I've played almost every game since the original Freedom, and this is the first one that actually feels new, and not a slight re-hash of previous iterations. The quality of life improvements are something that frankly should have been added ages ago. Not having to check Kiranico every 15 minutes for weapon upgrade trees or monster weaknesses is awesome. Not having to pack axes or bugnets to gather items, gathering animation not taking forever, not having to paint monsters, being able to break down gear, moving while using items....I could go on and on. That being said the core of this game is still very much MH, and I'm kinda curious how people who were put off of previous games are finding this one. I can see people who didn't like all the dumb bullshit but didn't mind the core gameplay loop getting more into this, but how about those who were more put off by the feel of the combat (which, aside from some weapon tweaks to make things user, feels pretty much identical).

My first Monster Hunter, I only played the beta prior to the full game. Absolutely loving it! In the beta I tried the sword-axe thingy and in the full game I chose the katana as my weapon and got pretty good with it. Controls and combat felt weird and janky when I first played the beta but after sometime with it and the full game, it doesn't feel like this at all, it's great!

I tried the game because a ton of people said it's a bit like Dragon's Dogma (it's my favorite game) and I can see similarities! Game's super fun! Palicos are super cuuute too, love all the cutscenes with them! I also love games with good progression and grinding, gathering materials, crafting etc. so that also was a factor.

I'm playing mostly solo since I'm more of a single player person, but once my buddy gets it, we'll definitely do some hunts! I'm happy there's much much more to it than just going from fight to fight. I can definitely see myself spending a ton of hours in this! Happy Hunting!

I think it's a matter of expectations. I've never played any Monster Hunter game before but have had a vague interest in the series for years now. At first glance the game does look like some sort of worse version of Horizon or something, so I think players without much knowledge of what the series is could easily be putoff by the combat, the progression, etc.

But for me I know the reputation of the series and I sort of knew what I was getting myself into. I played for 3 or so hours last night, and there were definitely moments when I was a bit overwhelmed with the sheer amount of shit the game was throwing at me. But I enjoyed digging into those mechanics a bit more, and I started using the Glaive and once I realized some of the nuances of it, it really all started to click for me.

I wish partying was a bit more straight forward (I couldn't seem to join story quests with friends if we are both on the story quest, which is very annoying), and I think the controls could be just a tad tighter, but I'm excited to see how far I'll go with this game.

@fenster: World seems to have introduced a new questionable element in the multiplayer, where all players must have seen all relevant story cutscenes for the respective quest before you can join up. So if you want to party up with a friend on your first trip into a story mission you'll have to do it after the quest has started.

For all the QoL improvements in World, it's a weird place to stumble. (Fortunately for me I like to play the campaign mostly solo anyway.)

@zeik: Yeah, we sort of figured that out, but when I joined my friends quest after it started, I didn't get credit for having completed the quest once we were done. It's frustrating for sure.

@mattgiersoni: Definitely try playing with friends. The group dynamics when hunting changes up the gameplay, especially if you get a good mix of melee and ranged, or you have a Hunting Horn user.

@fenster: The partying in this game does seem a lot more confusing compared to the older games. I'll have to dig into it a bit further.

I played about 2 hours of Monster Hunter Tri on the Wii (It came with a pro controller!) and didn't care for it. Based on Jason's enthusiasm for the quality of life improvements, I bought World even thought I wasn't impressed by the beta.

I played for for about 4 hours straight last night and I'm really enjoying myself! I haven't tried multiplayer yet, but I might check that out this weekend. I'm intrigued by the amount of collectible resources in the environment, as well as the weapon variety and upgrade trees. The world design has been great so far, offering lots of places to explore, and some amazing scenery to encourage the player to peek around the next corner. I'm actually working a half day today so I can go home and play more Monster Hunter!

@fenster: The online system in this Monster Hunter is absolutely terrible. I have a group of friends that we all play monster hunter together and the hoops we have to go through to play together in this one are insane. However, whenever we join it each other mid hunt it always counts as completed, so I'm not sure what is going on there. Even optional or urgent quests that in previous games we would have had to do four times in a row for everyone to get credit on count this time around.

I am currently thinking Monster Hunter World is the Grandia III of Monster Hunter games. It has the most smooth and fun feeling combat in any of the games, but everything else around the game is making me actively not want to play it.

I did some more digging on the partying system and found this pretty thorough post on reddit. Basically the advice for now is to go through the story missions solo because the partying system for it is...well, it sucks. But the partying for non-story quests is totally fine and how you would expect. It sucks, and maybe they'll patch it eventually, but...yeah.

https://www.reddit.com/r/MonsterHunter/comments/7t3wcg/the_problem_with_multiplayer_story_and_advice/

From what I read on reddit, it seems to be an issue only with story quests and not multiplayer hub specific quests?

