Monster Hunter games pre-World

Decided to start 4U. Playing it on Citra with the HD textures and works like a charm. Looks great too.
Playing with the DB this time. Really like how they revamped them. The meter management aspect is there but not too intrusive.
I'm mixed about the monsters so far. They seem way more aggressive (to the point where it becomes hard to find an opening for healing/sharpening) to account for the stamina system and topples, so you get more uneven fights compared to FU. In the latter the monsters were either in normal mode or rage mode to keep things fresh. Now you have normal, fatigued, rage and toppled monsters. Don't like this, the old system was better. Now the monsters switch between being furious beasts and helpless shits in an instant.
I don't like the maps aesthetically compared to FU, too saturated and "lively" instead of being eerie wild wastelands. The ledges didn't give me too many problems so far except for a couple of instances but I'm sure I'll get more annoyed by them in the future. I like the aerial attacks and how they add a macropositioning element to the combat, but I'm not sure it was worth it.

>DB
Yeah it's a lot better after FU, in that game the moveset is too simple.

>states, mounting
Yeah I get what you mean, believe it or not exhaust was even more impactful in 3rd gen, monsters would sit there and drool pretty often. For what it's worth mounting is actually DPS loss IIRC at high levels of play.

>maps
I don't mind the more saturated look personally, but 1st and 2nd gen "crusty"/rustic look is classic. For the maps it's not just the ledges, it's the super uneven terrain also like Ancestral Steppe zone 4, Frozen Seaway middle zone ramp, etc. The Everwood zones are actually pretty flat for the most part though which is nice.

In general in action games I like when the terrain has an impact (Ninja Gaiden wall attacks, any classic Doom map, ...) but it's pretty jank here IMO. In FU the monster AI is controllable enough that you can mostly play around constricted terrain, even in that stupid hallway in Forest and Hills. Newer games have a different style of AI though that's more erratic/random.

>moveset is too simple
You could say that about every weapon in FU except maybe the LS (but that's part of the charm of that game).

>mounting DPS loss
Figured it since it takes a long time, but still, it remains easy to do and results in a huge window of free damage and helps with part breaks.

>uneven terrain
You mean tilted terrain or something else? If it's the former I didn't have any issues with it (yet).

>jank
So far it works decently, I kinda like it but I'll have to see. I'm still waaay to early into the game. Just beat Congalala.

>new AI
Yeah the monsters seem a bit more unpredictable and mobile. Most of them have instant turnarounds compared to FU where basically every monster barring Teo and Kush had to do 2 turns before getting you. Wonder if the GS is still good because of this.

>moveset
Yeah it's not that there aren't enough moves, it's that your gameplan ends up being kinda boring and simple. GS has like 2 moves but it's amazing since using them really well is tricky.

>GS in 4U
Generally considered one of the best weapons next to IG and CB. Crit draw is easier to get than FU which gives it a lot of versatility, and if you do get a big opening the MVs are super good with the second charge slash.

>mounting
Yeah it's cheesy for sure, you can ignore it pretty easily but still. In GU it got nerfed a lot, it's pretty reasonable there. At least it makes Gravios a lot more fun.

Had a really weird encounter with MH yesterday, booted up MGS:Peace Walker of all games and it has a controle scheme that notes "for fans of Monster Hunter". Really made me do a double take haha

It's probably because of how popular MH was on PSP in Japan. Also you've probably heard of this but Peace Walker has some MH collab missions where you fight Rathalos and Tigrex.

>of the best
Glad to hear that. I picked it up kinda late in FU but it was so much fun.

>In GU it got nerfed a lot
Also glad to hear this. GU is definitely next after 4U. I looked into 3U a bit and I wasn't that interested, same for P3rd. I have even less interest for World and Rise but I might end up liking those.

>MGS:PW
I didn't play this but I've heard that some people categorize it in the same "subgenre" of MonHun, since you also "hunt monsters" in that game, kinda.
Btw Roy, which MG games are you missing now that you've played 3?

> MG
I've played 1, TT, 2, 3, 4 and Ground Zeroes. So just PeaceWalker and 5. Though I'm going to put those on hold for now to play more with 2 and 3.

>play more with 2 and 3
Yeah definitely. Those really shine on replay and higher difficulties. I also like how easy it is to do challenge runs with them.

