So, just got monster hunter Tri for the Wii as you can probably tell from the title, and as a fan of the old monster hunter games.. i just have to say....
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I FREAKING LOVE IT!!!!!
The game is fun to play, the ability to go out and wander the island to gather materials without having to go on a mission and worry about a time limit are wonderful, the controls on the wii mote are a little strange, but fairly easy to get used to... more or less..
It just has all the things that were wrong in the old ones fixxed or worked out. Healing takes less time, you still do that stupid pose, but you arent standing there for 2-3 seconds while a giant laser breathing Adamant dragon is getting ready to wipe you from excistance, the whole exploring aspect, and other things.
That being said.. i do have a few small complaints..
The first, and the biggest, is its on the wii.
Now, dont get me wrong, i think they did great by going with it, its a well sold system, it keeps its simple, and its inexpensive to get one, and to make games for, all pluses.
my problem comes in that they did nothing with it. the Wii mote useless and they want you to buy some stupid little control pad to play the game.
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The system that has its largest billing in its motion capture control thing. they want you to ignore that, and just use a joy pad.
You dont swing your sword by swinging the wiimote, you do it by twitching it for pre-set combos, or mashing the A button repeatedly.
And what makes it a down right blasphemy is the Bowcaster! the giant rocket launcher cross bow! you'd think that its a free aiming ranged weapon, they would at least have the brains to go "HEY! we should make it so people can aim using the wii mote! We chose this system for the interactive shit, so lets use it!!"
Instead you have to aim with the little + d-pad, which aims slowly, clunky, and HORRIBLY its like trying to play a sniper on counter strike or some other fast action game that requires fine aiming using WASD. If you go first person you can aim using the joystick on the nunchuk, but that isnt much better.
This, to me at least, is a HUGE failure. I can forgive the not using the wii mote to swing your sword as thats a lot of stuff to add in, but they make it so you can hold down one button, and then aim at the screen with a cursor!! and all that is used for is to catalog fucking Dragosaur monsters and other crap things. Its flat out unforgivable. They made this HUGE fuss about wanting to use the motion bullshit on the wii, and they did nothing with it at all.
It leaves me feeling rather disappointed with it actually. The bowgun is hard to use because its aiming is really, not that good, so in single player it takes time to ine up shots on giant monsters, which are going to be activly trying to stomp and eat you making it almost an MP weapon, enless your one of those die hards wo have played with it so much that its less of a game, more of a religion.
Its just a flat out Sickening waste of potential.
.... but for all my ranting, i keep playing, because it is fun. Combat could use some fine tuning, a great thing about the PS2 version of monster hunter was how combat worked, you used the joystick to swing the sword, and you could chain them together REALLY well, which was extremely useful in fighting bigger monsters, now you just mash the A button and hope the chain comes out good. and it likely wont.
A couple of the old things are there as well, wallbangers like why your character feels the need to flex or just pose after healing and eatting, especially with some giant world rending monster coming to take a bite out of them so big the only thing left will be your toe nails, if that.
"animal" interactions, monsters will forgo easy prey to chase you down suicidally, despite the fact that you can kill them easily, when any creature with survival instincts are going to go "SHIT! Fuck this and run!" (though you can scare some off now, jaggi can be chased off with a torch, little leech monsters can be scared off by swinging it around, and the annoying fucking mosquitos are drawn to it making them easier to kill). I know these things are to up the difficulty and challenge, but they could be handled better somehow. its just flat mindless you are going to stand there unprotected while monsters capable of destroying giant cities are coming after you.
If i had to go with a rating...
3/5.
Visually its beautiful like most all of the monster hunter games,
Sound is wonderful, the monsters all make their own unique noises letting you know their status and help make them feel a little more real (the music is ok to)
The AI is alright as well on them, some work together, and on occasion different breeds will attack each other, or ones of the same breed if you are good at leading dinkies into the path of Wyverns.
Gameplay is good and fun, easy to play for a bit until you get a bit tired of it, put it down, then pick it right back up with ease.
Controls... Thats what keeps it from higher. the lack of motion control sword combat hurts it since they have it in games like twilight princess and others, but the inability to aim the bowgun with the Wii mote is unforgivable. And their push for you to buy the old school game pad just stinks in throwing away the systems biggest pull to make you spend an additional 40 bucks to play a 40 dollar game.
If you can get over those things (and i know many people can) i would suggest grabbing the game, it is fun, and its easy to get "lost" in playing it. The semi-exalted feel kinda helps:3 (HUGE fucking swords, axes, hammers, duel swords, katanas, freaking crossbow bazookas to fight HUGE dragon/dinosaur monsters.. oh yeah.)
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HOLY SHIT! My first coherent Positive review on the board!!
Its a sign of the end times! Run for your lives people!!! Trolls and Cyber zombies first. Cause i sure as hell aint getting in their way.
