Monster Hunter Tri

[Rayansaki]

Although this is a decent way to review a game when you have little time for it, this mentality does cheat you off very good games, even great games.

I'm not talking only about FFXIII and MHT. A great example is Yakuza 3. It has 4 slow hours on the beginning with tutorials and story picking up and kids to feed, but eventually leads to a game with one of the best stories in the last 5 years and a great, fun and rewarding game, with around 15 hours if you stick to the story, or 75 if you want to do every side mission, and meet every girl and play every minigame (You will want to).

There's even people that say they got bored with Fallout 3 before they left the vault and never played it, even though the vault lasts 30-40 minutes

I still can't believe Yahtzee liked Dragon Age with this mentality, since it has one of the slowest weakest starts in recent years, or that he got through the painful beginning of GTA4.

 

[MR.Spartacus]

A ten hour tutorial? There are full length games that don't last that long! Why the hell would any game need a ten hour tutorial? What could it possibly teach you that can't be picked up in the first ten minutes?

 

[shadowmarth]

Based on the commercials, I was expecting the game to just be massive battles between your character and progressively larger and nastier beasts. Like Punch-Out, but with fangs. As soon as the review mentioned "quests" and "villagers" I had lost interest. I might rent it at some point, because God knows I haven't tweaked by "giant sea monster phobia" (seriously) enough lately, and fortunately that's what my GameFly membership is for. It can't possibly be any more dull that 70% of Red Dead Redemption.

But... That is the game.

 

[Icecoldcynic]

Wow that was hilariously bad. I mean I haven't played Tri, but I'm sure it's not too far off from 1 and 2.

1) 10 hours to get through the tutorials? No. This is an outright lie, and I refuse to believe he played the game even 3 hours, because it's never taken me more than an hour to get to the first drome in previous titles.

2) He clearly spent all of 5 seconds trying out all the weapons, since anyone who's ever played a MH game would not call hammers slow.

3) Half an hour to kill a drome? Yeah, I don't think so mate. Unless you're sat there letting it slap you about the whole time it'll go down in 10 minutes TOPS. Even with a starter weapon.

4)Only changing equipment at home is an oversight, sure, but you'd have to be an idiot not to notice that you actually get your deposit back if you abandon a quest. Another outright lie.

You know I actually think he has something against capcom. It's all well and good exaggerating in ZP for the humour of it, but half of the stuff he said in his EP is just lies. He did NOT play the game for 10 hours that's for sure. I find it a stretch to believe he even played it for 2.

 

[Krimson Kun]

A ten hour tutorial? There are full length games that don't last that long! Why the hell would any game need a ten hour tutorial? What could it possibly teach you that can't be picked up in the first ten minutes?

Again, Yahtzee loves what?
(if you answer correctly you get nothing.)
The tutorial lasts about 1~2 hours max.

Wow that was hilariously bad. I mean I haven't played Tri, but I'm sure it's not too far off from 1 and 2.

1) 10 hours to get through the tutorials? No. This is an outright lie, and I refuse to believe he played the game even 3 hours, because it's never taken me more than an hour to get to the first drome in previous titles.

2) He clearly spent all of 5 seconds trying out all the weapons, since anyone who's ever played a MH game would not call hammers slow.

3) Half an hour to kill a drome? Yeah, I don't think so mate. Unless you're sat there letting it slap you about the whole time it'll go down in 10 minutes TOPS. Even with a starter weapon.

4)Only changing equipment at home is an oversight, sure, but you'd have to be an idiot not to notice that you actually get your deposit back if you abandon a quest. Another outright lie.

You know I actually think he has something against capcom. It's all well and good exaggerating in ZP for the humour of it, but half of the stuff he said in his EP is just lies. He did NOT play the game for 10 hours that's for sure. I find it a stretch to believe he even played it for 2.

1. look up
2. Hammers are slow, even though they can hit a lot they are a slower weapon.
3. if you're new to the game(and using a wii mote) it will take longer, since the game is more about skill than equipment
4. You don't get quest fee back ever since monster hunter frontier came out, and I'm still against changing weapons all the time, did you see how huge those things are?

