Super Mario 3D Land is one of the best games available for the 3DS. Not since Super Mario World and Super Mario 64 has a Mario adventure really drawn me in. While I loved what Nintendo did with Mario Galaxy 1 and 2, I could never really get into them (mostly due to having other games on the go: see World of Warcraft and Team Fortress 2) despite them being amazing games. Yet here I am, on my way to having a perfect save file for Mario’s latest adventure. This is something which I have not done in a game in years, and why is that? What has Nintendo done to make this game draw me in so much, and keep me hooked for so long?
I view Super Mario 3D Land as the next natural step in Mario’s never-ending evolution. Over the next couple of posts I will try and justify why I feel Super Mario 3D Land is the most refined Mario experience yet, using more evidence that just how I feel about the game. But before I jump into what makes 3D Land such a great experience, I think a very brief look at Mario’s history in the polygon age is worthwhile. This brief history lesson will be used to help justify my love for the 3D Land, and help show the evolutionary process I have seen unfold with regards to Super Mario and my time as a person interested in games.
1996s Super Mario 64 was the game that showed the world not only how a 3D camera should be done, but more importantly, that it could be done in the new age of the polygon. It was a landmark title, and one that is still remembered fondly; hearing that music from Bomb-omb Battlefield still fills me with childlike glee. His adventure through the game’s huge sandbox world was what led the game industry’s charge into our modern polygonal age, and would give rise to the school of game design based around the idea of the collectable.
2002s Super Mario Sunshine for the GameCube iterated heavily on the 64’s sandbox world design: we got a large open hub world with Isle Delfino; 120 “Shine Sprites” to replace the 120 “Power Stars” from Super Mario 64; and we saw the triumphant return of everyone’s favourite dinosaur, Yoshi. Sunshine also saw the inclusion of the FLUDD, a water pack that augmented Mario’s powers and abilities. While the FLUDD added to the game by really increasing the scope of what Mario could do (allowing him to jump higher, hover in mid-air, and attack enemies from a distance without the help of a fire flower), Sunshine was much the same as 64. That is not to say it is a bad game, far from it, Super Mario Sunshine is one of the best GameCube games around, and is one I would highly recommend.
The DS then gave us the retro throwback of New Super Mario Bros in 2006 as well as a remake of Super Mario 64 that launched with the system in 2004. Aside from the inclusion of 3 other playable characters in Super Mario 64 DS (Luigi, Yoshi, and Wario), the remake was much the same game as its Nintendo 64 predecessor. New Super Mario Bros on the other hand brought many of us back to the days of the NES and the SNES, and was a window into the mechanical origins of one of gaming’s most recognized characters: gone were the sandbox levels seen in Mario’s recent console outings, replaced with the classic approach of individual side scrolling levels. I also think for a lot of people, New Super Mario Bros was a breath of fresh air. By the mid 2000s, the idea of in game collectables had reached its peak and a lot of us were tired of it (it was the original Assassin’s Creed that really turned me off the whole idea of collecting pointless crap), and with New Super Mario Bros focusing more on gameplay rather than collecting everything in sight, Nintendo brought Mario back to his roots.
Come 2007, we have Nintendo releasing the amazing Super Mario Galaxy and following it up 2010 with Super Mario Galaxy 2. We also saw the sequel to New Super Mario Bros, New Super Mario Bros Wii, get released in 2009. While Galaxy continued Mario’s evolution seen in 64 and Sunshine (large levels, tons of collectables, and a neat hub world with the space station) Galaxy 2 reduced and refined many of those tropes. The Space Station from Galaxy was reduced to a single ship (that you can explore if you want) that goes from level to level. The levels in Galaxy 2 are not meant to house six or seven stars like those seen in the original; instead we see levels build to challenge the player and the design shifting away from housing stars, and back to solid platforming. But arguably the biggest shift seen in the Galaxy series was the rise of the Nintendo EAD Group 2’s (the team who made Galaxy 2 and 3D land) “abstract” level design. Galaxy saw Mario race through the stars, run around tiny planets, and traverse a universe full of coins, blocks, stars, koopas, and goombas; all very Mario, but presented with a very different visual style.
