Sammy
September 17th, 2008, 11:35 AM
for those who have never played a MH game, the basic idea is to just have a more kickass set of armor than your friends' .... the only way to do this is to set out into the game's environments and take down one of the dozens of dragons/wyverns carve them up and start hoarding away their pieces for weapons and costumes.
The game plays out more like a fighting game (against a boss) than like an RPG. it gets brutally difficult, but very rewarding.
MH3 Pics (http://kotaku.com/5050940/monster-hunter-3-is-playable-at-tgs-look-at-it)
http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3169975
The producer and director discuss new environments, monsters, and gameplay.
By Kevin Gifford, 09/17/2008
Ryozo Tsujimoto and Kaname Fujioka have some serious work ahead. The producer and director of Capcom's Monster Hunter series respectively, the two project leads have seen their little game series -- a simple concept, really, just run your questing hunter around a bunch of fantasy environments and bag dragons and giant birds and things -- balloon into one of the hottest new game franchises in recent Japan history, with six titles and over 5.5 million copies sold in that nation alone. Catching that sort of lightning in a bottle (and further divvying the lightning up and cramming it into the plastic cases Wii games come packed in) is a tall order for anyone, but Tsujimoto and Fujioka are up to the task -- in this week's issue of Weekly Famitsu magazine, the two developers offered the first concrete details behind Monster Hunter 3, a game that seeks to reinvent the entire series while retaining everything gamers love to bits about it.
"Stating that we're trying to return to basics might give people the wrong idea, but the basic concept behind this project is to re-evaluate the Monster Hunter series from the ground up," Tsujimoto told Famitsu. "The ideas we've come up with as part of that re-evaluation process are finally beginning to take shape in the game right now."
What brought this rethinking process about in the first place? As Fujioka puts it, the decision to switch platforms from the PlayStation 2 to Nintendo's Wii (first announced last fall by Capcom) played a huge role: "Changing the platform allowed us to remake the game system at the root level. That was really key. Monster Hunter 2's system was largely an expansion on the original, but most of us on the design staff thought that simply extending on the first game would make truly expanding the gameplay difficult. With this, the platform's new, and it was an opportunity for us to start over from the beginning, from the graphics and monster handling on up. It's a groping, trial-and-error process like what we had in the first game."
As before, players will take up the role of mercenary hunters, accepting quests from the local village or city broker and setting off to explore a wide range of fields packed with wild monsters. Variety has always been something Monster Hunter's good at, with your hunter capable of everything from simple fishing to creating elaborate traps to snare dinosaur-sized game, and 3 seeks to further expand on that variety. As Tsujimoto explains, the AI that drives every environment's creatures has been vastly expanded: "How the monsters in each field are related, and how they live with each other, plays a large role in the game. In previous games, the situations you encountered in each area were scripted to some extent, but here, everything is constantly on the move in each environment, so your experience changes with that."
How does this work in-game? "Just as one example," Fujioka explains, "monsters up to now were largely discrete in nature, not really concerned much about others. In this game, they are constantly being influenced by who and what is around them. If the main boss monster in an area moves just a little, the entire situation nearby changes. Monsters deliberately attack each other all the time."
Sadly, nothing was revealed yet about Monster Hunter 3's Wiimote-driven control system. Instead, the developers preferred to concentrate on the game's new environments, including a tropical island filled with caves, forests, and even underwater sections where you'll hunt sharks and enormous sea serpents. As before, the game's playable either standalone or with up to four players online, although details on how online gameplay will work on the Wii were undisclosed.
Japanese gamers will get their first taste of Monster Hunter 3 on October 9, when Capcom unveils a playable version at their booth in the Tokyo Game Show. The title's a long way away from release (no date has been announced for Japan), but producer Tsujimoto is pretty confident that it'll please the legions of Japanese fans watching its every movement. "The third game will show gamers which way the series is going on home consoles," he told Famitsu. "I hope everyone eagerly awaits it."
apparently you can swim now, we'll see if there's Wiimote aiming for projectiles or not ... that would be very welcome!
http://www.cerebral-art.com/Sammy/myspace/mh/mh3c_122_418lo.jpg
http://www.cerebral-art.com/Sammy/myspace/mh/mh3d_122_482lo.jpg
The game plays out more like a fighting game (against a boss) than like an RPG. it gets brutally difficult, but very rewarding.