 

[shadowmarth]

Wow that was hilariously bad. I mean I haven't played Tri, but I'm sure it's not too far off from 1 and 2.

1) 10 hours to get through the tutorials? No. This is an outright lie, and I refuse to believe he played the game even 3 hours, because it's never taken me more than an hour to get to the first drome in previous titles.

2) He clearly spent all of 5 seconds trying out all the weapons, since anyone who's ever played a MH game would not call hammers slow.

3) Half an hour to kill a drome? Yeah, I don't think so mate. Unless you're sat there letting it slap you about the whole time it'll go down in 10 minutes TOPS. Even with a starter weapon.

4)Only changing equipment at home is an oversight, sure, but you'd have to be an idiot not to notice that you actually get your deposit back if you abandon a quest. Another outright lie.

You know I actually think he has something against capcom. It's all well and good exaggerating in ZP for the humour of it, but half of the stuff he said in his EP is just lies. He did NOT play the game for 10 hours that's for sure. I find it a stretch to believe he even played it for 2.

Agree with most of what you said, except #3. If you're new to it, have a shitty weapon, and it's your first time, I could definitely see the Great Jaggi taking 30 minutes. It's significantly beefier than the glorified minion that was the Velocidrome.

 

[StriderShinryu]

I can't remember any of the newer MMORPGS putting emphasis on story or roleplaying.
Epic stories and the roleplaying experience is nothing that appeals to the wide masses.
And yes I have once been playing these games, which makes it hard to comprehend, why they should have a better earlygame than MH.

And comon, comparing Diablo and and Monster Hunter?
I agree, they may have some elements in common, but they are completely different games.

For the first point, Lord of The Rings Online is an easy example. The main draw of the game is not raiding or grinding, it's "living" in Middle Earth and following the epic storyline (both through your own personal epic quests as well as the widely known LOTR storyline).

Early game in LOTRO as a Hobbit: Nearly get captured/killed by a Nazghul, try to save a doomed town from a brigand attack, be let loose into the world where you can pursue quests, Epic or not, in a variety of areas or just head off on your own and explore or Role Play.

Early game in MH as it's been explained here: Go out into an instanced world, collect some stuff, kill some little monsters, collect more stuff, kill some big cool monsters.

Different strokes for different folks, but I think it's pretty easy how some (many?) would consider the LOTRO early game to the MH early game. Oh, and while Epic Stories and Role Playing don't appeal to the masses, neither does repetitive grinding and looting.

As to the Diablo comparison, I think it's quite obvious. An action based but mainly gear oriented RPG crafted around completing simple quests with the focus on entering instances to gather bigger and better loot than was found in the last instance. That statement could easily be used to describe both Diablo or MH, could it not?

 

[Gizen]

To the people arguing that the tutorial isn't ten hours long, maybe it isn't for people who've actually played a Monster Hunter game before, but to somebody who hasn't, it very easily can be. If you assume that everything up to the first fight with a Great Jaggi is tutorial, that's 10 quests, each with a 50 minute time limit. If you've never played before, don't know which items are useless and which ones aren't, you can easily hit that limit for every quest while you relentlessly gather everything until your bags are stuffed to bursting before you actually complete the quest, for fear of wasting the opportunity to gather. Then there's also exploring when you go to an area the first time, doing all of your running around in the town, as well as your first four trips into the Moga Woods before you even get to go on a quest for the first time, plus any additional trips into the woods you may take in between quests up to the point where you first meet Great Jaggi. True, people who know their way around a Monster Hunter game can blow through all that in an hour or two, but speaking from experience, people who have NO prior history with Monster Hunter can easily take 10 hours to get to the first giant monster.

 

[Dora]

After the 1* quests, 90% of quests are "Go kill this big ass monster" and then "Go kill this bigger ass monster" with the occasional "capture this big ass monster" quest. The other 10% are quests where it says "Go roam around and collect materials if you need them" where you literally have to do nothing to complete the quest.

Eh... maybe I'll have to have a look at some gameplay footage. It still doesn't sound like my cuppa, but I appreciate the old school try. I don't want to receive quests, or talk to NPCs, I just want big battles. I'm extremely simple that way. Closer would basically be, I dunno... Mortal Kombat with behemoths or something, only with a free-roaming arena for me to cower in. Maybe literally an arena. Maybe it could be like Gladiator, but with bigger and meaner monsters someone has collected that you have to fight your way out to win your freedom. And maybe the ultimate boss is Roger Ebert on a dais. Aw, man, now I'm even more disappointed.