While the Galaxy series was experimenting with what a Mario game could be, New Super Mario Bros Wii was as by the books as you could get; and people loved it. Sometimes there really is a reason why the classics are so revered, and the fact that the simple game play of classic Mario is still enough of a draw for people is testament to the quality of the original design of the Mario games (Super Mario Bros and Super Mario Bros 3).
It was this refinement of the levels seen in Galaxy 2, combined with the huge success of New Super Mario Bros Wii fundamental values, and the rise of the Mario Team’s abstract level design that paved the way for what would come to be Super Mario 3D Land.
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
The Intro to Deep Thought
For the second time during our tenure of World of Warcraft, my friend Thom and I have recently started a brand new guild. We transferred off the under populated Vashj, to be greeted with the hustle and bustle of Korgath, a server created to house the spill-over from the over populated Kil’Jaden server. It is interesting to note that Kil’Jaden was where we started our first, and only, successful guild: Freedom Fighters. We named our new guild Deep Thought, after the mighty computer from Douglas Adam’s classic novel series, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
As of right now, the guild is being run by Thom on Onions the hunter; me on my priest, Satoira; and along with Thom’s girlfriend and few of his work buddies, we have managed to gather a small smattering of other random people into our ranks. The challenge now is to engage the people in those ranks in the hopes that they will stay, and become important members of the guild. We will also continue to recruit as many people as we can; the idea is to weed out the bad eggs later on, once personalities start to surface out of the current silence. I am also thinking that we should try and brand our guild as a place for the young and urban adults who play WoW. We should make it a place where it is assumed that WoW is not the end all and be all of life, because we all have other things going on in our lives, and this game is just a great way to unwind.
So after all was said and done, I have decided that I am going to chronicle this attempt of ours to start this guild from the ground up. I hope we will be raiding the first tier of content in WoW’s forthcoming expansion, Mists of Pandaria by the time I am done with this, and I hope we get to come across a bunch of interesting people as we continue with this social experiment called the MMO guild. It is always neat to meet the variety of people who play this game.
As of right now, the guild is being run by Thom on Onions the hunter; me on my priest, Satoira; and along with Thom’s girlfriend and few of his work buddies, we have managed to gather a small smattering of other random people into our ranks. The challenge now is to engage the people in those ranks in the hopes that they will stay, and become important members of the guild. We will also continue to recruit as many people as we can; the idea is to weed out the bad eggs later on, once personalities start to surface out of the current silence. I am also thinking that we should try and brand our guild as a place for the young and urban adults who play WoW. We should make it a place where it is assumed that WoW is not the end all and be all of life, because we all have other things going on in our lives, and this game is just a great way to unwind.
So after all was said and done, I have decided that I am going to chronicle this attempt of ours to start this guild from the ground up. I hope we will be raiding the first tier of content in WoW’s forthcoming expansion, Mists of Pandaria by the time I am done with this, and I hope we get to come across a bunch of interesting people as we continue with this social experiment called the MMO guild. It is always neat to meet the variety of people who play this game.
Thursday, November 17, 2011
A Minecraft Review
Minecraft has finally gone gold, and with that the ever approaching release of version 1.0 rushes ever closer. Notch and the crew at Mojang recently released Release Candidate 2, and asked the gaming community to start reviewing the final build of the game and I am doing just that. But I want to try and take a step back, and try to imagine myself as someone who has never even heard of Minecraft let alone play it. I am trying to imagine myself as someone who is not going to hop onto the Minecraft wiki to figure out how to play the game after dying during their first night from a creeper’s suicidal explosion or a skeleton’s arrow; someone who has not been following the fascinating history of the game and its makers. Now I assume that the average gamer out there expects the game to teach them how to play using some kind of in game tutorial. Even if it is as rudimentary as a few texts boxes, they are still going to expect to be taught how to play. Sadly to say, this is not the case with Minecraft, and it is something I feel needs to be addressed.
