Monster Hunter is a hugely popular in Japan and has a small but very loyal fan base in America. The newest version of the game Monster Hunter Tri has found it's way on the Wii.
The game is unique in that each monster you kill drops specific parts. A ludroth will drop ludroth specific parts. With each monster parts, you can make armors and weapons. It takes more than one hunt to make a full set of monster armor.
The game begins by putting you into the peaceful village of Moga, which has been under attack by a mysterious monster. It is up to you, the new hunter, to slay the beast and bring peace back to Moga Village. The gameplay is set on land and underwater. The underwater battles take some getting used to, but are actually VERY fun.
The game doesn't just plop you into the game without any instruction, it gives you an easy to follow tutorial to help you understand most aspects of the game. Even though I had played other Monster Hunter games in the past, this tutorial helped even me.
It even give you two weapons to start with a sword and shield and a great sword.
The village leader will first assign you some quests to clean up your guild starting point. After a few simple missions, like slaying some small jaggis and collecting mushrooms, the village chief will tell you that the guild is open for business.
The guild hall gives you missions to fight or capture monsters or to gather various items. These guid missions allow you to build new armors and weapons. Each guild mission you do can help you get bumped up to the next set of guild missions.
1 star missions are the easiest, more stars equal higher difficulty.
Of course, missions mean nothing if you don't have the right weapon to do the job.
The game has a variety of different weapons you can make and use.
Hammer: The hammer offers no means of blocking against monsters, but has a very high attack power and makes it easier to break off horns and other pieces of monsters.
Sword and Shield: The sword and shield has a low attack but offers you a chance to block against monster attacks.
Switch Axe: The switch axe is a very unique weapon, it switches a great sword and a quick slashing axe. It offers no defense, but has a faily high attack and the ability to cut off tails.
Bowguns: The bowguns range from light, heavy, and medium. Light bowguns allow you to move quickly but cause little damage, medium bowguns lack rapid fire, but allow you to move quickly and do medium damage. The heavy bowgun causes you to be slow, but does heavy damage to the monster. These weapons are good if you don't want to get too close to a monster.
Great Sword: A great sword is a heavy damage dealing weapon. Once unsheathed, you become very slow, but you are able to block. The great sword can chop off tails.
Long Sword: The long sword allows you to quickly move and swings, but you cannot block with it. It is great for chopping off tails and does medium damage.
Lance: A weapon with a good attack and a nice reach distance. When the lance is unsheathed, you move slowly but have the ability to blow monsters. The lance is a great piercing weapon.
Once you have a weapon suited to your play style, the game is quite a hoot. It's one of few
games that is as fun offline as it is online. The random requests by villagers and the guild quests offer hours of offline play.
Note the above picture, yes monsters do sometims inadvertantly attack each other. They do cause damage to each other too. I've have a monster kill another monster before, it's pretty exciting.
The monsters themselves are all fun and challenging. To be able to best a monster quickly and without wasting a lot of potions, you must learn a monster's pattern. Each monster has it's own unique step, pose, roar, or whatever that will indicate the move it's about to do. This will allow the hunter to dodge, jump or wet their pants the the correct time.
I've already logged a good 20+ hours on this game and haven't even got to the biggest monsters in the game.
The game's online play adds even more longevity to the game.
Four people can cooperatively hunt together and thankfully YOU DON'T NEED FRIEND CODES! Woo!
In the end, the game is very solid. It is fun, well rounded and just a hoot to play.
In my opinion, it is the best game on the Wii.
