User blog comment:Mckrongs/Monster Hunter 4 for the Nintendo 3DS/@comment-1758220-20130227041748/@comment-1712810-20130227052717

MH4 almost seems like a spur of the moment thing as far as the decision to have it on the 3DS. That's the impression I got from an interview with the developers anyway.

Honestly, I've come to see MH4 as a great big experiment of sorts. They're playing with all kinds of new ideas to change the flow of the game. I think that's one reason we're seeing so many old monsters - they want to see how well previous generations would do with the new gameplay mechanics.

That said, MH4 does at least seem to boast a lot content... they haven't shafted any of the weapon classes this time, like did in Tri. The lack of underwater is very lame though.