Playing Monster Hunter on 3DS may present some touchy issues

Without dual analog control
what will we do?

You may or may not have heard the rumor that Monster Hunter could be making its way onto the 3DS sometime in the future. Between Capcom's CEO Haruhiro Tsujimoto statement and the current slew of games Capcom is releasing on the handheld, I'm guessing it's highly likely we'll be seeing Monsters and Felynes in 3D as soon as Capcom pulls it together.

It makes a lot of sense when you think about it. Monster Hunter is godly huge in Japan and the Nintendo DS brand is no slouch either. Now with Nintendo poised to make a splash with a technically capable piece of hardware and its market brand popularity, It would seem that branching out the series beyond the PSP will bring in not only more money but more players to Capcom's monster franchise. Monster Hunter Tri for the Wii even managed to sell over 1 millions copies in the land where PSP is the preferred monster hunting ground.

With that said I may be putting the cart before the horse on this one, but playing Monster Hunter on the 3DS is going to require some changes to the way the game plays. If your a fan of Monster Hunter you know full well that playing on a handheld like the PSP is a tricky beast of its own. The game has a rather unique and often cumbersome play style. Many of you have submitted yourself to the claw technique in order to work with the games integral camera control just so you can keep the rest of your fingers on the analog nub and face buttons. The game ideally requires a second analog/D-pad for the camera in order to make it easy for you to focus on all the other things you need to do to survive a round with a giant thirty story monster. With the 3DS were not getting a second analog stick and with the current position of the D-pad, the claw technique is out the window. It may look dire for the hardcore fans, but what the 3DS does offer is a touch screen and motion sensors that may prove to be a more simplified user experience.

Show us how you would like to play Monster Hunter on 3DS
I have some ideas on how we could be playing Monster Hunter on the 3DS, but I've gone a step farther. I want to give you all a chance to show us what you think the best way to play the game on a 3DS. I've created a PDF template for everyone to download and give it their best shot. When your done, send it back to us via email at whoburnedmytoast@gmail.com and we'll post them on the blog and Facebook. Since Monster Hunter has a complicated control scheme you can limit your template to only show buttons options for when your hunter has their weapon unsheathed as I did or if your ambitious you can go nuts.

I've completed my play control template for Monster Hunter for 3DS after the page break if you want to see what I think would work and my reasoning behind my choices.

Click to view at full size

I really think playing Monster Hunter on the 3DS could work while making things a little easier on us. Also there could be some cool things Capcom could do with the hardwares cameras and touch screen. Click the image to the right to view my template at full size. First things first lets walk down some of the changes issues I've targeted and addressed below.

Camera Control: This is first thing that needs to be addressed. Without camera control in monster hunter your pretty much dead out of the gate. I've opted to move the camera to the L & R trigger buttons. Hold to rotate the camera and tap to move the camera angle up or down. You use the camera constantly in Monster Hunter and putting the camera in a spot that is comfortable for your hands is a welcome change. I opted out of using the motions controls for camera controls since potentially it could break the 3D effect and having to hold the 3DS at angles may make it more challenging to use the touch screen.

Item use: This is another vital aspect. Getting that much needed potion into your hunter is key. It makes sense to make this as easy to find and use as possible. In past Monster Hunters you had to cycle through a list of items by holding one button then using two other buttons to scroll though a long list of items, often taking lots of time unless you were fast and remembered the order you listed your items. I propose item usage gets moved to the touchscreen. A simple tap of your thumb could use that potion or special item easily and plus you could organize them in any order you wanted on the screen, placing more important items closer to your thumb etc. For those of you who are worried about accidentally using the wrong item, it could designed so that a double tap of the thumb would use an item or you could have specific button to use an highlighted item or regular button press. I must admit that there may be a flaw to using the touch screen due to the fact that I have no guarantee yet that adjusting your eyes back and forth from the screens will break the 3D or you'll need a brief moment for your eyes to readjust.

Attack/Defense Buttons: I think keeping all the attack and defensive moves regulated to Y,X,B,A will also keep thing simple with less multiple hand button presses. For any weapon system that has a few extra moves, we could easily attach a few things to the D-Pad or add a button on the touch screen delegated for special moves.

Additional game features: I think there is great potential with the touch screen and camera on the 3DS to have some unique features added to the game. I'll just throw these ideas out here real quick. Monster Hunter is about customization of your Hunter and with the camera I think it would be great to have the option to take a picture of your own face and have it applied to your Hunter. It doesn't necessarily have to be your face pasted on a character model, but maybe it could be a Monster Hunter version of your face to fit in with the world. Next I would like to see something done with the touch screen since inherently its suited for drawing and writing. It would be interesting to see something along the lines of perhaps custom icons for your hunter or perhaps you can leave notes for other hunters in the games online mode either in towns or on community Mission boards. Leaving tips or reminders for others before they go on a hunt could be a fun bonus.

Well that's all folks. Thanks for reading and I hope you have fun thinking about the ways you would play Monster Hunter on the 3DS. Please leave your thoughts below if you got them.