Zero Punctuation: Monster Hunter Tri

[Dreyfuss]

Wow... good job Yahtzee, for playing 1/100th of the total game and passing judgement on all of it.

Now I know a game is supposed to be interesting from the start and that it sucks when one isn't, but you were playing the literal textbook example of a game that gets exponentially better the further you progress. Of course it started out boring, the alternative is Demon's Souls (which you also gave up on far too early and is much better than you give it credit for but excuse me for assuming you could play a game that requires any skill), where you throw players straight into a fight with a real monster and have them all quit out of frustration because there has been absolutely no time to acquaint themselves with the basics.

Did you even kill a single Rathalos? Even a Kut-ku? Kut-kus are the baby seals of Monster Hunter and you didn't even play the 2 hours it would take to challenge one of them! This is a 200+ hour game you're playing, not the 6 hour throwaway games you're used to. I understand you're a game CRITIC and that's what makes you so entertaining to watch, but it doesn't help your image when you try to bash a game you know nothing about.

I agree with most of your reviews but of the few that have been wrong this is by far the worst, no contest whatsoever. I even feel a little betrayed because you usually show good taste or at least bash a game for good reason, but this is ridiculous. You release a review every week and you didn't even spend A DAY with this game. Or does it take you THAT long to finish the first 2 tiers of village quests? Did you even TRY the online portion? You could've jumped straight into 3 star quests and fought a few low-level monsters. And fyi, low-level monsters are the ones that are only 5-10 times bigger than you, not the ones the same size, those are trash. All you fought were trash.

As for the gathering, it's a facsimile of what real monster hunting would be like. You're not supposed to be a half-demon god of destruction, you're supposed to be an average joe taking on GIANT DINOSAURS! That's what makes it so awesome. You're not Superman, you're Batman, you fight with your wit, skill, and gadgets, and how are you going to get those gadgets if you aren't some multi-millionaire? You make them yourself. That's part of the experience. You pour your own time and effort into constructing the tools you'll use to take down the monsters. It makes it more rewarding. I didn't think you were the type that could only appreciate instant gratification. Guess I expected too much. You've shown you're not man enough to play this or Demon's Souls, I don't think I can really trust your taste anymore.

ANYBODY THAT READS THIS, TL;DR:

Monster Hunter is a game where you fight big monsters and carve them up to turn them into weapons and armor to fight EVEN BIGGER MONSTERS, ad infinitum.

Here's a far, FAR better review, skipped straight to the important part. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXfpkGeU5UI&#t=1m58s

 

[Neoky]

With more than 100 hours of game time this is my favorite game right now.

The trick to the game is you need a hacked Wii so you can turn on cheat codes to get past bullshit parts of the game that Yahtzee reviewed.

I've been playing the series since Monster Hunter Freedom on the PSP 4 years ago, and I would never recommend Monster Hunter without infinite items turned on. (inf items only works for the storage container outside of quests)

If you have a hacked Wii and know 3 other people that also have hacked Wii's then I can't recommend this game enough. If not, again don't even bother. You'll never get to play with each other cause you'll always be farming, gathering, and hunting solo quests just so you can do less farming and gathering. And you need 4 players cause the heart of the game is the online hunting hall where all the monsters HP is difficulty is balance for 4. You can make do with 3 really good players, but it's needlessly rough.

 

[Zephyer]

Fun review

However, from what I've heard about the game, all the action is to be found online, while Offline might as well be cut out of the game.

I know Yahtzee mostly doesn't review online parts of games, but it just seems a waste that everyone is joining in a circle in here chanting "Bad game is bad because the almighty Croshaw says so!". I'd say go read a review for the online part, and see if they have the same opinion I for one, plan to at least give it a shot and research a bit more.

 

[milskidasith]

Wow... good job Yahtzee, for playing 1/100th of the total game and passing judgement on all of it.

Now I know a game is supposed to be interesting from the start and that it sucks when one isn't, but you were playing the literal textbook example of a game that gets exponentially better the further you progress. Of course it started out boring, the alternative is Demon's Souls (which you also gave up on far too early and is much better than you give it credit for but excuse me for assuming you could play a game that requires any skill), where you throw players straight into a fight with a real monster and have them all quit out of frustration because there has been absolutely no time to acquaint themselves with the basics.

Did you even kill a single Rathalos? Even a Kut-ku? Kut-kus are the baby seals of Monster Hunter and you didn't even play the 2 hours it would take to challenge one of them! This is a 200+ hour game you're playing, not the 6 hour throwaway games you're used to. I understand you're a game CRITIC and that's what makes you so entertaining to watch, but it doesn't help your image when you try to bash a game you know nothing about.

