Monster Hunter is a phenomenon in Japan and has been for some time. Despite a slow start in the US, released in 2004 after all, it seems that gamers in the west are finally getting behind the title. Appearing on multiple consoles, including the PSP for which the titles have sold over 3.5 million units, Monster Hunter is a game that succeeds because it crosses genres. It is an RPG that engages players like an action title. An adventure game whose world is more dynamic and spontaneous than most MMO's. Monster Hunter is the type of adventure game that taps many of the great gaming devices touched upon by fan-favorite titles (not necessarily popular titles) on consoles and the arcade. The strength of these titles plays upon the ultimate fight for survival, one against many and one against giants.

There is something very rewarding about taking on gigantic monsters by yourself. The feeling is tremendously visceral as a player has to do battle with opponents multiple stories high, who could kill a player with a single strike. This is a contrary type of game play mechanic to popular titles like Devil May Cry, God of War or the classic Dynasty Warriors. Instead of wave after wave if few-hit opponents and combo juggling, players have to concentrate on a single massive enemy that is far more dangerous. The larger the opponent the more strategy is involved. The best way to appreciate and understand the evolution of the MH franchise it by seeing how other games contributed to the "David vs Goliath" experience.

Panzer Dragoon is one of those titles that also crosses genres. It is one of the first 3D SHUMPS, a rail shooter where the dragon is often dwarfed by opposing monsters and machines. Players get to experience the awesome power of riding a dragon with magical weapons, while at the same time seeing that even in this fictional world there are terrors even more imposing than the dragon. Giant bugs and snakes threatened the player from below while floating battleships bombarded them from above.

Monster Hunter has yet to provide massive creatures to ride into battles like Panzer Dragoon. Instead the focus is on a group of heroes taking down beasts in armed combat. Some of these monsters can be taken down in epic solo battles. If there were one title that succeeded in making the experience more powerful than any of the MH games it would be Shadow of the Colossus. This was not the result of random chance but instead inspired design.

Wander, the main character in SotC, has only two weapons (not counting the ones players can unlock). Defeating the colossi is the result of using the environment successfully and navigating the giants as moving puzzles. The colossi themselves are as epic and memorable as any "boss" character ever designed. The earth shakes at their approach, some even blotting out the sun. Even the "small" colossi are twice as big as the protagonist's horse. The music, level design and artistic direction continuously remind the player of the terrible isolation Wander suffers on top of his quest. These things adding multiple layers for dramatic effect and help make the struggle much more powerful.

Unlike SotC, Monster Hunter allows gamers to choose between several hunting classes and get all sorts of weapon upgrades along the way. The diversity of close and long range weapons as well as the strategy of lures and traps broadens the entire concept of hunting and makes the game unlike SotC. Players are forced to heal wounds and regain stamina by eating on the fly. There are no right-click shortcuts or macros to help out gamers. The world of MH is constantly moving and players must be willing to react and adapt with it. This level of engagement immerses the players further into the experience than the single-click commands and detached animations offered in most MMO's. The use of giant monsters as antagonists is icing on the cake. Because of their size these monster are omnipresent, from a distance they can still be made out clearly. If the player runs away during an engagement the creatures turn the tables and stalk them instead.

Few titles manage to make that sense of scale and urgency in battles work well. Rarely do they capture it in a science fiction setting. Capcom is becoming adept at providing a great experience in both the fantasy and sci-fi worlds. Lost Planet is not quite a MH experience but several alien battles will remind players that humans are not always at the top of the food chain. To hammer the point home Capcom made certain that in a battle against "Sir Om Nom Nom" in Lost Planet 2 the giant alien lizard can eat players and run them through its digestive tract.

Lost Planet was not the first science fiction shooter to capture the menace of giant monsters on a rampage. The budget publisher D3 is continuing a series called Earth Defense Force (EDF) for modern consoles. The pace of EDF 2017 and its challenges are far more frenetic than any other game I've mentioned. The challenge in the game is instantaneous. Players have little time to stare slack-jawed at the behemoths they face as swarms of monsters ravage cities and countryside in wave after wave. If anything EDF is a step into the combo territory of games like DMC than the strategy and combat of MH.

The scale of many aliens in this game rival if not surpass the largest monsters from any Capcom, Sony or Sega game. They are truly a sight to behold. For those that are unfamiliar with daikaiju (giant monster) films the scale of the aliens in EDF are gaming equivalents to Godzilla or Cloverfield. They are imposing, inescapable monsters that tear through cities and armies with absolute ease, all the while menacing the hero from a distance. The game allows us to perform the impossible and take on the creatures with hand weapons and the occasional vehicles. The arcade pace of EDF is completely unlike the more grounded-in-reality Lost Planet. However for those that are fond of frenetic shooting it more than makes up for the depth with tons of eye candy.

