Zero Punctuation: Monster Hunter Tri

[epsilon246]

Hooray another shitty game for the wii

I don't get it why do Japanese people like this sort of grind fest with no storyline(final fantasy and so many other JRPGs are grind fest with a storyline)

Believe it or not japanese gamers like being told what to do next.
evidence: fusion the most linear of the metroid games did much better in japan than it's predecesors. That's just what they're like.

 

[DalekJaas]

Monster Hunter are great games that you can really get addicted to. The games aren't about story or plot but they are plain epic. Fail Yahtzee.

 

[Raioken18]

I don't think people understand that you really need to be used to how to maneuver your character before fighting your first monster, hence the tutorial stage. If you go straight in expecting to own and get handed your ass then you would enjoy this game even less. I think it has a good difficulty curve which starts out easy and gets harder and harder but not so fast that it's impossible to keep up... except maybe towards the end.

Also... If you want an awesome story go read a book or something. Games are meant to be played. I'm tired of all these people QQing about not having epic storylines. What's the storyline of PACMAN? To eat ghosts? Why? Oh noes! No storyline, and you know what, it's a bloody awesome game, millions of people bludged during work to play it on an internet browser the other day.

Freaking storyline Nazis.

 

[DalekJaas]

I have decided on an easy way to explain to people who don't know Monster Hunter just how atrocious this "review" is. I'm going to explain other popular games in the same manner.

Halo is a game which takes place entirely within the confines of a small laboratory. You are immobile inside a measuring device and a scientist tells you to look in different directions. I am told there are lots of guns and aliens to fight but clearly that was just bad advertising.

Psychonauts is a game about a boy who was part of a circus and then went to summer camp. There were no interesting levels and I never got to use any sort of psychic powers. There were only three or four characters and none of them were interesting.

The only enemy creature in World of Warcraft is wolves. You do nothing but grind wolves until you get so fed up with it that you stop playing. There is only one faction, the horde is not playable.

It's clear to anyone that has spent some real time in the game that Yahtzee didn't. I don't blame him though, it's not your average game. Most games will introduce you to the controls, the various mechanics of the game, and a boatload of tutorials if the game is (and sometimes isn't) complicated. Capcom loves leaving the players in the dark it seems.

I am still enjoying MHT as I've not hunted everything yet, and am taking my time to do so. I think his review would've been much more accurate if he'd played an hour of story mode, and then run off to the arena to fight some of the monsters (Jaggi, Pecco, and Barroth are unlocked to start).

It's done and over now, and there's his review. It looks very very similar to those other monster hunter reviews of the past. Good times.

Agree with both of you. Monster hunter games can give you one of the best gaming experiences you can have. This was a shocking review by a person who didn't bother to play the game properly, if at all. Anyone who has played a prior monster hunter game knows how epic and in-depth they are, and how much details goes into their design. They are amazing games and its a pitty a bunch of sheep won't buy it now because yahtzee said so. Really monster hunter isn't everyone's cup of tea but if you get into it you will love it.

 

[The Political Gamer]

I "guess" you could call Monster Hunter Tri a JRPG and we all know Yahtzee loves those.

 

[AwesomeFerret]

I'm glad so many people have seen the light and noticed that Yahtzee in fact did not play past the tutorial. And here is proof.

Near the beginning of the game, not long after finishing the tutorial levels, you receive the thing that Yahtzee hates more than anything else in the world. An AI companion. Having watched most of Yahtzee's videos I know that it is the exact sort of thing he would tear apart. Yet, he didn't. So naturally, he didn't actually get to that part, because Yahtzee never gives up a chance to rip on AI.

The thing is, Yahtzee most likely played this for maybe an hour, and then decided that the entire game would be just like the tutorial, and then made the worst episode of Zero Punctuation I have ever seen. He seems to have a problem with a game not trying to screw him over by ramping up high difficulty immediately, but if he had done more than the tutorial he would have found out just how good the game is. Anyone who has played a previous Monster Hunter would know exactly what I mean, and if the game had thrown him right in against the toughest monsters, he would have in less time than it takes him to look at a game he hasn't played and say its bad, be murdered in ways even he hasn't thought of.

