Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate

A 7? Trying to get extra hits by angry people I see. You didn't even give great reasons why it should be knocked that much. OK then.

Good review jb but I think you got the Gameplay and Graphics overview in the blue area mixed up :p

7 is too low.

XCWarrior said:
A 7? Trying to get extra hits by angry people I see. You didn't even give great reasons why it should be knocked that much. OK then.

I felt I did justify the 7 - no matter how hard you try, the camera work makes this unbearable at times, water sections are frustrating and there is a fair bit of visual inconsistency.

In my head the first hour started off as a good 8/10, but several hours in and issues started to creep in that made it difficult to just ignore and work with.

There are plenty of positives, and 7 is a good score, but it's let down by problems that have existed throughout the series like control. When a game relies heavily on having to focus on your monster and keep the action fluid, issues like this are reasons why the score wasn't as high as it could be.

Still think it's worth trying the demo at least, as I mentioned.

I'm sure others and dedicated fans would score this a definitive 9/10 minimum, but there are elements about the game that can't be ignored - especially when we're used to a near-perfect control and camera in titles like Zelda.

I can certainly understand the backlash with the score, but I feel it's more than justified - good game, recommended, but there are a fair few bad elements that stop it from getting an 8/10 as I explained several times in the review.

( Edited 19.03.2013 09:19 by jb )

XCWarrior said:
A 7? Trying to get extra hits by angry people I see. You didn't even give great reasons why it should be knocked that much. OK then.

Regarding the comments made about "problems" with the camera and controls. One of the series' staples is that the game doesn't aim for you and you actually have to think about where and when you're going to strike for the hit to be most effective. As for Capcom "trying to address these problems" they didn't try to address the problems, because the problems are nonexistent. They threw in a temporary lock-on feature to stop those that weren't major Monster Hunter players from complaining.

When I initially tried Tri, I thought "Man, this game has no lock-on and the monsters have no health bars. That's stupid!" Now I look back at myself and think of how stupid I was back then. Z-Targeting or some kind of perma lock-on feature would just butcher Monster Hunter. Part of the battle in Monster Hunter is being able to aim your hits with precision in order to actually deal damage, another part is watching the monster's movements to see how badly damaged they are and decide whether you want to capture or slay the beast.

Yes, Monster Hunter fans would've given this a 9 or more, but that's because they actually know the series.

Also, a few of the statements made in this review are incorrect, such as this being a upscaled version of the Wii game. It is more than that, it is an upscaled version of the 3DS game which was an expanded version of the Wii game. That's a bit of a mouthful!

There are also no mentions of how much content this offers over Tri, which I thought would be a given when it comes to reviewing this. That's just my two cents.

( Edited 19.03.2013 10:48 by Mush )

Score seems fare to me. 

I think Capcom will go a long way to remedying much of what makes Monster Hunter so awkward for Westerners, but only in the fourth game. It was clear early on this was never going to happen with this game. There's not even any Miiverse integration, something that would show they care. This is a cheap and logical release for more success with the 4th game on 3DS, and later Wii U I imagine...

There's definitely a debate over whether Wii U controllers are appropriate for this series.

There's something of a tradition in MH to place your thumb on the analog stick and lay index finger over the D-pad so that you can control movement of the player and camera at the same time with your left hand. Right hand is only used for pressing buttons. A common knowledge and technique amongst the old timers of the series.

But for that you need the D-pad to be above the analog stick. It's a layout issue. Once you get that going MH becomes a whole new world and it would be rated "correctly" by reviews like this. As it stands, the hardware is getting in the way of a perfectly good game.

I hear that the Wii's classic controllers are supported in this game so that should solve that problem. It is bizarre that one would have to go back to the previous controller to play it properly though... but it's just fine by me if it works.

I'll find out in a few days time when I get my own copy. This is a complicated problem and I can't see it being resolved easily due to it being hardware specific. They could release a new controller just for this but that'd be awkward.

