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Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate demo now available

Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate demo now available

Harlan Webb 26 Feb, 2013 at 12:29am ET Article published in Gaming

Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate

The extreme hunter-gatherer simulator’s next entry now has free demo versions available on the Nintendo Wii U and 3DS e-Shops. If you have one of the systems, now is a good time to see a little bit of what’s new and experience the combat of the Monster Hunter series and see what the fuss is about.

Lagombi

Easy Mission Target: the Lagombi. So a bear and a rabbit walk into a bar and …

These demo versions get right to the point—you choose one of two missions, each a different difficulty, choose one of twelve weapon sets, and then depart on your hunt with nary an in-game mission hub in sight. Most normal missions in the series give you about 55 minutes to complete your task, whether it be gathering supplies or rare items, culling a pack of lesser beasts, or taking down a fierce creature or two. These demos however, give you only 20 minutes to take down your target. Not too big of a problem since you are given advanced gear (as this is a completely gear-dependent RPG), and certain difficulty-increasing mechanics are turned off. The controls are not explained though, so if you are new to the series you may have a rough start. Veteran hunters of any system should recognize the controls, as they are similar—if not the same—depending on the system you’ve played on previously.

The demos were released a month ahead of the scheduled released dates for the North American and European versions of the game, March 19 and 22, respectively. This entry in the series sports cross-platform play between the 3DS and the Wii U, 200+ missions, local online play for the 3DS, and dedicated online play for the Wii U. Should you be swayed to the Monster Hunter side, you can pre-order either (or both) versions from your favorite retailer. On that note, Amazon currently has a deal that if you Pre-order both the Wii U version and the 3DS version in the same order, you’ll get $20 USD off.

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Comments

  1. 26 Feb 2013 ~ 2:50am Howdy just wanted to give you a brief heads up and let you know a few of the pictures aren't loading correctly. I'm not
    sure why but I think its a linking issue. I've tried it in two different internet browsers and both show the same results.
  2. 26 Feb 2013 ~ 4:09am midga I am seeing no issues with the pictures.
  3. 26 Feb 2013 ~ 12:39pm primesuspect The pictures are loading fine on our end. Not sure why you'd have that issue (firewall problem? ISP problem?)

    Thanks for the heads up though.
  4. 5 Mar 2013 ~ 9:16pm d3k0y I tried the demo on my 3DS and holy-guacamole are the controls terribad. I could not figure out how to do anything on the game, movement was bad, combat was bad, navigation was bad, map was bad. It was just horrible all around.
  5. 5 Mar 2013 ~ 10:06pm RahnalH102 Due to the lack of a second stick on the 3DS, (they actually released the Japanese version, Monster Hunter 3G, when the dual stick peripheral was released) the "main" way to control the camera is to tap the L button which centers the camera behind the hunter. This is how it's been for all the handheld versions despite the PSP having two sticks. The console versions have the camera mapped to the second stick, which as expected allows for much better reaction time. In this version, they added a switch on the touch screen that locks on the monster. So when you tap L the camera centers on the beast instead of your back. To veteran portable players this addition is helpful. The controls will still have their learning curve for new players though. Which is by far the most tedious part of the game. The camera controls are bad. No argument there. The rest make sense once you figure them out, but there it is again, figuring it out.

    Full versions of the games give you usually 55 minutes on a mission, start you off easy and gradually ween you into the harder and more complicated. These demos are designed purely for the combat. If they gave you a beginner mission to just cull some lesser beast with some time to properly practice controls, the latter two missions would probably be better for beginners.

    In short: there is more to the game than what is in these demos, and normally you get a better start rather than be thrown to the bunny-bears right off the bat.

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