Monster Hunter Dynamic Hunting
The popular creature killing franchise heads to the App Store, but frustrating combat may kill Capcom's chances.
Capcom's celebrated Monster Hunter franchise is arguably the number one reason why Sony's PSP remains relevant in Japan. Gamers just love the concept of teaming up to slaughter dangerous behemoths and fashioning weapons and armor from the carcasses. Such is human nature, we suppose.
That said, tonight (11:00PM ET) marks the release of the newest entry, Monster Hunter Dynamic Hunting, but you won't find it on PSP. No, this game will make its debut on the iPhone, as the developers hope to bring this deep series to mobile, thus introducing millions of potential customers to the joys of killing things.
For the most part, Dynamic Hunting follows a similar formula to its portable and console brethren. You square off against terrifying monsters in the hopes of slaughtering the foul beasts and then letting no resource go to waste.
The game includes three weapon types: sword and shield, great sword and dual sword. What's more, you can customize up to 40 unique weapons and 13 different types of armor.
During combat, you'll drag a finger across the screen to move your chosen warrior, then tap to attack and flick to slash. Most importantly, you can evade/guard by dragging two fingers. These moves are key to survival, since each monster possesses a devastating danger attack. You probably want to avoid that.
Of course, you can always use a friend as bait, thanks to two-person co-op via Bluetooth. And if one player dies but the other succeeds, both score quest materials.
Although Dynamic Hunting sounds fun, there's a catch. For whatever reason, the game will only work on an iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, third generation iPod Touch or more with a minimum iOS of 4.1 or better. As for iPad and iPad 2, the App may not work at all. That's something you'll need to think about before spending $4.99.
On top of that, we've heard rumblings of a limited battle system, where players can only attack up, down, left and right. That will make hitting a monster's weak point a bit tougher than it should be.
Bottom line, you should exercise caution before purchasing Monster Hunter Dynamic Hunting. Wait for the reviews to see if this creature feature's worth the dough.
