On westernization and why they've changed some gameplay mechanics:
Some of us had theorized that, for example, drinking potions while moving was put in because now that there's no loading between zones, you can no longer go to the next zone to heal safely. These quotes seem to support that idea and the author at IGN also uses it as an example.
On moving to current gen consoles:
More: http://www.ign.com/articles/2017/06/26/dont-worry-capcoms-not-dumbing-down-monster-hunter
”We're not taking things that people in the west hate and fixing them to make western players buy it. People sometimes make that assumption, or they've got that fear, but that's not the case at all."
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”The seamless nature of the maps really has a ripple effect on the gameplay," explains Fujioka. ”We have to decide based on that what to fine tune, what to leave alone."
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”If you want to ask where we draw the line between 'change this' and 'don't change that'," says Fukioka, ”then that's what the difference is: do our new seamless gameplay design and seamless monster interactions necessitate a change, or do they not? It certainly isn't appeasement to get sales to a casual western audience - the new gameplay has to mesh with the new concept or else it would just be a mess."
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”You can trust us. We've been making these games for over a decade. We know action, we know Monster Hunter action, and we want players not just to enjoy the game, not just to buy the game, but we want Monster Hunter fans to feel like this is a Monster Hunter game through and through when they play it. That it one of our key goals, and we're never going to lose sight of that, so don't worry."
Some of us had theorized that, for example, drinking potions while moving was put in because now that there's no loading between zones, you can no longer go to the next zone to heal safely. These quotes seem to support that idea and the author at IGN also uses it as an example.
On moving to current gen consoles:
”We really wanted to go further than ever before to portray a living, breathing ecosystem, a world that looks like even if you didn't turn up, it would still be getting on with its business without you - the interactions between monsters and creatures, predator-prey, survival of the fittest stuff.
”To do that, it became clear to us that the current generation of home consoles was the place to be, not just visually. It lets us enhance the AI behaviours and use that extra computational power to make the actual interaction between all the monsters, creatures and hunters more believable than ever in terms of feeling alive."
More: http://www.ign.com/articles/2017/06/26/dont-worry-capcoms-not-dumbing-down-monster-hunter