capitalize on thriving online gaming communities such as Xbox Live, PSN and the likes of Steam - by building a Monster Hunter game targeted at the Western online gaming community - which is hardly to be found on Wii, nor is it a community that wants to play low-fi Wii-ports, at least not enough to make Monster Hunter a hit on the Western markets.

Seeing how pretty much the entire MMORPG market trends to where Monster Hunter always has been, it seems like a huge missed opportunity and franchise mismanagement to me - in regards to ignoring the realities of the Western market completely. The potential audience for a Monster Hunter game isn't on mobile or on Wii, it's on Xbox Live & PSN & PC.

Great article. I love the idea of Monster Hunter. I just can not get past the whole japan style.

Hey look tons of comments talking about how the game should be on other platforms instead of talking about the game. Yup, it's any story ever about Monster Hunter in the last couple years

Darkfiber, you're here talking about 'I hope 3 Ultimate does well enough given it's limited availability' while the fourth game is already coming to Japanese 3DSes in like a month, and I guarantee you that localized NA versions probably cross-plat again have begun, completely unrelated to 3 ultimate sales. Expect an E3 announcement of some sort and maybe a one year or 18 month timeline

and please talk more shit about the WiiU's online multi infrastructure. It's more than servicable and the process of adding people you've recently met randomly to your friend's list is quite simple. You also have everyone with available voice chat without needing a headset.

the game is awesome and let's stop talking about the platform exclusivity. it stems from Japanese business deals. Sony had it for a while, Nintendo now has it. If Sony still had it I guarantee you'd be seeing maybe 10% of the amount of whining about exclusivity

Funny how it sells so well on platforms that aren't Xbox Live, PSN, or PC, then.

Being an "outdated tech" franchise means absolutely nothing. Persona 4 was technically on outdated tech when it was released and it outclassed games in the same genre released around the same time for more powerful hardware. The original DS was, in terms of pure power, weaker than the PSP, yet that was the handheld that won the most sales; the primary thing that kept the PSP afloat all that time in Japan was, ironically, Monster Hunter.

So it might do you better if you brought up some criticisms of the games themselves rather than the platforms they were produced for. If your primary focus is horsepower and GRAPHICSGRAPHICSGRAPHICS, then you're alienating yourself from potentially great experiences.

Are we talking about what it is or isn't, or why I didn't play Monster Hunter yet? Because you seem to mistake my choices to be based upon some truth you seem to have the right of, whilst in fact it's a purely personal thing. It's my thing. My reasons.

What's it to you?

@seppli: I presented a counterargument. If you wish to continue this, then it would be best if you actually responded to it and actually point out where what I said is a "personal thing." I don't see how my stating that Persona 4 was released on outdated hardware (years after the release of the PS3) is somehow a personal thing when it was in fact a game released on hardware developed a full generation earlier. I'd actually call that a statement of fact.

What are we arguing about?

I merely pointed out why I didn't play the Monster Hunter franchise yet. I recognize the quality of the games you mentioned, or at least the attested quality, I just don't have a sufficient interest in playing them. It's my choice not to play Monster Hunter, and I don't play it because its production values and its platforms don't spur my interest enough to get me to pull the trigger on the time and money investment to actually play the darn game - despite really liking the experience I'm seeing in it from the outside.

Am I wrong to not play Monster Hunter for that reason? Am I right to wait for a Monster Hunter that's actually targeted at me, rather than whatever crowd responds to Wii and DS and PSP productions? Does it really matter that much to you? What do you try to prove here? I don't know. I don't understand you. Guess I'm the thick one here.

P.S. I can hardly critique the gamedesign of a game I've never played. I can however say why I've never played it, all of which without being a hypocrite.

You suggested that Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate isn't a "real" release, which is an absurd statement to make, as though being on less powerful hardware makes the game somehow beneath you.

The Wii and DS and PSP Monster Hunter games are beneath me, because I don't want to play games with the production values and controls and online environments inherent to these platforms. This is not a factual statement, it's a personal one. It's not absurd not to play Wii games for this reason. Even if I had all time in the world, and life was infinite - there's always other games to play, and so long Monster Hunter doesn't compete with these other experiences on every level - it's not a *real* release for me, since I don't deem it competitive.

It's not that these games aren't viable or good - great even. I can't tell that, because I haven't played them. That is however the point. I didn't play them, because I have no interest in playing Wii, DS or PSP games - or ports there-of. The proof is in the putting, and that would be the fact that I have not played Monster Hunter yet.

Just because I chose not play these games for these reasons doesn't make it right. Nor does your insistence that I am wrong in this make it wrong. I just don't play Monster Hunter - and that's why. I state the truth about my circumstance of not having played Monster Hunter yet and why. There's nothing to argue here, just diverging perspectives and opinions.

Asking someone to sacrifice ten hours of their life with a frustrating learning curve that might not pay off, especially if their job doesn’t involve playing games for a living, is much to ask.

The battle Demon's Souls won for the right to be a game about the journey as much as the destination was not a battle fought for its own sake alone.

This is dumb on so many levels.

a game like this needs gamer-score to work otherwise what's the point?

I'll join and help you, Patrick. Or anyone on here who needs it for that matter. My WiiU ID is staticx2552. Hit me up for some hunts!

Good job Patrick. :) Happy to hear that you managed to find a fun game despite all the negativity surrounding it, at least here in the west, and apparently from some people on this site.

Keep at it. Don't forget to keep looking for new things.