Got to 5 star quests. DB are becoming a bit boring, a lot of spin2win and demon dances. I need to farm for juices. The monsters are fine, nothing really wowed me so far (not even Gore). Some animation attacks are real fast and I'm not used to it. One thing that is very noticeable compared to FU is the chip damage. Almost non existant here. I can camp under any monster without getting damage.
Liking the aerial part of the combat more and more. The ledges aren't too intrusive but I dislike the tilted terrain. The old monsters are cool, they are familiar but with some new tricks, exactly what was needed. Except for Gravios, he's basically the same but with an even worse tail whip hitbox, and they say FU has bad hitboxes.
I'll maybe switch to CB or GS just to spice things up. Wondering how HGB is in this game.
Also why so many villages? Wasn't one enough?

>chip
It's still sometimes there but it's really monster-dependent now, IIRC Gore doesn't do much at all.

>grav
Break the back (through mounting or hitting/shooting) and it can't fart after the beam. The mount can also go onto the chest which helps open it up. G rank Black Grav has this wacky AT-AT walk move though that's a headache.

>HBG
It's pretty much always good in MH, even without broken auto-reload. Siege mode is pretty situational but at some point (G rank?) you can remove it for more raw.

>villages
It's the travel motif I guess, high and G rank just use the Dundorma one.

>really monster-dependent
It's strange because even monsters that did have it now have a nerfed version of it.

>pretty much always good
Good to know. Will try it after I get to HR. Now I prefer melee.

>Siege mode
Ah yes, worse autoreload.

>travel motif
I'm skipping every line of dialogue so I missed this.

Fought some new monsters. Zinogre is pretty cool, my favourite so far. Rathalos got even more annying and I don't know how they did that. Could probably be the fact that he spends more time in the air than before, or that there is no clear distinction of when he will land. Tigrex was ok, destroyed him with the GS but he has that instant turnaround charge that I don't like. He's supposed to be deadly but have predictable turns (he didn't even have a tailwhip move like the first gen monsters), so that move in particular doesn't match his design philosphy. Also I got every single roll under his double bite attack when I can't do it for shit in FU. Is it because the hitbox is smaller or because you have more iframes?

>rathalos
I think there are ways to deal with him but IDK, maybe you need 1000 hours to see the matrix or whatever. Or just flash bomb lmao

>tigrex
The iframes are the same (6 @ 30fps), they changed the hitbox of the bite. Also the other versions of Tigrex like Molten and Grimclaw are better, they change the moveset to do different things.

>flash bomb
Twin Terrors didn't make me use FBs, and it won't be a shitty LR shitlos the one that makes me start using them (even though I'm very tempted, will try CB against him and see how it goes, otherwise unga HBG).

>6/30 iframes
This seems too generous. Based on nothing but my own experience I'd say it's a bit more than RG in DMC (which is 6/60 frames). I think it's 4 frames but could be wrong. Also I thought that the iframes got more generous starting from gen 3.

>iframes
It's all been datamined or pulled from Japanese guides, FU source: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/psp/943356-monster-hunter-freedom-unite/faqs/78652/armor-skills 4U source: https://gaijinhunter.tumblr.com/post/112587650782/mh4u-understanding-evade-skills. The thing is that MH has big hitboxes that linger a while, and partial iframing won't "cancel the hit" like RG in DMC, so it ends up being harder than the framedata suggests.

>iframes
Didn't know that. I automatically assumed that they were just too few but it makes sense.

After 25 hours or so beat LR. Nothing really that special, even Shagaru didn't do anything for me.
HR is pretty hard but not as hard as FU HR. Managed to get to some 8 star quests still with unupgraded LR armor.
I'm liking the monsters less and less as I move on. They are too fast, too unpredictable, still deal a good amount of damage, always roaring (with a longer stun animation than FU), always windpressing, always inflicting some bullshit debuff. I'm trying to use CB but can't figure out when to do the AED. DB is proving to be pretty hard to use without juices, so I'm resorting to the GS. The problem is that since I'm having trouble in finding windows where to do the charge attacks, I'm just doing the good ol' hit and run which, while effective, is boring as fuck. Maybe I should switch to gunning to see if I have more fun.

It's been years since I've played 4U so I can't give too many detailed tips, sorry.

>CB when to do AED
Basically after the guardpoint. Roars, tailspins, any attack with a medium endlag. There are also a lot of smaller moves like load phials->ED2 (press A after loading phials) that let you get in more hits. Also the KO values are super broken on impact phial.

