Monster Hunter Tri Weapons

So there is a new game coming out for the Wii on April 20th that seemed pretty interesting. It's called Monster Hunter Tri and its a online multiplayer game that basically has everyone in a main town hanging out, then partying up in groups of four to hunt epic monsters. I have the demo and its single player but still pretty fun so I'm considering getting the actual game. I have been mulling over which weapons I would like to use so I thought I'd detail some of my findings so far in what I think and which one I might choose to be my main. Keep in mind there are no classes or levels in this game, the only thing that determines how your guy plays is weapons type, and gear. So here's my thoughts on the choices:

Sword/Shield

Animations and looks are very nice. High mobility. Nice options for different types of slashes or shield hits. I actually found this set is pretty fun and dynamic to play but has one massive drawback keeping me from it. It has the lowest damage of any of the weapons (I'm not sure compared to bowguns but all the other melee weapons at least). That means it takes a hell of a long time to kill with it in some cases. Still it has a lot of plusses going for it anyway, just not sure if it can overcome that damage deficit to make me want to use it as my main choice. I'm already a limited time gamer as it is, don't want to prolong that by choosing something that takes me twice as long to kill with.


GreatSword

Animations also nice. Very strong damage hits. Charge up is super strong but takes some real good aim and knowing where monsters will end up to hit with it. I need to test it again as a possible choice for me. Seems fairly basic in you hit, roll, hit, roll so I'm not sure the dynamics will work well for keeping me interested. But you never know. Obvious drawback to this weapon is the super slow swing speed.


Lance

Honestly lance is a great weapon choice that is strong in both offense and defense. However it lacks the ability to roll and maneuver very well when you have the weapon drawn which for me is probably too big of a drawback. It does have a lot of variety in the abilities which is very cool though. Has a nice charge run attack and can block attack as well. Only drawbacks are in combat maneuverability and the fact that visually I'm just not impressed with the way the lance looks. The demo is supposed to have epic versions of the weapons and the lance one sure doesn't seem all that special to me.


Hammer

Hammer probably has two of the most fun specials so far, the charging whirl move and charging ground pound. That being said I'm not super fond of the rest of its normal moves and doing the charge moves too often results in some pretty boring game play. Also something I'm thinking of as I play a little longer with it is I am not really enjoying the smashing part of a hammer as much as the slashing of the other weapons. I was leaning towards using this one but now not so sure.


SwitchAxe

I really haven't gotten enough play time with this yet. The axe is pretty strong and the sword part has a interesting slash move. I might be leaning more towards using this on my next play test and maybe going with it if I like it enough. Nice part is there is extra variety in using it since it is essentially 2 different weapon types you can switch around. I like the look of it a lot, just have to figure out whether I like its switching capability or not. Its basically somewhere in between the greatsword and the long sword.


LongSword

This weapon I like the moves of however the looks of the weapon kind of kill it for me. I'm actually not too fond of the thin long blade look (and I've read this is one of the most popular weapons which is also a turn off for me). It has some fun things and animations fairly decent, probably won't be my choice though.


BowGuns

These are all fun weapons for a short time. Just no interest for me to main any of them. It just doesn't feel like as epic a fight if I'm plinking away at the beasts and managing the different shots plus ammo reloading just isn't what I want right now. I could see these actually being pretty cool just not for me right now.