Yes I accept some people wont like this game, but most of those people are Modern Warfare 2 fat boys who can only barely keep there attention on that.

 

[LeonLethality]

I "guess" you could call Monster Hunter Tri a JRPG and we all know Yahtzee loves those.

You could but then that would be like calling a puzzle game an FPS. Monster Hunter is in a genre of its own. Shared only by one other game as far as I know. The closest thing to an already existing genre this game is in is action role playing game. But this is also very tactical so Tactical Action Role Playing Game. Whatever it is it is not a JRPG.

 

[go nana go]

Hooray another shitty game for the wii

I don't get it why do Japanese people like this sort of grind fest with no storyline(final fantasy and so many other JRPGs are grind fest with a storyline)

Believe it or not japanese gamers like being told what to do next.
evidence: fusion the most linear of the metroid games did much better in japan than it's predecesors. That's just what they're like.

Fusion was 2D
Those do good in Japan dude,
They INVENTED it!

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

Wow, 16 pages of complaining that he missed the point and that anyone who takes his word on it is a sheep. Let me spell this out for you: the moment I have to sit through any kind of MMO style grind quest, I turn the game off. I don't care how much 'better' it gets later, the game has officially lost my interest. That's my prerogative, I'm happy for anyone else to enjoy the game as much as they want. However, since Yahtzee seems to agree with me that grind quests are irritating as all hell, I take his review as a good indication that I will not like this game. There is nothing bovine about that train of logic.

 

[seyirci]

Yahtzee's description of running around gathering stuff and then getting paranoid about selling them suddenly made me nostalgic for Diablo II... Ah, gems...

Good review.

 

[CopperBoom]

This was a really good one as well.
I love the visuals a lot in this one.
The humour is always in the writing, but this time I feel visual gags were pretty effective.

Question: Is "Mogworld" going to come out for iBooks on the iPad? I know I sound like a complete puff, but I only read on iPad now. I love not touching paper and not killing trees (just electricity when charging).

Did not "Tri" hard enough... har har.

 

[GermanPsyOps]

I "guess" you could call Monster Hunter Tri a JRPG and we all know Yahtzee loves those.

It lacks everything Yahtzee hates about JRPGs though, or even WRPGs for that matter

- No cutscenes other then initial map intros and monster intro bits later, both of which are short 15 second deals
- The story is just an aside and the game isn't all that linear
- You, the hunter, has no development at all except for becoming progressively more badass. There's no backstory
- No level-up system, no exp grinding
- Emphasis on player skill over weapons/armor/etc., everything else is just there to give you a bit more of an edge or to collect.
- Not turn based, no magical damage numbers popping out of enemies heads when you hit them, you don't even get a lifebar for monsters you hunt
- No amazingly cheap tactic will help you win this game, except maybe barrel bombing but that's not even remotely easy to pull off.

It's nothing like a typical RPG. It's not even like an MMORPG. Sure there's 2 hours of gathering at the beginning, but then you never have to do them again, and you get to enjoy the remaining 58 hours fighting giant monsters.

 

[Enlong]

You know, by not playing through more of the game, Yahtzee really did miss out on a lot of things he dould've made a good rant about.

Like the monster missions. He could've been ranting about getting your nipples ripped off in the time it takes to flex after drinking a health potion.

Or the sidekick character. He could've had so much fun ranting about Cha-Cha.

I actually would've enjoyed watching him rip into that stuff, even though I like the game and enjoy those aspects. I'm just peeved because I don't think he ever got to those parts of the game.

 

[GermanPsyOps]

You know, by not playing through more of the game, Yahtzee really did miss out on a lot of things he dould've made a good rant about.

Like the monster missions. He could've been ranting about getting your nipples ripped off in the time it takes to flex after drinking a health potion.

Or the sidekick character. He could've had so much fun ranting about Cha-Cha.

I actually would've enjoyed watching him rip into that stuff, even though I like the game and enjoy those aspects. I'm just peeved because I don't think he ever got to those parts of the game.

I really wanted to see something about the archaic combat at least, like lack of lock-on system, drawn/undrawn weapon woes, so many things. There was gold for funny critique here. This review was sorely incomplete.

