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Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate announced for Wii U/3DS, coming to West, no 3DS online

To prepare for Ultimate, I've fired up Tri again. I fucking hate Diablos. Stupid fucker stays underground 90% of the time, and rages 80% of the time, so sonic bombs are actually pretty much useless. Hope that asshole got nerfed in Ultimate.

Tri is supposed to be harder, right...?

Black Diablos says hi!
 
What are people talking about when they say "45 degree turning?" MH's direction controls are analog on the left stick. You have a turning radius and can't instantly change directions, but I'm not sure where that fits in to peoples' complaints.



It depends. You can adjust the direction of your Greatsword overhead swings in a small cone like you're describing.

Draw to bow and slowly roll the analog stick. try to slightly adjust aim to the left or right. You can't, your character will do drastic insta turns.
 
Sorry but drinking longer doesn't work. That way the heal would take longer. Leaving it at just drinking makes it too easy and a cooldown isn#t a good solution, because if I am good at positioning myself I can grab a few drinks quickly.

The thing is all these problems you say make sense within the game's world and rules and would be easily acceptable and fixable. Healing could take longer making the game harder, or it could take longer but the pace of the fights could be slowed down accordingly. Healing could be done before the animation was over but the remainder of the could be something that makes sense maybe take some time storing the bottle or something.
Cooldown could (should) be very short just to avoid spamming, but the effectiveness of the potions could be increased slightly for example.
There are tons of ways to go about this in a sensible way, a way that doesn't break the cohesiveness and logic of the game, it could be merely aesthetic changes, but they would make sense. It might seem the same if he takes 5 seconds with 2 flexing or 5 seconds just drinking/doing something logical, because the effect is the same, but it breaks the illusion and is, in my opinion, bad game design.
EDIT: Not that this is a huge problem of course, but there has to be a balance between not understanding what MH is about and judging it by Bayonetta standards and being intransigent when it comes to changing what's wrong.
 
This is atrociuous.

Oh fuck no. I managed to forget about this poor excuse for a terrible joke and now they got another early review? I don't want to believe that these got some official review copies.

What an awful gimmick. How the hell do they also already have a Lego City Undercover review?

Not funny. At least they gave it a good score.

I can't stand them

Ha! Review had me in stitches!

"Let's see you swing a hammer that weighs as much as a dead baby rhino while wearing dead animal body parts left out in the sun while doing the ma-ca-reeenaaaa"
 
Draw to bow and slowly roll the analog stick. try to slightly adjust aim to the left or right. You can't, your character will do drastic insta turns.

Yeah, you basically have RE4 tank controls with aiming mode for the bow, and it's also intentional. D-pad to adjust your aim or turn slowly, analog stick to turn your whole character around. The solution is to either not use the analog stick while bow aiming, or just let go of R for a bit.

Anyone know how smooth the framerate is on the 3DS version?

Jumps around a little in the demo. Apparently the full version lets you manually disable 3D to get closer to constant 60, but I'd say both versions hover somewhere in the upper 30's/lower 40's, going higher when you're in enclosed parts of the map like caves.
 
lol. you sound like such a bad ass in the tech threads. :p
I play solo, using an original CC with a broken R button that only does something when it feels like it - and my preferred weapon is the switch axe. I'm not so much fighting the monsters, I'm fighting an unergonomic and broken gamepad most of the time... lol
 
A while back I downloaded the Demo on my GF's Wii U and left it there. Today I caught her playing when I came out of the shower. I am pleased. I think I may be able to put in serious time now as long as I get her hooked.
 
Its official: “Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate” will be available at 22. 3. 2013 at midnight from the eShop. I just saw the banner right now at the graphic from the demo in the eShop here in germany.

That’s nice, because you have not change the discs while playing off-tv.

Very glad that this download will become available just in time.
 
I play solo, using an original CC with a broken R button that only does something when it feels like it - and my preferred weapon is the switch axe. I'm not so much fighting the monsters, I'm fighting an unergonomic and broken gamepad most of the time... lol

lol, just teasing..
 
]blacky[;49342029 said:
Its official: “Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate” will be available at 22. 3. 2013 at midnight from the eShop. I just saw the banner right now at the graphic from the demo in the eShop here in germany.

