My first experience with Monster Hunter was on the PSP’s Monster Hunter Freedom Unite. Unfortunately for me none of my friends played it or played it enough. So most of my experience was solo. I loved the look and the monsters were fantastic. Now we have Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate which is now out for the Nintendo 3DS and the Wii U. In Capcom’s Monster Hunter 3 Ulimate you are the village’s new hunter. It is your job to hunt animals and monsters. You also gather materials needed for your hunts. The hunts can be solo or multiplayer via specific areas in the game. Lucky for me this time around a have friends who will be playing the 3DS version with me.
The game starts you off with many wordy instructions to start you off. If you’ve experienced the game in the previous versions you should be okay. After a bunch of start up missions you will slowly start hunting down bigger monsters. Some missions will have you grinding your teeth. This is especially the case when the monsters take nearly all the allotted time to hunt them. The bigger they are the tougher they’ll be.
Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate – Opening Cinematic
As of now my weapon of choice is the Switch Axe. The switch axe is a huge axe that is a bit slow to use, but you can convert it to a sword just by hitting the LB shoulder button. It will then convert over to a sword. I loved being able to switch up whenever I wanted plus both do very good damage. A nice change from my choice in the old game which was the hammer. If you are a beginner don’t be afraid to try all the weapons early on. Learn their timing and range as best you can so you can better gauge your attacks. The sword and shield make a great starter weapon.
People have been mentioning the text being tough to read in the game. There is a way to sharpen it up a bit. In the options menu you should be able to disable 3D for the game. Text will be much sharper after that. Of course the one draw back is you won’t be able to see it in 3D so switch up as needed if reading the text is an issue for you but you still want 3D. The game is very long. You’ll be playing it for a long time. Some of it will be just hunting regular creatures in the game and gathering other items out in world. These things will help you combine into items that are usable such as healing potions, creating new bug nets, fishing gear, poisons, bombs, bullets etc… Killing monsters will get you their hide and other parts which can help in building new weapons and armor. The more you hunt a specific monster the more pieces you will gather for a full set of something specific.
Ultimately this game I’ll mostly play when my friends are around. It’s where it truly shines. Solo wise it can feel like a grind and there is a bit of a learning curve if you haven’t played before. I’m tempted to get the Wii U version just to experience it on the big screen.
Here is the Wii U and 3DS Trailer: