Hi everyone,
My name’s Leo. I work for Capcom and I’m here to talk to you about one of the greatest PSP games of all time Monster Hunter Freedom Unite. Out on June 26th exclusively for PSP, Monster Hunter Freedom Unite is a game in which you hunt big monsters with big weapons.
In Japan Monster Hunter is, well, huge. That probably doesn’t really sum it up adequately. It was the biggest selling game last year with more than 3 million players and it’s a game that completely changed the gaming landscape over there. It could easily be classed as a phenomenon. There are festivals in all the major cities that attract thousands of players (such as those pictured below), you can go on package holidays that are just for Monster Hunters and visit Monster Hunter-themed cafes. You’ll see people playing on the buses and trains and even just on street corners sometimes.
If you’ve not played Monster Hunter before the best way to think about it is as an action game (with combos and blocking) tied up in an MMO-style metagame. You hunt monsters, carve them up into bits and then use those bits to make weapons and armour that let you fight bigger and tougher monsters. There are literally hundreds and hundreds of weapons and pieces of armour that you can make which can in turn be customised to suit your particular playing style. Like MMOs it’s incredibly deep, with many players averaging 400-500 of hours of play time, but unlike MMOs there’s no subscription fee.
One of the best things about Monster Hunter, and it’s something that’s integral to the experience being on PSP, is that it encourages co-operative play. That means that Monster Hunter is a return of the good old-fashioned tradition of going round to your friends’ house to play games together. Or going to a cafe, or somewhere you can grab a bite to eat. Maybe at school at lunchtimes. Wherever takes your fancy, really.
Not everyone is lucky enough to have friends with PSPs, though, which is why we’re creating something called The Gathering Hall. It’s in central London, just a stone’s throw away from Tottenham Court Road tube station and will open on Friday 3rd July. The Gathering Hall will be open to anyone with a PSP and a copy of Monster Hunter, and it’ll make finding other players a simple matter for anyone who can make it into central London.
There’s more news to follow, including details on a very special event just for you readers, so please stay tuned.
Leo
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60 CommentsAdd Yours
51
Posted on 22 June, 2009 at 9:02 pm by savvyGallen
Shame that some equipment is not available, famitsu items, special tickets etc.
Yes, the game encourages people to meet up and play together in the east but not really on the west. I read peoples comments, and I find things like “Does it have online play?”. Alot of people prefer to stay indoors and connect online to play with others where as in Asia, they go out and meet other players. Its probably a culture difference.
The “gathering hall” you holding, it’ll only be there for a couple of days I assume, it’ll probably be less then what it was at London Excel, Heard halve of the players had illegal copies.
Already, thousands and thousands of people are downloading the game instead of buying, how do you people feel about it at Capcom?
52
Posted on 23 June, 2009 at 3:33 pm by Leo Tan
savvyGallen -
How do you know those items are not in the game? Even if you did know because you’d downloaded it (you seem to have firm piracy figures, thanks for sharing them) you wouldn’t know about how the items might be available via downloadable quests. So please, don’t give up hope yet!
The Gathering Hall will be open for two months. Hopefully that’ll be enough. The MCM Expo at Excel was good fun and a great way for us to reach a handful of UK players but The Gathering Hall will (hopefully) be something much bigger
So tell your friends!
53
Posted on 24 June, 2009 at 12:34 am by Stonesthrow
love these kind of movies, keep putting them on ! ^^ otherwise, it obviously wont have such an effect on western people (we’re just not that crazy or hardcore
)
i personally dont get into it because i dont have wireless internet so i basically cant do anything online on the psp at this point in time…so remember to keep making offline singleplayer games too ;p
54
Posted on 24 June, 2009 at 3:32 am by savvyGallen
@ Leo Tan, Please don’t stuff that “because you’d downloaded it (you seem to have firm piracy figures” down my throat. I based the items being unavailable from the Previous game Monster Hunter Freedom 2.
Plus, it was stated on Skiesofcroda which once existed. Now, Minegarde.
My PSP is legit. I have the game Freedom 2 on UMD and also have the Japanese version of Portable 2nd G.
PLUS, I could guess that some of the items are copyrighted like the previous game, thats why we don’t have them.
Again, I’m no pirater, don’t shove those words into people that easily.
55
Posted on 24 June, 2009 at 12:53 pm by savvyGallen
@Leo Tan
News for you:
“As for items in general, The team that localizes it has final say, Many of items contain logos and copyrights not found outside Japan area. And it would be to costly to precure those rights for us.” – Yuffie [Mod of Capcom Unity].
http://www.capcom-unity.com/ask_capcom/go/thread/view/7371/ 14364701/Monster_Hunter_Magazine_equipment?post_id=287705588#287705588
Again I Quote Yuffie from Capcom
“The thread in “ask capcom” question about whole thing. Has pic of some of them.
About rip content, etc.
Famitsu/JUMP has no rights over here or how over that works.
Some content I believe didnt make it slimply do to a mistake. (red lobster)
It was mention they really have no idea why we didnt get it. But Famitsu related stuff has never made it state side since 1st MH for ps2.
Kusha training quest, thou it doesnt include any info about Famitsu..it does contain a item with the logo. =/
Heck, GMR sword never made it to Japan shores.”
Do you even visit your own Capcom forum?
56
Posted on 25 June, 2009 at 1:40 am by CyberAlyMan
That video was a bit silly now, wasn’t it. Does anyone expect this game to be as bigger hit in the west as it was in Japan, really?
If the game was based on World War 2 or Football then maybe I could believe it, but everyone should know by now that games like this are much more of a niche over here.
Nevertheless, I will proberbly be picking this up if my friends do as well. Or I could just use AdHoc Party.
57
Posted on 25 June, 2009 at 9:54 am by OnlyOneT
That the US forum Savvy. The European one is at capcom-europe.com
You do understand the difference between US and Europe don’t you?!
58
Posted on 25 June, 2009 at 9:57 am by OnlyOneT
Cyberalyman – World of Warcraft does alright for a niche game in the UK doesn’t it?
I’m looking forward to the release of MHFU myself, can’t wait, brialliant fun to play with my mates
59
Posted on 26 June, 2009 at 5:09 pm by monci
You MUST release a Europe version of AD-HOC party. You can’t say ” We’d like Europe to appreciate(=BUY) MH as japanese do” without giving us a such important tool.
We are not fool, you can’t get the maximum giving nothing. And it is quite ridiculous to say ” Use the JPN one”!!!! Why should I create a JPN account to download a JPN application for playing with JPN people?
You wont see a penny from me and other thousand of people till you give us our Ad-Hoc party.
60
Posted on 27 June, 2009 at 5:01 pm by savvyGallen
@OnlyoneT, the US and EU game content would most likely be the same.
Why would EU have famitsu items and US not? etc.
I am talking about items that cannot be ported over. EU amd US does’nt have Famitsu or Dengeki stuff.
Games like Pokemon have had changes (slot machines), but I’m solely talking about Monster Hunter Freedom.
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