Monster Hunter Portable 3 - Observations thus far.

Okay, so thanks to a fellow role play enthusiast I have in my possession a less than legitimate copy of Monster Hunter Portable 3rd, outside of Frontier 10.0 and the Felyne Diary game, it is the newest installment in the Monster Hunter series. Having installed an English patch on the game, I have been thoroughly enjoying it thus far. Where to begin…

Having loaded the game up you are presented with several options to create your character, some of which allow you to load from existing files from MHP2G and the Felyne Diary game for a couple of extras, which I currently have no idea what they are save for one of the big super deformed Felyne heads originating from the very patapon-esque game, also currently exclusive to Japan.

Once you get into character creation, the selections are very similar to that of MH3, in the fact that you have a limited choice of faces, but have the option to edit the details of the face, such as paint, scars, hair, etc. They also give you the option to color these details, save for the scars, which was a nice touch. Many voices return from the previous titles, as well as a few new ones. They did get rid of my characters voice strangely enough, but I chose another one quite similar to it.

Once you make the changes and get them set up, you can whether you are new to the game or not, thus forcing you to do the beginners training school missions, which will familiarize you in the ways of the hunt. They also have weapon tutorials to get you used to the new features of the weapons, which I will list soon. The game then throws you headlong into an awesome CG of your hunter/huntress heading to Yukumo village. Needless to say all hell breaks loose and you end up running into trouble, in turn meeting the games flagship monster and getting a sighting of an unknown creature of sorts, who can only be seen through the clouds. You escape relatively unscathed and make it to the town, which is very, VERY in your face Asian in design. Weeaboo, rejoice!!!11one

Anyway, the town is set up just like the other games with access to all your hunting needs. The farm, smithy, shops, peddlers, chief and felyne granny all reside the same as they did in games prior. The farm, however has received a slew of new features, which like in the old games, unlock as you progress through the offline and online missions. The felyne comrades return as well, though with much more customizability, including armor and weapons, and the ability to recruit specific felynes is a nice addition to those who want further options. They can also be named however you see fit.

There is actually a felyne outfitter which can make specific pieces of armor and weapons for your companion lynian hunter, made from leftover (scrap) materials from creating your own hunter’s weapons and armor. Or, you can have him make scraps from existing materials in your supplies/chest. Making felyne armor and weapons is relatively cheap, as if you make a certain set for yourself, you will have ample materials left over to create a set, if not multiple sets for your felynes. Whilst soloing offline and in the guild, you can take up to two felynes with you to battle, which can help keep the monsters from focusing primarily on you. It works the same as it did in MHFU and P2G in the fact that the felynes can take only so much of a beating before they retreat to recover. There are multiple new training options that can be unlocked to further develop your kitty’s strengths, as well as give them new abilities for battle. Their weapons are also the same as the predeceasing game, giving them the option to cut, or impact the creatures. Much like their human counterparts, the felynes also eventually get S and U ranking armors as well. You may have up to 5 total felynes training at a time.

Now, to add to that, the training takes place in Yukumo farm. Not only can the felyne’s train here, but they can also help you in your farming endeavors as well. Once you unlock certain features on the farm, including the mine cart, bug seesaw, fishing basket and the “MoNyan” wagon, they can work together to get you some decent items. Here are some details about the farm features in general.

Mining - Same as the old days, you unlock new mining points and manually mine ores and crystals at up to 4 total spots.
Mining Cart - You select up to 4 felynes to enter a mine, giving them the axes of your choice, or strangely enough, a mushroom strong as an axe acquired from the mushroom tree to bring you some ores. The amount of rewards is based on the quality of the axe, and the outcome of the felynes effort.

Bug Trap - Similar to bug gathering spots, but different in the fact that you choose what pheromones you wish to use to attract the insects, as well as a supplement of pollen or honey to further draw them in. There are multiple pheromones/perfumes used to draw the bugs, some for beetles, some for black insects and so on and so forth.

Bug Seesaw - Select up to 4 felynes to be “Cat”apulted into a tree to catch bugs. Works almost the same as the bug trees from prior games, except your hunter jumps from a ledge based on a well timed jump which will send all 4 cats flying with bugnets to catch multiple insects. The higher they fly, the better the rewards. Funny thing is this, if you mess up your jump, your hunter face-plants on the seesaw, sending the cats barely into the air, leaving them clueless and dazed to what happened, thus barely catching anything and not landing on their feet no less. It is quite humorous.

Fishing Pier - Gone are the days of manually catching fish. You simply withdraw a basket filled with various catches, the more you upgrade the pier, the bigger variety of fish you get.

Fishing Basket - Select up to 4 felynes to catch fish for you. You select three different baits to catch them with for varying results.

Field Rows - Same as before. Plant something, fertilize it, it grows.

Mushroom Tree - Same as before.

Honeycomb - Same as before.

MoNyan Wagon - Select up to 4 felynes to go on a hunting quest! You pick the mission, they come back after you complete yours, with some decent rewards, based on their level. There are different missions they can go on, up to 4 star quests. Missions are against various monsters. You collect the goods and send the felynes back out after doing so.

