Wednesday, June 18, 2014

[Game Review][WiiU] Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate

In a sea of story driven RPG's, Capcom's take on the genre turns heads time and time again. In its 3rd main releases as "Ultimate edition”, they didn't disappoint. A heavily action oriented RPG with an extremely tight combat system and highly rewarding quest system. Its art style and general aesthetic is also very pleasing and nice, being realistic in the details, but overall non-realistic. And while it is still technically an RPG, it is a lot harder than most. And can sometimes be downright unforgiving to even the most seasoned players. However, the game balances the grind with the reward almost perfectly, giving you a long, very tough grind, but in exchange the pieces to craft the perfect set of armor and equipment to better prepare yourself against those types of monsters in both elemental defense, and in extra skills. And in this game, armor is key. There is no traditional leveling up system, instead all the defense, attack, skills, and special elements are all held within your weapon, armor, talisman, and the gems you equip to them. The main way to get equipment is to battle large monsters, either alone in offline mode, or online with up to four players. Battling these monsters takes real skill in knowing what attacks to use when, what to bring with you to help turn the fight in your favor, and when to properly dodge or block to avoid taking damage. And this is where the online mode truly shines, the level of balance to where your whole party is only offered three extra lives to share, meaning that you need to carefully choose who you go on those tougher quests with, as some monsters can be straight up brutal to any player unaware of just how badly one attack can effect them die to elemental disadvantages. The weakest part of the game would have to be the story, and the maps. The story feels like a quickly thrown together "save the village" thrown together to introduce new areas and quest tiers. After a while, you start to ignore the text to skip over it as fast as possible, and might end up missing something important to continue on. I ended up doing this and had to check the wiki. The maps themselves aren't actually bad. Gorgeous scenery and well laid out maps often offer a refreshing feel when you go there for the first time. My main problem is how they are all disconnected and after every area change is a loading screen. The load is usually only 10-15 seconds, but while searching for a monster that has fled, it can grow annoying and tiresome. But overall, I give this game a solid 9/10 for its amazing style, wonderful combat, and wide array of spectacular weapons.

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