The problem is that I know what I wanted the game to be, which was based on me not doing any research whatsoever beyond seeing the occasional commercial spot, and the game itself wasn't that. At least, not really. And that's my fault, not the game's, so it's cool that so many people seem to enjoy it.

On the plus side, the review did make me want to play Harvest Moon again.

 

[mjc0961]

Bravo, bravo! I agree wholeheartedly. "It gets better later" is the sign of a shitty game made by shitty developers. If they were truly great, they could make the entire game not suck. Even if it is only 1.5-2 hours instead of 10... That's still too much sucking for my taste. Either find a way to make the entire thing fun, or your game is going back on the shelf while I play something else.

 

[Icecoldcynic]

A ten hour tutorial? There are full length games that don't last that long! Why the hell would any game need a ten hour tutorial? What could it possibly teach you that can't be picked up in the first ten minutes?

You realise that's a quote from yahtzee, right? Just saying because you seem to think it's something other than a MASSIVE exaggeration. The tutorial is an hour at most, and that's if you're some slow troglodyte who needs everything explained to you 5 times before you understand.

 

[StriderShinryu]

Wow.. this thread is just.. wow. *sighs*

Monster Hunter is different though. Really, there is no game yet designed like Monster Hunter (which is surprising to me).

Actually, there are a ton of games that are designed like Monster Hunter and they've been around for a long time. Diablo could be cited as an example (generally not story oriented game based on performing fetch/kill this quests in order to acquire loot). Most MMOs, however, are actually even better examples. Many MMOs have an abundance of go there, kill this, collect that quests but they generally aren't boring or off putting at the beginning. Even if early game MMO gameplay can be derivative (as can late game play, really) there's always the common reliance on story, role playing and an open gameplay experience to make them interesting.

The big difference is that Monster Hunter requires the skill of the player to beat the game rather than the skill of the armour/weapons. Stronger weapons only become mandatory after a certain point in the game (a loooong ways into the game), armour is not even necessary at all.

It is different in that you won't lose because you did not hurt the monster enough or the monster did a lot of damage to you, you lose because you SUCK at fighting the monster.

Quests and gathering are the only things in common with other games. Monster Hunter's main gameplay element is it's unique combat style which is not shared with other games.

If that is your belief, then perhaps you should have stated that.. though if you're looking for a combat based game there are undoubtedly many others out there with better deeper combat. It isn't the game design that's different, it's simply certain aspects of the combat system.

Either way, yes MMOs are very gear based but based on the commentary here it would certainly seem that MH is as well. And I would certainly say that better designed MMOs aren't about just having strong enough gear for the situation you're in. The gear will help, and in some cases it is needed, but if you don't know what you are doing you will die no matter how good your gear is.

 

[Chrono180]

Based on the commercials, I was expecting the game to just be massive battles between your character and progressively larger and nastier beasts. Like Punch-Out, but with fangs. As soon as the review mentioned "quests" and "villagers" I had lost interest. I might rent it at some point, because God knows I haven't tweaked by "giant sea monster phobia" (seriously) enough lately, and fortunately that's what my GameFly membership is for. It can't possibly be any more dull that 70% of Red Dead Redemption.

You have a giant sea monster phobia too? Wow, I thought I was the only one.(Now everyone knows why I hate any body of water bigger than a bathtub.)

OT: I don't get why so many people are focused on the "10 hours" phrase. Near as I can tell, even if doesn't take 10 hours then there are other problems he mentioned. There's the "Can only change your equipment at home" problem (which is probably a pain in the ass), the "Lock into quests and can't change your weapon" problem (probably also a pain in the ass), the "pay to start quest" problem (which is one of the dumbest gimmicks I have EVER heard of), the "item gathering either takes stupid amounts of time or reduces the game to SimOffice" problem (Which is not what one would probably want from a giant monster hunting game) and the "Item degredation" problem (which sounds like the worst parts of morrowind and fallout 3 combined).