Technically, yes. But those quests are few and far between. Mostly just arena challenges that can only be done with 2 people. The meat of monster hunter is just hunting the monsters, and in this game all of that is behind the story, which is 40 odd hours long I've read. So I have to deal with this incredibly stupid series of events for every single quest/hunt in the game. For the next 35 hours. Every. Single. Quest.

If you play monster hunter alone, or online without a specific group, I can see this being the best monster hunter ever. The S.O.S. thing is great, but not at the expense of a normal monster hunter experience.

I'm rather angry at this game, but I'm still playing it.

This is not true. There are several more non-story quests than there are story quests.

I do understand the frustration, though. They should not have sold the story quests as being multiplayer accessible if the path to getting more teammates is so obtuse.

Perhaps they're trying to dissuade people from playing with a team for the story quests. This makes sense to me since story quests are where you learn and improve on your basic hunting / weapon skills. Surviving and fighting in the tougher quests that follow becomes easier if you solo the earlier ones.

But again, I think they just straight up should have disabled multiplayer for story quests. That's the way I've always preferred it.

Anyone else getting some heinous load times for...just about everything?

On a normal PS4 here and it's some pre-patch Bloodborne and worse shit.

@efesell: Just when loading into a zone at the start of a mission, which I expected. Although I wouldn't call them heinous, just definitely not fast.

@zeik: That's what I expected too but I got a crazy load right out of the gate and so far every major transition has been terrible. I did like a full power down and reboot of my PS4 and hopefully it was just being surly.

I enjoyed the little time i put into the beta. I am holding out for the pc version but hearing that its good single player is tempting me to get the ps4 version.

@efesell: I'm running off a Pro and there's definitely some long load times getting in and out of quests, but nothing once you're in the maps. There's also the loads going in and out of your room.

So far it seems like the most accessible MH to date and I'm enjoying it but there is still a ton of bullshit that MH fans would probably assure me is what makes the series great.

Not my thing. I don't really like how it feels, the gameplay that is. Also, I think everyone and every piece of gear looks dumb. I understand it is intentionally goofy to have massive swords, weird looking armor and odd shaped gear and such, which is why I conclude it's not for me.

I played a tiny bit of MH4U but didn't stick with it too much because the claw-hand controls and the mushed 3DS graphics made it hard for me to enjoy. Other than that, I played a bunch of Monster Hunter Stories, which... Isn't really the same thing, but it helped introduce me to the world and some basic Monster Hunter concepts in an approachable way.

I'm really enjoying World so far. I find it oddly relaxing. The controls feel way easier to deal with, and the world is pretty enough that I sometimes just enjoy wandering around. It also helps that after struggling to find a weapon that suits me in 4U and the World demo I decided to try out the Bow after watching Jason, and the playstyle feels like it suits me much more than what I was using previously. I still wouldn't say I'm 'good', and I'm realizing there's a lot I don't even know I didn't know, but I'm excited to put more time into it.

This is my first Monster Hunter. I never played previous games usually because I didn't own the relevant system, but also because fighting enemies seemed like an interminable slog as you followed them from one slightly different environment to the next. In practice, I've found that not to be the case - the intervention of other monsters and the specific tactical considerations of each environment help to keep each battle feeling dynamic even though the combat isn't that complicated (well, I use the charge blade, so it's kind of complicated, actually). I've also found that the part requirements of various weapon/armor types are sufficiently distinct that you can switch around and try new things without handicapping your main gear. I'm not a huge fan of the collision model, though - it's not the attack priority that does exactly, but whether I'll be hit and whether my attack is sufficiently strong to stagger the enemy and prevent my being hit seems so random that I'm often not quite sure it's fair when I've been hit.

@veektarius: Stagger in Monster Hunter isn't about any single hit, it's a result of cumulative damage to various parts of the monster. If you stagger a monster with a specific attack that means you crossed a certain threshold of damage, but using that exact same attack again won't guarantee another stagger, especially if you're hitting the same part of the monster.

This is my first experience with monster hunter, and I have liked what I've seen thus far. It does a good job of scratching the mmo "loot cycle itch", and the combat is reminiscent of darksouls. What remains to be seen is if the late game content can keep me hooked. Looking forward to seeing what it has to offer.

I'm enjoying it, I did play a bit of Tri on the Wii but I didnt have a pro controller and playing with the Wii-mote and nunchuck was terrible. My main complaint for World is how it handles the online which has already been mentioned.