>GS
If you're not running focus definitely grab it, it makes a massive difference and basically everyone uses it after a certain point.

>guard points
I tried to to them and the one from sword to axe is easy as fuck, very generous timing. I can't figure out the roundslash one though. Is it at the very beginning, middle or end?

EDIT: Saw a vid and it's at the very end. I have to practice. Monoblos will be a good teacher.

Got to the point where I had to grind equipment. Managed to kill Seregios with unapgraded LR armor and without flashes etc. The damage I received was pretty insane but I did it. Seregios is a cool monster but I don't like the fact that he flies a lot to account his low trip limit. Oh well, that's how it is with these 4th gen monsters. Ironically the ones I liked the most so far were some of the returning first and second gen monsters (Khezu and Monoblos were pretty good).
Also, something I don't understand. Rathian is supposed to be the queen of the ground, and Los the king of the sky. Then why the fuck does Pink Rathian spend so much time in the air? I swear to God Capcom designed these fights around Flashes.
In the meantime I managed to get a decent HR gunner set with a decent talisman, +6 Evade dist. with 3 slots. Gunning is pretty much the same except for the (mostly) useless Siege Mode. Killed the azure fucker with HGB in 30 minutes with 2 carts. Now since I want his armor I used flashes to farm him and holy shit it makes the job so much easier. With GS and flashes I can kill one in 12 minutes. I have everything I need now except for 2 tails, so that should be fun (53% carve rate btw, so it might take something like 5 extra tries, oh well).

Finished the HR storyline I think. Beat Rusted Kush. The difficulty ramped up quite a bit for the last few quests but nothing too crazy. Deviljoh is a good fight but don't like Brachydios. These monsters are too goddamn spastic. Zinogre still the best monster so far. Good balance of being somewhat predictable with fun to dodge moves. Reminds me of Nargacuga a bit (and the game also thinks so since you can trade Zinogre parts with Narga parts). Seregios is a complete pushover with the Duals. Demon Dance on the legs and he trips once every 20 seconds.
I still don't understand exactly what Frenzied monsters do. They seem sometimes to attack the air but otherwise I'm not noting that many differences.
Did also some of the first Carvan 10 quests and they aren't too bad. Molten Tigrex is barely Tigrex and I would have had probably a better time with the duals against him.
I wanna spend two words on the Raths in this game. Seriously, what the fuck happened to them? Before they always had decent tells and most importantly fucking RECOVERY ANIMATIONS for a lot of their attacks. Now they fuck off in the air until they decide not to and barely leave you alone. What, you though that you could drink a Mega Potion after that Golden Rathian landed? Well too bad, she's still going to hit you with an instacharge even after two 90 degree turns.
Silver I managed to beat but Golden can seriously fuck off. The worst attack she has is the airborne tailspin she does after homing in to you. If you do anything less than a full dodge precisely 90 degrees to where she is you're as good as dead with gunner armor. She should have been the final boss, not Pushover Daora.

>frenzy
IIRC gives you the virus if hit, more damage, randomized attack speeds, sometimes attacks the air.

>zinogre
Classic. Even better in P3rd from what some people tell me, the AI is different there.

>brach
Yeah I don't like it much either, it's a bit better in 3U but in 4th gen and Iceborne it just runs around way too much.

>metals
In 4th gen metal raths are pretty notorious, really erratic and not much recovery like you said.

Now onto the Guild Hall quest grind. Boring stuff but I want to do it as quickly as possible to get to the good stuff.
Overall I've been enjoying the game since it's still Monster Hunter, but there are too many things that irk me the wrong way. The maps are bad, after getting to the end of Caravan HR I'll admit it. Too many ledges and the fucking slopes. Hate them.

The monsters I like the most are the ones with long and clear openings (Hermitaur, Congalala, Monoblos, Khezu, Zinogre etc). It seems that, to account for the low trip limits and mounting, they just made everything super relentless and fast. The metal raths are the worst about this, but they aren't the only ones. Also I don't want to hear anyone who has 4U as their fav shittalk FU's hitboxes. These are just as bad. Who thought it was a good idea to give Deviljoh's pin attack that hitbox?