Now before I go on, let me explain something. I realize Minecraft and its community is a sort of anomaly in the world of gaming. The types of gamers playing Minecraft (especially those like myself who have been playing the game for well over a year now) are the kinds of gamers who are going to jump on the net, and learn all the ins and outs of a game; we have a drive to figure out how it works. On the other hand, the gamer who is content with their Zelda, Final Fantasy, and Madden is not going to be content with a game that does nothing but the bare minimum (the achievement tab) to explain its mechanics. It is this glaring omission (a problem most of us ignored under the impression of the game was still being alpha and beta tested) that will limit the game from reaching an even wider audience than it already has. Also, with Minecraft coming to the Xbox 360 in the near future, this is a problem that has to be dealt with sooner rather than later. There is still a huge dichotomy between the types of gamers who are solely playing console gamers and the rest of us, and I think the people who download this over XBLA are going to demand more than online wikis.
Terraria fixed this problem with the inclusion of an NPC that you could talk to near your spawn point. This character would teach you the basics of the game, and help you situate yourself in the world of Terraria. With towns now spawning in the many worlds of Minecraft, and with the Adventure Mode getting the most attention, I think Notch and crew should just spawn you in a town. Have the NPCs talk to you, and have them teach you how to play. As of right now, this information vacuum is something that needs to be addressed in Minecraft. Mojang cannot rely on the community any longer to explain their game for them; they need to do it from within Minecraft. This massive barrier to entry is going to prevent people from feeling the thrill of getting lost underground only to find that diamond deposit; they will never be able to experience the terror of exploring the nether, always afraid of losing their items in that fiery waste; and they will never be able to battle the ender dragon, and get the dragon’s egg.
I think Minecraft is a fantastic game. Getting together with friends and exploring the endless world has been one of the highlights of my gaming life, yet the games lack of even a rudimentary tutorial is something that Notch and the team at Mojang have to address. While I had a fantastic time figuring the game out (and still do every time an update is released) I feel the average person who thinks Modern Warfare is the epitome of gaming will not feel the same way. Until this is solved, it is almost impossible to review this game. Even with the release of 1.0 only days away, Minecraft still feels very much like a game without direction, and I think myself and too many of us are giving them a free pass. But I’m not worried; the team at Mojang are talented guys, and I know they are going to continue improving Minecraft and continue change the face of what video games are and can be. It would just be a shame if this lack of information prevented people from experiencing one of gaming’s most rewarding experiences.
Now before I go on, let me explain something. I realize Minecraft and its community is a sort of anomaly in the world of gaming. The types of gamers playing Minecraft (especially those like myself who have been playing the game for well over a year now) are the kinds of gamers who are going to jump on the net, and learn all the ins and outs of a game; we have a drive to figure out how it works. On the other hand, the gamer who is content with their Zelda, Final Fantasy, and Madden is not going to be content with a game that does nothing but the bare minimum (the achievement tab) to explain its mechanics. It is this glaring omission (a problem most of us ignored under the impression of the game was still being alpha and beta tested) that will limit the game from reaching an even wider audience than it already has. Also, with Minecraft coming to the Xbox 360 in the near future, this is a problem that has to be dealt with sooner rather than later. There is still a huge dichotomy between the types of gamers who are solely playing console gamers and the rest of us, and I think the people who download this over XBLA are going to demand more than online wikis.
Terraria fixed this problem with the inclusion of an NPC that you could talk to near your spawn point. This character would teach you the basics of the game, and help you situate yourself in the world of Terraria. With towns now spawning in the many worlds of Minecraft, and with the Adventure Mode getting the most attention, I think Notch and crew should just spawn you in a town. Have the NPCs talk to you, and have them teach you how to play. As of right now, this information vacuum is something that needs to be addressed in Minecraft. Mojang cannot rely on the community any longer to explain their game for them; they need to do it from within Minecraft. This massive barrier to entry is going to prevent people from feeling the thrill of getting lost underground only to find that diamond deposit; they will never be able to experience the terror of exploring the nether, always afraid of losing their items in that fiery waste; and they will never be able to battle the ender dragon, and get the dragon’s egg.