I'm enjoying it but getting into multiplayer games could be easier. So far most of the time it seems when I go to join a multiplayer game I get told one of the following

• Your hunter rank isn't high enough (but there's no other groups/quests available)
• You won't get rewards from this as 10 minutes have passed
• The group has reached it's limit (but there's only 1 of 4 people playing in the group as the rest left)

I also haven't found a way to advertise my own quests. I've tried a few times to post a quest and then just hang out to see if anyone joins and so far nothing. I couldn't see anything in chat to advertise that I'm looking for a group.

Capcom can thank Jason on this one. After trying 3 times prior on PS2, 3DS and WiiU (no more than 1 hour each) and then trying the beta I was sure to pass on this one but after seeing Jason playing and praising it so much I caved, also I couldn't resist those cute cats and this character creator.

I play on Xbox One X, solo only, with a lightbow gun and after 20 hours I can say I really like it. The One X version is very nice and fluid and load times are fast. I also prioritized Graphics in the settings.

Does the hunter rank only go up after completing new quests for the first time? Or is it gradually increasing, no matter which quests you do? I think it's the former since I've been replaying great jagras and pukei pukei for materials plus doing investigations and I'm still rank 3 or 4 (can't remember), but I wanted to get a definitive answer for someone more knowledgeable. I wanna get to rank 5 for that Horizon palico armor.

@jesus_phish: Took me a while to figure out, but if you wanna do random groups in this game it's all about the S.O.S. system. All the other stuff is completely useless. If you wanna join a game then check out "Respond to S.O.S." and make sure to set the right parameters (mostly rewards available and target if you want something special) and if you want to make a group quest just start a quest and fire your flare straight away.

It's a clunky system, and it sucks that you can't group up before going out, but it works.

@ares42: Cool. That's sort of all I want to do. Jump into a game real quick and easy. I remember it being so simple in Soul Sacrifice.

I'll check out the S.O.S later tonight, thanks for the info.

@mattgiersoni: I'm 99% sure it follows your story progression.

I played some MHF2 back in 2008 and that was ROUGH, the controls, playing on a PSP, the overall experience.

Now with MHW I'm enjoying my time with it, it's more user firnedly for sure but there's some things that I don't like, specially the cluncky multiplayer (and the animation priority but I know thats's something the series always had, I'm used to a more "snappy" game like dark souls/bloodborne)

This is my first Monster Hunter game. I wasn't sure if I'd like it, but I decided to buy it anyway. I played it for a good 5-6 hours before something clicked and I realized this was a pretty great game.

I'm really enjoying the gameplay loop right now. I've only reached the second area so we'll see if it holds up as time goes on. I'm also enjoying experimenting with the weapons. I tried the Long Sword (fun), the Bow (amazing), and both Bowguns (meh) before trying the Charge Blade. The Charge Blade is my jam! I feel like I should try the rest of the weapons just to be thorough, but I think the Charge Blade is going to be hard to beat.

The one bad thing: multiplayer. Trying to get connected with your friends is a god damned nightmare. Between the asinine cutscene limitation (what difference does it make?), and the total inability to join friends on expeditions (what the fuck?) my friend and I spent more time joining sessions, changing sessions, sending flares and whatever else than actually playing the game. It's really, really bad. I hope they streamline this process a lot (just steal Destiny's multiplayer system!) and they do it fast.

My first one, like 3-5 hours in. I'm having a pretty good time with it, although I could easily see all the tiny bullshit overwhelming me once the "shiny and new" factor has worn off. I can't imagine what playing these games would have been like without all the quality of life improvements Jason says are in here. Hellish for sure.

I feel like there is a line in games between what is a "core mechanic" that should be explained and the "nuance" to the systems that should be left to the players to discover. I'm not sure this game really understands the difference. For example, I just had an NPC tell me I should capture monsters for better rewards, but the game doesn't give me a tutorial about how I'm supposed to do that. That seems like a core mechanic that should be pretty well explained to the player. If they want to have a bunch of things like baiting a specific monster or different kinds of traps to get different rewards or effects, I'd be fine with the game letting me discover those. But at least tell me how to get started.

I will also say the crafting menu is kinda starting to piss me off a little bit. They made armor easy enough to understand, but crafting weapons is needlessly obtuse. I can never figure out which tab I'm supposed to be in to do what I want. Why did they need two separate menus for that stuff?

Sadly monster hunter world is still a game where you need some sort of wiki to find stuff. Even i started with 3 on 3ds still have to look up things. And yeah the multiplayer is great if you like playing with randos, with friends it's a hassle to make a lobby. It's like they took there 3ds friend lobby system and copy pasted it to the PS4/Xbone.

