Monster Hunter Tri

Before you start reading this review, I want you to make a list in your head of all of your favourite games. If you're anything like me, that list will include one or two epic RPGs (Chrono Trigger and Fallout), a platformer (Super Mario Bros. 3), a couple of adventure games (Loom and Grim Fandango), maybe a strategy game (Fire Emblem) and one FPS (Metroid Prime).

To enjoy Monster Hunter Tri, though, your list has to look a lot different from my list. Your favourite games of all time have to be World of Warcraft, anything Dungeons and Dragons, and, um, a sports game.

It's weird to say, but Monster Hunter Tri absolutely is a sports game. It's NHL2K10 with killing. It's Pro Evolution Soccer with item combining. It's… OK, you get my drift.

Coming into the game, I had a completely different idea of what I was going to be getting myself into. I had some familiarity with the series, but I hadn't actually took the time to sit down and play the thing. I knew that it was the biggest thing to come out of Japan since ramen, but somehow, through all these years, the Monster Hunter franchise has managed to stay firmly rooted in Japan only. This iteration is the first true shot out into the wild frontiers of the West, and it's a sometimes baffling, sometimes awesome amalgamation of the traditional third-person action/adventure framework with deep (nearly bottomless) customization and near-simulation aspects.

This is absolutely the most daunting game I've ever played on my Wii. Moreso even than my beloved Fire Emblem, Monster Hunter Tri values a close examination of veritable spreadsheets of information if you want to survive and do well in the game. You start off the game as a character of your creation, either male or female. From there, you set off to Moga village, a quaint, seaside place with a bit of an earthquake problem. But that's no earthquake – that's a space station — erm, a Lagiacrus, a giant, sea-dwelling creature. You might want to jump right in and fight the shit out of the Lagiacrus, but that'd be a poor idea. MHT isn't a game with much of a story. I realize that this is true of all Monster Hunter games, but I still can't help but feel a bit disappointed. This feels like a situation and setting perfect for telling a compelling story, but it doesn't.

Sure, Monster Hunter Tri is half about the actual mechanics of fighting the various beasts that stalk the land — the running, dodging, parrying, blocking, attacking are all just fine, and the weapons all feel like they have a realistic heft to them — but it's also half management simulator. I bring up the sports game analogy for a reason – this is exactly like a Franchise mode in a sports game. Each of your hunts is basically like a "game," and all of the behind the scenes stuff you have to do to get ready, including managing your armor and weapons, forging new weapons, and making sure you have enough of the myriad items required to fell beasts (including whetstones to sharpen your blades, a BBQ spit to make food to refresh your endurance, various mixed herbs to cure a wide variety of status ailments, and so on and so on), well, more than anything, it reminded me more of leading Celtic to the UEFA Cup in FIFA '06 than it did of, say, Zelda.

Michael Thomsen makes reference to this in his obnoxiously pretentious "Contrarian Corner" piece, but it's worth mentioning again – Monster Hunter Tri isn't your friend in a lot of ways. For a game all about statistics, you never see how many hit points an enemy has; you never see how a whetstone makes your weapon stronger or weaker; you never know exactly what everything in the game does unless you delve right into the Hunter's Notes and manuals and such. Yet, I don't necessarily see this as a weakness. In fact, I wish more games kind of tossed you out into the wild like this – hell, hunters never see the hit points of their prey, they just rely on visual and aural cues, exactly like you have to in this game. That Capcom pulled off doing exactly that is impressive, to say the least.

On paper, MHT would appear to be some serious fan service for that exceptionally whiny "hardcore Wii" crowd. It reads like an over-excited review from a 90s gaming magazine: Classic Controller Pro support! Functional, integrated online experience that doesn't suck! Good animations and lovely environments running at a steady framerate! Yes, these things are all there, and are all really nice. I was quite surprised how sucked in I was with the online mode, as I'm generally not the biggest proponent of it. But in this game, Capcom did a really good job – there's a variety of servers for different levels of experience, the ability to chat using WiiSpeak (which I don't have, unfortunately) or a USB keyboard, and how the game generally gets better when there's people around. I may have mentioned that I suck at videogames, and it sure was nice to have some backup in those instances. I'd love to play the game with friends, too.

It took me some time (about 8 hours) before I got into the game, but MHT does reward patience. Once you get that far into the game, you start to get a grasp on all of the mechanics (although some things stay weird, like holding the L button and scrolling through your items by pressing y or x, I mean, WTF?) and the game settles into a nice rhythm that I could see eating up the lives of people less busy than I am.

Yet, for all its strengths (and don't get me wrong, I absolutely am praising the game), I didn't feel it was a game that was made for me. It feels weird to say, but I wish it was less complicated, more streamlined. And I have to admit that the central hook of the game – that is, killing "monsters" and harvesting their corpses for resources – was something that put me off. It felt actually kind of despicable. I've mentioned this at length before, but I have to say that the fact that I enjoyed the game despite this should tell you what the quality of the game is. It's incredibly high. In fact, I'd say that with that concept in place, there's only a few things that I would tweak in the game, knowing that the game isn't for me. It is a game for a lot of people, though, and if you're one of those people, you might have just found your new love interest. Because, let's face it, once you start playing this game seriously, you may not have time for a real love interest. Just sayin'.