On a side note, since it's not being mentioned here, the official site says there are 2042 completely new additions to the equipment. And a list of bosses:

(from Freedom Unite)

• Anteka (small)
  
• Bullfango (small)
  
• Azure Rathalos (subspecies)
  
• Silver Rathalos
  
• Pink Rathian (subspecies)
  
• Gold Rathian
  
• Plesioth
  
• Green Plesioth (subspecies)
  
• Black Diablos
  
• Nargacuga
  

• Gargwa (small)
  
• Slagtoth (small)
  
• Wroggi (small)
  
• Arzuros
  
• Great Wroggi
  
• Lagombi
  
• Volvidon
  
• Nibelsnarf
  
• Duramboros
  
• Zinogre
  
• Crimson Qurupeco (subspecies)
  
• Purple Ludroth (subspecies)
  
• Jade Barroth (subspecies)
  
• Baleful Gigginox (subspecies)
  
• Sand Barioth (subspecies)
  
• Steel Uragaan (subspecies)
  
• Glacial Agnaktor (subspecies)
  
• Green Nargacuga (subspecies) 
  

• Brachydios
  
• Rust Duramboros (subspecies)
  
• Stygian Zinogre (subspecies)
  
• Lucent Nargacuga (subspecies)
  
• Ivory Lagiacrus (subspecies)
  
• Abyssal Lagiacrus (subspecies)
  
• Savage Deviljho (subspecies)
  
• Hallowed Jhen Mohran (subspecies)
  
• Goldbeard Ceadeus (subspecies)
  

One major factor to consider is that anyone that disliked MHtri is likely to also dislike this. Yes, this is a HD version of the 3DS game, but that didn't differ in style from the Wii game that much. I can appreciate why some people enjoy it, but for me it doesn't float my boat in the slightest.

There are also no mentions of how much content this offers over Tri, which I thought would be a given when it comes to reviewing this. That's just my two cents.

I mentioned that there's a load of additional content - didn't go into specific numbers, however. Did do my research into the past entries and how the series came into conception and did play the original release on Wii.

Remember this is very much an opinion, but I would attack, then retreat slightly or move away to prepare for an item or second attack, but the camera would lose focus and force you to shift it around manually. I just felt it was clunky and took away from the experience, especially when tackling the bigger monsters - one slip up in the  camera and as you know, a lot of damage dealt.

I feel that perhaps some fans might have adjusted to what I feel are drawbacks in the series and the shoddy camera becomes natural (like playing Sonic Adventure for example).

I'm not the biggest Monster Hunter  fan by any means, but it's because of this I feel I've given a least biased review as possible, especially for the newcomer. 

That said, with these problems aside I still think it's a worthy purchase and urge potential buyers to at least give the demo a go.

If anyone wants to share their views on the game, please do post a reader review (or if you're a C3 staffer, a C3-2-1 review would be most welcome).

I think SirLink will!

I'm not a fan of the game, but my brother is and he explained to me to the point of understanding that the camera is indeed intentional. It's not bad, it doesn't get stuck and it's easier to change than in the PSP games, and a lock on would definitely definitely take away part of the intended MH experience which is why a lot of MH fans are worried about MH4, an experience that seems to be catered to more traditional hack 'n' slash elements than MH elements.

When swingin around a huge weapon, you're not always going to lock your vision on to something rushing past you and keep track of it. Knowing what to do, planning your trajectory and figuring out where and when to hit the monster, as well as how to act when the monster leaves your sight, is a genuine part of the gameplay experience that is in place to partially emulate the feel of actually hunting a monster (which is part of why it's so popular in Japan).