This is my first Monster Hunter game and I’m hooked.

The party system is japan-as-hell, which is my only real complaint so far. I’m basically doing story stuff 100% solo.

The rest of the game has this deliberate feel to the combat that’s a bit like a fast and loose Souls game. The sensibilities are like an absurd version of Dragon’s Dogma. I can’t say that Palicos do much for me, style wise, but they’re helpful.

Anyhow, completely sold on it so far. Exploring and learning the ecosystem of the world is immensely rewarding. Technically, the game is pretty, runs great, quick loads...I’m super happy to have gone in cold on this one.

Never played a MH game before and liking it a lot. The combat is fun, and I love how diverse all the weapons are. I'm like 15 hours in and I think I've only just now decided what weapon works best for me (switch axe). I wasn't sure how much I'd enjoy the game because "invincible dodge roll to avoid big telegraphed attacks" type games have worn a bit thin for me over the years, but everything else surrounding that more than makes up for it, thankfully. The weapons, the breakable parts, the loot hunt, the crafting, the exploration, all of it.

Some parts feel more "video-gamey" and less organic than I had expected, like how certain monsters seem to always spawn at the same locations and start pathing in the same direction every time you enter that zone. Or how investigating monster footprints/tracks just fills up a bar that eventually reveals the monster's location.

Like others I want to preface this with, this is indeed my first Monster Hunter. I think it's pretty important to say, because every complaint I've leveled at the game so far to my Monster Hunter Pro friends has been met with, "But Dude, you don't understand how much better these awful systems are compared to the horrific situation we had before." That said, it's hard for me to not look at Monster Hunter: World through the eyes of what other, similar games do, rather than older Monster Hunter titles, and I find myself being really torn between absolutely loving MH: World and just being consistently annoyed.

For the good, MH: World has pretty incredible environments that really feel lived in, where you just feel like an outsider peering into this world. I love that. The small creatures, while often annoying during Hunts (especially when they hit you in the back during a heal to interrupt it and you didn't even know they were there), are what provide this lived in and active environment. The Monster's themselves though, are the real stars and why you are even here to begin with. All of them feel unique, diverse, and honestly what larger than life Monsters should be like. Their moves, learning how to counter them, where each has weaknesses, learning their elemental weakness, and all that this can encompass is fantastic. The ways in which you fight them is also a shining point for the series, from extremely diverse Weapon sets, to movesets than crave to be mastered (some like the Charge Blade that when told how it works, as a beginner I said it can go straight to hell, I'm out), and to the extremely diverse Armor sets and abilities that also augment your Playstyle to several degrees. The progression system of killing certain Monsters (some many, many, many times) for items to craft Weapons/Armor is certainly a great selling point for me. I'm already torn between crafting gear that looks amazing and a set that has amazing function (for now siding with function, as I currently look a bit horrendous). Overall these parts of the game evoke in me the feeling of a lot of what several games, recent and long past, had me loving them for like Horizon: Zero Dawn and Dragon's Dogma. And in many situations, Monster Hunter: World goes far above and beyond what I loved about those games in these same areas.

However, it also has some major hitches that cause me a massive headache and frustrations. Personally, from a gameplay perspective, I'm a not the biggest fan of the slow methodically nature of the gameplay. This is especially evident when I accidentally queue up an extra move or two and am not allowed to cancel said actions via a dodge I know I need to perform far before a Monster attack that near knocks me unconscious. At the same time, knockback and other status effects applied by Monsters last far too long (when I'm full health, get knocked down, and am literally unable to evade before another attack knocks me out, it's beyond frustrating). Systems for crafting traps, potions, and new ammo types is also needlessly convoluted and complicated far beyond what is necessary. If in game Tutorials need to be watched, or Youtube videos, on how to actually create ammo you weapons says it will have available are needed, the game itself is doing things wrong. And don't even get me started on how horrible and backwards the Squad system and matchmaking in general is for Monster Hunter: World, as these aspects are obviously designed by people who don't fully understand Online Gaming. I guess it's great that it even exists, but it's about as poorly implemented as I've ever seen (outside of Souls games), and as a player coming from a pretty large Destiny community from GB, it's a pretty hard pill to swallow, because as much as Destiny 2 has gotten wrong right now, it's Clan and Matchmaking systems are top tier in the industry currently. Smaller things such as not being able to do Quests unless another player has finished a cutscene are also extremely annoying, especially this early when many are still playing through the story. Speaking of the story, I find it odd and extremely confusing that much of the conversations are a mix of speech and text only, and find this really jarring. I know it's probably very expensive to add voiceover for all conversations of a game, but the mixed bag that it is just feels extremely strange, like I'm actually playing a 3DS game or something. If I was going to continue to nitpick this game, I'm sure I could find more things that aggravate me, but these are the top ones that come to mind currently.