All these are other problems that he mentioned and yet everyone is completely hung up on him just saying "10 hours" when it's probably just exaggeration like he does in almost every review! Maybe those people just didn't read past the third paragraph before jumping to the forums to complain. Now, I haven't played the game, but I highly doubt I would want to play a game that sounds this inconvenient. Besides, I would probably wet my pants at the giant sea monsters.

 

[Krimson Kun]

I can't remember any of the newer MMORPGS putting emphasis on story or roleplaying.
Epic stories and the roleplaying experience is nothing that appeals to the wide masses.
And yes I have once been playing these games, which makes it hard to comprehend, why they should have a better earlygame than MH.

And comon, comparing Diablo and and Monster Hunter?
I agree, they may have some elements in common, but they are completely different games.

For the first point, Lord of The Rings Online is an easy example. The main draw of the game is not raiding or grinding, it's "living" in Middle Earth and following the epic storyline (both through your own personal epic quests as well as the widely known LOTR storyline).

Early game in LOTRO as a Hobbit: Nearly get captured/killed by a Nazghul, try to save a doomed town from a brigand attack, be let loose into the world where you can pursue quests, Epic or not, in a variety of areas or just head off on your own and explore or Role Play.

Early game in MH as it's been explained here: Go out into an instanced world, collect some stuff, kill some little monsters, collect more stuff, kill some big cool monsters.

Different strokes for different folks, but I think it's pretty easy how some (many?) would consider the LOTRO early game to the MH early game. Oh, and while Epic Stories and Role Playing don't appeal to the masses, neither does repetitive grinding and looting.

As to the Diablo comparison, I think it's quite obvious. An action based but mainly gear oriented RPG crafted around completing simple quests with the focus on entering instances to gather bigger and better loot than was found in the last instance. That statement could easily be used to describe both Diablo or MH, could it not?

If you played MH at all you'd not make the comparison to Diablo. MH series has never been about gear, yes you can't kill the last boss with the starter weapon, but the game is more about skill than gear. The only goal in the game is not to get better gear, but to kill monsters.

 

[Smavey]

I am obsessed with this game.

Anyway when I saw your review I laughed This game is probably the funnest and addicting game I've ever played, but it takes a time to progress through the game. It's clear that Yahtzee probably doesn't have much spare time from all the articles and reviews he has to do so it's not a game for him.

I don't get all of these arguments about a too long tutorial...there isn't even a "tutorial" in this game is there? You start out with some easy quests to get the feel of the game, fight some easy monsters...and then pretty quickly you get to the big monsters and then you get into the game.

The reason why I love this game is because it takes SKILL. Killing monsters aren't eventualities, but results of your own SKILL. Also, this game is fun. Straight up. You are walking around, spending time killing some of the hardest monsters in any video game ever...and it's a blast. Especially the online content

Anyway, this game may or may not be for you. I just wanted to post here some other reviews from people that spent more playing the game. Take a quick peek!

http://wii.ign.com/objects/142/14209897.html
http://www.gamespot.com/wii/rpg/monsterhunter3/review.html


* Taking down a huge monster is insanely satisfying
* Monsters move and act in believable ways
* Great visuals and animations really pull you in
* Fun online co-op play
* Underwater battles are a great twist.

"Monster Hunter Tri isn't a game for everyone. It's a dense product with a learning curve higher than most other Wii titles available. It requires patience, persistence, and a willingness to learn from your mistakes. The challenges you'll face in Monster Hunter will seem insurmountable at times, but with the correct planning and skillful play you'll be able to slice your way through and move on to the next. Overcoming daunting obstacles is part of what makes playing Monster Hunter so rewarding, and the game gives you the option to do so offline by yourself or with friends. With an impressive online suite for social interaction and questing, Monster Hunter's deep gameplay and upgrade systems are made even better, letting you bask in the shared glory and benefits of bringing down enormous, dangerous beasts. Better yet, this version of the game can be played with minimal camera control frustration provided you're using a Classic Controller or Pro version, and is the prettiest entry in the franchise released outside of Japan. For those who prefer games that reward skill and offer huge amount of options for varied play style, character customization, and a vast amount of content, look no further. This is the best Monster Hunter yet, and even if there's still a lot that's familiar for franchise fans, it remains a totally unique and engrossing action-RPG experience"

This game is IMMENSELY satisfying when you kill a big monster because monsters take skill and aren't eventualities

 

[Zeruun22]

Allot of people are still whining and while i will offer no opinion on the quality of a game which i haven't played and whos only review is being criticised i will point out a couple of things.

