When the first Monster Hunter released on the Playstation 2 (September 2004), I was still employed at Gamestop. Because I was employed at Gamestop, I couldn’t actually afford the game. I remember that Capcom’s action-RPG looked interesting, but Katamari Damacy was only $20, and so that got my money instead.
Fast forward five and a half years later, when I came across a news post on The Escapist informing that Monster Hunter Tri (or Three) was going to be released for the Wii with a new Classic Controller Pro bundle. “Monster Hunter?” I said to myself. “Are they still actually making those games?” And then I reserved the game because it was the only way (at the time) to get the CCP and I figured, hey, might as well get some random game while I was at it. The game released in May.
Three hundred hours later, I emerged blinking from my game room to realize it was now early September. “Holy crap!” I said to myself. “What the heck just happened?”