Anyway, my two cents. I do feel a 7 may be a little too harsh if it puts people off when they may otherwise happen to love it, but that's coming from someone whose own experience with the game gives it a 6 in his head (just my opinion). It's just not my thing, which is something seemingly echoed by many western gamers.
So in that aspect a 7 is probably fair

I can understand how the camera work can be justified for the MH experience, but it really did grate on me - we had the game for over a week's play and it just became unfriendly and at times a chore to get into combat. Even without target camera, it's clunky - faced with 4/5 monsters at one time, you could end up looking in the completely wrong direction after attacking, running aside also loses that focus.

Likewise the graphics are inconsistent, it can tend to become repetitive after a certain number of quests plus the longer play sessions for certain missions can become a chore.

A 7 I still feel is a good and justifiable score - it's not got the perfect controls, camera work and polish of third person games games like Zelda, Xenoblade, Final Fantasy etc - but it's a great experience that should help Wii U sales in particular.

Bare in mind that at its core this is an old game, despite the newer interface and graphical push, and maybe it's possibly not standing the test of time as best it could.

I might be too harsh perhaps, but did give this a proper good go and it's a solid 7. Maybe because I'm not a die hard fan I can see some of these issues as they are and not something to "work with" in the spirit of the hunt and all that malarkey. 

7 is not harsh at all - for some of the issues you had, Jorge, I reckon some reviewers might have dropped it to a 6. The negative reaction is from long-term MH fans used to the quirks of the game, that's all.

Adam Riley said:
7 is not harsh at all - for some of the issues you had, Jorge, I reckon some reviewers might have dropped it to a 6. The negative reaction is from long-term MH fans used to the quirks of the game, that's all.

Every game control has a quirk to those who haven't acquired the fundamental technique for it. FPS is a mine field of messy controls to those who can't move the mouse where they want it (maybe auto-move the mouse to a target?). Fighter games are a boring twaddle to those who can't enter special move commands (maybe remove special moves?). Same reason why some people rate platformers like SMB so low, just because they just can't handle the controls (maybe eliminate B-jumping for them?). Changing them for those who can't handle it will turn them into a different game.

It's one thing to say the game isn't your type, or even admit that you can't handle it. It's something else entirely to categorize an entire group of people who like it as if they're mad when you haven't even got to the point where you can understand why it has a large following. It's ironic because often us Nintendo fans come under fire from the "mainstream" regarding the type of games Nintendo makes, and we're usually the ones who inherently understand, hence defend those games. We're usually the ones with perspective.

Yet, push comes to shove, you don't seem to offer the same sense of perspective when it comes to something you don't understand. It's tragic when it happens within our own community as of all places I would've thought we know what it's like to be on the receiving end of it. It's equivalent to when an ethnic minority is being a racist.

It wasn't supposed to come across as patronising, but clearly it did to you (and perhaps others), so apologies for that.

However, when it comes to reviewing games, we're not always going to specifically like a particular genre. I'm not a big basketball fan, for instance, but I still could see the merits of NBA 2K13. Sure, I'm no expert, but I can aim to be as fair as possible with the final overview. My point was that Jorge is doing exactly the same here. Sure, the controls didn't gel with him, and he's not the biggest MH fan, but should he mark it up just so as to appease those that have grown accustomed to the control system, camera, etc?

Obviously not. Therefore, my comment stands in that he's going to get flack from MH fans that love the game, just as I got ribbed for scoring a CoD game high because I personally felt it was a great achievement on Wii, but serious CoD'ers thought my review was nonsense because it didn't square up to the 360/PS3 versions. The tone of my point, though, obviously didn't come across quite right.

The camera is part of Monster Hunter. The day this series fully embraces lock-on targeting, acrobatic backflips over monsters and frantic hack and slashing gameplay is the day I walk away, never to look back.

Monster Hunter reminds me of Dark/Demons Souls. It's slow, clunky, and doesn't look the best sometimes, but it's damn rewarding and a 9/10 in m book.

The problem I have with the camera is limited to the Y-axis. The camera floats around your character horizontally and I have no problem with that, but when moving up and down, it's locked into 5 different positions, with 3-4 of them making you basically blind to anything but your character. It's extremely frustrating to accidentally slip into one of those while fighting.