The weapons are fine but I've been playing with the Duals more and more since they allow me to be onto these fast and erratic monsters, but even then it's pretty boring. If you stick to the back legs you'll still do good damage (and trip the monsters) while being very safe. It works against a lot of the roster. I've seen that GS is great as well but it requires much more memorization and better positioning compared to FU and frankly I don't want to spend 700h just to be decent with that weapon. I didn't even bother with the rest. Ranged weapons are the same but you know have to account for much harder monsters, but to be fair I haven't played them as much.

The charms are retarded. My build shouldn't be dependant on something that has a miniscule chance of appearing and without my control. Just make them craftable with some ridiculous requirements (like Heavenlies and Elder Jewels), it would be still better than this shit.
I don't know why they thought of adding other grinding elements to a game that's already grindy by default. I know about the guild quests and relics, and the idea makes me want to vomit. In FU you had the regular G rank, then the marathon quests, which unlock the elders and Fatalis (also the Training school). With their equipment you go and tackle event quests which allow you to make good gear faster (with the Sky tickets and such) for more experimentation or just be done with it if you wish to. It served me more than 300h, did it really need more?

In the same vein the felyne system also seems stupid but I haven't touched it. Frenzy and Apex are also pretty bad. The monsters are already erratic, why do they need more? Why isn't the base form for the monsters enough and they need a souped up version of them?
The game has been pretty easy so far so I'm fearing G rank and high level Guild Quests a lot.

>still MH
Even with all the dumb shit they add, I like most pre-5th gen MH because the core gameplay is fun and pretty unique.

>maps
Yup. GU still has some of this but is a lot more restrained.

>charms, relics
This was always stupid. Relics are also kinda dumb but they're a lot more optional and are actually banned in TA runs.

>guild quests
I don't mind this in theory, just a side thing for the extrinsically motivated. Some monsters are only in GQs though which is annoying.

>modifiers
I get what they're trying to do with this, have the base be easier for most people then the modified one be tougher for the hardcore fans without having to spend too much dev time. This is sorta what the subspecies in gen 1/2 were. But ehh, the actual mechanics they add around it are weird.

Frenzy is the best of them I guess? Apex is kind of a good idea but ends up way too punishing in practice and the Wystones fuck it all up. Hyper in GU is weird and has bloated stat modifiers.

>they're a lot more optional
Good to hear this, but I just don't like the concept. Randomized weapons don't belong in MonHun. Is 4 the only game to do this?

>just a side thing for the extrinsically motivated
I just hope that G rank isn't nerfed just to promote this GQ bullshit. I've seen some G rank TAs and the monsters barely have a chance to fight back, but I assume that's done with super endgame gear. Also saw a TA for Master Test (which is the equivalent of the Monster Hunter FU quest from what I understand) and Seregios was literally permatripped with the Insect Glaive. In FU you could only really do this to Kirin with LS and GS.

>This is sorta what the subspecies in gen 1/2 were
Sure, but this is on another level. Subs were just a couple of new moves and some behaviour changes (being able to chain other moves from a charge for example). I actually like the subs in 4th gen since they feel a lot more different from regular fights compared to FU (where only Copper Blangonga was different enough from the base form).

>Frenzy is the best of them I guess?
And it's still bad, imagine that. FU was also eh with the super event quest monsters which were just bigger and with more health/damage, but I expected more after 4 whole new games (Tri, P3rd, 3U and 4).

>Hyper in GU
Never played GU but don't they have Deviants in that game to act as super monsters? Why did they need two super form variants?

>random weapons
Yeah it's only 4, Sunbreak has the random armors but IDK much about that system.

>difficulty
4U G-rank is considered pretty tough. IG is notoriously broken, really good MVs, mobility, and utility, so I wouldn't use that as a reference point.

>Hypers vs. deviants
They're going for different design goals. Hyper is a way to make low-tier monsters like Kut-Ku threatening again while requiring minimal dev time while Deviants are completely new monsters with all the work that entails.

>Hyper vs Deviants
From various vids I thought Deviants were basically subspecies on coke. I will try GU eventually, but I want to get to the super duper 4U endgame first. Wanna see if these lv.140 GQ are as hard as everyone makes them out to be.

Got to Guild HR. Dah'ren Mohran was much better than Lao and Shen but that's not a high bar, and it was still pretty dull overall. Just a DPS check while dodging a move every 5 minutes.
Revalued Brachydios a bit. With the bow he's fun and I like how depending on the slime on his arms there's an explosion or not, so you have to switch sides constantly to be safer.

