The RPG section of the Wii library is currently gathering cobwebs and several inches of dust have gathered over the blisteringly awful Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World and Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Crystal Bearers, so I was intrigued when I discovered that Monster Hunter Tri was a Wii-exclusive.  Will it finally appease the hunger of Wii RPG fans?  Let’s take a look.

Developer: Capcom Production Studio 1
Publisher: Capcom
Genre: RPG
Console(s): Wii

The verdict: Monster Hunter Tri is classic Monster Hunter­ to the core and effectively plays like an MMO.  Your enjoyment of it depends on how enthusiastic you are with resource gathering and monster killing, but getting online is a blast.

If you’re just joining the Monster Hunter party, this is a franchise that has enjoyed plenty of success and awareness in Japan, but hasn’t made as much of a dent in Western markets.  The game is pure Monster Hunter to the core – you fight, you collect resources, you grow stronger, and you eventually take on the biggest, baddest monsters that across both land and sea.  If this is starting to sound like World of Warcraft, it’s a valid comparison.  Monster Hunter Tri effectively carries the pros and cons of both – but as with any MMO, getting online makes it much more fun.

Entering Mogo Village

Monster Hunter Tri is unorthodox from a single player perspective in the lack of a cohesive plot or narrative.  The arching goal is that a seaside village is being terrorized by a massive sea creature, and as a monster hunter it’s up to you to take it down.  Of course, you aren’t strong enough to face the mighty monster quite yet.  You’ll need to complete various quests, collect resources, and upgrade your weapons for the big finale.

The lack of a plot and the rigid method of questing echo most MMORPGs, and thus will likely alienate a fair number of players.  Most gamers tend to have a fairly regular definition of an RPG as something involving a lot of plot, but Monster Hunter Tri feels a lot like The Witcher with regards to how gameplay feels like an offline MMO.  In fairness, Monster Hunter Tri doesn’t have any pretention towards being something other than its own successful if simplistic formula.  It’s probably better to work with what you know rather than risk alienating your original fan base.

One sign that the lack of single player narrative wasn’t Capcom cutting corners is the surprisingly well-written dialogue and writing.  This isn’t a dialogue-heavy story by any means, but occasional lines spouted by locals are full of wit and humor that bring a genuine sense of life to the world.  Capcom evidently realized that if you’re going to have very little dialogue in a game, you’d better make it count.  The village itself also feels very bustling, with several places to visit.  The Stockpile is an invaluable source of information and a place where you can turn in your collected resources.  Other areas like The Argosy – a steamer ship – are great for just listening to the latest rumor or trading.

Kill this number of that monster

Single player gameplay is where Monster Hunter Tri starts flailing around.  The first warning I’m going to dispense is that you’d better have a Classic Controller on hand, and Capcom has gone as far as releasing a version of Monster Hunter Tri bundled with the Classic Controller.  Using the Wii Remote is one of the most unintuitive and sporadically annoying setups I’ve ever seen on a Wii game, making it virtually mandatory that you have a Classic Controller ready.  When you do use the more reliable controller the controls become adequate and functional, if a little awkward.

If you can imagine the single player quests of an MMORPG applied as the backbone of quests in Monster Hunter Tri you’ll have a pretty good idea of what to expect.  You complete quests for The Guild, of which there are a moderate variety.  You’ll often need to gather materials from environments to create potions and other consumables to help you in battle.  Other times you’ll be fighting a specific monster and need to kill or capture it.  You have access to a farm that will provide additional resources, and you can acquire parts for new weapons and armor from downed monsters.  There’s not much meat in any of these quests, and the novelty of winning your first few quests quickly devolves into the constant grind you would indeed see in an MMO.

I am a fantastic monster, hear me roar!

The strength of the combat lies in the well designed and sometimes spectacular creatures that Capcom developed.  The payoff for gathering resources and creating new weapons and armor is going toe to toe with some huge, detailed monsters on both land and sea.  Even relatively smaller monsters like the gentle, deerlike Kelbi, boast very animal-like designs, movements, and appearances.  As creatures get larger, they get even more impressive from the charging, rhinocerous-like Rhenoplos to the powerful raptor-reminiscent Great Jaggi   The scope of these larger creatures is amazing; but be warned, they’re not pushovers.  It will take a considerable amount of resource harvesting, strategy, and item stocking to emerge victorious, but when you see your colossal opponent keel after chipping its last bit of health away, it’s a rewarding feeling.

Combat itself is functional and generally fun, if somewhat clunky due to the aforementioned controls.  You have seven conventional weapons at your disposal, all of which do a good job on catering to different playstyles.  The Sword and Shield, for example, allows you to switch quickly between offensive and defensive play.  The Great Sword, by comparison, has much larger range and power, but you have less defense and speed that could leave you vulnerable.  One quirk is that combat events take a few too many crucial seconds – you may agonize over how long it seems to take for your character to get up after being knocked down.  The complexity of the system may daunt newcomers, but the tutorial is helpful enough to make things much easier on rookies.

Signing onto fun

The Monster Hunter series has always been a social experience, and playing online with friends yields a whole new level of fun.  Capcom has made superb use of the online capabilities of the Wii – much more so than most third party developers.  With the help of WiiSpeak or a USB keyboard, you and a team can work together, plan strategies accordingly, and share in the glory of felling the massive monsters on land, or witnessing the finishing blow to a colossal sea creature.  Online play was surprisingly smooth and occasional bits of slowdown never interfered with combat.

The true benefit of online play comes in combat, where you discover the advantages you can have to going in with four players carrying four different types of weapons rather than just you against the world.  The capacity for strategy is expanded noticeably with more players, but monsters are still hard enough that everyone feels necessary.  You’ll never find that you’re just an extra sword while your comrades are the ones dealing all the damage – everybody has a role to play and will reap the spoils of hunting.

Both online and offline, the Monster Hunter Tri universe looks fantastic.  This is easily one of the best looking games on the Wii; environments are vibrant and diverse, from snowy landscapes to murky swamps, to the underwater atmospheres where you’ll take on some of the toughest opponents in the game.  Character models are detailed and weapons – if a little bizarrely proportioned – are colorful and have a great look to them.  The downside is that this inevitably taxes the processing power on the Wii in the form of fairly frequent loading screens, but they’re short and never occur at a too inconvenient time.

Conclusion

Monster Hunter Tri may not have a compelling single player – or any real plot, for that matter – but it’s a game that knows what it wants to be, and it does a lot to be accommodating to newcomers.  It also takes admirable advantage of the Wii technology both offline and online.  Despite the grind it’s a fun experience, especially with friends.  It’s safe to say that you know whether you’re interested in this resource harvesting, primarily team-based, monster killing action, so if this is the type of game that appeals to you Monster Hunter Tri definitely stands above the competition.

Disclaimer: This copy of Monster Hunter Tri was provided by Capcom for review purposes.