That’s nice, because you have not change the discs while playing off-tv.

Very glad that this download will become available just in time.

Midnight digital launch for one of my favorite series, while I'm on a break from school.

Vo5Af1O.gif
 
Let's not lump everything in the same bag though. Some things make sense, others don't, not realizing that leads to stagnation.
Yup. I wouldn't want to get rid of the unique quirks that make Monster Hunter what it is. Potions are fine, the weapon balance is almost unmatched by other games and the melee combat design in general (outdated character models and animations aside) is fantastic.

But fuck, if you think that the tiny areas, frequent loading screens and monsters spawning inside a loading area are part of the "charm", you've totally lost me. >_>
 
]blacky[;49342029 said:
Its official: “Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate” will be available at 22. 3. 2013 at midnight from the eShop. I just saw the banner right now at the graphic from the demo in the eShop here in germany.

That’s nice, because you have not change the discs while playing off-tv.

Very glad that this download will become available just in time.

That's very good for the people who want to get it that way. I am sticking with my cheaper retail copy though. ;)

Yup. I wouldn't want to get rid of the unique quirks that make Monster Hunter what it is. Potions are fine, the weapon balance is almost unmatched by other games and the melee combat design in general (outdated character models and animations aside) is fantastic.

But fuck, if you think that the tiny areas, frequent loading screens and monsters spawning inside a loading area are part of the "charm", you've totally lost me. >_>

These things I can agree with.
 
There's always alternative solutions.
What if you could animation cancel, and the animation consisted of 3 gulps (charges). Each gulp only restoring a portion of the characters health. So you could animation cancel on the second gulp and only get 2/3 of the potion's benefit.
I would be okay with that if only because I tend to forget to swap out my Mega Potions for Herbs whenever I feel like embarrassing myself with Adrenaline+2.

Either make it just the drinking animation and leave it at that or make the drinking animation longer. There are plenty of ways to work around that, item cooldown, faster enemies (if by any chance touching this would screw up combat, which I don't think it would).

Being hit because your character is flexing for no reason doesn't make any sense, regardless of comedic intent. The running animation doesn't hurt you at all, it's funny and that's that, the same can't be said about the drinking pose.
Fair enough. Seems like a minor subjective complaint in the grand scheme of things but the flexing animation isn't something I'm too attached to to care, provided the difficulty/mechanics aren't affected in the process.

Faster enemies would be really something. Fighting Ala on a modded quest with its speed turned up was probably the craziest quest I've tried on Tri.

3 Ultimate's more challenging than Tri since it includes G-Rank quests (highest difficulty quests). Tri only goes up to high rank I think.
But you also get better equipment from those G-rank monsters. Isn't G-rank equipment really overpowered?
 
No, I work at a Best Buy, so our store got it this early.

Do you think I'd be bothering to chat with you guys if I actually got the game for myself?!

LOL ok.

I wonder if they will send it out this early here in Europe as well. The shop where I pre-ordered usually send out stuff as soon as they get it...
 
Either make it just the drinking animation and leave it at that or make the drinking animation longer. There are plenty of ways to work around that, item cooldown, faster enemies (if by any chance touching this would screw up combat, which I don't think it would).

Being hit because your character is flexing for no reason doesn't make any sense, regardless of comedic intent.

Also sharpening a weapon in a couple seconds doesn't make any sense, nor does whipping out a huge heavy barrel of gunpowder out of nowhere.

I insist that the character no longer flex and also take at least 5 minutes to sharpen and that we must roll the barrels out to the battle site manually.
 
No, I work at a Best Buy, so our store got it this early.

Do you think I'd be bothering to chat with you guys if I actually got the game for myself?!
Are you guys allowed to "break street date" for yourselves? I'm guessing not but I thought employees couldn't even touch the games that aren't ready for sale.
 
The drinking animation alone is enough for that, why does the character need to do that pose afterwards? "There's a gigantic Fire breathing dragon behind me coming to eat me, I should celebrate the fact that I drank a potion by standing in the same place and doing a pose!"
It's not about the animation, it's about the time it takes. The pose isn't necessary, but it actually serves a purpose: It shows you very clearly where you are in the animation. Because the duration as a whole is timed, and that timing is part of the overall balance. They could remove the pose, and instead let the character take two or three gulps instead of one to achieve the same overall frame count, but the pose makes things more obvious. And more fun. Because it looks funnier getting blown away during a pose than during a gulp.

