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[nenjin]

The first real Zorah Magdaros story mission....even though I knew it was mostly scripted, it gave me legit goosebumps for how cool it was.

[Dunamisdeos]

It's also got a great air of not taking itself seriously. Meowscular Chef is my spirit animal.

[nenjin]

And yet the cutscenes with all the main characters is totally that overly dramatic, heroic Japanese style theatre. Really I avoided getting this game for so long because there's only so much animoo, doki-doki kawaii I can handle. But this game has kind of reminded me why I enjoyed anime in the first place. It's got just the right amount of cuteness cut with edginess to keep me on board.

[Ozyton]

I found all of the MH games I've played have that wow factor in the maps, and the ancient forest really gives that feeling when you're in the denser portions of it. Unfortunately I haven't really bothered to memorize the map like I have memorized all of the other maps because you can just GPS or teleport your way around. You do miss out a lot on that feeling because of that, but I imagine a lot of player simply getting lost forever without those features so I guess I can understand that.

Coral Highlands I got lost pretty easily because I kept going down into the underneath areas where you never fight monsters. It's a shame that map is so gorgeous but you spend a majority of your time in the eastern portion where the monsters hang out.

The silly charm of the game not taking itself seriously is one of the things I really like (our weapons are larger than feasible after all, and our best furrrend is a cat with a tank). They seemed to have toned it down compared to previous games but it's not that terrible.

The story is trash, but I mean.... they've all pretty much been set-ups for you to fight awesome monsters than something to look too hard into.

E: If you want to multiplayer sometime I'm on the DF discord. I just never talk there so you'd have to ping me.

[Dunamisdeos]

And yet the cutscenes with all the main characters is totally that overly dramatic, heroic Japanese style theatre. Really I avoided getting this game for so long because there's only so much animoo, doki-doki kawaii I can handle. But this game has kind of reminded me why I enjoyed anime in the first place. It's got just the right amount of cuteness cut with edginess to keep me on board.

Spoiler: I found this. It is a Meowscular Chef spoiler gif. (click to show/hide)

Sadly i could not find the other animations in full.

[nenjin]

I may take you up on that. First though I'm going to get through LR el solo because, yeah, after a few dozen hours I can see how you could play through the whole game coop and never learn to be a good hunter. A sloppy hunt is fine when you're alone but when you're online with other people doing way tougher hunts, not knowing your ass from the end of your weapon would probably piss a lot of people off. I'm also now doing my duty of trying to recruit more friends to the cult.

Looking forward to the tougher hunts though. In LR it's pretty clear you don't need to utilize even half the options to beat the monster. I'm looking forward to fights where they're tough enough those elements feel warranted.

And yeah, I appreciate the heads up about the grinding. I keep faffing around doing investigations and optional missions before reminding myself that almost none of this matters compared to HR gameplay. I should probably just blast through the story but every time I do I'm like "Man I just want to beat up [a monster] some more...."

Also yes, the story is trash. Something something elder dragons, something something fleets, something something Brack Dragon....normally I'd be annoyed at having to listen to a story I don't care about, but the story in MHW fails to annoy me. I may not care what it's about but it's got enough feeling to make me appreciate it.

[Ozyton]

I do miss the eating animation where you just shovel the entire plate into your face or, only eat one bite and call it done.

I do like that when you eat in the gathering hall during the festival going on right now you have bits of cake frosting on your face afterwards.

In terms of progression, there are quests on the list with a speech bubble next to them that progress things that aren't the story, like upgrading the canteen or upgrading the farm (or whatever it's called in this game, botanist?). Or you could just go look up how to unlock the higher tiers of those, or the cooking ingredients.

[nenjin]

I'm caught between wanting info so I can be efficient, as a good gamer does, versus not wanting to spoil everything for myself right now. I've clued in to a couple higher levels aspects of gameplay (talons and charms, armor spheres, etc...) by mainly just watching "13 Tips to being a better hunter..." and videos of those ilk, that aren't relevant to me yet but explain some questions I had about when I should use stuff or not. But that's the limit so far. The game does a decent job of telling you which quests are about making shit better, versus which quests are just sheer resource grinds.

Although I do love those investigations where they want you to kill two monsters and they both conveniently show up at the same time and do half your job for you.

I also appreciate the....soulsy-nature of combat. (I know Souls didn't really coin this whole thing but it's how it strikes me.) That feeling of "if I get hit it's my fault." Makes you feel like a badass when you do it right. But I will say I don't always enjoy losing 70% to 100% of my health in one hit against a monster you're "not supposed" to fight yet. I tried to fight Anjanath a couple times before I got the story quest to fight him, and it was all smooth sailing until he'd just whack me at full health and kill me outright.

