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This is a big year for the Monster Hunter franchise, and Capcom has every reason to be happy with its current status. Monster Hunter 4 cruised past the company's sales targets for Japan, and in the process won't have done any harm to Nintendo's chances in retaining exclusivity of the franchise. In the Japanese market MH counts for a lot, so its success on the 3DS (now in multiple titles) has played a role in shifting hardware, doing for the 3DS what it arguably did for Sony's PSP beforehand.

And now we have Monster Hunter 4 G which, pleasingly, will come to the west as Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate in early 2015. At the moment it's only confirmed for 3DS — Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate was on Wii U and 3DS — but promises to expand on the content of the original as well as introduce new features. We should expect Capcom to go all-out as this is the series' 10th Anniversary, which in Japan will include events such as "Monster Hunter the Real 2014" — large-scale replicas of monsters will be produced for that.

While we may have a bit of a wait on our hands for Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate, we'll be able to soak up some Anniversary spectaculars. The video below is a good start, as it's over an hour of footage that shows the opening cinematics and game sequences from the whole series to date. You can see its origins on PlayStation 2 and PSP, while later in the video you can see the series as it transitions to Wii, Wii U and 3DS.

Check it out and let us know what you think.

[source siliconera.com]