Iteration in armor design

[Ellie]

Okay so this is going to be a big tangent about an incredibly insignificant detail, but bear with me (or don't, this may just be interested to my head exclusively):
Spikes. The barioth armor legs have 'em.

Or do they?

See I started building a cosplay of this armor in 2020 and since I keep interacting with all the nooks and crannies of this thing if I see a game diverge from its design I tend to notice.

This is the armor I'm building, the way I saw it back when I played tri for the first time:



Note the black spikes on the thigh armor plates.

Here's the version from all of the 3DS games (the wiki erroneously attributes the tri screenshot to 3U btw):



My guess is that the added spikes were causing problems on the handheld's hardware, so they took em out?

But funnily enough, they kept this change all the way to Generations Ultimate on Switch.
So if someone who only played GU checked the old concept art and got confused by the spikes that aren't in the game?

It's all because of the 3DS.

Fifth gen seems to have been the first time anyone looked into the designs again, since both Iceborne and Sunbreak reintroduce the spikes, so that's nice.

I don't know where I was going with this, but maybe y'all learned something? lol

[arkenDuelcalion]

huh, you're right! i never noticed that... there's definitely detail missing between the two armor renders

looks like there's less missing from the male version, which is probably why i never noticed going between tri and others. still, nice find! now i kinda wonder what other kinds of details got cut from armor sets in the name of cramming them into a 3ds

[Grender]

Most likely those small spikes weren't clearly visible in a handheld so they removed them.

[Cubo]

Most likely those small spikes weren't clearly visible in a handheld so they removed them.

That's the most likely explanation. Maybe in quests it looked like dots or maybe didn't even show up consistently; so they opted for just straight up removing them

[Draculestia]

It's all because of the 3DS.

Not to diverge too much from the subject, but the choice to lock MH to the 3DS for much of the 2010s, in my opinion, totally ruined progress in terms of multiplayer functionality and graphical aesthetics. The series is poorer for it. Do small spikes on the legs of an armour set mean anything on its own? No. But the beauty of Monster Hunter, traditionally, has always been in the attention to detail, and portable systems ruined some that. I'm fully aware of the cultural reasons behind handhelds being best for Monster Hunter in Japan, but I can't help but see endlessly wasted potential in a handheld MH versus a stationary console MH.