Underwater controls are also very clunky, it's easy to overshoot where you want to go, but that's really only an issue when trying to harvest.

I get the argument that it's a classic, intentional thing, and I don't think the game would be made better by having an auto-lock. However, there's a middle ground between auto-lock and accuracy. The complaint I have is that the game is actually not that accurate. It's easy to say I should just aim my attacks better, but half the time I miss, it's because it looked like I really was going to hit, but I was a few pixels off, and in some cases my weapon actually goes through the monster model but does no damage because I didn't hit it just right. Those moments are frustrating, and they're somewhat frequent. But this isn't really new, and is a minor detail.

The graphics are also lacking seriously in some areas. Specifically, when creating your character, the eyes and mouth look like they were painted on with MS paint. Whenever the game zooms in on a creature or person or object, you see very pixelated, blurry textures.

And yeah, the game adds a lot of stuff, but in the first few hours of gameplay it's almost unnoticeable. For example, it starts me with one of every weapon, and I saw one I've never heard of, the "gunlance". I go to try it, and guess what? I get a big red flashing "RELOAD" on top of my screen and despite the billion tutorials in this game, I have no idea how to do that or what to load into it. So that weapon is basically useless to me until I can get to a computer and figure out what the hell it does. I tried a few others, like the bow, which was so ridiculously difficult to aim it's laughable. I finally stuck with the Katana, which is a strong weapon that stays sharp for a long time (I haven't had to sharpen it yet) at the cost of being pretty slow and extremely inaccurate (thin blade means you have to hit dead-on, so I get that, and it works well enough for me). It's cool, but in the end, it just feels like the switch axe mapped to a different model.

But personally, I'm feeling this game at 8 or 9 out of 10. I guess what I'm saying is I understand the criticism and I think it's fair. It's one thing to ask players to be accurate, and another to ask them to be more accurate than your game's control scheme or hit detection really account for.

The only things that really, really bug me so far are the text and the map. Why are they so damn small? I can barely read the text, and the map is utterly useless, I can't see anything on it. I tried putting it on the gamepad, but then I'm looking down more often than I'd like to be, and I'm not really comfortable with either. Zooming the map in blows it so far out of proportion that you get a minecraft-looking arrow moving around a minecraft-looking field and it's entirely unhelpful, to the point where I think the feature was just added as a joke.

I'm still pretty early in, and already I'm very happy with the game overall. It's the game I loved on Wii, but with a lot of new stuff and better graphics, even if they are very short of today's standards. I have yet to try playing multiplayer (local or online) or the 3DS version in general (played the demo but it didn't allow for Circle Pad Pro so I'm eager to test that out).

Adam Riley said:
It wasn't supposed to come across as patronising, but clearly it did to you (and perhaps others), so apologies for that.

However, when it comes to reviewing games, we're not always going to specifically like a particular genre. I'm not a big basketball fan, for instance, but I still could see the merits of NBA 2K13. Sure, I'm no expert, but I can aim to be as fair as possible with the final overview. My point was that Jorge is doing exactly the same here. Sure, the controls didn't gel with him, and he's not the biggest MH fan, but should he mark it up just so as to appease those that have grown accustomed to the control system, camera, etc?

Obviously not. Therefore, my comment stands in that he's going to get flack from MH fans that love the game, just as I got ribbed for scoring a CoD game high because I personally felt it was a great achievement on Wii, but serious CoD'ers thought my review was nonsense because it didn't square up to the 360/PS3 versions. The tone of my point, though, obviously didn't come across quite right.

I don't know what to say, to be honest. Engaging in a conflict of this sort amongst ourselves is a burden I could do without. If you can't do something, fine, that's that. If you dislike a genre, fine, that's that as well. But it's disappointing as a personality when you use that as a pedestal to stand on, and portray those of us who have made it as being rather off. I can understand what it must seem like, I started off in the same boat myself, but your attitude seems overly unfair and lacking in perspective. It's what you said, not how you came across.

