DP Challenge 15/100 – Monster Hunter Tri

Game: Monster Hunter Tri

Ranking: 28/100

Score: 85.00%

In the first RPG-esque game I’ve tackled so far, you get to save a coastal village from a terrifying deep-sea creature. Eventually. There will be lots of training and upgrading first. Lots and lots of training and upgrading. Will Greg Anderson be proven right or will the journey prove too little incentive to arrive at the destination?

Does exactly what it says on the tin...(Source: Unknown)

Intro

The manual has a consistent design and is thorough in the explanations of each area of the game and the controls. When you load up the game, you are treated to an opening where various mythical beasts one-up each other in the food chain along a sweeping vista worthy of David Attenborough. The menus are laid out decently and each option has a clear and concise definition of its function.

The manual gives absolutely no premise to the game and actually has some typos. The game intro itself also tells you effectively nothing about the game - I felt as though maybe I'd accidentally skipped the magic part that told me what my objective was.

In the intro, it would be nice to get a bit more of a hint as to what the game is about. It's called 'Monster Hunter' so I assume I'm hunting monsters... but I saw nothing in the intro to suggest this (in fact it came across as though I would be playing a monster who was hunting other monsters). Perhaps if we'd just seen some humanoid characters trying to take down a mythical creature, this would have helped a little.

Getting Going

You get to create your own avatar for the game, and plenty of options are available. Once you start playing the game, you are actually told the premise of the game by the village chief in some reasonably fun text dialogue. The tutorial portion of the game is nicely fluid; it's a tutorial that you won't necessarily notice is one at times. The player will find themselves engineered into situations where they will have to converse with tradespeople in the village hub, and thus will get to know the various levelling-up options available. The game gives you plenty of opportunities to practice your new skills by guiding you towards certain 'tasks' to build up your quest accessibility and by giving you free reign to visit the woods and the various areas to hunt and gather. The player is rewarded for performing such acts, so it directly encourages the player to explore the area. Quests, once available, are groups into difficulty levels, allowing you to tailor the learning curve to a degree. this is another game that shows ill-health and stamina loss on the character as well as the HUD - when your character is low on stamina, he/she not only moves slower, but they clutch their stomach and keel over a little from hunger.

This is a very slow burning game, and one you clearly need to invest a lot of time in if you want to make a dent in it. Even the game characters are apologetic about how insignificant some of the quests are. There is a real risk that the player could get a bit bored of constantly foraging for mushrooms and slashing at a small number of enemy types.

Although this is a game that is deliberately slow-moving, it could still build you up a little faster. Introducing a few more dangerous enemy types a little earlier on and making the initial level-up process a little easier would give new players a taste of things to come and keep them interested.

It's all fun and games until someone talks to you and obscures even more of the screen.(Source: Unknown)

Fun

There is a surprising amount of variety for a game which hands you a premise of capturing a giant sea monster. You have the option to perform quests, to gather valuable items in the woods, to hunt animals and carve meat and other valuable commodities from them for you own use or to sell, to take on the varied requests from the villagers to perform tasks such as mining for ore and to grow your own crops on the farm - you can even play with the pig! The characters you converse with do have their own little personalities. The different animals you can hunt will always give you benefits if you kill them - such as resources and goods - but at the same time, if your health or stamina is low, or you need to sharpen your weapon, you might be better off trying to leave them alone; there's a definite element of risk versus reward at play which makes you think a little about your actions. Plus, sometimes your low stamina can mean you need to hunt in order to obtain food to boost it even though you're not in the best shape to do so; this also results in you having to cook the meat you carve from your kill, and you do so over a BBQ spit to an amusingly jaunty tune. The fact that you can see how each quest or villager request will benefit you in terms of increased experience or money to level-up is especially good because it doesn't feel shoved down your throat; the game lets you think you're conjuring up a strategy even though it does give you a solid framework in which to progress.