I think Minecraft is a fantastic game. Getting together with friends and exploring the endless world has been one of the highlights of my gaming life, yet the games lack of even a rudimentary tutorial is something that Notch and the team at Mojang have to address. While I had a fantastic time figuring the game out (and still do every time an update is released) I feel the average person who thinks Modern Warfare is the epitome of gaming will not feel the same way. Until this is solved, it is almost impossible to review this game. Even with the release of 1.0 only days away, Minecraft still feels very much like a game without direction, and I think myself and too many of us are giving them a free pass. But I’m not worried; the team at Mojang are talented guys, and I know they are going to continue improving Minecraft and continue change the face of what video games are and can be. It would just be a shame if this lack of information prevented people from experiencing one of gaming’s most rewarding experiences.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
The Consistency of Change.
Why am I playing World of Warcraft again? After months of trying to convince myself that I had no love for the game, I am back with a vengeance. But why now and why does it matter that I am going back?
Mist of Pandaria is a large reason why I am going back to WoW after my short absence. The inclusion of a new race, new class, payload style PvP battles (a game mode I absolutely love in Team Fortress 2), and Pokémon style pet battles tickles my WoW brain in a way I love. A new class to level, new dungeons and raids to conquer, a brand new landmass to explore, and new ways to interact within the World of Warcraft was the perfect catalyst to get me playing again in the short term. But instead of going back to the guild I was raiding with, my good friend and I are starting fresh on a new server (Korgath) and starting a new guild akin to what we did before the release of The Burning Crusade years ago. But why am I really going back to this game, and is there a deeper reason other than the new loot that is to be had?
I am going back because WoW is a symbol of consistency for me. Despite the fact that the game is always growing, always expanding, and always evolving, that process itself is consistent. My post-secondary career is soon coming to an end, and with real life is racing towards me at breakneck speeds World of Warcraft is something I can hold onto. The guild is going to be a way of staying in touch with my friends when we all move away into life. If we’re raiding or doing rated battlegrounds, we now have a weekly time when we will get to catch up and still be a part of each other’s lives. It is this consistency that the game provides for the player that is bringing me and my friends back to the world of Azeroth. It is the socialization that is paramount to the game that is bringing me back. It is time with friends that is really bringing me back.
Will WoW really help to keep us together, or is this another way that I am trying to stay static in a world that is constantly changing? Only time, in its never ending march forward, will tell.
Mist of Pandaria is a large reason why I am going back to WoW after my short absence. The inclusion of a new race, new class, payload style PvP battles (a game mode I absolutely love in Team Fortress 2), and Pokémon style pet battles tickles my WoW brain in a way I love. A new class to level, new dungeons and raids to conquer, a brand new landmass to explore, and new ways to interact within the World of Warcraft was the perfect catalyst to get me playing again in the short term. But instead of going back to the guild I was raiding with, my good friend and I are starting fresh on a new server (Korgath) and starting a new guild akin to what we did before the release of The Burning Crusade years ago. But why am I really going back to this game, and is there a deeper reason other than the new loot that is to be had?
I am going back because WoW is a symbol of consistency for me. Despite the fact that the game is always growing, always expanding, and always evolving, that process itself is consistent. My post-secondary career is soon coming to an end, and with real life is racing towards me at breakneck speeds World of Warcraft is something I can hold onto. The guild is going to be a way of staying in touch with my friends when we all move away into life. If we’re raiding or doing rated battlegrounds, we now have a weekly time when we will get to catch up and still be a part of each other’s lives. It is this consistency that the game provides for the player that is bringing me and my friends back to the world of Azeroth. It is the socialization that is paramount to the game that is bringing me back. It is time with friends that is really bringing me back.
Will WoW really help to keep us together, or is this another way that I am trying to stay static in a world that is constantly changing? Only time, in its never ending march forward, will tell.
Friday, October 28, 2011
Thoughts on RAGE.
Was Rage, the new IP from id, worth the wait? On one hand, id has delivered what looks to be a fairly solid engine to the game industry. Yet on the other, Rage already feels very dated; but never mind that now, instead of talking about the quality of Rage as a whole I want to talk about an idea that occurred to me over and over again as I blasted my way through the wastelands: just because a game may look amazing does not automatically mean it is a good game.
