So I have played about an hour of the new Monster Hunter game and thought I would post some initial thoughts on what I have seen of the game so far.
Also, I grabbed a bunch of screenshots while playing since that probably makes things way more interesting to read and whatnot. Prepare yourself for the glory that is 480x272!
Around Town
This is the main part of the single player hub area. The change to a feudal Japan hot springs town is a pretty cool change of scenery, though these shops don't particularly reflect that. Here is a picture farther back by the stairs leading to the guild building. All the trees look really nice and animate well. That lady drinking tea looks really low rez in this photo for some reason, and she totally has like no face?! Definitely not like that in the game... its just magic.
The hunter's house. Not a ton to say about this, it looks nice. Not a lot is different from other games though. ALSO, if you didn't notice by now then this picture definitely makes it obvious; you get two cat companions now instead of one and they also follow you around town. I had the piggy following me too and we had an awesome party (He was also wearing an eskimo outfit, it was cute).
Inside the guild hall now, its very fancy looking. Only two new things going on in here that I saw, one being the Health and Stamina business, not sure what the deal with that is. Presumably something involving food effects or something. I assume it has some relationship with the other new thing: The hotsprings.
Almost an album cover
The hotsprings are pretty fun, they basically replace the benches you could sit at and drink/emote in the old MH games. Same things can be done here, but its more awesome.
New Mechanics and shit
Besides the fact that you can quest with two cats now, they can also totally equip weapons and armor now. This equipment isn't cosmetic like the last game; each piece has its own stats like regular character equipment. The method you obtain them seems to involve trading items for various 'scraps' which you then exchange for equipment.
Anybody who played (Or didn't play) MH: Tri will probably know that they removed a bunch of weapon types from that game. Luckily for us, every weapon type remains in 3rd and we get Switch Axes from Tri. They will probably be my new main though I do love to fiddle with heavy bowguns once I can get some decent ammo for them. Also, the bowgun system from Tri is not in this game, instead its back to the light and heavy ones.
I noticed this guy when I started up a mission from the guild (I didn't see him when I did a single player quest from the elder, though I might be blind?), this cat dude will take some items from your inventory and go back to town with them. I assume he will put them in your item box, but I suppose its possible he just sells them and gives you the money or spends it on hookers and catnip. I should probably check.
Theres probably some other shit that is new, but this is getting long and I should sleep soon, so i'll skip those for now.
...Oh! When I went to the farm area to mine and whatnot, I decided to fish once, Instead of doing that very boring fishing minigame the character pulled up a sweet fish trap from the water and it gave me some fish. A very welcome surprise!
Quest Stuff
Man, they really stepped up the quality of the scenery again in MHP:3rd. I only walked around a few zones of the first area but they have some really nice ambient effects going on. So, the Japanese version always has lots of blood, its awesome. I can't remember if the last english MH game had blood like this... I don't think it did. Its pretty crazy!
Also, Switch Axes are really fun! Well, the sword mode is anyways :D The Axe mode is like a faster greatsword and hits hard, but the sword feels so zippy and powerful, plus you can do some crazy moves with it. I noticed that my felynes (The cats/not a spelling mistake) got pissed off towards the end of the mission and started flipping out. They were even throwing these crazy glowing boomerangs at the enemies. I know they have had something like that in some of the older games, but it seems like they have some other moves that they start using when in the rage mode as well. Also, you can see the map clearly in this screenshot, it looks nice. Definitely more detailed than previous games.
Heres the loading screen, I took a really nice screenshot when it was showing the full colour version but that caused the game to lock up and me to lose all the items I collected on that mission. Oh well, I can do it again =P The loading screen looks really nice when it isn't darkened like this... Maybe I can get a picture later sometime.
So yeah, thats my initial impression and thoughts on the game, it looks really great. I haven't seen a single change I haven't liked (Though no swimming from Tri is sad, but presumably a technical/control limitation). I am looking forward to playing more of the game on thursday with some friends. I will probably write another blog on the game once I have had some time to sink my teeth into it.
Thanks for reading (If you did?!). Lots of pictures and not much writing is probably lame. Or totally awesome. I don't know which.
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