Capcom and Nintendo have really been pushing Monster Hunter Tri in preparation for its late April release. The latest plan to spark interest for the series in the states comes in the form of a playable demo. While you do have to leave your house and visit a GameStop in order to pick the disc-based demo up, you won’t need a pre-order (though they might try to tell you it’s required, as they did on my visit).

Much like the downloadable demos for the PSP entries, you’ll start off with two selections to make. The first thing you’ll need to choose is which of the demo’s two monsters you want to take down. After that, you’ll pick one of ten characters. Each character is fully decked out with equipment focused on a specific weapon.

Each weapon type feels extremely different. The demo thankfully included a fold-out guide detailing how to use every character class. Without it, I would’ve been pretty lost as there is a lot of controls to remember. It’s basically a giant cheat sheet.

With the Classic Controller Pro bundle on the way, I figured the Wii Remote and Nunchuck scheme would be a joke, sacrificing precise attack timing for waggle. I was incredible wrong. Rather than making you swing to attack, Monster Hunter Tri uses the No More Heroes approach, and actually improves upon it.

The “A” button (and in certain cases, the “-” button for alternate abilities) is used to attack. But it’s much more complex than that. The orientation of your Wii Remote will determine which attack is done. Holding it normally, twisting it to the right, to the left, or even holding it upright can can result in completely different attacks and combos.

"The Qurupeco took quite some time to take down."

An especially clever use of the Wii Remote orientation is incorporated into the longsword. By using my “-” button attack, I could slash and jump backward immediately afterward. But if I had the Wii Remote tilted to the left or right, I would jump in that direction instead.

The Wii Remote’s d-pad can adjust the camera, but thankfully it works much better than in other games with that method. Holding “C” will switch the d-pad from camera control to item selection. Freely moving your character while navigating through your inventory has never felt better.

After the intuitive nature of this setup, I found the classic controller extremely confusing to use by comparison. Inventory, for example, was navigated with the “Y” and “A” buttons while holding another button. I found myself accidentally hitting the wrong button far more often. I will say, though, that the Classic Controller is better at camera adjustment since it is mapped to the right analogue stick.

There are slightly less weapon types in Monster Hunter Tri than in the last entry, but each type has more abilities than before.  The sword and shield type is by far the easiest to pickup, and I was impressed with how many different attacks I could perform with it.

The switch axe is an all new weapon to the series. It has two modes. In it’s default mode, it is a fairly ordinary axe. But with the touch of a button, you can transform it into an elemental sword. The sword mode uses a special gauge that must refill. You can use it to attack normally or even discharge the elemental energy into the enemy. It’s a pretty interesting weapon.

"The Great Jaggi had lots of little buddies to help in the fight."

I fought the Great Jaggi first; a modestly sized, dinosaur-like creature. Although it took some time, it was relatively easy. What made it a little tricky was that the Great Jaggi would call its young to come fight with it. I had to split my time between all the different enemies on screen.

Next up was the Qurupeco; an odd, winged creature with a big neck sack. This one didn’t seem too bad at first, but about halfway through my fight, the Great Jaggi came to visit. That’s right, the earlier boss waddled in to join the fun.  The two giants actually seemed to fight each other a bit, but were both more interested in me.

It took me a long time to take down the Qurupeco. As with other Monster Hunter games, you won’t see any health bar for the monsters. Instead, you have to look closely at their behavior. The more I beat up those behemoths, the more they would trip and fall over. When they were really close to dying, they’d even run away from me and I would have to chase them to other areas of the map.

When I finally took down the Qurupeco, barely within the 20-minute time limit I was given, I felt tremendously satisfied. It’s just a shame I didn’t get to take advantage of the sweet, sweet monster parts it left behind since I was only playing a demo.

With all the marketing they’re doing for the game, I still can’t help but feel that the patience required in these long fights combined with the steep learning curve will keep the appeal in the niche category. But as for me, I can’t wait to get my hands on the full version and hop into the free online.

Tags: demo, Gamestop, hands-on impressions, Monster Hunter 3, Monster Hunter Tri, Wii

This entry was posted on Monday, March 8th, 2010 at 5:00 am and is filed under Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.