Phew, I believe that is all I have for today. I will follow up with weapon and monster details in the days to come.

Supplement added 4/6/11 - Weapon details

The weapon selection has greatly improved since the random drop of the Dual Blades, Hunting Horn, Gunlance and Bow on MH3. It still baffles me as to why the ever did that in the first place. With the return of those original weapons, the game also implemented new moves and features to each weapon, which I will try to list below. I may leave a few minor things out, as I have not fully tested each weapon thus far. If you know Andras as a character, he is typically sporting mid to long range weapons and as such I know quite a bit about them. Portable 3 did however kill the customization engine applied to MH3’s guns, and eliminated the Medium Bowgun. Which was lame to begin with. I guess I’ll start from top to bottom.

Greatsword - Implements Tri’s new features such as the flat blade attack and the (second) final charge. Oddly enough they changed the charge timing again, and made it to where you have to time your final charge to get a full, three level charge.

Longsword - Implements Tri’s new features, on top of being able to physically see how long you remain in the spirit combo mode and it’s 3 different levels. You can also choreograph the final slash, as well as your evasion swing, the one where you slash and hop backwards at the same time, meaning you can make it go left or right. Nice additions indeed.

Sword and Shield - Implements Tri’s new features such as the shield bash combo and the horizontal to vertical upswing combo. The shield bash acts as impact damage, giving you the ability to wear the creatures stamina down, as well as get KO/head stuns. Take that hammer/horn/crag users.

Dual Blades - Redesigned from the ground up. Much like the LS, they have a new spirit bar that fills when you are in rage/demon mode, which when filled grants you greater attack power. (Per Maur and Dagger 32) Also, when in rage/demon mode, you can perform a quick dash, which is handy for evasive maneuvers. When the bar is filled, it remains locked at full for a period of time, which will allow you this new dash move even whilst in normal attack mode. The attacks have also changed to a more fierce set of combos.

Lance - Implements Tri’s new features. The perfect guard, counter thrust and shield bash are all now present, as well as the crowd control sideways slash.

Gunlance - Oh joyous improvements. They have overhauled the gunlance on so many levels whilst retaining its original awesomeness. The only notable thing missing is the ability to constantly fire shots off over and over. When you fire now, your hunter will snap the gunlance around and reload the spent shell, unless you use the charge feature, which will charge your shelling before releasing it for a more powerful hit. Almost like a mini-wyvern fire. There is also a new shotgun move, which will allow you to discharge all shellings at once for some killer damage. This can only be done after certain combinations of movements. My favorite weapon thus far.

Hammer - Implements Tri’s new moves, all two of them, the level 1 charge upswing and the spinning backswing from the charge. All attacks now deplete enemies stamina.

Hunting Horn - Meh. They changed it for the worst if you ask me. There is no longer a secondary recital mode, as you play tunes as you do any and all attacks now. You build up a combo of tunes as you attack, and press R to play the tune. It just isn’t as fun as it was. No new moves.

Switch Axe - The amalgamation of light and heavy versatility from Tri has entered the fray of weapons. Bringing over all of Tri’s current moves, they have also added two new phials/coatings to the axes elemental blade mode. Includes the elemental discharge whilst in sword mode. I will list them below.

Elements (fire, water, ice, thunder, dragon) - Obvious
Power - A shear burst of raw energy
Para/Stun - Yep.
Boost - Draws off the axes native element
Poison - Duh.
Fatigue - Causes the attacked target to lose stamina. If I’m not mistaken, can cause head stuns/KO.

Keep in mind that whist hacking away in sword mode, you drain the axe gauge, which will force it back into axe mode to either be reloaded or recharged. Axe mode allows faster movements. Sword mode slows movements, but has a swift and powerful elemental based attack. Quite the awesome addition indeed.

Light Bowgun - Same as before, save for adding a backhop and some evasive maneuvers/dodges after firing. The only gun with a rapidfire option. Not much else to say about it.

Heavy Bowgun - New features, yo. Sniper mode! Basically, certain guns give you the option to go stationary, meaning you take a knee and essentially get to stream a steady barrage of bullets from your gun. For example, Hapuru’s (the mud puppy/salamander) gun can continually fire a stream of Normal Lv3 shot on a 30 round clip, Water shot on a 20 round clip and Poison lv1 on a 6 round clip. That’s right, it autofires all three of those as long as the button is held. Also, after firing you can do a left or right strafing roll. Pretty cool addition to a relatively clumsy and slow weapon.

Bow - Can we say bombardment? All coatings and arrow types remain from previous titles, with the addition of fatigue arrows. Drains stamina like mad. Also introduces a new attack from the 2nd level charge. One of three aerial attacks where you fire one large arrow into the air, and it will do one of three things, based on the type given to the bow.

Spread - Bursts open, showering the target area with multiple scatter bombs.
Focused - Like spread, but is concentrated to a smaller radius.
Blast - My personal favorite. Drop a bomb on the enemy. That is all.