I do not want to imply that the people at id wanted to, or even thought about making a game that can be seen as a critique of current state of the gaming industry, but it does seem pretty in your face about it. Everything from the gun play, to the racing, to even the way you do quests feels very dated. The enemies you face take round after round and shell after shell, and shrug off head shots as if they’re nothing at all; the racing is more akin to Mario Kart than anything else; quests are buried away behind peoples none changing (yet well written) dialog; and everything is so nicely separated from each other by long loading corridors and loading screens that you never have to worry about getting lost. It is such a striking juxtaposition between the gorgeous visuals and dated game play that I cannot help but wonder if it is all intentional. If it is not intentional, then Rage is an example of an old school developer failing to move into the modern world. Also, all the damage control Carmack is doing is not helping their cause. Talking about how much better PC technology vs. Console tech still does not explain why the very mechanics of your game feel old as shit.
Rage exists as more of a show piece for the engine rather than a game in its own right. While I am glad to have played it, it feels more like a living relic (much like the ancient coelacanth) than anything else; if nothing else, I am excited to see what other developers can do with an engine like IdTech5. Maybe this is the future for some companies: instead of making an engine for their game, they make engines for the industry. And you know what? I am okay with that.
I do not want to imply that the people at id wanted to, or even thought about making a game that can be seen as a critique of current state of the gaming industry, but it does seem pretty in your face about it. Everything from the gun play, to the racing, to even the way you do quests feels very dated. The enemies you face take round after round and shell after shell, and shrug off head shots as if they’re nothing at all; the racing is more akin to Mario Kart than anything else; quests are buried away behind peoples none changing (yet well written) dialog; and everything is so nicely separated from each other by long loading corridors and loading screens that you never have to worry about getting lost. It is such a striking juxtaposition between the gorgeous visuals and dated game play that I cannot help but wonder if it is all intentional. If it is not intentional, then Rage is an example of an old school developer failing to move into the modern world. Also, all the damage control Carmack is doing is not helping their cause. Talking about how much better PC technology vs. Console tech still does not explain why the very mechanics of your game feel old as shit.
Rage exists as more of a show piece for the engine rather than a game in its own right. While I am glad to have played it, it feels more like a living relic (much like the ancient coelacanth) than anything else; if nothing else, I am excited to see what other developers can do with an engine like IdTech5. Maybe this is the future for some companies: instead of making an engine for their game, they make engines for the industry. And you know what? I am okay with that.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
For the Dull, the Dumb and the Pointless.
At first I felt bad about not knowing that Big D and the Kids Table put out a new record. After loving Fluent in Stroll and Strictly Rude, I walked For the Damned, the Dumb and the Delirious expecting another step in Big D’s audio evolution as a modern ska band. I was expecting more experimentation with sound of their music, but what I got was a record my fifteen year old self would have loved. Gone is the progress I heard on the previous two albums replaced with by the numbers skapunk that is fairly forgettable. There is also an overt glorification of drinking that I find out of place on this record, and this coming from a band that used to sing so tongue in cheek about going on Benders and drinking copious Pabst Blue Ribbon just does not make any sense to me.
I know I should give the record a few more listens before I really pick a stance, but my initial listening was so underwhelming that I have no huge urge to listen to it again. If it had been a well done and modern take on the skapunk sound, then I would have been more excited to listen to the album over and over, but it’s really not. It sounds so interchangeable with early 2000s “ska” (the shit that Suburban Legends and the like where trying to masquerade around as ska), that it feels like Big D have taken three steps back. And by extension I have no urge to hear this album live, which means that I have almost no urge to see Big D (a band I loved seeing) in concert anytime soon. I hope that this album is the equivalent of The Suicide Machines self-titled release (if you don’t know what I am talking about, go and listen to Destruction by Definition and Battle Hymns, and then their self-titled release), and is nothing more than a temporary stumble.