Being unrealistic, fun and funny was always part of Monster Hunter. If you play with friends, even dying can be fun if it happens in a hilarious way. That's part of what sets MH apart.
 
But you also get better equipment from those G-rank monsters. Isn't G-rank equipment really overpowered?

Well, yeah, sorta. But you don't start out with G-rank equipment so you're still stuck with high rank ones at some point. And the spheres you need to upgrade them are also not that common so it may take a while before you get to max them out. But yeah, once you have a fully upgraded G-rank set and weapon, it should get easier. But still nowhere near high rank levels.

Would also like to add that some DLC quests can get really difficult even with fully upgraded G-rank armors so if you're looking for a challenge, be sure to watch out for them (assuming we'd also get the same DLC quests from 3G).
 
lol, indeed. though the female gunner has an eye patch, and i'm a sucker for shit like that.

Hampers your ability to gauge depth though, which is important for shooting. You'd think it would make more sense to give eyepatches to the blademasters instead. :P

As for the recent debates...yes, Monster Hunter is not flawless. A lot of design decisions that set it apart from other games are very deliberate and lend value to the experience, but that doesn't mean that there isn't still room to change things, and bring the series up-to-date in other facets. Slow movement and attacks are fine, and now that all the weapons are back it's simple enough to focus on sword and shield or dual blades if you really want to complain about slow attacks. I like that they've added the target-cam into Ultimate and 4, and I think it strikes a very nice balance between those who want a lock-on and the old-schoolers.

Separated zones requiring loading screens, though...I really hope that's gone by the time the inevitable MH5 rolls around. They can still design the maps with regions in mind, even keep them somewhat distinct from each other through natural barriers like canyons and dense forestry and the like, but I'd hope that technology is good enough now that we don't have these completely cut-off areas like there are now, and I think it would go a long way towards making monster fights flow more naturally and more dramatically. Just imagine, if you're wounded for instance and a monster catches on to that and tries to rush you. Suddenly there's no convenient zone-break line to hide behind, instead you're left to drastically run across the map, dodging attacks while being constantly stalked, and the rest of your hunting party scrambles to catch up to the chase. It would add a greater sense of scale to the world you're exploring, too. And it would play in well to the emphasis on climbing and hunter mobility that's taking focus in 4.
 
No, I work at a Best Buy, so our store got it this early.

Do you think I'd be bothering to chat with you guys if I actually got the game for myself?!

Stores already receiving shipments? I might have to check around some stores like Staples and Shoppers to see if anything turns up. They've helped me with early releases in the past (3DS XL, Smash Bros Brawl a full week early).
 
Separated zones requiring loading screens, though...I really hope that's gone by the time the inevitable MH5 rolls around. They can still design the maps with regions in mind, even keep them somewhat distinct from each other through natural barriers like canyons and dense forestry and the like, but I'd hope that technology is good enough now that we don't have these completely cut-off areas like there are now, and I think it would go a long way towards making monster fights flow more naturally and more dramatically. Just imagine, if you're wounded for instance and a monster catches on to that and tries to rush you. Suddenly there's no convenient zone-break line to hide behind, instead you're left to drastically run across the map, dodging attacks while being constantly stalked, and the rest of your hunting party scrambles to catch up to the chase. It would add a greater sense of scale to the world you're exploring, too. And it would play in well to the emphasis on climbing and hunter mobility that's taking focus in 4.

That sounds like a ton of added mechanical baggage that I honestly wouldn't trust Capcom to implement well if it was added all at once. It is a little archaic, yes, but Monster Hunter does its psuedo-Phantasy Star Online shtick really well, and suddenly throwing out some of its mechanics for dramatically different ones would be extremely jarring. What you're describing would require overhauled monster AI to allow them to chase/stalk you while not catching up too fast. Running vast distances across a realistically proportioned map would also take a very long time, which would mean they would have to redesign mission time limits and also make finding the monster at the start of the hunt a huge ordeal. That's no less than three non-trivial aspects of the game's design that would need to be gutted and re-done to make the scenario possible.

