While Monster Hunter Portable 3rd is still waiting to be released outside of Japan, the game is being pretty popular there. It’s probably for that reason that the Universal Studios Japan have announced a MHP3rd event. It’s however still unclear as to what kind of event this may be. But it’s rather likely that it’ll feature some more information and gameplay from the upcoming Monster Hunter Protable 3rd HD for PS3. Anyway, we’ll keep you updated.

In other news, Capcom-Unity-User Snow has announced a 24 hour-hunting session on one of the Monster Hunter Tri servers. Check out the description below or visit the official homepage for more detail.

It’s a long weekend for most of us, meaning extra time to play games! More specifically, time well spent hunting the ravenous creatures of Monster Hunter. This Saturday pop in Monster Hunter Tri in your Wii, and meet up with Capcom-Unity for epic hunting, BBQing, arm wrestling, drinking at the pub, and flaunting ones achievements in the world of Minegarde. Details are as follows:

- Get online in Monster Hunter Tri Saturday anytime
- Go to the Server Valor 4
- Head to Gate 40
- Capcom-Unity will be waiting for you! 

That’s the meet up destination! Expect to find fellow Capcom-Unity Monster Hunters throughout the day. This event takes place both in North America and in Europe. If you’re playing in North America click here for more information, and if you’re playing in Europe click here.

It’s an all day event, but don’t feel obligated to be there the whole time. Just hop online and in that server and gate when you get a chance!

[ Sources: Capcom-Unity.com / The-Magicbox.com ]

It’s still unkonwn whether MHP3rd HD will be available on PSN (assuming it’s up again until then) or as a hard-copy – even though I’d kind of prefer the second option. So far there are no plans to release either MHP3rd (PSP) or MHP3rd HD (PS3) outside of Japan. But as most of you probably already know it was the same for Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G and the western hunters still got to hunt down their Nargacugas in Monster Hunter Freedom Unite. Be that as it may, it would be  exhilarating to get another MH-part on the big screen. While Monster Hunter Tri was (and still is) a great game, it still lacks some stuff to really shine – like HD-graphics, a decent voice-chat-feature (I always use skype) and a bigger amount of gear and monsters to hunt. All of this was however featured in Capcoms Monster Hunter Frontier which unfortunately is only available in Japan.

Anyway, MHP3rd HD is definately something you should look forward to. Capcom will release more information on the title on May 28th. Until then: Check out the announcement-trailer (make sure to watch it in HD) below or visit the official website!

[ source: Capcom-Unity.com ]

[ source: Monsterhunterforum.de ]

Anyway, there are only a few basic rules to follow in order to take a Jhen Mohran down, the most important of them listed below.

• Mohrans is very weak to dragon-element weapons. If you don’t have any of those, ice still deals a decent amount of damage. Don’t use fire-element weapons though, they’re as good as useless against him.
• When you have the chance to get on Mohrans back, attack the two cracks on his fin. Remember that you can attack them from both, his right and left side which deals major damage. After hitting them for long enough the cracks will open, providing a passage to the other side.
• Don’t be greedy with the special-attacks of the ship.  The gong, the ballista-binder as well as the dragon-spear are all powerful weapons. The gong is usually used shortly before Mohran is threatening to tackle the boat. The binder draws him closer to the ship and keeps him steady, so he can be hit easier. The most powerful though is the dragon-spear. It deals massive damage and forces Mohran to retreat for a short while.
• Use the ballistas (apart from binding) to damage Mohrans fangs (horns?). Remember that you can also carve there when you manage to kill him.
• The most powerful weapon that is available at all times is the canon. Don’t attack Mohran with a regular weapon, even if he’s close. The canon deals way more damage. That especially counts for the “end-phase” where mohran draws nearer to the stranded ship and tries to destroy it with bodyslams. First attack him with ballistas as long as he’s out of reach for the canons. As soon as he is close enough though, switch to canons.

That’s pretty much all there is to it. It’s usually a good idea to boost your defense before the encounter. Some of Mohrans attacks are close to fatal.

Then a couple of Japanese guys invented that awesome thing called “headlocking” and lances were all over the place. “Headlocking” was (and still is) a strategy in which you make the opponent stagger by constantly hitting his weak spot (usually the head). Among the weapons used for this was, beside the hammer, mainly the lance. It’s popularity grew steadily and especially veteran players started using the lance as their main weapon. Still, the weapon or rather its attacks had some flaws as they were rather unflexible and hard to master. For that reason Capcom introduced a more beginner-friendly type of this weapon: The gunlance.

While the lance already had a huge attacking range, the gunlance took it even further. By shooting projectiles at the monsters you now had the perfect mixture between short- and long-range weapon, especially the wyvern-fire (a special attack in which you first charge and are completely open to attacks for around 2 seconds before you fire a devastating blast) made this weapon top notch. The gunlance became one of most popular weapons in the series, but at the same time many of the monsters became tougher and the headlock was harder to complete, in some cases even became impossible.

