The Monster Hunter Freedom series (called Monster Hunter Portable in Japan) is one of the few international “killer apps” that the PSP can lay claim to without sounding desperate. Every game in the lineup has shifted at least a million copies in Japan, with the most recent one — 2008’s Monster Hunter Freedom Unite — selling over 3.5 million units and sharing the 2008 Japan Game Award with Nintendo’s Wii Fit. It therefore makes sense that a new Freedom game announcement is huge news in Asia, as it became when Capcom announced Monster Hunter Portable 3rd at a fan event held in Tokyo on Tuesday.

The new PSP game, developed by a team led by producer Ryozo Tsujimoto and director Yasunori Ichinose, is meant to be a whole new experience for series fans. “This game doesn’t use Freedom Unite as a base; the majority of it is being built from scratch,” Ichinose said. “Thanks to that, the monster graphics and animation are a whole level better than before; we’ve got a broader range of expression to work with. It’ll feel different from both Unite and Tri on the Wii.”

MHP3 has a bit more of a Japan/Oriental feel to it than previous titles. As before, you’re a freelance hunter tracking monsters in the wilds and cooperating with other players to take them down, but your home base this time — the village of Yukumo — is modeled after a traditional Japanese hot-spring village in the mountains, complete with open-air bath. “Pokke Village from the previous game was meant to have a Japanese taste to it,” Tsujimoto commented, “but we brought that to the forefront this time. We didn’t want to have just another town that looks like samurai-era Tokyo, though, so instead we added Asian tastes to the town features shared across the series.”

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