Typoooozzzzz

@satelliteoflove: The first ten minutes of playing Demon's Souls were awesome. The first 5 hours of playing monster hunter is pretty much pure tedium.

Only thing they have in common as games are a leaning towards animation priority and that neither explains their ingame systems much. Other than that they play and feel completely different. I honestly have no idea how this dumb comparison even started.

Why is it any time I get a good game for a Nintendo console all I really want is to be able to play it on my XBox? haha

I thought what Demon's Souls "won" for From Software is that it doesn't need to bother being correct or accurate with their systems as much as atmopheric. People will assume mistakes and flaws are just mysteries and thank you for it.

It is the same crap I hear from CoD and Battlefield players when something gets pointed out as a flaw (glitching through wall, weapons with absurd params, etc) but instead are convinced "No really that is a part of the game. You are supposed to know that weapon is broken and there is a hole in the map."

To be honest, that's just not the market for the game in Japan. And Japan is the market for the game. They're never gunna take a gamble on making a MH with all the Western features we expect (next gen graphics, online play, no focus on portability and ad-hoc mode) because it's too much of a risk. We're lucky at all to even be seeing the franchise come over, Capcom put it off longer and longer every release. I don't know how expensive localising the game is, but if the money they make from selling it over here is outweighed by localisation and distribution costs then you can understand their reluctance to go full whack on it.

@maedhros925: I feel ya brotha, my first play through of dark souls was absolutely magical. I tried doing a 2nd but it just didn't feel the same. I think a game as epic and as tedious as DS should really only be played once; I don't say that because I have anything better to do, simply because I don't want to defile the wonderful memories I have of that game.

Patrick, please tell Giantbomb crew to stop treating Monster Hunter series like an "action RPG". It's a straight up "action" game like devil may cry just without jump button. Anyone who approaches this game as an "action RPG" will drive themselves mad. People will think the game is clunky when they miss a swing, but in reality you are meant to miss. For example, you are going to miss some shots in Halo. Halo was designed around that. You are not suppose to be always on target.

Also games doesn't tell you this. If anyone on GB team wants to try MH but don't like action priority combat. Tell them that, just like Street Fighter, you can do move cancel in Monster Hunter. You can cancel mid combo or swing by "rolling or "side/back stepping" for lance/gun lance.

I would play the fuck out of this if it wasn't solely on Nintendo's platforms. Hell, I'm sure that this series would be IMMENSELY popular on PC.

When I post that argument, evidence serendipidously lands in my lap to back me up every time. I am blessed in some ways, I guess.

To have fun preparing for battles and engaging in them, both alone and with friends. No game needs achievements.

And the game isn't really that hard to get into, if you have the willingness to understand it. Anything unfamiliar will have a natural learning curve to it, and Monster Hunter, for many westerners, is as unfamiliar as they come.

The game simply makes demands of players that western gamers aren't used to for an end purpose that for some isn't immediately apparent. But the answer to "why am I hunting these monsters?" is pretty simple. I hunt them because they are there.

Never ever considered getting a Nintendo console until I started reading more and more monster hunter.... Now I can't stop thinking about it and have a big itch to buy a the wii u and that game.

I like your professional reply.

Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate isn't the first MH game I've played but it's the first I've actually sat down and put some actual time into, by that I mean more than 2 hours. The thing is a lot of this game is experimentation, find out what weapon you like and what every button on the gamepad does and try pressing those buttons in a particular sequence to see if you can pull off a combo. Also just scrumerging around for what ever looks interactive and combining your new items to see if you can produce something useful.

So minor pet peeve: Has anybody let Patrick know that his claims of "you only get half a game if you don't play online" for the last two weeks are false? Offline mode doesn't end with Lagiacrus, and you only miss out on maybe 7 or 8 subspecies of monster if you don't play online mode, which by time you finish the solo quests, you can probably get to pretty easy. Otherwise you can fight every monster "species" in offline mode, which rounds out at around 65ish monsters, with the total number being somewhere around 78.

Yeah I'm sure that is true but I still don't think it's exclusive to anything unless they buy certain release windows. Either way only the consumers are getting hurt by that choice, more people own an Xbox and a PS3 than a Wii/Wii U. Here I thought Capcom was just about the money with all their DLC stuff yet they seem content with the MH games being a largely overseas money maker.

It also seems that Capcom's hesitation to bring MH to current gen hardware may also be related to the cost of asset and engine production. Despite it being one of their best-sellers, Capcom seems more willing to take risks regarding their international franchises. In light of the evidence of Monster Hunter's performance outside of Japan, it would be easy to assume the franchise had hit market saturation, and any significant costs involved in improving it will not yield a greater return. Reuse of engine, animation and graphical assets would be more acceptable on the 3DS where the graphics are expected, than on the Vita or a home console. Even the production of new assets for an older and simpler engine likely takes less time.

It is a shame because I think with a few changes to the beginning of the games and handheld online support (get people into the multiplayer action quickly and easily), MH could be a bigger success internationally. Foreign attention has also steadily improved since Freedom Unite, so we may see a change in this behavior soon.

Do not understand all the talk about the game/games being so unapproachable. Is that the word for large quantities of varying content and no arrows to follow? People are so ******* used to hand holding, figuring out stuff yourself is a rarity these days. Mid 90's or earlier and this would be crystal clear for any half-witted person even moderately used to games.

Big ups to Patrick enlightening the community with some great games not running on rail.

"but it doesn’t mean those myths aren't still full of lies."

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