Monster Hunter Tri Interview

Hands-on with Capcom’s third and possibly greatest full Monster Hunter sequel, followed by extensive chat with Capcom UK’s Leo Tan.

Answers to some of your inevitable questions – though sadly not the all-important one of whether Europeans will have to pay for online – can be found in our chat with Leo Tan, Capcom UK’s PR Manager. You’ve read his thoughts on flagging challenge factors and Monster Hunter as a “platform”, now get the rest.

Home sweet home.

VideoGamesDaily: Hi Leo, thanks for making time for us. People have been talking up the online modes a lot – it’s the first time the series has had “proper” online – but I suspect the expanded tutorials will be the real make-or-break feature. Monster Hunter has always had such a high entry threshold…

Leo Tan: It’s been impenetrable for years, and that puts a lot of people off. Even for me, the first five hours I spent with my first Monster Hunter was just throwing it down and swearing and putting it away again, but for Capcom I thought I need to learn how this game works. So I kept picking it back up and playing, and once you get through that initial bit it becomes the greatest game of all time.

VGD: Yeah, that’s what I’ve found! I’ve only played the PSP ones but I got completely hooked on the second one.

Tan: Freedom 2 was brilliant, and they carried that over into Freedom Unite. There’s four of us that play in the office, so we spend just about every lunchtime and after lunch doing missions. One of our guys is 2000 hours in, and he’s got every badge on the guild card.

VGD: Oh crikey, I’m not that dedicated. I think I’ve played maybe 100 hours tops…

Tan: That’s still pretty dedicated. I’ve done 1100 hours.

VGD: Compared to most games, even the lower figure is pretty epic.

The bowgun. When you absolutely positively got to kill every mother-f**ker in the room...

Tan: To go back to your previous question, there has been online before, the PS2 version had online, but nobody had PS2 online. So that was basically dead in the water. But this is hopefully… Hopefully everybody who has a Wii will also have the internet.

VGD: Was there ever a move to put it on Xbox 360?

Tan: There was a PS3 version announced, and then it kind of switched over to the Wii. I guess from a business point of view, Wii is the platform and Monster Hunter is the product that works on the platform, but for me, Monster Hunter is the platform. Like everything else is plugged into Monster Hunter!

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4 Responses to “Monster Hunter Tri Interview”

1. Brush says:

   16/02/10 at 11:06 am

   I had the PS2 one online…the lobbies were quite fun, you could have a pint pre hunt.

   I think this series, as long as it stays free online in the west, could bring together a whole lot of audiences, all the dreamcast PSO players will love it, anyone who likes a bit of co op, the mmo players. It could/will be huuuuge in the west.

   This is possibly just moi, but…my Wii does not seem to connect to my Wifi with as fast a connection as my 360, hence it never really gets used for online games.

   In fact, if MH frontier online came to the west, i would play that over Tri, because i’d be happier with the online setup (and do like those cheives). Despite the fact it’s an ‘older’ iteration of MH.

   I think Cpacom (go on Leo, lobby away) should, just as an experiment, bring fronteir online over to European and American Xboxes some time after Tri, because they will get an audience…if they had to do subs to make it work, i even think they could (hope they wouldn’t though). Given Peter Moore headed up Xbox after Dreamcast, that old PSO audience, are mostly there (prob have Wii’s too no doubt).

   I reckon Tri will be the next step..but it’ll take until there’s an Xbox/PS3 multiplat release for this series to absolutely be huge here.
2. Brush says:

   16/02/10 at 11:11 am

   Cpacom

   oops.

   And while we’re at it…could you ask them to release ‘black tiger’ on arcade/psn

   when i was young, i recall it being the mutts, and it seems to have been lost in time, sniff.
3. Edwin Evans-Thirlwell says:

   16/02/10 at 11:17 am

   You’re in luck – Monster Hunter Frontier is now Xbox-360-bound http://www.vg247.com/2010/01/26/capcommicrosoft-game-is-monster-hunter-frontier-online/

   Personally, I’d just like to see another PSP iteration (or even PSP2 iteration?) with proper online multiplayer. Doubt it’ll ever be huge in the West – it’s too skill/action-based for the MMO crowd, but too resource-management-ish for the action crowd. One can dream though.
4. Brush says:

   17/02/10 at 9:17 pm

   Yep, they released a trailer for it

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikP3AbFwxwA

   however, as per the PC version, it’s likely to stay asia only i suspect.

   Which is where Leo, and my unrealistic views of where PR sits in the overall scheme of Capcom’s business, comes in.

   He sends an email off, to some head honcho in Capcom…tells him…nae demands

   they release it in the west because he knows there would be an audience for it (me). They listen, we’re all happy, Leo gets knighted for services to UK gaming, and the tale ends on a high.

   That’d be great.

   I think they’ll get a bit bigger on each UK release, more PSP sure, but i’d like to see more console versions, or PC, where it would surely find a suitable home, they have made a PC game (fronteir online) so surely translating it, just as an experiment,then selling on steam..wouldn’t be that risky..will pick up Tri sometime.