This concludes my listing of weapon details. Monster details to come soon.

The hopping sideways with the LS evasive slash was actually already implemented in tri. As for SA phials, poison and Exhaust are new, but the element phial was there to improve the power of the axe's element, as the Rough Edge Sword-mode was the only one with an actual element (being Dragon).
As for removing the weapons in Tri, I dunno. It's possible they just wanted to start anew with this one.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll be trying to find out if the Lance and Gunlance hef any diffrences apart from the obvious.

Man, the gunlance makes me happy. However, it can be totally broken if paired with the auto-guard talisman. It effectively breaks the game, because almost nothing can get you.

Bringing this topic back to the front now due to actually getting my paws on a ROM version which works. I've gotten some progress at that too.

Here's what I've got so far:

Player: Renetona (name is in actual Katakana though since JP only)
Current Armor: Bnahabra Set (Both)
Targeted Armor Set: Gigginox Set
Current Weapon: Jaggi Buster Sword (will get proper name soon)
Best weapon: Buster Sword
Current Progress: St 3.0 area for offline mode, x4 Hot Spa Upgrades done and idle for next in Guild

---

Felynes (will add funny terms in their profiles to answer up for names) :
-Main Cat: Len  (her name is in Solid Katakana as well)
Human Form:

Actual Type: Melynx
Personality: Aggressive (Despite Len's adorable looks, she often snaps and goes berserk, usually a LOT!)
Preferred Targets: Bullies small enemies usually/distracts mobs during Boss battles
Special Ability: Snaps out in rage when she takes too many hits/knockdowns, if a boss goes berserk first, or if I take too many hits. Often gets in fights with Tamiko if she finds her goofing around (lolwhut?)
Current Love: Lvl.04
Current Helmet: Alloy Helm
Current Armor: Jaggi Armor
Current Weapon: Iron Broadsword (Slashing Type)
EX-Weapon: Silver Boomerang

-2nd Cat: Tamiko
Human form:

Actual Type: Casual Felyne
Personality: Loyal
Preferred Targets: Larger Enemies/Bosses 1st
Special Ability: Panics then faints when bosses go berserk. Snaps out in rage when I take too many hits. Often gets in fights with Len when finding her goofing around (yikes!)
Current Love: Lvl.04
Current Helmet: Azurios Hat
Current Armor: Alloy Mail
Current Weapon: Acorn Hammer (Bashing Type)
EX-Weapon: Quad-Boomerang

My psp broke.....

Azursia Siaku wrote:My psp broke.....

Not to be an opportunist here, but I have a spare Vita I could sell you.

I don't need two of them.

download MH 3 portable for ppsspp emu =w=b
watch ren video of MH3 kinda makes me wanna play :3

Satsujinki wrote:Not to be an opportunist here, but I have a spare Vita I could sell you.

No money, and even then I wouldn't buy a vita i'd just fix the psp which is much cheaper to fix.
I would have emulated it already if I really wanted to play it MrFuzz.

I would need a controller or something for emulation. It'd feel really weird using a keyboard for PSP controls given the layout.

Satsujinki wrote:I would need a controller or something for emulation. It'd feel really weird using a keyboard for PSP controls given the layout.

And that I too prepared for, I use the (not so working well but better than nothing) LogTech controller with it atm

Also, random update: became rather very fond of me very quickly there today after I made this response (trust hit maximum level after a Gigginox Boss Duel), and then Tamiko also did too (hers didn't at first because she was KO, so I had to go again in another round.... poor thing!  )

Screenies here now:





 

All of my observations summed up.

One thing I find annoying:
Those pesky Giggi.... ugh! They always love to jump at perculiar places all the time like shown here (Warning!! NSFW!!) :

do not click!:

I still think anything with tentacles is bet- I mean worse. Ya worse that's what I mean...

just killed duramboros last night. and volvidon just earlier. moving up to rathalos if no students show up for my class, all with LS and jaggi set XD

playing mh3u instead but still getting paid =w=b

btw, i hate every small monsters, especially when i want to capture something. =w=

nearly failed capturing lagiacruz yesterday... had to waste extra trap and tranq. cause of all the stupid ludroth.

well, waiting for my ccp xl to arrive for those annoying underwater hunt XD

Azursia Siaku wrote:I still think anything with tentacles is bet- I mean worse. Ya worse that's what I mean...

Lol!   

Well also I know what you mean too, but the boss seriously knows just exactly what and how to do a barrel roll, perfectly!  

Is it's name Fox McCloud?

Fixed my psp so now I can get back to "killing" those tentacles.

Azursia Siaku wrote:Is it's name Fox McCloud?

ROFL Nope, but it's "Royal Ludorth" or something, but that reference you both pulled.  

Vastell wrote:

Azursia Siaku wrote:Is it's name Fox McCloud?

ROFL Nope, but it's "Royal Ludorth" or something, but that reference you both pulled.  

not gobul?

that freak looks more like a barrel than a royal ludroth XD

it also have a tentacle like whiskers...

Maybe it's DK rolling around in a barrel before he goes flying out of it.