From wikipedia:
"During development, the game's story was originally about a character trapped in a dungeon by a wizard. After a few years of production, the project lead felt uninspired by it, and rewrote it into a love story."

From me:
Tech bros cannot write love stories to save their fucking lives. Their lives are already basically about being a wizard trapping people into dungeons of conversation. That'd be a more honest impulse to explore.

This was the first time that I really understood how much possibility there was in phone games as just a format for interaction within games. Halfway through I'd quietly resolved that there was no way this would be anywhere near as good on a computer, even as my phone heated up and struggled to see it through. I don't have a lot of thoughts about the rest of the series other than endorsement, as they're all about this good, but I treasure how the first game shredded my skepticism about what phone games could be.

Before Steam existed to sell games to you in lots of 100 that there's no way you'll ever get around to actually playing, creating an idea so pernicious that this website is fucking named after the psuedo-responsibility of Owning Too Many Games... before all that, there was the Shovelware Aisles of old tech stores. This is a classic from the Fry's Electronics by my house, amongst the wall of cheap productivity software and calendar programs that didn't do anything were games that they were tricked into buying too many of. There were dozens of copies of Safecracker, and we bought one. Couldn't tell you if it was any good. Don't even remember it. I remember this case, I remember the shovelware aisle at the fry's electronics, and I feel the desire to pay tribute now to those halcyon days and all the games lost in those aisles forever.

As mentioned in my review of the first Road Rash, these games were staples of my whole family's gaming experience. However, where I have a story to tell about the first game, I will instead spend this review paying tribute to the Wild Thing, the secret bike that could go over 220mph and handled like a motorcycle going over 220mph. To any normal mind, the risk of flying off your bike at 220mph and having to run all the way back to get it would never outweigh the reward of driving 220mph. Except I was a kid, so I picked it every time I played it, and just ate horrific shit every time I did. Doesn't matter! Still rules!

This is not a review of Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate. This is, instead, a takedown of the worst thing that's ever been in a Monster Hunter 3. "Oh you mean the underwater parts?" No. I mean Quropeco. While I've only played four Monster Hunter games, so I'm sure there's some total bullshit encounter I've completely forgotten about, this hideous bastard with its armor throat and its explosion clapping and its Rathalos summoning song is the worst thing that's ever been in a Monster Hunter game and it is a blessing they're not in the other Monster Hunters. And surely you may think "now that you've said that, they'll put it in another game." At this point? Do it. Do it and make everyone else choke. You already killed my Hunting Horn. I don't care anymore.