I woke up in a fit earlier in the week because I haven't played Donkey Kong Country for some time. I own a 3DS, more or less explicitly for the purpose of playing Virtual Console releases, but for mysterious and poorly considered reasons there are not any SNES games available on the 3DS.
So I decided to buy all three Donkey Kong Land games instead. The Future Shop of Donkey Kong games. I went to the drug store, farted, and found that the only available Eshop cards were in values of 50$, and the clerk didn't understand what I was talking about, so I went all in.
Having spent 50$ on something I didn't truly want, I decided Donkey Kong Land would be a poor investment indeed and then I bought Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate. And Donkey Kong Land 1.
I've always found the really daunting thing about Monster Hunting is the fair amount of resource farming that getting started requires in each game. This time around the basic item farming is streamlined and the initial tutorial levels stack you up with a goodly amount of item stock. Unfortunately disabling tutorial messages nonetheless leaves you with intrusive, game-pausing messages to pop up on your first several missions.
The game runs very well, with no input lag or graphical glitching. Lacking a second stick on my model of 3DS the camera is controlled with a hotkey on the Touch screen oriented roughly where the Right Joystick would be on every other system. This works well in conjunction with a lock-on hotkey that toggles whether your camera homes in on the direction your quarry is in, or just centers your vision.
Combating monsters is now much more mobile and dynamic, areas contain climbable surfaces and unstable ground encouraging a variety of leaping attacks and maneuvers that can swing a fight into your favour.
Online features are 2 clicks away anywhere in the hub world and going online, choosing a room and joining a mission takes less than a minute.
I'd say if you possess a 3DS and you're interested in Monster Hunter 4U it's a good purchase. The game is just as free as previous releases and compacts just enough information to point you in the right direction, but let you decide where to go.
I haven't really played Donkey Kong Land past the second level.
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I see you jockin' me.
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