In a series like this where we know what to expect, it's a good idea to get a seasoned follower to exercise impartiality, rather than non-follower to force out positives. Results in a better review as more perspective is brought in. It's better for the French speaker to review French films, and not the non-French speaker, if you get my drift. One has to observe the balance either way. It's a question of from which direction you approach that point of balance, and usually it works out better starting on the positive side. Maybe it might be different for one off games.

Finally, I'm sorry to jb et al as I do realize that I ended up indirectly having a go at them during the course of this melee. It's rather ironic of me that I don't even have the willingness to write reviews and yet criticize those who sweat to write one. I just couldn't leave the glaring issues which were obvious to me, so I opened up.

On that note, I'll let this go. Thanks for putting up with me.

Don't listen to any fanboys who are blinded by their love for the series, Jorge and Riley. I never played any MH game before I tried the recent demo, and I feel the same way about the camera system as the reviewer.

Fans say: "No, that is the MH experience. With lock-on camera, it wouldn't require as much skill. You are wrong." No, you guys are wrong. You fans have probably just been so accustomed to the system that it no longer bothers you, and are no longer able to objectively see how it could be better. And the camera system in this game is not great game design. It's passable or decent at best.

It's not question of "managing" the game, or being skillful enough. I can manage jumping around on one leg to get around, but that doesn't mean that is the easiest way to get anywhere. But if you guys want to keep jumping around on one leg and think that's fun and challenging and requires a lot of mad skillz, that's fine. Just don't expect the rest of us to believe that is a good way of getting where you want to go.

If anything, why couldn't Capcom just include two camera systems? One that is classic and you have to manage it yourself, and one with a consant lock-on camera. Now that would have been great game design, because that would allow the players to play the game in whatever way they prefer.

Powdered Water said:

Adam Riley said:
7 is not harsh at all - for some of the issues you had, Jorge, I reckon some reviewers might have dropped it to a 6. The negative reaction is from long-term MH fans used to the quirks of the game, that's all.

That sounds rather patronizing to be honest, then again I suppose it works both ways. Turn the table around, from my point of view, it's you who haven't acquired the basic technical ability necessary to judge or advice on the game in any shape or form. There is a reason why the majority in Japan can manage it just fine. It's not like those of us who like the series are few and far between as to make the control scheme inherently quirky. To be fair to you, even I thought it was quirky until it clicked. Now I know I just hadn't been used to it. In that regard, I have been you. You haven't been me yet. Nowadays I know that to change the controls means to give up the immense freedom of movement and tactics it gives.

Every game control has a quirk to those who haven't acquired the fundamental technique for it. FPS is a mine field of messy controls to those who can't move the mouse where they want it (maybe auto-move the mouse to a target?). Fighter games are a boring twaddle to those who can't enter special move commands (maybe remove special moves?). Same reason why some people rate platformers like SMB so low, just because they just can't handle the controls (maybe eliminate B-jumping for them?). Changing them for those who can't handle it will turn them into a different game.

It's one thing to say the game isn't your type, or even admit that you can't handle it. It's something else entirely to categorize an entire group of people who like it as if they're mad when you haven't even got to the point where you can understand why it has a large following. It's ironic because often us Nintendo fans come under fire from the "mainstream" regarding the type of games Nintendo makes, and we're usually the ones who inherently understand, hence defend those games. We're usually the ones with perspective.

Yet, push comes to shove, you don't seem to offer the same sense of perspective when it comes to something you don't understand. It's tragic when it happens within our own community as of all places I would've thought we know what it's like to be on the receiving end of it. It's equivalent to when an ethnic minority is being a racist.

The Japanese having smaller hands (among other things), isn't a viable excuse.