Any sense of danger or tension is very limited in the earlier stages of the game; there's a lot of wandering through the woods, hacking at defenceless creatures and picking mushrooms. Also, some of the spontaneous 'help' given to you throughout the game actually hinders you. For example, one objective involves obtaining iron ore; you are given a pick axe and sent off into the caves, which are dark even when you have a torch to illuminate the way somewhat. I spent ages simply wandering around the same two cave areas trying to find anywhere that would give me an action symbol and therefore meant I have found the elusive iron ore. In fact, it turned out I stumbled across it reasonably quickly - but the game gave me a 'helpful' message from the chief asking if I'd found the ore yet. As you can move around while these play, and even the slightest nudge of the Wii Nunchuck will generally send your character two steps in said direction, I managed to completely miss the visual cue which shows you can mine in that area because I'd managed to wander a polygon away from the area I needed to be in. Another awkward thing about the information the villagers give you is that it doesn't seem to recognise when you've already performed such an act. At one point you are given a cryptic clue about something interesting near a brazier outside of the village. I presumed I'd found it, but then afterwards someone else gives you the same cryptic clue. Had I missed it? Did the game just not realise and was telling me anyway? It was surprisingly hard to tell.

The difficulty curve of this game could be a little steeper, just to keep players feeling challenged even during the process of building up experience and skills. There is also no need to let me move while the village chief or whichever other character decides to give me some helpful hints; the player can't do anything while trying to read a swarm of text, so just freeze the game for those few moments. Another thing that would be great is if it were possible to prevent certain text help coming up if you've performed a certain task prior to alleviate confusion; for example, in the scenario where I explored the brazier, make it trigger a suppression of the appropriate help text.

The Monster Hunter food chain in action.(Source: Unknown)

Visuals

Graphically, the world is very detailed and varied; you get majestic mountains, green and lush meadows and dark dank caves all within a short walk of each other - even the water looks particularly inviting. The creatures you encounter all look suitably different, making it relatively easy to tell them apart at first glance once you've encountered them. It's also generally easy to spot where a unique land feature might contain items you can forage or mine, as the graphic for these stands out against the landscape in terms of colour and shape. The game also helpfully hovers an appropriate icon above you whenever you can interact with an object. One thing I particularly liked was the realism of the characters; you can play as a male or female hunter, and both had sensible bodies - the male avatar wasn't ridiculously buff, and the female avatar actually looked like she could handle herself in a fight, rather than trot down a catwalk. Little things like that add to the realism; the fact that your character shows when they are low on stamina or health does this as well.

There are some minor issues where your sword clips through your shield. However, the biggest problem is with the HUD. There are so many items plastered all over it that it can get in the way of your view. Also, the helpful icons that show you how you can interact with an object will sometimes appear with a cross drawn through them to indicate that you can't interact with it at that moment. However, it never states why. This causes the dual irritation of obscuring the icon so you're unsure of what it refers to anyway, and making it impossible to figure out what you need to do in order to perform said action; could it be something as simple as you need to select a different item or do you need to obtain some new tool? Maybe it has nothing to do with any of those things - you will never know.

I'd like to be able to toggle the HUD items so I could hide some from view; that screen can get really cluttered which isn't helpful when you're trying to fight a dangerous monster, only to find the map is in the way. It would also be very helpful to actually show why you can't interact with an object, not just that you can't. For example, keep the icon but have brief text such as 'You need a key' or 'this pick axe isn't strong enough'; anything to give the player a clue so they don't waste their time trying every possible combination they can think of. There is enough to do in this game that this isn't required to draw out the gameplay.

Look at the beautiful vista! Look at it!(Source: Unknown)

Intelligence

The creatures you have to hunt behave in certain ways depending on their species, which forces you to react to them in different ways. Some creatures can be scared off by torchlight but others will be attracted to it; this will allow you to lure them out or scare them away as you see fit. As the game progresses, there are a number of ways you can capture or slay creatures by utilising their unique characteristics; it's possible to bait traps and use scent to attract your prey. This makes the core hunting gameplay so much more interesting than simply hacking and slashing. Most of the time, when you attack a member of a group, the others would either come to its aid or have a mass panic; which is realistic behaviour. Oh, and there are also creatures that will just steal stuff from you, which is oddly amusing.

I did have one big problem with the way the enemies behaved - there were some that simply didn't react if you killed one of them! I hacked at one member of a docile herbivorous species and the others just carried on their business, which really pulled me out of the moment. Even the most non-threatening of creatures would at least run away.

With a game like this that focuses so much on the concept of hunting, the creatures you hunt really need to behave consistently and believably. The different species need to exhibit 'fight or flight' when one of their own is attacked. Another aspect that could be interesting, and may well be employed in later stages of the game, is the idea that plenty of animal species will attack their own if shown to be weak or injured. Why not make losing your quarry to another predator or member of the group a potential risk when attacking certain species?