I agree with most of your reviews but of the few that have been wrong this is by far the worst, no contest whatsoever. I even feel a little betrayed because you usually show good taste or at least bash a game for good reason, but this is ridiculous. You release a review every week and you didn't even spend A DAY with this game. Or does it take you THAT long to finish the first 2 tiers of village quests? Did you even TRY the online portion? You could've jumped straight into 3 star quests and fought a few low-level monsters. And fyi, low-level monsters are the ones that are only 5-10 times bigger than you, not the ones the same size, those are trash. All you fought were trash.

As for the gathering, it's a facsimile of what real monster hunting would be like. You're not supposed to be a half-demon god of destruction, you're supposed to be an average joe taking on GIANT DINOSAURS! That's what makes it so awesome. You're not Superman, you're Batman, you fight with your wit, skill, and gadgets, and how are you going to get those gadgets if you aren't some multi-millionaire? You make them yourself. That's part of the experience. You pour your own time and effort into constructing the tools you'll use to take down the monsters. It makes it more rewarding. I didn't think you were the type that could only appreciate instant gratification. Guess I expected too much. You've shown you're not man enough to play this or Demon's Souls, I don't think I can really trust your taste anymore.

ANYBODY THAT READS THIS, TL;DR:

Monster Hunter is a game where you fight big monsters and carve them up to turn them into weapons and armor to fight EVEN BIGGER MONSTERS, ad infinitum.

There are no Kut-Kus in monster hunter tri, and Rathalos is pretty close to endgame for offline. I doubt he even got to the Great Jaggi, though.

 

[Neoky]

Dreyfuss:

You and I both know that gathering isn't 1/100th of the game. It's more like 99/100th of the game.

 

[De Ronneman]

I know it's silly to expect Yahtzee to give a positive review, but I was genuinely disappointed that he couldn't find anything actually GOOD to say about this game.

Same here, I just got it some days ago, thanks to my gamestore (grr...) and I think it is grindy and in no way perfect, but it is what it is: pretty realistic. You have to actually carve stuff from dead animals, and only stuff they can actually have, not complete iron armor or something like that.

The mission with the big monster was actually part of the story, just to keep you interested in the villages baddie. I know, not perfect, but give them some credit. I freaked a little, but the "oh, my, I am going to project a movie so I'll load a little extra long and make the camera drop in" gave it away somewhat.

The Great Jaggi's on the other hand are genuinly terifying, seeing as how I had 2 roaming the fields today. Try collecting honey with two of those things on your tail.

The stuff collecting is pretty clusterfucky, since you will get a lot of items with similar icons for them, I'll give you that. But they are pretty easy to get hold of anyway, so that's fine.

The quests are locked in a certain similar dimension. True. I am annoyed that I can't go to the sandy plains unless I'm questing. But that makes some quests a little easier, because some monsters (the ones you need) are higher in number.

It's a JRPG. True. Can't argue with that, but that's hating a crocodile for being a crocodile: it can't choose what it is. If you don't like it, just walk the other way. I like crocodiles...

But, concluding my annoyance.

He's a critic who doesn't like JRPG's and hates the wii. Easy shots. I like the game, I often agree with Yahtzee, but I think he likes being a critic too much, if you know what I mean. Every game has downsides. Just find the right game for YOU, not yahtzee's favourite (unless it's your favourite too):

No mention of the online and/or multiplayer aspect? Still good episode as always.

On a side note to people actually take what Yatzee says at face value? I mean you'd have to be pretty silly to do that since if you did every game apart from Adventure Island Dizzy would be shit and you'd never play anything, ever.

Agreed.
"OMg, yatzee doesn t like it! must be bhad!"

Form your own opinions.

Last words: great review though, I like your picture of the giant seamonster

 

[Z(ombie)fan]

Funny, but it seems like he never made it to any of the end bit content. In that respect it is a lot like MMORPGs, except the endgame content is actually totally awesome.

but remember: if it bores you, EVER, it deserves to be tossed down a cooling tower.

being tedious is not forgivable: is it fun and tedious at the same time? okay fine. but just plain boring is not what a good game makes.

 

[Raykuza]

Hmm. I don't think he even fought the first boss, but he's almost there. Methinks Yahtzee needs to put about 20 more minutes into the game. My only problem is that for a lot of people, this is the only information they are getting about this game. They are going to take this 'review' as the final word, write off MH3 completely, and miss out on a pretty good game. Mr. Croshaw is doing his viewers a disservice by reviewing an entire game based on its tutorial.

Of course, the video was hilarious as always.

 

[milskidasith]

Dreyfuss:

You and I both know that gathering isn't 1/100th of the game. It's more like 99/100th of the game.