I know I should give the record a few more listens before I really pick a stance, but my initial listening was so underwhelming that I have no huge urge to listen to it again. If it had been a well done and modern take on the skapunk sound, then I would have been more excited to listen to the album over and over, but it’s really not. It sounds so interchangeable with early 2000s “ska” (the shit that Suburban Legends and the like where trying to masquerade around as ska), that it feels like Big D have taken three steps back. And by extension I have no urge to hear this album live, which means that I have almost no urge to see Big D (a band I loved seeing) in concert anytime soon. I hope that this album is the equivalent of The Suicide Machines self-titled release (if you don’t know what I am talking about, go and listen to Destruction by Definition and Battle Hymns, and then their self-titled release), and is nothing more than a temporary stumble.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Thoughts on Monster Hunter
My recent obsession with Monster Hunter Freedom Unite, easily one of the best games on the PSP, has got me to thinking about why this series –a series that is wildly successful in Japan, and is often credited with saving the PSP from oblivion– has not been as fondly received this side of the great pacific. One would think that a game centre around the idea of slaying massive monsters, collecting countless pieces of armour, and amassing a personal arsenal of handcrafted weapons would be universally accepted as something amazing! But that is really not the case when it comes to Monster Hunter in North America, and why is that? Maybe it has to do with the series initial showing on the PS2, in all of its clunky glory, or perhaps it has to do with the steep learning curve the game forces on the player from the word go? How can a game where loot is the main motivation be so widely ignored by the North American gamer, when we all loved Diablo and all of its loot-whore spin-offs? I am not going to claim that I have the answer to this question, but I do have a few ideas as to why this series has stagnated for so long with the Canadian and American gamer.
Monster Hunter is not a series that caters to the “power fantasy” so many gamers are looking for. You are not the unstoppable force of nature you are in most other games; instead of being the penultimate hunter (who eventually hunts the God of the monsters or some other such nonsense), you are simply a person whose vocation it is to hunter down and slay the various monsters at the request of your village elders. The world of Monster Hunter does not exist for the purpose of housing the player, and if it did, Capcom would have had no reason to devise the complex social and hunting habits of the creatures that roam the wilds. This is a very different approach to games –the player simply existing as a part of a world– than what we see here in North America. Over here we need to be the space marine, soldier, knight, or whoever has the fate of the world in their digital hands. We enjoy, and I am just as guilty as the rest, that sense of power and of importance that the game bestows upon us. The point of Monster Hunter however, is not about feeding your gamer ego but about your own continual self-improvement in the quest to hunt harder and more ferocious beasts.
Monster Hunter is also not an easy game, in fact it can be quite hard. Now let me be clear, I mean Demon’s Souls/Dark Souls hard (the deference being that where as Demon’s Souls is unforgiving and severely punishes you for dying, Monster Hunter assumes that you will be defeated over and over, and thus does not punish your death nearly as harshly). In a day and age where companies are giving us achievement points and trophies for doing nothing more than playing the tutorial levels, challenge has almost become a negative qualifier when we talk about games. The challenge of the series harkens back to an age where memorizing boss patterns was the recipe for survival, and when games were not made to be easily beaten.
We should also look at the demographics of who bought a PSP in Japan and here in North America, and what the systems primary function was for the consumers of both markets (was it a game system, or a device used primarily to surf the net and listen to music on?) when we consider the idea of difficulty. While I cannot talk about the Japanese demographics, all one has to do is look at the recent add-campaign with the little kid (Marcus or whatever his name is) to see how a game designed around difficulty and old school 90s game traditions would fail to have an impact over here. With Sony targeting the early teen and pre-teen market, it stands to reason that a game based around classic mechanics would not have the same impact on them as it does on someone, like me, who has been playing games since the days of the NES.
