“You don’t see the monsters’ health, so it’s very hard to tell when a monster is ever going to die, so, in that respect, it makes the game much more analog, not digital… in that sense, it’s easier to build communities. You get people talking to each other because you’re like, ‘Is he going to die?’ ‘Oh, I don’t know!’ You really get people talking. So, in that sense, having it realistic in that way in an analog sense, I feel that having no gauges and being realistic gets people more together, and that’s a good thing.
The game creator should not tell everything to the player — to make the game in the sense that you have to make the players find out for themselves. For example, with Monster Hunter, one of the big things is we don’t tell everybody all the different monsters you can find. “We don’t tell everybody all the different weapons you can create. We don’t tell them all the situations where all these things can happen. But the players themselves foster a sense of community by having to go around and explore.” - Producer Ryozo Tsujimoto
I don’t know about the element of realism that Mr. Tsujimoto is talking about, but I have to agree that the developer shouldn’t go out of their way to give the player every single bit of information possible. It’s the elements that you have to find out/learn for yourself that can make a game much more engaging.
Check out the full, 4-page interview here
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Capcom talks Monster Hunter 3 - the importance of making it realistic, and not giving every bit of info to the player
