User blog:Artemis Paradox/Monster Hunter Portable 3rd, Impressions

As some of you may have already noticed (the stalkers that is) I have purchased a japanese copy of Monster Hunter Portable 3rd about 1.5 weeks ago. For those who really like stalking admins they already know I have beaten the game in the progress aspect, but by far not yet in the all-around aspect.

In these 10-11 days I've clocked about 94 hours already and made it to HR6 and the final quests in the village. I am now merely farming monsters for equipment and working on getting 100% in the game.

During these days I was privileged to enjoy and experience everything that's in MHP3. And in this blog I'd like to share my impressions of what I have seen in the gameplay department.


 * Note: This blog will describe a lot of already known aspects of the game, but with subjective commentary from moi (that's "me" in French). And no worries, I'll steal some pics from the MHP3 page later to make this blog look less boring than it already is.

The Village
It's basically exactly made up in the same way as any other portable Monster Hunter game. It has an armory, a merchant, a travelling merchant, a farm engineer (or whatever you want to call that guy), a training school, a felyne soldier manager, a Guild Hall and, as a new addition to the series, a felyne merchant who deals in felyne weapon/armory.

The Yukumo Farm
Anyone who played MHP or MHP2/U already knows what it's like and how it works. In MHP3 it's not really different from before however some of the later upgrades don't involve yourself doing the work anymore but instead your cats.

For example, there's the so called mining cart (later upgrade), in which you hand your cats (1-4 can go at a time) pickaxes and they go into the mine, pickaxing their furry hides off, then rushing out of the mine and hand you their treasures. It should be obvious that there are alternative animations for when doing this, like, in 1 case the mine collaps and you get good to nothing, at other times you hear the cats go into hypermode and NYAAAAAA!!!!! they fly out of the mine and hand you the catch of a lifetime! The latter, in my opinion, being rather amusing to hear. xD

Other than that the farm also consists (will consist) of a Bug Tree/Gathering Spot, Fishing Pier, Beehive, Mushroom Tree and (new to the series) the board on which you manage and train your felyne comrades. Oh and before I forget... later on it will have a Gagua which brings your cats to assigned quests (on which they go by themselves and bring materials back for you, at the expense of Yukumo Points).

Compared to MHFU I'd say the Yukumo farm is actually a lot better. Sure, it costs a heck load of Yukumo Points to get it fully upgraded but this is monster hunter -_-... if you want good stuff you'll have to work your ass off for it.

The Guild Hall (Hot Spring/Drinks)
In the Guild Hall you can make use of a new and innovative way to boost your stats before going on a quest. In past installments there was always the option of using food combinations to gain certain effects, in P3 you have the Yukumo Hot Spring and Drinks; the Hot Spring providing Health/Stamina boosts and the Drinks providing Felyne Skills (if they're still called like that, I can't read japanese >_> but the point should be clear).

These, however... aren't available from the start. There are so called Hot Spring/Drink quests, which must be cleared in order to get access to the various power ups in the game. The quests aren't really hard though, but some of them can be a pain in the ass if you have to solo them (like the High Rank epics and you're in underleveled equipment).

Compared to previous games? I honestly like the Hot Spring & Drinks system better. They're always available, there are no stupid combinations you need to remember and using the spring is only a matter of hitting square to sit in it, then again to stand up and you get your buffs. Quite an improvement I must say.

Equipment, the bad, the worse and the worst
Just kidding, it ain't bad at all. I just liked using a lamesauce sub-heading like that cuz I can. >.> Anyhow, I'll give a description here of what you can expect when you start the game and want to advance in the weapon department.

Just like in Monster Hunter Tri (unfortunately), getting a somewhat worthy-of-being-called-a-weapon is a major eyesore in the beginning. Getting a weapon with Green Sharpness (any level of it) is nigh-impossible and you'll be bouncing over and over when you start fighting some actual kind-of-wyvern. Like the Curupeco, pray you hit the right spot because otherwise you'll be in bouncetropolis... making it a bastard to kill even for experienced players.

Halfway the village quests however you can finally get some better weapons and trust me when I say that you WILL notice a HUGE difference in killing-time all of a sudden. When you finally get a somewhat decent green sharp wep you suddenly can kill monsters in 1/2 to 2/5th of the time it took you before. Like an annoying Bulldrome (yes those bitches are back... and worse than ever... lock-on ftl) suddenly dieing in a minute or two instead of the 7-10 it took you on the 1st run.

---

Now for armors, armors are on the same level as in MH3. Defense wise that is. Resistance and Skills wise they have all been drastically changed, some armors even being buffed compared to their mh3 counterparts. Like the Jaggi armor, it actually is somewhat of a good general-purpose set in P3. Rec Spd +1, Cap Guru, AuS... still shit elemental resistance... but the new skills make up for it.

They're also not as hard to make as in tri (mostly talking about High Rank armors here), instead of needing like 40 Uragaan Carapaces (lol PurpleIsGood) you need only like half of them. And low rank armors cannot be improved to HR level anymore either. They have a normal low rank limit and that's the end of the line. Bummer? Maybe for some but for me it ain't. I'm actually glad they took that out, especially as the Low Rank armors got shitty amounts of slots... not really much point in having the option to make them high rank there you know?

---

And at last there are the decorations. Nothing to say about them really... except that putting them on/off an armor goes in a slightly different manner than before. To put a decoration on your armor you must go to the "Remove Decorations" menu (wtf logic...), select the armor piece and then you can put them on and off 'em.

Hm... can't really say more about them... except for one thing, I will let you guys in on a little secret I noticed about them (everyone who used them should've...) and that is that you DON'T have to make additional decos anymore to get a certain skill on multiple armors!

Yep... sounds weird but it's true. For example, you had Butterfly S armor and it has (it doesn't but this is an example) 10 slots. 2-2-2-2-2, you use 5 lightfoot Jewels on it (evade +3, takes 2 slots) and save the armor with that setup as a set in your item box. If you take them off now and put them on another armor with 10 slots and save that one as well, you will still have them equipped on the Butterfly S set BUT ALSO on the 2nd set you've put them on. This saves people a lot of trouble getting that specific gods-forsaken material for the one special decoration they want,

Cheap? Maybe, but hey it's there so why not make use of it, huh? Hehehe...

Other
I have to go to college in a few minutes (from the moment I posted this blog) so it's not finished yet. I will continue later when I get back. And when it's all done I'll add pictures so it looks abit more "fun".

^_^ Cya l8rz