While the Monster Hunter franchise has always been a massive success in Japan, it’s made much less of a splash in the West. Ignoring this fact, Nintendo itself is set to publish the latest installment to Capcom’s behemoth in Europe in April this year, though the date isn’t specific.
Monster Hunter Tri‘s single-player mode is the same basic thing as always (Get given missions, complete said mission, improve gear, become a better hunter, ect.), and the story this time is that earthquakes have been rocking the village where you live, so the village elder sends you out to find out what’s causing said earthquakes. Online mode is more or less the same, save with friends and stangers. You can form a team of four hunters online, and there’s even an offline two-player mode. The main improvement over the previous entries is Tri‘s visuals; the graphics sure are breathtaking, and Capcom are calling them a major component of the games.
Nintendo has identified Monster Hunter Tri as a key title for the Wii platform in 2010. We are really excited about partnering with Nintendo to further develop this franchise.
– Michael Pattison, Capcom’s Senior Director of Marketing
Both Capcom and Nintendo hope that with this publication Monster Hunter will find as large a fanbase as it has in Japan, although this is likely not to be true…
