You can definitely play "all" of the Mon Hun games in a row.
It's not really recommended, as each game is a iteration upon each other.
Mon Hun 1 in USA for Ps2 is actually Mon Hun 1 G (second edition) in JPN. This version can only be played until the end of offline single player now (village quests). You can hack the game to include the online mode (which has another rank of monsters call high rank) but I'm not sure if you'd want to do that. This game is very broken in that stagger limites for monsters heads were extremely low, making it easy to "headlock" a monster by repeatedly doing damage to their heads.
You can play MH1 for Ps2 NA until the end of village quests, which is about 40% of actual content. The last fight is I believe Monoblos, and after that if you clear every village quest you unlock most of the offline monsters and IIRC 1 high rank quest of 2 main monsters. You cannot complete online only content, which is about 6-7 extra unique monsters and a slew of items and armor. Not worth it IMO.
MHF1 for psp has local wifi multiplayer, and has ALL the content of MH1 and MH1G rolled into a nice package, which can be finished online or offline. This is the version I recommend playing if you're serious about playing the series. Sword and Shields were buffed incredibly in this version and are borderline broken. Headlocking was removed, but the game is overall easier than MH1 and MH1G. It has several quality of life improvements as well.
MH2 (dos) is JPN Ps2 online, and again is offline. Most of the content (almost 70%) is locked behind it. Its also only in japanese, unless you hack the iso to translate it. MH2 gave the game a bunch of new weapon sets and added a ton more monsters, while retaining ALL of MH1 monsters. Bigger better sequel. For PSP, you can get MHF2, which is the same kind of idea as MHF1. All the content MH2 (dos) had, plus more, plus all of it accessible. However, what you should play is MHFU. This is MHF2 G and has ALL the content of the previous games, plus an entire new rank of monsters on top of it all. I've put over 500 hours into this game and have not finished its content. It rebalanced all the weapons as well, and has the largest climb. Like MHF1 is has local co-op and can be beaten solo or with friends.
MH3(tri) is Wii only. It, like all the console MH, lost its online and most of its content. There are active communities that put the missing content into single player, but its requires things not discussed here. It scrapped almost ALL of the previous generations monsters, and included a huge portion of the game dedicated to hunting monsters underwater. It fixed alot of the hitbox issues in previous generations, and had a huge active player base until the servers got shutdown about a year ago. MHP3rd, is the JPN only release of what would be MHF3 if it came out in NA. It couldnt add the underwater swimming to the PSP, so they scrapped that and made a slew of changes to make the game the easiest its ever been. It is really easy to breeze through and see all of the content, and you can buy the PS3 HD version to play it in JPN on your NA Ps3. The psp version is single player and wifi only, while I believe the Ps3 version uses Ad Hoc party to find online players. Mh3U is for 3ds and WiiU, and its a further and final iteration of underwater combat and alot of new and better improvements. It is wifi only for 3ds and has online servers for WiiU which are now very active. You can switch your saves between the 3ds and WiIu version as you like.
Mh4 is just released on 3ds, and is the one you should be playing. It is a amalgamation of the previous 3 games, taking monsters from each and remaking them, while adding a ton of new unique content. It drops swimming alltogether and makes the levels alot more vertical, allowing for huge jumps and chases. It also has 2 new weapon sets, a fairly robust single player (all content unlocked online or off) and has a massive player following on its online currently.
TLDR: Play MH4U, or if you're crazy play MHF1, MHFU, MH3U or MHP3(hd), and MH4U
1. Depends on what you define as "beat". The offline and online modes usually have their own set of dialogue and "unique quests" to play through all atleast once. There are story sequences told in cutscenes and on screen chat dialogue, but none of it is very compelling and often tries to be humorous. You can finish these sets of quests and call it done I suppose, but the real point of monster hunter is to replay and replay fights to improve your technique and times, and craft rare weapons and armors.
2. Yes, all of the MH games are completely soloable. It will be difficult, as multiplayer just makes the game easier in general.
3. All the psp games have all the content and local multiplayer, The ps2 and wii versions of games have no content other than offline, which is little. The Wiiu/3ds version can be played like the psp, all content, local multiplayer for 3ds and online multiplayer for WiiU
4. Alot, probably around 150 hours per full content game, maybe 20-30 on the offline little content versions. I've personally put in about 2000 hours into the series, with 600 alone in MHFU. One thing you need to realize is that one point, you wont have the proper equipment or experience to beat a quest. You will then have to look for its weakness, kill something else to gain access to parts/armor/equip and then finally go back to the quest and beat it. I love seeing people do this, and if you do, you should document it for us!
5. It turns off, just like the one in your heart.
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