 

[Deletemyhappyass]

I made an account to say but one thing:

Watch the videos online. Yahtzee played approximately 1.5% of the game (of which the average player puts about 200-400 hours of time in, and no, it's not all hunting mushrooms). The 'gigantic fucking sea monster' shows up to scare the piss out of you so as to encourage you to get better so you can actually fight the damn thing. Look up the following Youtube videos:

Monster Hunter Tri~ Barroth by Yomoska
Monster Hunter Tri~ Royal Ludroth by Yomoska
Monster Hunter Tri~ Lagiacrus (repel) by Yomoska
Monster Hunter Tri Online - Rathalos [HD] by earvcunanan

These are just a few. The game is called 'Monster Hunter' for a pretty good reason. I had a hunch Yahtzee wouldn't give the game a good review, because it's not a game you can get 'into' without actually reading the in-game information material. (For instance, had he read the information in the game, he would've known that you can tell if something larger than your weapon will show up is indicated directly underneath the mission details. The exception was that mission with Lagiacrus (the sea monster), because it's been tradition in every game for them to sneak something ridiculously out of your league in the first few low level missions since the first Monster Hunter on the ps2. They did it with Rathalos in the first game, Tigrex in the second, and Lagiacrus in the third.)

There's a good reason professional reviews of Monster Hunter games turn out low scores whilst 'unprofessional' gamer reviews turn out higher ones. One group isn't being paid to grind through a game each week.

This game isn't technically the third in the series, however, when you consider:
1) Monster Hunter and the expansion, Monster Hunter G
2) Monster Hunter 2
3) Monster Hunter Portable (and Portable G) (Freedom in the US, G wasn't localized)
4) Monster Hunter Portable 2 (and 2nd G) (Freedom 2 and Freedom Unite in the US, respectively)
5) Monster Hunter Tri (this one)
And since there's already word of the rest, let's not forget:
6) Monster Hunter Portable 3 (which is a port of Tri for the PSP)
7) Monster Hunter Frontier Online (an Xbox 360 online version).

Yeah, totally unpopular game that has nothing going for it! *thumbsup*

 

[Enlong]

Thank you for confirming my fears of what this game would be when I chose to buy an older game proven to be more interesting

If Yahtzee told you to eat shit you probably would judging by this post.

Whats the matter? Too busy playing Go look for mushrooms for half a week? You seem a little tense, girlfriends usually help with that...sorry you see to be hopefully in that department so good luck with your sad existence

Nah, I've got no time to go mushroom-hunting. Too busy dodging lightning breath while I'm trying to stab this sea-monster to death and turn is broken carcass into armor.

Or perhaps another lance. Stop hitting yourself!

 

[SAMAS]

Wow, 16 pages of complaining that he missed the point and that anyone who takes his word on it is a sheep.

Positive or negative review doesn't enter into it, the game is about Monster Hunting, but at no time does he actually talk about hunting monsters. If he talked about how long it takes to get to your first big monster hunt, then went into about how much he did or didn't like it, there wouldn't have been anything to talk about here. But he doesn't, and as a result we got the most half-assed ZP in recent history.

It's not just about this game. Have you ever watched or read the reactions to movies like The Core or The Day After Tomorrow from people who actually know climatology or geology? Whether the piece was positive or negative, at the very least we expect him to actually do the work if he's gonna make a video about it.

In short: This was a shitty video. It doesn't matter what game it was about. He could've done this about Drake and the 99 Dragons, and if he did as little as he did here it would still be shit. Yahtzee is better than this.

 

[Ildecia]

Wow, Yahtzee completely missed the point of the game. Me thinks he didn't play long enough to fight some of the bigger monsters.

i agree with you on this one. seems like he only got around 3-5% through the game...

 

[EliteFreq]

I love MH with all my heart but I'd have to agree. It's a game that me and some of my friends love and spend far too much time on, whereas the rest of my friends find it too tedious and would rather shoot shit in the face.

 

[FallenMessiah88]

Sad....this was actually one of those games i was thinking about getting if i ever bought a wii.