Also I discovered that there is other FU content that I didn't do yet, the Training School Challenge quests. Some of them are pretty fucking hard. You have to fight multiple G rank monsters with shitty HR equipment and limited inventory. Did the dual Narga challenge quest and remembered why this is basically the best game ever (realized later that there was another one, after I used all of my good healing items). Got the second one to low health and it killed me twice instantly with the tail slam. Great stuff.

>deviants
They are, but they generally have at least 3 more new moves + different AI + new texturing which is harder to make than hypers which are just stats and move timing changes.

>mohran
They're alright, fun to do in MP once or twice but gets boring fast.

>FU the best ever
Hard to argue with that.

Got now to G rank. The last set of HR quests was pretty painful but not in a good way. Too many tanky monsters in one go.
Now fight Teostra and Kushala and Mohran and Akantor and Ukanlos and Dalamadur and it's too much. Not to mention that none of them were particularly difficult anyway. Dalamadur was a bit but only because I didn't know what the fuck to do. Kush and Teo are fine but they raised their head stagger limit too much. Akantor and Ukanlos are solid as always. Mohran is as boring as ever.
Also fought Rajang and I like some of the makeover he received (like tracking you during the windup of the body slam and the beam), but he goes to pick rocks way too much.

So far the only hard-ish quests have been HR Shagaru, Advanced: Dragon Attack (and just because they decided to put both Zinogre and Tigrex in the arena at the same time for some reason), Frenzied Brachydios in the Caravan and the Raths subspecies the first time I fought them.
Hoping that G Rank can kick my butt properly.

I'm actually playing 4U with an old friend right now, running the trusty GS. I suspect the game is more fun in MP than SP, in MP you get more openings which takes some of the sting out of the monster movement. I'll play SP too though to see what I think.

The game has a lot more head turns than I remember, it's nice. Turnaround attacks are kinda dumb but I have a theory that monsters only do them if they have to turn more than 90 degrees to face you. Been testing on Tigrex, will continue watching for it. On the other hand, mounting is exactly as busted as I remember haha.

Playing on Citra or 3DS?

>more fun in MP
For certain monsters for sure. Also the arena quests since a lot of them have double monsters.

>head turns
They are still in the game but it's risky as fuck for certain monsters. Zinogre is an exception since he never attacks while turning and has a lot of recovery on his moves.

>turnaround attacks
Some are specifically done if you are 180° compared to the monster's head, like the Tigrex one. Others can be done whenever unfortunately (Brute Tigrex stomp + roar for example). They also gave the bird wyverns a fast turnaround which makes charging the GS harder than it already is.

>mounting
I too love low risk high reward mechanics. You can trivialize a good portion of every fight with it it's absurd.

Playing on Citra (aka Shitra), has a bunch of annoying aspects (bad performance, new versions are pretty unstable), but using a gamepad at 60fps and being able to play online with other people who don't own a 3DS is worth it. I own the game on 3DS but I don't usually bother playing it there, it hurts my hands after a bit.

I'm on Citra too but I'm not having any problems aside from the occasional stutter when something new happens (very, very minor thing) and a sorta double image effect which I imagine derives from the 3D effect of the 3DS. Savestates can be nice and so is the fast forward (but it doesn't go over 2X sadly, especially compared to PPSSPP where you could go up to 10X if you wanted to). Also using an HD texture pack.
Btw how do you play online? Do you need a Discord like for Freedom Unite?

>Shitra
When it works it's fine, but I have friends who get slowdowns with good computers that have no right to chug on something like this. It's optimized for phones I think, which is cool I suppose but also annoying.

>doubling effect
Use the no 3d cheat, also improves performance. https://citra-emu.org/game/monster-hunter-4-ultimate/

>online
It's pretty simple, you just need the room host to forward the port. For that matter you don't technically need a discord either to play on PPSSPP with people you know, you need to use a VLAN though like Hamachi which is why many people just opt for Hunsterverse.

>have no right to chug on something like this
There are more unoptimized than optimized emulators unfortunately. This is nothing like PPSSPP (but to be fair, the PSP isn't as powerful as a 3DS either).

>no 3d cheat
Perfect. Thanks a bunch.

>you just need the room host to forward the port
Are there rooms of randoms you can join to recreate the 3DS experience?