They're all interesting ideas, but they're not simple, no-brainer improvements by any stretch of the imagination. I'd much rather they experiment with them in spinoff game or Dragon's Dogma 2, then merge the changes back onto the main series if they're confident that they'd work well.
 
The drinking animation alone is enough for that, why does the character need to do that pose afterwards? "There's a gigantic Fire breathing dragon behind me coming to eat me, I should celebrate the fact that I drank a potion by standing in the same place and doing a pose!"
But they decided it's not enough. The pose is there to extend the animation to last just as long as it does.

If you're suggesting you want the animation to just be shorter in general to make it easier for you to consume items, there is an armor skill for that. If you want it, you gotta plan for it. If not, learn to work around it.

Edit: messed up there, didnt realize I wasnt on the last page, and you had already clarified that your problem was moreso the "unfittingness" of the pose animation. apologies.
 
]blacky[;49342029 said:
Its official: “Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate” will be available at 22. 3. 2013 at midnight from the eShop. I just saw the banner right now at the graphic from the demo in the eShop here in germany.

That’s nice, because you have not change the discs while playing off-tv.

Very glad that this download will become available just in time.
Awesome. I noticed LEGO will also be up at midnight, but that's a first-party game.

Guess what we just received today!
The new bible?
 
Fair enough. Seems like a minor subjective complaint in the grand scheme of things but the flexing animation isn't something I'm too attached to to care, provided the difficulty/mechanics aren't affected in the process.

It is a minor complaint of course, I specifically said so. It was just the first thing that popped in my mind when giving examples.

Also sharpening a weapon in a couple seconds doesn't make any sense, nor does whipping out a huge heavy barrel of gunpowder out of nowhere.

I insist that the character no longer flex and also take at least 5 minutes to sharpen and that we must roll the barrels out to the battle site manually.
There's a reason why I repeatedly said that things make sense inside the game's world.

It's not about the animation, it's about the time it takes. The pose isn't necessary, but it actually serves a purpose: It shows you very clearly where you are in the animation. Because the duration as a whole is timed, and that timing is part of the overall balance. They could remove the pose, and instead let the character take two or three gulps instead of one to achieve the same overall frame count, but the pose makes things more obvious. And more fun. Because it looks funnier getting blown away during a pose than during a gulp.

Being unrealistic, fun and funny was always part of Monster Hunter. If you play with friends, even dying can be fun if it happens in a hilarious way. That's part of what sets MH apart.

But they decided it's not enough. The pose is there to extend the animation to last just as long as it does.

If you're suggesting you want the animation to just be shorter in general to make it easier for you to consume items, there is an armor skill for that. If you want it, you gotta plan for it. If not, learn to work around it.

You clearly didn't get me at all. I know perfectly well that it's about forcing you to time things, I didn't particularly suffer from it, I don't think the time it takes is bad nor am I asking it to cut it short (I just said it could be one possible solution to this issue) but what comes across to someone not thinking about the strings pulling the puppets is that it's stupid.

You might say that the animation is there because it's funny, but I say to you that this is the only instance in the game like this, it's completely unlike everything else in the game. Nowhere else is your control over the character impeded for comedy value. There's hilarious text, there are funny animations, but it never interferes with gameplay. Here, the idea that comes across is that it does. Of course, it doesn't, the devs wanted that recovery time to be there, so it would be there anyway, but it breaks the illusion of the game's world.

Of course this specific thing is a minor thing, just something that bugged me, but I find it representative of a lot of important aspects of MH. Granted some people don't get the game at all and want it to be DMC, but for people who go in with the right mindset you get why the characters are slow, you get why you can't change directions easily during combos, the same way you get why you're not actually hauling around a bag with your items, these things all make sense in that world.
Moving slightly from this, the flex animation after drinking/eating has no logical place in that world. You have to step back and think about what's going on behind the scenes to justify why a game where timing your actions and understanding their consequences is king has you completely vulnerable so your character can flex after eating when a gigantic monster is in front of him.

