We got to test out the stunning looking Monster Hunter 3 at Gamescom... read our impressions inside...

First things first, Monster Hunter 3 (or Tri, whichever you prefer) on the Wii looks great. But it also plays great, and right off the bat the improvements from previous Monster Hunter titles are plain: proper online play, a much bigger environment, a larger potential to improve your character, the central hub is much larger, Capcom is now using its own online system (no Wii Friend codes), a single-player story mode, and the new underwater sections.

Underwater you have equal freedom of movement: attacks are as quick as they are on land, movement forward and back is just as quick, and your breath meter is so large that it would literally take a half hour for it to run out. The only difference is that the player can move in all directions, so in the end it�s actually adding an extra dimension of movement for the character.

The main downside we found is, because of the large environment, there are lots of loading screens between sections, and the levels are split into quite a few of these (each "room" is about one section in itself) Though the loading time only takes roughly four to five seconds, just the breaking up of the environment makes it feel much less continuous and breaks the believability of the world.

For multiplayer, it will be possible to carry your character on your Wii remote to a friend's house. This is a feature we�ve heard about on multiple occasions in the past, but hardly ever seen executed. Either way, it�s definitely more handy than worrying about copying things to SD cards.

There will be two player split-screen play offline, as well as online multiplayer. We asked about online four-player (two on each console) and they said it was highly doubtful, but did not know for certain.

So, as we stated earlier, despite being on the Wii, the game looks beautiful, and though it is possible to play using the Wii remote and Nunchuck, we saw even the Capcom representative demonstrating the game preferred using a classic controller, as it is closer to playing on the PSP (which most Monster Hunter fans will definitely appreciate). We don't yet know whether or not the GameCube controllers can be used with the game though - we'll try and find that one out, but the Japanese version doesn't support them.

And, to round things off, just a little fun fact from the developers: The monsters Rathion and Rathalos will be making their usual appearance in this installment, as they have been in every Monster Hunter title to date. Funnily enough, this instalment's character Rathalos was named after the head producer�s daughter.

Stand by for more reports from Gamescom - keep it locked to N-Europe!

Maikel de Bakker
- N-Europe Staff Writer