Progressing my way through G2 and so far it's not too bad. Made a G Rank Bowgun set and it's pretty fucking powerful. There is no Autoreload but the damage is a lot higher compared to FU.
Also I'd like to retract what I said about Stygian being a good fight. He isn't in G rank. Now, do you remember FU Teostra which sometimes during his explosion attack would create one under you that you had to dodge? Now imagine if he did this after every single attack. And for every single attack I fucking mean it. Now imagine if that explosion was way harder to dodge, and you had to dodge multiple of them at once. Perfect, now you have G rank Stygian in 4U.
For this reason it's pretty much impossible to do shit with the bowgun, which requires you to stand still to do damage. Might have to dust off the old DB but I still don't have a G Rank Blademaster set yet and frankly I don't even want to farm for it. Will see what I can do but holy fucking shit man.

Finished all of the G2 Key Quests. Now the game's getting tough. Fire Drill especially (Brachy and Stygian), probably the hardest quest so far. Black Diablos was also a bitch but in the end I got the hang of her burrow -> jump -> charge attack. Did most of the quests with the HBG.
It's a shame that the game takes THIS long to get challenging, but oh well, at least it did (but still nothing too crazy, but to be fair not even FU got super crazy except for maybe some of the Event Quests). I'd say G Rank so far is at least as hard as the one in FU, if not a little bit more, but only for certain quests. In this rank you have complete jokes like Brute and D. Seltas Queen but also shit like Black Diablos and Fire Drill. I feel like in FU the quest progression was better even in G Rank.
Also I'm completely over these maps, what a fucking joke. Just give me my beautiful, big, flat empty zones and just be done with it. Most maps only have like one decent zone to fight in and then just a lot of shitty ones.

Beat Gogmazios, which means that I've finished the main questline. He wasn't too bad with HBG, along with the Ballista, Demolisher and Dragonators.
Overall I'm pretty disappointed with the game and I would have probably had a better time playing GU directly, since from what I've seen the 4th gen monsters are basically the same (and you can play Guild Style without Arts for the vanilla experience). I will still do some extra quests like Ragin Brachy and others to further improve my gear, before finally trying to level up some Guild Quests. I want to try Jang and maybe some other monster. After that I will call it quits.

Sad to hear. Hopefully GU will be more to your tastes, it's an inconsistent game but it's got some great fights for sure.

>GQs
I used some external program and edited in a few as 140 to fuck around and check them out, might be worth looking into if you want to dodge the grind.

>inconsistent game
4U is as well, but at least I'll have Hunter Arts and Styles to fuck around and to deal with these fucking patterns/non existent recovery animations for the monsters.

>if you want to dodge the grind
That would be fantastic. I'll look into it.

Alright boys, I want to see what these games are all about. Where do you a recommend a dumdum like myself start?

I have all the modern consoles, 3Ds, Wii/Wii U. I have basically everything except Vita.

Another victim falls in the web, splendid.
Imo the best one to start with would probably be Freedom Unite, especially on emulator to speed up the most annoying parts, but even then since you don't have a Vita you couldn't play it anyway, which is a shame since FU is the core of MonHun distilled into a nice package. Portable 3rd is similar to FU but it too is only on PSP/Vita/emulator.
Your best option would probably be 3 Ultimate, which you can play on both 3DS and Wii U. The game is a bit too easy to my understanding and it started the trend of making the monsters more spazzy, plus there is underwater combat, but it should still be decent entry point to the series.
4U I didn't like. Way too easy at the start, too hard at the end, one sided fights, super spazzy monsters with not many ways to catch up with them, clearily catered around multiplayer.
Generations Ultimate, from the little I've played and seen, is basically a better 4U, since you have other tools to deal with the fast and unpredictable monsters, but I don't know if it would be good to start with this since it has basically every monster of the franchise up until that point plus 6 styles for each weapon that change how they are played, so if you don't already know how to fight certain monsters and how the weapons function you'll have some catching up to do. It's not impossible of course, but the game would be very frontloaded that way.

Freedom Unite on PSP is the definitive "oldhead Monster Hunter" game. If you want to start at the beginning, I suggest starting here instead lol. The PS2 games have issues, and most of their content is in Freedom Unite anyway. Tri/3U is my favorite of the older MH titles, the WiiU version is best. Underwater combat is unpopular, but I like it tbh, wish it would make another appearance. GU is the big crossover finale before World, it has more monsters to hunt than any other game in the series and generally is focused on being big and flashy and expansive. I don't recommend starting with GU, but it's definitely not a game to skip either.