No, it really isn't. The gathering quests in the game take five minutes and are only mandatory for the first rank of six, while the monster hunting quests take longer, are far more numerous, and are, you know, the point of the game.

Plus, all the items you could ever want infinitely regenerate from the farm and the fishery, so the only gathering you ever *need* to do to upgrade weapons is either from dead monsters or mining ore, and you usually don't need to mine more than ten ore for a new monster set, so it's about ten minutes of gathering, at best, for a set that can last you ten or more *hours* of fighting baddies; most weapons require you to kill baddies to make, so they aren't much grinding, unless you consider playing the actual game grinding, in which case, go play Starcraft and enjoy grinding more zerglings out, or grinding out kills on CoD, or grinding out missions on Red Dead Redemption, or grinding out intel caps on TF2.

 

[crypt-creature]

Dreyfuss:

You and I both know that gathering isn't 1/100th of the game. It's more like 99/100th of the game.

If you make it out to be a chore... then guess what it turns into? A chore.
You don't need hacks for this game to enjoy it, but if all you want to do is kill crap then maybe you should be playing a different game. MH has never just been about the killing of monsters, after all Hunter is also in the title. That means, expect slow-paced times and possibly grinding.

 

[N3mis]

nice rewiev, though you missed the point with Monster Hunter......

 

[pwndnoob]

The point of the game is to make you think big monsters will come if you play long enough. It's a cruel trap. I'm surprised Yahtzee didn't note this, but we already know he doesn't have the patience (and rightfully so) for MMPORGZQXs

 

[fnph]

Wow, Yahtzee completely missed the point of the game. Me thinks he didn't play long enough to fight some of the bigger monsters.

Yeah, this. Gathering items is like 5 or 10 minutes to stock up on potions and whetstones between quests to take down huge monsters, not the central aspect of the game that Yahtzee makes it out to be.
Monster Hunter Tri's biggest problem really is the ridiculously slow start.

 

[milskidasith]

The point of the game is to make you think big monsters will come if you play long enough. It's a cruel trap. I'm surprised Yahtzee didn't note this, but we already know he doesn't have the patience (and rightfully so) for MMPORGZQXs

Big monsters do come, an hour in. And they stay for the next few dozen.

I don't see what the point of this post is. Sure, the tutorial doesn't instantly have you get smashed to pieces by a Rathalos, but when that happened in Demon's souls (well, minus the rathalos bit) Yahtzee complained about not having enough time to get used to the game, so there's clear hypocrisy here, and Yahtzee would be better served just saying he hates the genre in general.

 

[pwndnoob]

Soon he will be doing Red Dead Redemption and Super Mario Galaxy 2. Recently he has been reviewing shit games, and calling them shit. Give him some allegedly great games and then bring this topic up again. Not on a crap game like this.

 

[Turbowombat]

Wow, this after the FF13 5 hour review, my respect for Yahtzee is starting to drop. I know if it takes a game 3 hours to get into the swing of things that's a pretty big flaw, but that doesn't mean the other 30 hours are worthless. Great job Yahtzee, if you didn't even get past the Qurupeco that's like declaring Mario shit before jumping on anything's head.

Given that this game is 30 hours and a good MMO is 30 days, this is just a streamlined MMO experience, good and bad. You do boring shit for a little while then hit a difficulty curve of stupendous boss fights that you should probably bring your friends along for while you work on gear.

 

[heinieee]

you dont seem to have played very much. The beginning is really fucked and it takes arround 5hours before something happens but it gets really good. Thats a weak point i know, BUT considering that it will take arround 80hours for a normal person to finish the single player thats alright i guess. The seamonster you found is by far not the biggest monster you will encounter but it takes a bum of time to get there.
If you have preposterous amounts of free time try and play it some more.
You might like it.
Keep making stuff.
schönen tag noch

 

[Burst6]

I didn't laugh this time. It's probably because i love the monster hunter series, and think the combat is 100 times better than any game on the market. It's a special type of game, not for the type of people who want instant gratification. Yahtzee himself said he was one of those people.

This game makes me wish i had a Wii though. Monster Hunter on the PSP took up 250 hours of my life, and unlike World Of Warcraft, i dont regret it.

 

[Jonci]

Soon he will be doing Red Dead Redemption and Super Mario Galaxy 2. Recently he has been reviewing shit games, and calling them shit. Give him some allegedly great games and then bring this topic up again. Not on a crap game like this.

Excuse anyone for not respecting the opinion of a 5 post newbie that's obviously hasn't played the game and doesn't even know that this "crap game" is one of Capcom's biggest markets.