[Dunamisdeos]

First of all, excuse me, if you get hit it is MONSTER HUNTERS FAULT and you need to cuss magnificently at your screen immediately. There's voice chat on PC now I can verify that this is the appropriate reaction.

Also, I've basically played with a 4-man static crew the whole way through, and it's helped me learn to play with others. I did find that the final boss was EASIER for me solo, though. He's way simpler to predict.

[nenjin]

In my barely informed opinion, it's that attack animations in this game are so ungodly slow for most weapons, and tracking is pretty much non-existent, that if you aren't very deliberate with when to attack, or aren't willing to cancel any attack at a moment's notice....you gun git hit. I think that's part of the charm of combat for me, actually. Starting out I was getting hella frustrated by trying to hit anything, even tiny little Jagras. Then I woke up to how the game wants you to fight and suddenly the pacing both made more sense, and was a lot more enjoyable to me.

Like it's weird, coming from games like Dark Souls. I thought your stamina bar was relevant to attacking, or even dodging. Heh, no. It's relevant to running and that's more or less it (special stunning things that drain your stamina aside and what not.) You can dodge pretty much all day and never have to look at your stamina bar when attacking. (I dunno, maybe even heavier weapons than the long sword actually have a stamina cost that matters?)

[Ozyton]

I have a friend that mains longsword and I'm a lancer. This game has decos that prevent tripping and it's practically mandatory to play with him XD

Yeah, the thing about the attack animations is that afterwards there is that loong animation of your character caaaaaasually bringing his weapon back into a neutral stance. That huge window is intended to be used as an evade window either to animation cancel so you can change the direction you're attacking or to actually dodge attacks if you're using evasion skills (or are that godlike at dodging). When I played 4 ultimate I used switchaxe with evasion and I just dodged through everything the monster did including most roars because of the huge window they give you after an attack to dodge. I tried in World and they changed most of the Switchaxe's attack animations so I don't think I'll ever be able to do it in this game which makes me sad.

Stamina is relevant for attacking only with certain weapons, such as dual swords and bows, or anything where dodge cancelling is important. Blocking with a shield (or a greatsword) also takes stamina. I have rarely run into stamina issues in World but I also usually have it maxed out at 150 the entire hunt through rations since they're so quick to eat compared to meats.

[nenjin]

Decide to hunt Rathian.

Head to the nest.

Engage.

Rathalos is like "What's going on here?"

Immediately fireballs the nest.

Busts the damn.

All three of us almost get washed out of the nest. I cling to the very edge and manage to ride out the deluge. Rathian goes plummeting.

I turn and look at Rathalos. He looks at me. I nope right the fuck off the edge.

I land and start wailing on Rathian while she's down.

She gets up and runs off.

We duel some more, she runs off again.

At the third spot, the biggest Great Jagras I've seen decides to get involved.

Fine. We'll make it work.

Then Rathalos is like "REMEMBER ME BITCHES?"

So it's a 4 way fight between me, Rathian, Rathalos, and the Great Jagras.

At some point Rathian takes off. I politely bow out of the fight between Rathlos and the Great Jagras. I head back up to the nest.

Within seconds of engaging Rathian in the nest, Rathalos shows up again.

Annnnnnddd right about this time is when my roommate informs me that work never got my sick day email and everyone is wondering if I'm dead. With my focus completely shot I run in flailing at both Rathalos and Rathian, and the predictable happens: I get put in a corner and slaughtered.

I set the controller down and start making phone calls, checking things.

Come back a few minutes later and pick up the controller just in time to see "Rathian has left the locale."

FFFFAAAAAAAAAHHHH. What a great series of moments totally ruined by RL. Still, again, damn this game knows how to make things epic.

[nenjin]

Also, when's a good time to pursue a new monster? Is it when you get an optional quest for it? Because I feel like every time I've gone after a monster the game hasn't instructed me to hunt, I get splattered pretty hard. But when I go after it as part of a quest, it definitely does less damage. Is there any, like, level-scaling based on your hunter rank?

[Ozyton]

Monster damage is pretty much fixed as far as I know. Multiplayer the monsters get more health but not more damage AFAIK. If you're on a quest to hunt more than one monster then the target monsters will all have less health (but guest monsters that aren't the target will have full health)
If you're doing expeditions my advice would be to... not do them. They're only really worth it for when the game requires you to do them or for gathering random stuff. If you're trying to hunt monsters then quests (especially investigations) are better for it since the quests themselves have a reward pool in addition to the reward for hunting the monster.

[Dunamisdeos]

They're good for funsies, tho. And capturing monsters for lots of parts.