Weapons play extremely differently from one another, so it's worth mentioning that FU has 11 weapons, 3U has 12, and from MH4 onward there's 14.

Start with Freedom Unite. It's easy to setup the PPSSPP emulator and even an old PC should run the game flawlessly. Right now I'm playing the very first game on PCSX2 (the Japanese version has a fan server). It's pretty rough around the edges and you need to grind a lot, but it's a comfort game for me so I don't mind it. You can even transfer the save to MHG (the definitive first gen game on PS2) and there's a server for it. MHG was later ported to PSP and it was called MH Portable (Freedom in the West). It's similar to MHG but it's more balanced for solo play and it cuts grinding and gathering. After MHP they released MH Dos on PS2. This game will probably get a fan server at the end of the year and I'm very excited for it. MH
games on PS2 are not solo friendly and you need to grind a lot more than in portable ones, so I wouldn't say to an action enthusiast to start from them. Freedom Unite is the G expansion to Freedom 2 (monsters are from Dos, but the rest is very different unlike first gen). This game refines first gen monsters and weapons and adds several great fights. It is peak MH. Your moveset isn't big but it is perfectly balanced and has several applications. You can play for hundreds of hours or even more and you will continue to master the combat.

>Vita version
Is it safe to assume that this is the better version (compared to PSP)?

To my knowledge those versions are the same but with the Vita you have the right analog stick to control the camera instead of using the D-Pad like in the PSP version and the console in general has a better screen. You would still be better off using PPSSPP imo. Don't remember if you have a laptop, but if that's the case then it should be playable with no problems.

>using the D-Pad to control the camera
Guess you could use PPSSPP to map the D-Pad to the right stick of a PS controller.

In any case, good to hear that I won't be missing much from not playing the Vita version. Thanks for the info.

>laptop
Nope. Don't have one. At least not one that can handle even PS1 emulation (yes, it's that ancient).

>won't be missing much
There are some DLC quests and the DLC merchant but you can also get those on the Vita. Don't know if you can still download them from PSN directly but in any case I'm sure there are some workarounds. The DLC quests are pretty good and there are some great endgame challenges in there.

>that ancient
Sad. I feel like MonHun benefits a lot from emulation since you can just FF the boring parts (or use savestates to get the drop you're looking for if you want to be a bit cheeky).

Progressing through GU, just beat the fated four, all of them pretty good (Astalos is probably the best while I didn't care too much for Glavenous). I'm trying different weapons/styles to see which one I like best. Didn't bother with Hammer in 4U but it's pretty good, love the mobility but the MV being nerfed from FU hurt. SA is cool and not that complex once you get the hang of it but I feel like sword mode is too gimped as far as mobility goes. Maybe it's only good against slower monsters(?), have to experiment more with it. Valor LS is absurd, the counter is tight but still more forgiving than the dodge, doesn't move you, does good damage and can be chained into the finisher (while also allowing you to reposition), it's too good, which is why I won't be using it too much for now. Same as Adept DB, completely and utterly braindead while still doing good damage. I beat the egg delivery Astalos with it (which has increased HP and defense compared to the normal one you fight later) pretty easily because it's just that safe. Same as Valor LS, won't be using this for now, otherwise I will pick up some bad habits. Valor DB are meh, the counter moves you too much and in general you don't do that much damage, Striker with the MDJ is better (not to mention it takes a while to get into Valor).
Now onto 6 stars quests so I can finally make a set with decent skills.

I love Switch Axe, pretends to be complicated but is really an unga bunga gorilla weapon. Not a fan of how GU's hunter arts make it even more sword-centric than usual, but Adept/Aerial SA are both super fun.

Yeah it's not really that hard to control (especially with Alchemy), even the best DPS combos are just one button affairs.

>even more sword-centric
True, but when I tried it against Astalos I needed that extra bit of mobility with Axe mode. I imagine that against something like Ukanlos you can just spam Sword mode attacks on the back legs all day.

>Aerial
Still have to properly try it. Does the vault have different iframes placement compared to the regular roll?

Thanks for the info boys. The series is pretty on high on my backlog so I should get to it soon.

>Does the vault have different iframes placement compared to the regular roll?
It has invincibility at the beginning of the animation like a normal dodge, and it has invincibility when jumping off of something midair. The latter is what you want to aim for, jumping off a monster's attack animation for quick counters.