It's lucky you have a big Item Box.
(source: IGN)

Immersion

This is a very absorbing game by virtue of the many interlinked tasks you have to perform in order to proceed; you have both the immediate task in hand and the bigger picture in your head while playing which adds to the immersive experience. Although you have prescribed quests that you need to complete to increase your skills, you are still able to perform tasks outside of this and you are given the freedom to explore the world around you at your leisure. The linearity is certainly there, but in the guise of suggestions; you will have to play the game in a certain way to advance, but you can do all sorts of things in between. The variety of tasks available in the game to complete, such as quests, hunting, gathering and mining, are introduced in such a way that there always feels like there is more to learn; the further into the game you get, the more opportunities are opened up. It's very easy for an hour or so to fly by as you complete a villager's request, so that you can purchase new weaponry, so you can go and tackle those tougher beasts... everything builds up and allows you to see how your actions will cause the game to progress beyond completing a single quest.

Little niggles were the thing that really pulled me out of this game, such as when you attacked creatures and their group did not react, and the unclear HUD messages that served to confuse rather than enlighten. Sometimes the icon that appears when you can interact with an object but not at that moment does not make it very clear why. This happened when I was trying to return to the village after one point. The 'A' icon had a big red cross through it and it wasn't clear why. Eventually I worked out that you couldn't enter the farm or village areas with your weapons drawn, but given you can't use your weapons in the village anyway, it seemed rather pointless. Oh, and if you have your weapons drawn, you can't perform other actions. The sentiment behind this is fine, but it means you also can't tell if you can perform an action; for example, if you kill a creature, you can generally carve up meat and other products from it. If your weapons are drawn (which after a kill, they will be), the appropriate icon won't be displayed, and it takes a while to get used to that.

The information on actions you can perform on a given object could be made clearer by means of a brief text explanation as to why you can't perform a certain action. I also don't see why you have to go to the trouble of sheathing your weapons before you can enter the village or farm; just have the character do so automatically before the transition to that area - as you can't draw your weapons in these areas anyway, it has no impact on the gameplay save to make moving from one area to another less irritating.

Warning: Character movement will appear faster than it actually is in-game. Much faster.(Source: Unknown)

Cameras

The camera is third person and follows your character to a degree; your character will look up, down and 360 degrees around by using the control pad on the Wii Remote. This is useful when you want to inspect an area for potential prey or foraging opportunities without having to run around and drain your stamina.

Unfortunately, the overall effect of this is one of extreme clunkiness the moment you need to move and look at the same time; if you want to change direction you have to use the control pad on the Wii Remote to line the camera up with your movement. This is not a very fluid way of manoeuvring, especially when you have to jab and twist the Wii Remote itself to attack!

Why not simply change the camera to be fixed on the player or even be first person when you draw your weapons? That way, you don't have to fiddle about with the camera angles when you're trying to fight.

'Fire good. Meat good.' You carry all that in your hunting pouch, by the way.(Source: Unknown)

Controls

The controls are reasonably straight forward; you move with the nunchuck control stick, you attack with the Wii Remote, the A button uses an item and the C button selects it. Other options are available from menus called up by different buttons. Despite the hefty manual containing lots of information on this, I found I didn't really need to refer to it; it was fairly intuitive and when it wasn't, there was an in-game prompt the first time you tried to perform said action. One nice touch that was in this game was the option to cycle between numerous characters when they were nearby and you had the option to speak to them.

I did have some issues with the controls, mainly how difficult it was to control my character in the 'hub' areas. She would not step forward easily at all, and would charge off if I so much as nudged the control stick. This is especially annoying when you need to talk to certain NPCs and the option to do so vanishes because you've managed to step outside of their action space. Ironically, once you're out in the woods and are able to fight, you seem to move rather slowly - even your running speed isn't that fast.

To make the whole hub world a little easier to handle, either increase the NPCs action space so lunging forward won't prevent you from being able to interact with them, or allow the character to make smaller steps when nudging the control stick. It would certainly make me happy.

