Capcom kicked off their annual “Game Jam” in Japan this weekend by showing off the highly anticipated Monster Hunter 4. Capcom announced that the game won’t be ready for nearly a year, but Monster Hunter fanatics can catch their first glimpse of actual gameplay from MH4 in the trailer embedded after the jump:
The trailer shows off some of the changes that Monster Hunter 4 will bring, most notably the change over to larger, seemingly open levels. Where as previous Monster Hunter games segmented their levels off into small, confined areas (with frequent load times in between each area,) it seems like Monster Hunter 4’s levels will all be seamless. While the game still unfortunately has a lot of blurry textures and some blocky background elements that are likely holdovers from its PSP and Wii predecessors, the animation and detail on the characters and the monsters has noticeably improved. The trailer also confirms that in addition to a new menagerie of giant beasts to kill, a few fan favorite monsters, like the Rathalos, will once again return.
I put over a hundred hours into Monster Hunter Freedom Unite and Monster Hunter Tri, and I was really disappointed when Capcom decided not to release Portable 3rd in America. The last MH game to make it out of Japan was MH3 on the Wii, and the only reason that game made it over here was because Nintendo helped finance its release and promotion. Capcom better realize that there’s Monster Hunter fans outside of Japan soon, cause I’m starting to experience genuine withdrawal symptoms. Monster Hunter 4 is currently scheduled to be released Spring 2013 in Japan only for the Nintendo 3DS.
