Hands-on | Monster Hunter Tri

Format: Wii | Genre: Action | Publisher: Capcom | Developer: Capcom | ETA: April 2010

The controls are the same underwater as they are over ground, only with the added 3-D element. A group of us took on the Lagiacrus, the underwater boss monster featured on the box art. He took us from a beach environment to underground, switching back and forth between land and sea. Learning how to put up with monsters who constantly switch between screens to gain tactical advantage can take a while to get used to. It’s all rather frustrating at times, especially since monsters don’t have a health bar to judge from.

ON LAND AND SEA
During our four-player co-op against Lagiacrus, the monster moved between three screens – a beach, underwater near the beach and deeper underwater – with this movement seemingly triggered after a certain amount of damage was inflicted. The problem wasn’t that we had to constantly swim around after it. It was the serious loading times the game suffers from. Each time one of us was knocked out by the Lagiacrus, we would have to run through anywhere from four to six screens to return to the battle. Each required up to six seconds of loading time, which became increasingly frustrating as the battle went on, or even during the rest of the game. During earlier stages, loading times are not so much of an issue, since you’re quite close to the village, but the further you venture out the more noticeable it becomes.

There are two types of multiplayer modes this time around. There’s an arena based mode which pits two players against a choice of ten large monsters, against a time limit, and with a limited amount of continues to use up. There’s also four-player online co-op. In the Japanese version, playing online requires a monthly fee, but so far Capcom Europe have kept quiet about whether the Western version of Monster Hunter will carry on the tradition. With a dramatically smaller audience than Japan, it seems unlikely that Capcom would risk sales by charging their customers extra for an online feature.

The arena mode seems solid. It’s split-screen from top to bottom, and battles are much easier when you have a friend sat next to you to give and receive instructions. Time limits run from six to 20 minutes depending on the challenge, and you’re offered a stock build with items to battle with. You can also use your own hunter, and transport your hunter to your friend’s Wii by storing their data on your WiiMote – which makes it seemingly the first game to really take advantage of this feature.

It’s the four-player online functionality that has me the most interested, which switches you from your usual village to an online hub called Loc Lac. Here in Loc Lac you meet your online friends via the gathering hall, share meals, gain quests and basically take the singleplayer experience online. It’s strictly one person per console, however, so no split-screen online adventures for those of us who have friends at home.

We played via a LAN network, so it’s impossible to say much about the online status of Monster Hunter Tri. The map highlights where your friends are by coloured icons, so you will never get separated for long, and there’s plenty of content and online titles to gain by playing with your friends.

CROSSING BORDERS
We already know the game scored an impressive 40/40 in leading Japanese mag Famitsu. It sold a staggering 960,000 units, becoming the best-selling third-party game available on the Wii in Japan. But there’s often a stark difference between which games prove popular over there, and which succeed over here.

Japan loves games that test you, especially those that require you to dedicate hundreds of hours to really reap the benefits available. Monster Hunter is one of those hour-draining games, and whether Western audiences will warm to that remains to be seen.

On one side, we have exclusive weapons that are not in the Japanese version to get excited about and discovering epic battles underwater for the first time. On the other, we have a Wii online system that has not proved very reliable in the past, graphical potential lost (despite looking more than respectable given the hardware limitations) and a more ‘casual’ Wii-owning audience to target. Monster Hunter Tri will satisfy those who already have the hunger, but I’m still unsure whether it’ll manage to impress on a wider scale. By Lauren Wainwright

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