1. Exaggerations and sarcasm: These are two techniques that yhatzee employs for comic effect we know that the game isnt all about collecting honey and mushrooms its an exaggeration of a game play element yhatzee found uninteresting.

2. Bias in reviews: If your a long term yhatzee fan (or watched the archive stuff) you might remember his early psyconaughts review in which he praised the game and was not scathing to it. This review wasnt as well received as others as its allot funnier to see him rip the piss out of a game rather than praise it. This has lead to significant bias in his reviews even games he liked such as Batman arkham asylum were heavily criticised.

4. His other points: all most no one is going on about the other points he brought up such as the poor equpiment managing system and the resource gathering. Are this just ignored while you bang on about how long he played the game for?

5. Does it matter?: Yhatzee himself once said that if you like a game then whatever he says should not affect it unless there is a doubt in your mind. I could understand if this was IGN and Yhatzee was a supposedly unbias reviewer that people would base their purchase of but no everyone knows yhatzee is comical reviewer and anyone with a lick of sense can tell that he focuses of the negative for the humour value and should maybe look at IGN before making their full verdict.


Conclusion: There are tonnes of games yhatzee has called crap but have been otherwise critically acclaimed to name a few mass effect, mass effect 2, halo 3, dragons age origins and bayoneta. If you think that all the games yhatzee puts down are complete and totally garbage (including all the games on that list) please continue to complain about how he didnt give this game a completely fair try before pissing on its bonfire because if he is going to say that all the games i just listed are bad monsterhunter tri is going to have to be not only as good as those games but better.


(Disclaimer: As i said near the start i have no idea of the quality of this game infact considering this response and the metacritic score i would slant towards the opinion that it is infact a good game so dont call me a hatter.

Additional: This post is a statement im not going to respond to any reply's trying to get me into an internet pissing contest unless you have a really well thought out point in which case i will probably just edit this post.)

1. He complained that he had to gather resources on his own then when the farm opened up that creates resources for him he complained about that not very comic more like bitchy imo. just my opinion though

2. Then hes a terrible reviewer to let ppl sway his opnions, what use is he if he cant independently review a game once and stick by it as a reviewer.

3. invisible point?

4. switching weapons during a mission has never been part of MH.resources answered in number 1

5. Funny comedians poke fun at the truth, telling lies isnt funny to me just me though

 

[Tdc2182]

Seriously guys, When will you learn to stop sending him emails just to complain? He is a Comedian, not to be taken (completely) seriously.

 

[Krimson Kun]

To the people arguing that the tutorial isn't ten hours long, maybe it isn't for people who've actually played a Monster Hunter game before, but to somebody who hasn't, it very easily can be. If you assume that everything up to the first fight with a Great Jaggi is tutorial, that's 10 quests, each with a 50 minute time limit. If you've never played before, don't know which items are useless and which ones aren't, you can easily hit that limit for every quest while you relentlessly gather everything until your bags are stuffed to bursting before you actually complete the quest, for fear of wasting the opportunity to gather. Then there's also exploring when you go to an area the first time, doing all of your running around in the town, as well as your first four trips into the Moga Woods before you even get to go on a quest for the first time, plus any additional trips into the woods you may take in between quests up to the point where you first meet Great Jaggi. True, people who know their way around a Monster Hunter game can blow through all that in an hour or two, but speaking from experience, people who have NO prior history with Monster Hunter can easily take 10 hours to get to the first giant monster.

even for people who have not played MH series before 10 hours before encountering a great jaggi is a quite impressive feat by itself. Maybe it'll take them 20~30 min to get used to Moga woods, but its not like they send you to some other place like Flooded forest or the tundra right off the bet, you get used to moga woods(4 quests which shouldn't take long to get used to since they lock you to certain areas per quest with time limit btw) then a full map of moga woods(5 quests 50 min max each). This should not take long, even if they are new to the series.