MH3 Pics (http://kotaku.com/5050940/monster-hunter-3-is-playable-at-tgs-look-at-it)
http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3169975
The producer and director discuss new environments, monsters, and gameplay.
By Kevin Gifford, 09/17/2008
Ryozo Tsujimoto and Kaname Fujioka have some serious work ahead. The producer and director of Capcom's Monster Hunter series respectively, the two project leads have seen their little game series -- a simple concept, really, just run your questing hunter around a bunch of fantasy environments and bag dragons and giant birds and things -- balloon into one of the hottest new game franchises in recent Japan history, with six titles and over 5.5 million copies sold in that nation alone. Catching that sort of lightning in a bottle (and further divvying the lightning up and cramming it into the plastic cases Wii games come packed in) is a tall order for anyone, but Tsujimoto and Fujioka are up to the task -- in this week's issue of Weekly Famitsu magazine, the two developers offered the first concrete details behind Monster Hunter 3, a game that seeks to reinvent the entire series while retaining everything gamers love to bits about it.
"Stating that we're trying to return to basics might give people the wrong idea, but the basic concept behind this project is to re-evaluate the Monster Hunter series from the ground up," Tsujimoto told Famitsu. "The ideas we've come up with as part of that re-evaluation process are finally beginning to take shape in the game right now."
What brought this rethinking process about in the first place? As Fujioka puts it, the decision to switch platforms from the PlayStation 2 to Nintendo's Wii (first announced last fall by Capcom) played a huge role: "Changing the platform allowed us to remake the game system at the root level. That was really key. Monster Hunter 2's system was largely an expansion on the original, but most of us on the design staff thought that simply extending on the first game would make truly expanding the gameplay difficult. With this, the platform's new, and it was an opportunity for us to start over from the beginning, from the graphics and monster handling on up. It's a groping, trial-and-error process like what we had in the first game."
As before, players will take up the role of mercenary hunters, accepting quests from the local village or city broker and setting off to explore a wide range of fields packed with wild monsters. Variety has always been something Monster Hunter's good at, with your hunter capable of everything from simple fishing to creating elaborate traps to snare dinosaur-sized game, and 3 seeks to further expand on that variety. As Tsujimoto explains, the AI that drives every environment's creatures has been vastly expanded: "How the monsters in each field are related, and how they live with each other, plays a large role in the game. In previous games, the situations you encountered in each area were scripted to some extent, but here, everything is constantly on the move in each environment, so your experience changes with that."
How does this work in-game? "Just as one example," Fujioka explains, "monsters up to now were largely discrete in nature, not really concerned much about others. In this game, they are constantly being influenced by who and what is around them. If the main boss monster in an area moves just a little, the entire situation nearby changes. Monsters deliberately attack each other all the time."
Sadly, nothing was revealed yet about Monster Hunter 3's Wiimote-driven control system. Instead, the developers preferred to concentrate on the game's new environments, including a tropical island filled with caves, forests, and even underwater sections where you'll hunt sharks and enormous sea serpents. As before, the game's playable either standalone or with up to four players online, although details on how online gameplay will work on the Wii were undisclosed.
Japanese gamers will get their first taste of Monster Hunter 3 on October 9, when Capcom unveils a playable version at their booth in the Tokyo Game Show. The title's a long way away from release (no date has been announced for Japan), but producer Tsujimoto is pretty confident that it'll please the legions of Japanese fans watching its every movement. "The third game will show gamers which way the series is going on home consoles," he told Famitsu. "I hope everyone eagerly awaits it."
apparently you can swim now, we'll see if there's Wiimote aiming for projectiles or not ... that would be very welcome!
http://www.cerebral-art.com/Sammy/myspace/mh/mh3c_122_418lo.jpg
http://www.cerebral-art.com/Sammy/myspace/mh/mh3d_122_482lo.jpg