Battles with giant creatures are often the highlights of of modern titles. Take the Leviathan battle from Resistance 2 or the battle with Stay Puft in Ghostbusters for example. Very rarely do they make up the entire experience. Monster Hunter, EDF and now Kaiju Busters being the notable exceptions. Of those titles Monster Hunter is the only one to stick with a fantasy rather than science fiction setting. The primitive weapons and their demanding tactics help make the experience much more visceral to gamers.

If there were one failing with Monster Hunter it would be in the way that Capcom is evolving the series. Monster Hunter 3 (Tri) adds new water levels and aquatic monsters to the mix. I will concede that the sea, lakes and rivers are prime places to take the hunt. The addition of these environments and new tactics were partly the reason that Famitsu have the game a "perfect" score of 40 out of 40 points. I think the rating might a be a little short-sighted. Monster Hunter 3 could have been a lot stronger in the water-based mechanics.

On land the hunters and the monsters had some common ground, namely gravity. They all suffered from the limitations of real big game hunters, the hunt took place on a plane, with few changes in elevation. Water adds the third dimension to the mix, or rather it should have added it. Creatures of the ocean do not swim along a set path, they can move freely in all three dimensions, much faster than humans, especially hunters in heavy armor. The combat system, navigation and enemies seem to have been poorly adapted to the water levels in Tri. The cumbersome heavy weapons which (already pulled at our suspension of disbelief) retained their mass and animations underwater. It was very questionable that characters in armor could catch up to sea creatures let alone fight them with their heavy weapons. Or while fighting a massive sea dragon how we expected to believe that the small hunters could catch up to it, fight it, or even be able to swim away if in trouble?

There seemed to be no concessions made while taking the hunters into the water-levels. No attempts to try and make the gameplay elements compliment the new environments. No attempt at optimizing the armor, weapons and hunters to take advantage of the water and add a whole new dimension to the game. For example, almost all the animations for underwater combat seemed recycled from ground animations. Larger sea monsters, who could move much faster than players underwater, kept looping on a path so that hunters could reach them with close range weapons. How could Famitsu have rewarded Tri a perfect score when the gameplay elements were redundant and relied on the similar land tactics?

Water-based titles have been a favorite genre of mine. I mean simply more than talking about my love of Hydro Thunder, I have always been fascinated by the sea. I wrote a multi-part series on ocean-based titles at 1UP. Covering titles with submarines as well as those using personal water-craft and other underwater games. 

The title that I consider the perfect underwater adventure game, and one of my favorite games of all-time, is Sega's the Ocean Hunter. In fact four years ago I compared the Ocean Hunter to Monster Hunter. Saying how the style, world and play mechanics complimented their respective worlds. Little did I think that Capcom might someday move their franchise to the sea as well. I was excited to learn about these developments but after seeing how Capcom added them to the game have become disappointed instead.

The ocean is a unique environment, not unlike space, gravity seems to be suspended in the big blue. Not to mention that both environments cannot easily be survived by humans. Planning an underwater portion of a game requires all sorts of preparation and visualization. Are characters expected to swim everywhere or can they take a boat? How do characters get to the furthest depths, what about air, how will their weapons and armor function underwater? How will the water change the fighting engine? How will the enemies be balanced against the hunters? All of these things have to be sorted out before the first line of code is written.

Sega answered those things in the Ocean Hunter. Granted no two studios would have found the same workarounds but their template was still solid. The hunters in Sega's game, Torel and Chris, wore deep sea diving suits and had breathing apparatus to survive the elements. They moved underwater via a personal underwater craft. This allowed them to track the faster moving sea creatures and giant bosses. This craft had machine-gun-like harpoons as the primary weapon. Swinging a hand weapon underwater would have been slow and cumbersome. A bathysphere suspended from a giant balloon moved the players between levels. They reached the deepest parts of the ocean through a descending anchor. At no point did they have to swim to reach the next destination.

Gamewise the Ocean Hunter was a shooter on rails, akin to Panzer Dragoon. It really isn't fair to compare it to Monster Hunter Tri which is a 3rd person adventure. However the important elements remain, Sega did not apply the physics or level designs from previous shooting games into the Ocean Hunter. The environment could be clouded or clear depending on where and how deep the divers were. Characters floated, dove and rose as the level demanded. No land-based shooter could have created a similar experience because of the differences in atmosphere.

If I had to name an upcoming console title, rather than an older arcade game, that should be emulated for 3rd person underwater adventure games it would be Biart Studios U-Wars. The title is a modern 3rd person shooter where a portion of the levels take place underwater. Even then it is more like Lost Planet underwater than MH. The design of U-Wars shows more forethought than Tri. The choice or weapons, movement and cover are more consistent with gameplay designed around underwater, as opposed to adapted for water levels. The only thing lacking from U-Wars are gigantic bosses to battle. We'll see if that changes by the time it is released.

I wish that Capcom had worked a little harder in incorporating water environments into Tri. The game could have legitimately earned a "perfect" score with some more work and forethought. What do you think?