This is a minor thing of course, after all, changing just what we see would solve it, but take another step further and do you get why aiming is like it is? Sure, you get used to it, but it sucks all the same. Do you get the loading between zones? Of course, we actually get it looking at it well, not only is it necessary technically, but it also brings advantages to the gameplay, but when you're inside the game, it's an immediate and logical complaint.
I mentioned the potion thing because I was just giving examples, I don't think it's a big deal, what it is though is a good example of Capcom throwing in obstacles in a seemingly arbitrary way, because the game has to be hard and it has to be clunky, this is how it is, this is how it will always be, so say we all.

And to be clear, because I know people read what they want to read and like to put people in camps, I like MH the way it is, slow, heavy and deliberate, I just don't think clinging tightly to the past and to certain aspects is healthy for the future of the series and I just played Tri!
I'm also playing the 3DS version right now, but don't tell anyone.
 
There's a circle pad pro xl? I thought only the OG 3DS has it and it uses 1 AAA battery

Came out in Japan in either November (or was it December?) and it'll be out in Europe on the same day as MH3U. North America will probably get it at some point, but it's hard to say when.
 
That sounds like a ton of added mechanical baggage that I honestly wouldn't trust Capcom to implement well if it was added all at once. It is a little archaic, yes, but Monster Hunter does its psuedo-Phantasy Star Online shtick really well, and suddenly throwing out some of its mechanics for dramatically different ones would be extremely jarring. What you're describing would require overhauled monster AI to allow them to chase/stalk you while not catching up too fast. Running vast distances across a realistically proportioned map would also take a very long time, which would mean they would have to redesign mission time limits and also make finding the monster at the start of the hunt a huge ordeal. That's no less than three non-trivial aspects of the game's design that would need to be gutted and re-done to make the scenario possible.

They're all interesting ideas, but they're not simple, no-brainer improvements by any stretch of the imagination. I'd much rather they experiment with them in spinoff game or Dragon's Dogma 2, then merge the changes back onto the main series if they're confident that they'd work well.

I don't think that the changes I'm suggesting are really quite as drastic as you seem to think they are. Improved monster AI, yes, but I wouldn't call it any more "overhauled" to have a monster continually target a single player for a period of time than to have it target hunters however it does now. How much more of an "overhaul" would it take than the changes they implemented to monster behavior in Tri?

And I think you're overblowing what I meant with regards to the map. I'm not talking "scale" in terms of making the actual areas all that much larger than they already are in generations 3 and 4, just interconnecting them in a more seamless fashion. Most of the pathways between areas are already given visual cues to shuttle you through the zone breaks, I'd just propose streaming in the next area as you start to cross through those corridors so you don't have to actually break up the action with a loading screen. With the tech that will be at the developers' disposal by the time MH5 were to be released, I'm not going to continue treating Capcom's developers with kid gloves on that issue, as though creating a world without broken-up loading screens is some impossible technical feat. I'm (relatively) new to the series having only started with Tri, but I really like it and want to hold it to high standards.
 
I don't think that the changes I'm suggesting are really quite as drastic as you seem to think they are. Improved monster AI, yes, but I wouldn't call it any more "overhauled" to have a monster continually target a single player for a period of time than to have it target hunters however it does now. How much more of an "overhaul" would it take than the changes they implemented to monster behavior in Tri?

And I think you're overblowing what I meant with regards to the map. I'm not talking "scale" in terms of making the actual areas all that much larger than they already are in generations 3 and 4, just interconnecting them in a more seamless fashion. Most of the pathways between areas are already given visual cues to shuttle you through the zone breaks, I'd just propose streaming in the next area as you start to cross through those corridors so you don't have to actually break up the action with a loading screen. With the tech that will be at the developers' disposal by the time MH5 were to be released, I'm not going to continue treating Capcom's developers with kid gloves on that issue, as though creating a world without broken-up loading screens is some impossible technical feat. I'm (relatively) new to the series having only started with Tri, but I really like it and want to hold it to high standards.
There's a multiplayer glitch that lets you explore areas that the devs didn't intend for you to enter. The glitch for Tri involves pellet shots and you would probably be surprised how big some of the zones really are if Capcom chose to open them up. (Granted, it's not quite as cool as it sounds since you could just as well find yourself falling forever through featureless space.)

I think that small zones are really a monster AI problem.
 
So Oichi (?) claims that Gigginox is popular with women in Japan. Is that true? I don't think I've ever seen any Gigginox fanart. Except the one where Giggi and Khezu are musclemen in speedos.
 
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