 

[NamesAreHardToPick]

Allot of people are still whining and while i will offer no opinion on the quality of a game which i haven't played and whos only review is being criticised i will point out a couple of things.
...
4. His other points: all most no one is going on about the other points he brought up such as the poor equpiment managing system and the resource gathering. Are this just ignored while you bang on about how long he played the game for?

lol the equipment management gripe is so off-base it's not even a thing. I mean on what grounds can someone gripe about how a character has to go HOME to change like 50 pounds of armor, or how you can't carry an alternate weapon when the one you've brought clearly wieghs a ton? While other games let you tote a closet worth of clothing and a garbage-can sized rocket launcher that just spring into existence when you hit the hotkey, you can't tell me with a straight face that this ridiculous immersion-breaker from 1980's roleplaying games is an important feature for every videogame to emulate.

It's not like there's a "right" or "wrong" kind of weapon for 90% of the monsters you hunt, though depending on your play style some might feel that way... and that's a matter of trying different things and learning the ropes again and we know how much respect having to invest some effort for a game gets around here.

 

[t_rexaur]

.................Alright, how is the pattern of a monster relevant to the speed of a weapon? I'm getting incredibly confused as to what your definition of speed is. Mine would be based on how many times you can swing the weapon in a minute, or just how long it takes to swing. I don't understand how it could be based on the enemy your fighting.

Yet again, thank the fans for making the game seem as bad as it possibly could. But, If I'm renting this I'm playing through the whole game, which is apparently incredibly long. Do you really think bias will persevere over me actually not liking the game if I play through a 60-140 hour game?

Hmm, I tend to not be good at explaining things but I'll try my best here.

Basically, with most of the large monsters, unless you or someone on your team if you are playing online paralyzes, stuns, traps or trips the monster it doesn't stop moving unless it gets tired. Most monsters turn to face who they are about to attack and then either move to attack or just attack, and depending on the monster you either get a very obvious tell that last at least a second, or a quick movement and rapid attack. In either case, even if you are not the target just being in the monsters path can cause you to take damage, and blocking someone else's attack with your face is bad, especially when the monster decides to target you next.

So basically you tend to have small windows to launch a safe attack. If you are good, you could attack more and dodge at the last second, but that requires timing or armour with dodge increasing abilities.

I'm going to say something now which may annoy the person arguing with you: Great Swords are damn slow. But that's the way they are designed. In between monster attacks you'll probably only get 2 attacks in with a GS, but since it's one of the hardest hitting weapons they tend to be good hits, capable of severing tails or smashing horns. The real strength of the Great Sword though is when the monster is immobile, as you can unleash a charged attack which does massive damage, and on a stunned monster you could get a combo of charge attacks and be credit to team.

The kind of weapon you want would be the Sword and Shield. You jump in, unleash a flurry of blows and dodge quickly out of the way. I should point out that you can dodge with all weapons. For example, you can dodge with a great sword almost as soon as the attack animation ends, but the attack animations tend to be slightly long, the SnS on the other hand attacks fast so there's more room for error when it's time to dodge. The drawback of the SnS is that they rely on elemental damage, which is good if you fight something weak to that element but bad when you fight something that resists that element, as you'll just do base weapon damage.

The Longsword is a good medium. It's faster than the GS, but not as fast as the SnS, it can still cut tails, and it also has a spirit combo which unleashes a powerful combo of hits in rapid succession ending with a powerful slice which sheaves your weapon, Samurai style. It's also rather flashy so I assume it would appeal to you.

Ah I'm rambling again. Basically what I'm getting at is that with most monsters you aren't limited as such by the weapons speed as you are by the monsters, they just don't stop moving. Some of them even fly and that's a pain because they tend to be much harder to hit. Thankfully the game gives you ways to get around that. (Flash bombs are good for blinding a monster in flight, making it crash to the ground and giving you time to get those combos in).

I hope that helps. I can see what you mean about the fans making the game sound boring. It's hard to talk about the game without it sounding boring or tedious. I suggest you rent it like you've said. If anything it will give you a clearer insight into the game.