With Monster Hunter Tri however, Capcom decided to “start from scratch” and exclude most of “newer” weapons, figuratively reinventing the game. That also meant that the gunlance had to go. I myself, being a huge sucker for hammers and LS, wasn’t really all that sad about it. Anyway, a couple of days ago I needed to clear the Jhen Mohran quest in order to advance in HR. Unfortunately my only weapon with dragon element happened to be a lance (Model: The Undertaker). So I involuntarily had to go with it. It turned out to be not so bad though, in fact it was quite enjoyable to use it and completely different from what I remembered. It was a little hard to judge it though, since fighting with Mohran is like fighting a mountain. So a while later a couple of friends and I decided to take down a Rathian and Rathalos. I wasn’t really sure what weapon to use, normally it would probably have been a hammer but this time I wanted to try something new – the lance was the obvious choice. The first thing I noticed at our encounter with Rathalos, was that the lance had become a lot faster. Also Capcom added some new moves that made fighting alone much easier, such as the swing in which you strike your lance from left to right and get rid of the small fries.  But there was another attack that impressed me even more. The biggest advantage with the lance, is that you can always hide behind your shield and then pierce your opponent with the lance from a defensive position, which is basically what everyone does when he wields a lance. So instead of inventing another useless running move Capcom decided to go for a counter-attack. In this attack you charge while defending with your shield and then thrust the tip of your lance into your enemy will brutal force. You can also expand the attacking by dealing some more blows after that. While getting a better grip on the abilities and possibilities of the weapon I decided to go for the obvious: try to headlock. And guess what, it worked!

Conclusively I can only tell that the lance has become a monster of a weapon. After defeating several Uragaans and Rathians/Rathalos with it, I’m really impressed with what you can now do with a weapon that was initially more of a hindrance than acutal help in a hunt. Go ahead and try out!

The title pretty much speaks for itself. Enjoy ^^

Capcom has released some more information on the upcoming Monster Hunter sequel for the PSP. So far one new area has been introduced: Mountain Stream. At the moment three monsters are sure be found in that location, namely: Aoashira, Jinouga and Nargacuga. Below some pics of the zone.

Note however that the English name is not yet final.

[source: Monsterhunterforum.de]

After diving through a couple of underwater caves you will find yourself in what seems to have been a fortress; only that it has sunk and is now underwater. You can choose to use the Ballista as well as the dragonspear in order to further weaken the giant or simply attack him with your own weapon. However I strongly suggest using the weapons in the fortress, especially the Dragonator. It will weaken him remarkably. Anyway, after landing a couple more hits on his horn, it broke off and further hits led to Ceadeus fleeing out into the again – Moga was saved

The nex major Monster to take down was Jhen Mohran. He was also the one Monster I had to finish so I could rise in HR. Hunting Jhen was a whole new experience. For one you can’t really attack him with your regular weapon most of the time as he is swimming in the sea of sand next to your ship. So what you have to do is use the Ballistas and canons on the ship, it’s pretty wicked. Anyway, for this quest a decent weapon was essential and as his two biggest weaknesses are Dragon and Ice, I was kind of screwed. I didn’t have weapons of either of those two elements in my box, but I kind of got lucky in a quest and managed to get a rusted lance which i could turn into the “Undertaker”, which is pretty much one of best weapons you can get for defeating a Jhen. My first two attempts to clear the quest with the Vodyanoy Hammer failed miserably. One of them even by 2 minutes, which was quie frustrating. Still, on the 4th try I managed to gather a great team and we really did manage to cause some major damage. So much in fact that Mohran actually dropped dead at the end – HR 31 Even though Jhen’s armor isn’t that special, the weapons you can craft out of his materials are pretty neat. Next up: Deviljho

[Stats taken from Monster Hunter Wiki]

I must say that I’m quite impressed with the new monsters in Tri. The pace has been taken up a notch and most of the patterns aren’t as easy to read anymore. This kind of makes the hunts a little more chaotic since you can never be quite sure on where the wyvern or dragon will strike next. Agnaktor in specific is quite a troublesome fellow. You would think that it should be easy to land hits on a monster with such a huge body, but hell no! Agnaktor is incredibly fast and will, if you’re not careful, burn you to a crisp before you have time to even realize he’s attacking.

My first Agnaktor hunt was quite a thrilling experience. Many of his moves are similar to those of Lagiacrus (for example the bodyslam or the firebeam) but he also plenty of original moves. Actually it wouldn’t be so hard to take the Leviathan down, but the environment, namely the volcano area, gives that beast a huge advantage. It will dive through the lava and hit you from all possible (and impossible) directions. Also you have to be careful not to get too close to the molten stone in order to keep your HP up. All this while you have to evade the attacks of an oversized, lava carrying seahorse. I found hitting that thing on his chest and head to be the most effective ways to deal a decent amount of damage. However your primary focus should be to evade all of his attacks and wait for a propper opportunity to strike. Sometimes he will purposely create an opening which then proves to be a trap. Usually hitting it at the moment where it does a turn or when it does the fire-beam is most efficient and safe. Still, I imagine that taking this thing down ought to be way easier with 2 or more people instead of a whiny Cha-Cha -_-’