One thing I would like to know for sure is how well Monster Hunter Tri for the Wii sold over here, and if there are any firm plans on bringing the 3DS sequel, Monster Hunter Tri G, to North American markets (I also hope we get the PS3 HD remake of Monster Hunter Portable 3rd). I want to know why Capcom is bringing Monster Hunter 4 to the 3DS after having such a long history with Sony’s handheld, and will the series have a large impact on the future of the 3DS much as it did on the PSP? I also want to know why Capcom has kept the Xbox 360/PC MMO Monster Hunter Frontier in Japan when the 360 has such a large (quite a bit larger than in Japan) market share over here; and why is it only on handhelds that this series has thrived? If nothing else, Monster Hunter seems like a natural fit for the big screen of TV (and it is when you play it on the Wii or even the PS2).
I don’t pretend to have the answers as to why this series has stagnated in North America, and I know that the reasons are much more complex than just high difficulty and different demographics. Monster Hunter is a series that has fascinated me ever since its debut on the PS2, and I hope Capcom brings the upcoming 3DS games here so I can satisfy this loot hunger. Then again, it’s not like I am going to be done Monster Hunter Freedom Unite anytime soon.
Monster Hunter is not a series that caters to the “power fantasy” so many gamers are looking for. You are not the unstoppable force of nature you are in most other games; instead of being the penultimate hunter (who eventually hunts the God of the monsters or some other such nonsense), you are simply a person whose vocation it is to hunter down and slay the various monsters at the request of your village elders. The world of Monster Hunter does not exist for the purpose of housing the player, and if it did, Capcom would have had no reason to devise the complex social and hunting habits of the creatures that roam the wilds. This is a very different approach to games –the player simply existing as a part of a world– than what we see here in North America. Over here we need to be the space marine, soldier, knight, or whoever has the fate of the world in their digital hands. We enjoy, and I am just as guilty as the rest, that sense of power and of importance that the game bestows upon us. The point of Monster Hunter however, is not about feeding your gamer ego but about your own continual self-improvement in the quest to hunt harder and more ferocious beasts.
Monster Hunter is also not an easy game, in fact it can be quite hard. Now let me be clear, I mean Demon’s Souls/Dark Souls hard (the deference being that where as Demon’s Souls is unforgiving and severely punishes you for dying, Monster Hunter assumes that you will be defeated over and over, and thus does not punish your death nearly as harshly). In a day and age where companies are giving us achievement points and trophies for doing nothing more than playing the tutorial levels, challenge has almost become a negative qualifier when we talk about games. The challenge of the series harkens back to an age where memorizing boss patterns was the recipe for survival, and when games were not made to be easily beaten.
We should also look at the demographics of who bought a PSP in Japan and here in North America, and what the systems primary function was for the consumers of both markets (was it a game system, or a device used primarily to surf the net and listen to music on?) when we consider the idea of difficulty. While I cannot talk about the Japanese demographics, all one has to do is look at the recent add-campaign with the little kid (Marcus or whatever his name is) to see how a game designed around difficulty and old school 90s game traditions would fail to have an impact over here. With Sony targeting the early teen and pre-teen market, it stands to reason that a game based around classic mechanics would not have the same impact on them as it does on someone, like me, who has been playing games since the days of the NES.
One thing I would like to know for sure is how well Monster Hunter Tri for the Wii sold over here, and if there are any firm plans on bringing the 3DS sequel, Monster Hunter Tri G, to North American markets (I also hope we get the PS3 HD remake of Monster Hunter Portable 3rd). I want to know why Capcom is bringing Monster Hunter 4 to the 3DS after having such a long history with Sony’s handheld, and will the series have a large impact on the future of the 3DS much as it did on the PSP? I also want to know why Capcom has kept the Xbox 360/PC MMO Monster Hunter Frontier in Japan when the 360 has such a large (quite a bit larger than in Japan) market share over here; and why is it only on handhelds that this series has thrived? If nothing else, Monster Hunter seems like a natural fit for the big screen of TV (and it is when you play it on the Wii or even the PS2).
I don’t pretend to have the answers as to why this series has stagnated in North America, and I know that the reasons are much more complex than just high difficulty and different demographics. Monster Hunter is a series that has fascinated me ever since its debut on the PS2, and I hope Capcom brings the upcoming 3DS games here so I can satisfy this loot hunger. Then again, it’s not like I am going to be done Monster Hunter Freedom Unite anytime soon.
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