Once upon a time, Mike Myers was actually funny. Sure, it might be difficult to remember now that he's torpedoed his career with dreck like the The Love Guru -- but in the early '90s, he took on perhaps his most underrated role on Saturday Night Live: Lothar of the Hill People, a hilarious Bronze Age chieftain who spoke of many things: the harvest, the hunt, when to plant, when to reap...and, of course, when to make an offering to Zybor, the Many-Handed One.
I mention all this because, as a newcomer to the Monster Hunter action-role-playing scene (but an intrigued observer for many years), this was my first reaction to Monster Hunter Tri: "Wow! This is Lothar of the Hill People: The Videogame!" Monster Hunter tosses your tailor-made hunter-gatherer into a small Bronze Age village and demands that you...well, take care of the village's hunting and gathering. And that means a series of menial tasks, whether it's scrounging up mushrooms, tending to the farm, or taking down beasts and scalping their hides.
Click the image above to check out all Monster Hunter Tri screens.
Unfortunately, early on, I started to feel like another classic SNL character: Phil Hartman's Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer; without competent guidance from the game's in-game chieftain, this vast, strange world frightened and confused me. Outside of the first few hand-holding tutorials, I'd set off on quests and have no idea where I was supposed to be going -- just a vague idea of what I might be looking for. The game's clunky controls (why does the same button unsheathe your weapon and use items?) and lack of enemy lock-on didn't help matters, either. And with the standard Wii Remote-and-Nunchuck setup, I found the game practically unplayable -- after a couple of hours, I had to plug in the Classic Controller for my own sanity.
Even through the frustrating elements, though, the game's text is always entertaining to read, thanks to the excellent work of 8-4, who's quickly establishing itself as one of the premier localizers in the industry -- even comparing favorably to the likes of Nintendo and Atlus. [Editor's Note: 1UP also occasionally coordinates with 8-4 for coverage of news, events, and games in Japan. Our affiliation with 8-4 had no effect on the score or text of this review.] The company's early offerings, such as Tales of Vesperia and Eternal Sonata, trended more toward stilted, literal translations. But 8-4's taken a more creative approach with recent projects, and just as in White Knight Chronicles -- where the punchy dialogue was really the best part of a mediocre adventure -- Monster Hunter helps bring the bustling Bronze Age village to life with witty quips and puns. Unfortunately, the odd font choice doesn't do the text any favors -- it reads like it was typed out sometime in 1892, which isn't the best choice in a game that lacks voiceovers and relies so heavily on text-based information.