Basically, I really like Monster Hunter: World so far, but I'm not sure how much so I would be if it wasn't for my GB friends I'm playing through it with. A lot of it's systems are amazing, and it's world design and Monsters are for the most part pretty breathtaking. But man does this game make me want to pull my hair out sometimes. And sadly, I'm told almost all of the hair pulling things are actually vast improvements over older Monster Hunter titles. All I can say is I think Monster Hunter fans put up with an awful lot of jank for that beautiful jewel of a game that's underneath it all.

@hestilllives19: When I think about the amount of jank we've had to put up with in the past, I'm actually surprised I've stuck with the series this far. The first games were borderline broken. Just fundamental gameplay things like hitboxes (THEY WERE OUTSIDE THE MODELS) and the camera were bad. And I never played the original MH PS2 but I've heard the combat controls were really weird. But there's something about these games that just hook me real good. It's the combination of the loot grind with the deliberate combat and the design sensibility, something that none of the MH clones have been able to fully replicate.

Also I know someone on the GB sub-reddit has mentioned it, but now that Dan seems to like MHW, they really need to go back and have him play a bit of that first PS2 game just as an educational experience.

@therealturk: You'll get a tutorial for how to capture monsters as soon as you actually do a capture mission. While you can technically capture any monster any time, if you're new they probably don't want you to worry about it until you need to.

While the tutorials in World are far from perfect, doling them out gradually over the course of the campaign is definitely a much better route than dumping it all on you in the very first mission like they used to.

I suppose that's fair enough. Although I would definitely prefer if they didn't bring it up at all until they are going to tutorialize it.

Never played any of the previous monster hunter games. A few hours in with World. Menus and online are extremely clunky (but not a deal breaker), but really enjoying the gameplay so far.

@therealturk: Capturing in particular was a confusing one. I was getting bounties for capturing monsters before I even know how to do it. For the most part I think they do a pretty good of rolling that stuff out in a way that makes sense.

@ichthy: I know, these are the same type of things my friends mentioned. I was just like, "But not being as awful and broken as it's predecessor shouldn't be a selling point because those same things now work but are just badly designed." I'm kind of glad this is my first Monster Hunter though, because I would have never touched this had I played the earlier games. The jank here is, while frustrating, mostly able to be gotten past, and you really can easily see the gem of a game World, and the franchise as a whole has always been underneath it all. I now totally get why some are so enthralled with this series.

I was playing MH4U on 3DS for the week leading up to the release and went to my buddy's place to play it on launch day and after seeing all the QoL changes it's really a pain to go back to MH4U unless you're doing arena missions. I don't have a modern console though so I have to wait for the PC version.

I wonder when the MHWU edition will come out though as the 35'ish large monsters seems pretty limited compared to the 70'ish from MH4U. My understanding is that MH4 had fewer monsters to begin with as well but maybe the veterans can chime in regarding that.

@lanechanger: They're going to add more through free DLC, but a limited monster roster is pretty normal whenever they make a big update of new stuff. Tri on Wii was the same. Most of the series has more or less been greatest hits versions of earlier games and monsters, which is why some can manage huge lists, because that's pretty much all they're selling at that point.

If this game does well enough I fully expect an Ultimate edition within the next 2 years.

I think the multiplayer implementation is nearly unnacceptable and only is because of its name recognition. This is the worst party system for a game that I've played since PS2. I am enjoying the game but really hate how crappy it is to get multiplayer games going.

I should be able to form a party of friends and we do everything together. We should see each other in the hub and easily transition into whatever missions, bounty, or expedition we want. Also this "watch the cutscene, quit the mission, and go back in as a party" nonsense is shameful. Sad that a AAA game and dev can get away with it just because its Monster Hunter.

@hestilllives19: Ye, almost every aspect of this game is still like two steps away from being an amazing game. But as you say, this game is finally "un-broken" enough to the point that it's mostly fine. I still can't wait for the Monster Hunter 10 years from now that actually nails everything.

It's something that will only be a concern in this very brief time frame when everyone is starting out at the same time. The vast majority of the game has no weird restrictions on multiplayer whatsoever.

I just consider assignments to be the single player and avoid all that hassle. There's tons of other ways to hunt with friends.

@efesell: Except if we want to do an expedition we have to start a different missions, finish that, then go back to camp first. That's not a minor hassle. :|