Capcom's Monster Hunter is a decent enough game but falls way short of the glory that fans following this game had anticipated. The game was being compared to Phantasy Star Online, in that it would let players adventure both offline (solo) and online with a limited party of friends to take on a variety of mission types that could include anything from forming a hunting party and taking down a dragon to gathering special mushrooms or retrieving a monster egg. Even the title is slightly misleading, as the only "monsters" you'll encounter will be dinosaurs of varying shapes and sizes (not all the time, but most of the time). Monster Hunter does let you do those aforementioned things, but the experience online and offline is slightly marred for a variety of reasons (which we'll detail) and just doesn't offer the meat and potatoes of a true blue role-playing game experience.

In case you've never heard of the game, Monster Hunter is a third-person action-adventure game with light role-playing elements set in a world where dinosaurs and dragons roam the earth and man lives in a relatively tribal fashion. The game charges players with taking on missions involving hunting, gathering and the occasional fishing expedition in the open plains, forests and mountains of a prehistoric timeframe - though the technology available is well above being primitive.

Players start out by taking on simple hunting, then learn how to gather meat and other survival items, move on to food preparation, then combining items (more on that in a minute) and finally fishing in the first set of missions. From there things start to get a little tougher.

No matter what mission you take, the player steps out into the "mission area" when they are ready and begin their quest under a specified time limit. During that time players can fool around in the camp area or wander into the wilderness uncovering extra items or killing creatures before the timer runs out. Some missions require player to deposit requested items into a special drop box inside the camp or by completing a task within the confines of the mission's time limit. The worlds are generated outside the village hub (where missions are taken on, items are sold, etc) and are well populated with all kinds of different elements like grass, rocks, trees, water, etc to great affect.

In the early parts of the solo game players will spend a lot of time either hunting or gathering items, so the variety of missions is pretty limited. After awhile the game will start to throw more complex missions at you like finding and retrieving an egg from a monster or capturing a creature alive. Doing these things is more action than role-playing, no matter what task you are trying to accomplish. That's mainly because just about all the activities you partake in in this game require a bit of twitch-timing based play. For example, fishing and cooking require perfect timing to get the job done using visual and audio cues as an indicator of when to hit the button and do the action perfectly. While this adds a bit of challenge to the game, it also adds a bit of frustration and a lot of luck. Cooking a piece of meat just right and fishing require you to use your fingers more than your brain. Gathering items isn't time based, so at least players can do that with little or no hassle - as long as you are standing still.

Speaking of gathering resources, the game offers a system where certain items can be combined to create new inventory items. The process is pretty straightforward and works well enough. Players can build a lot of support items like potions, new ammo and other goodies that can come in handy in some of the more dangerous areas of the game - or players can simply create items and sell off the surplus to the stores in town. Either way combining items is a pretty useful element of the gameplay.

Beyond the slightly irritating twitch gaming element of Monster Hunter, there's several other slightly agitating elements that also take away from the game's fun. One of the most irritating issues is with the camera, which doesn't auto adjust and oftentimes leaves players blind to what's going on in front of them during the most vital moments in the game – like during fights with monsters. The game does not auto adjust the camera either to compensate for movement or objects in the world that might block your view, leaving players to constantly adjust the camera at the most inopportune moments of gameplay.

But the camera isn't the only hassle with the game - the combat system controls are very unresponsive and when faced with combat often times players miss shots or swings or find themselves facing in the wrong direction and open to an enemy attack. While the game does offer a variety of different weapon types, most feel cumbersome and unnatural to use because of the way the combat system, works. Using a ranged combat weapon can also be a pain - even in first person mode. That's because during a fight if you are hit by an enemy it tends to knock you to the ground and out of that perspective (back to third-person) simultaneously. Trying to switch back and forth using first-person can be a trying experience because the game never pauses and the enemy continues to line itself up well for its next volley of attacks while the player attempts to jockey back into a reasonable attack position. Combat is just messy sometimes - whether it's ranged or melee.

Online play at least makes the experience less of a drag because having three other people to help you out or provide a distraction in battle can give you the much needed time to get your act together in a relatively short span of time. Still combat can be a real pain in the ass, and being that the key focus of this game is action, Capcom probably should have spent a bit more time on refining it. Another thing that is slightly agitating is that you can only equip your weapons and armor in the village – and only in certain places like your house or at shops. This is a major hassle if you want to use a melee weapon or a ranged weapon when you are out in a mission because you have to choose it before you take on the mission. It's hard to understand why a role-playing game would be restrictive on such a basic function of gameplay.

While some of these aforementioned issues are a hindrance to the overall experience, that isn't saying that the game is all bad. The combat can be fun if you're prepared to deal with the game's obvious shortcomings and the environments are certainly pretty enough and chalked with enough secret bits, baubles and areas to keep players entertained for quite some time. Throw in the multiplayer aspect of the game and Monster Hunter earns a few points of respect. But for fans looking for the next big thing in online gaming, Monster Hunter just doesn't get the job done as well as everyone had hoped it would. This game is definitely a rent before you buy type of title and if players can forgive the problems in the gameplay both online and offline then Monster Hunter could be worth the price of admission. For me Monster Hunter is a fun experience that feels like a light RPG snack rather than an epic role-playing game. If you dig action more than actual role-playing and can deal with all the hassles then Monster Hunter might be for you.