MH's control schemes throughout the entire series have been plain poor by Western standards, it's largely the reason why the game is deemed to have such a steep learning curve in the West. Capcom keep these control schemes in an intentionally retarded state in order to appease it's Japanese fans primarily, who with consistency tend gush over well worn game mechanics and game design nuances, in many of Japans biggest game franchises. It's these very aspects which the bulk of Western gamers deplore. Most Westerners won't appreciate controls intentionally designed in order to ramify difficulty to the player. That's why Capcom created Dragon's Dogma, something which is clearly more Western focused.

Linkyshinks said:
That's why Capcom created Dragon's Dogma, something which is clearly more Western focused.

I noticed this too. I only played Dragon's Dogma a short while (busy playing other games, I'll return to it eventually) and my first impression was that it was a Westernized, story-centric Monster Hunter.

As for the debate going on, I'm seeing a lot of excusing the things jb brought up as stuff that's classic to series veterans. That's all fine and dandy, but not everyone who plays this game is going to be a series veteran, and acting like someone's opinion is invalid because they aren't (or are; it goes both ways) is just wrong.

I'm no series veteran, with Tri on the Wii being the only game I've played (and I never came close to finishing it) but I loved it enough to get MH3U, and I still do. That said, the game is nowhere near above criticism, nor should it be marketed to "veterans only". It's tricky trying to find a balance between designing a game for series vets and newcomers alike, and if you fall short you get reviews like this (and 7 out of 10 is really not that bad) and if they market to only vets, you get an extremely small install base and then no more localizations because nobody bought the game.

Personally, my own score would probably be something like:

Gameplay - 9/10. Great fun, a few flaws in control and design, but overall nearly flawless.
Graphics - 7/10. Some things look good, some look pretty much the same as they did on the Wii, which by today's standards is pretty lousy. This brings an air of inconsistency; I wonder why my character's weapon and armor look gorgeous, but the hair is a series of flat textures and the eyes and mouth are painted on and might look decent if this were a Nintendo 64 game.
Sound - 5/10. As much as I love hearing the exact same five-second jingle every time I leave Moga Village, there just isn't much to impress here. Character voices are cute, but very standard and never deviate. The few areas of the game that incorporate sound as a gameplay mechanic (such as Great Jaggi calls) are nice, but overall the sound is bland and repetitive.
Value - 10/10. There's a reason this was one of the most played games on the Wii. You can play 80 hours and easily be nowhere near completing the game. It goes on and on without feeling like it's going on and on.

Overall: 8/10 on a bad day, 9/10 if I'm feeling generous.

I really hope they bring MH4 over here.

justonesp00lturn said:
....

acting like someone's opinion is invalid because they aren't (or are; it goes both ways) is just wrong

There are plenty of instances like this. It's like marking down Street Fighter series because you can't do fire balls. Or marking down SMB because you can't do B-dash then jump over a large hole. Or do a 180 degree turn then a headshot in FPS. Or handle recoil in games where guns have recoil. When we start off we all can't do it. Same with me. It's not like I don't understand what it's like to struggle with Monster Hunter's controls.

They all have varying degrees of difficulties in acquiring the skill, but it works and you know it once you get there so it seems rather odd to see the game getting marked down for it. I do accept that it is one perspective, but I wanted to make my point and did so.

I do agree with another poster's suggestion about implementing another system alongside the pre-existing one though. I think that's a good idea too so long as they leave the old controls in. Using the earlier Street Fighter analogy, Takenoko vs Street Fighter on Wii did this. It had an easy control mode where you can do a super move with a press of a button. That's a reason to add a point to the score, but it'd be sad to see it marked down for not having it.

I hope that clarifies where I stand.

Those examples I understand, but that's an issue with learning curve - you'll learn to do so eventually.

But with MH, I'm struggling to see why the (imo) dodgy camera can be justified. I played a tonne of the game and for me it just didn't get better. That said I can understand some of the reasons why it's been setup that way for the hunt. 

Each to their own really!

We don't need to get too heated talking about this guys, though good to see many different perspectives on a big release.