'Umm, sure. Whatever, dude.'
(Source: Unknown)

Ideas

The variation in gameplay coupled with the open world environment gives a good element of freedom to the gameplay; for example, if you want to improve your stats, you can forage, hunt or mine. The resources you acquire can be sold to the village or kept to upgrade your own weapons and inventory. You aren't stuck just stabbing low-level creatures for hours at a time. However, this open-world style doesn't leave you entirely abandoned trying to figure out what you have to do. The NPC characters offer suggestions and hints to guide you through the game's narrative, but the player isn't forced to follow these; you'll need to eventually, but if you want to ignore the quests and keep digging up mushrooms, nobody's going to stop you. This game also has a lot of nice touches; your character is fully customisable and can even be changed in-game. The other characters you interact with seem to have distinct personalities and their own unique way of phrasing things. I personally really like all the little animations your character perform when they're using the BBQ spit to roast meat or are low on stamina - it gives them a liveliness that's rather fun. There is also an option to play online with friends, or to take your game data on your Wii to a friend's house if they have the game, which both encourages a MMORPG feel but with real exclusivity - you get to choose who inhabits your virtual world. Also, some of the creatures are so cute, you'll actually feel pretty awful having to kill them for their resources or to fulfil quests. I like this as an addition; it makes you ponder the environment and the effect you have. Do you want to slaughter everything in sight or just kill what you need? You also get to play with a pet pig on the farm, which is weirdly cute; you can name it and everything! It's completely pointless but I'm really glad it's there.

An area where you get very little freedom is in the quests. More are made available as you complete them, but they are unlocked based on difficulty; this is good as it lets the player slowly build up their skills and technique, but it doesn't let you just try an extreme difficulty quest just for the hell of it. It also seems that if you fail a quest then that's that; you can't replay it. This seems a little silly because you can just quit and reload a saved game to get around this, so why bother making a failed quest unplayable again? One thing I found rather odd was that you can choose a name for your character, but nobody seems to use it in the game. I could understand if the dialogue was spoken as this would be fairly impossible to do accurately, but all the dialogue is in text! It would be no problem to add the name for the character here in place of 'hey, you!'. In relation to this, I found playing as a female character resulted in some slightly odd conversations. They were mainly gender-neutral, but the chief's son suggested at one point that I should basically flatter the guild sweetheart a bit so that she gets me good quests. Is she gay? Am I gay? I don't really mind either way, but it jumped out as being a bit unusual for a casual acquaintance to throw that out as a suggestion. The same situation occurs when the 'Gal with the Goods' gets excited when she realises you're a hunter and proclaims herself to be a 'hunter groupie'. I was left feeling that the writers didn't realise the connotations of that, regardless of my character's gender.

It would be great if the name you select for your character was actually used in the text dialogue to increase the personal touch. I'd also like it if more challenging quests were made available early on, just so you could try your luck if you felt like it. In fact, it would be an interesting feature to up the gain you make on a high difficulty quest when you are inexperienced for it, just to reward you for chutzpah - but then really punish you for overreaching if you mess up. Oh, and if the writers could look up Pamela Des Barres, that'd be great too.

You can go hunting at night around several green areas in London, too. You just garner a different reputation.(Source: Unknown)

Memory

This is a really enjoyable, slow paced game that encourages you to explore and practice a wide variety of skills, while utilising them to gain tangible rewards to further you through the game. As you play, you always feel as though you're progressing in some way, however small; a game like this could easily leave you frustrated as you hunt and forage with seemingly no advancement to show for it. The conversations you have with the NPCs are generally dotted with gentle humour and you are actively encouraged to be social and cooperative throughout the game.

With a slow-paced game like this, obviously it takes several hours just to scratch the surface. So far, however, it feels as though there isn't much of a challenge. I can see that the player will meet stronger and more vicious creatures to fight, but it also felt a bit like you were just going through the motions. There was nothing to really think about in terms of tactics or strategy beyond the obvious. In fact, the first quest you get is an incredibly easy 'pick some mushrooms' task - and even your guild contact apologises for it being dull.

I think a lot of the issues I had with the onset of monotony will be cleared up as you go through the game. The manual boasts of setting up traps and learning to capture instead of killing creatures; it just seems to take too long to get there. I'd like to see some simple baiting or luring tactics brought in much earlier; maybe some villagers could hold fishing lessons or snare classes - something optional that lets you have a go at these abilities without impinging on the overall narrative and skill building. This would give potential players a taste of things to come and keep them going through mushroom foraging quests.

Overall, this is quite an immersive game that provides plenty of distractions from the overall goal to keep you entertained, and has a nice sprinkling of gentle humour to keep the tone from getting too dark. Some of the clunky controls and awkward icons can make the gameplay a little frustrating, however.