Watching the credits right now. ~42 hours played. This game is seperated between village (single player only) and hub (the meat of the game, single or multiplayer), and progression is seperated between the two. So my time played is to get to the end of both, if you just do village...you could probably do it in 10 if you really just bee line it. I did hub first because multiplayer is where all of my monster hunter enjoyment comes from, and village is low rank only...so it's a joke finishing village with high rank gear. Funny no credits for the hub, even though it's where a vast majority of the content is located, but either way, monster hunter has never been about the "story", so don't expect much here. SPOILERS, the village eider gives you a longsword...like it's the canon weapon now or something...like getting coal for christmas, gross.
I mean It's clear I already recommend this game to any fan of the series, but having had sunk my teeth into a majority of what the game currently has to offer, I am happy with the product they put out.
And as I get to the end of this post and the credits finally end...there's still more village quests? Well I'll edit when I beat them all because this feels like a bayonetta where they rope a dope you with some credits....only for more game to be there to play for credits aga....for more game to play FOR THE THIRD SET OF CREDITS where the game story ends. Monster hunter games don't really end, but they do have a story that ends, so color me confused.
*edit*
Well that was...weird. So hub goes from HR 1 to HR 7 quests. Village goes from HR1-4, then you have credits "the story is done", but then you have HR5 quests, you do the mandatory quests for an urgent to fight an...almudron...just some normal mid tier monster and after that(a very annoying hard to hit despite him being huge, but still not that bad of a fight)...HR 6, but it just kinda stops. There are quests to do, but thats it. I mean Village monsters feel like they have 60% the health of a hub monster, so for farming certain low rank parts it's useful, but what a strange way to end a story. The story isn't over, they kind of cliffhanger it in the hub, but still, strange. But again these games aren't ones you just stop playing because the game stops giving you a story incentive to do so, so...I still got a lot of random sidequests/unfinished not mandatory for story progression quests/get my lance set fully decked out/play other weapons/arena quests/ECT ECT ECT, plenty to do. HOWEVER compared to the two monster hunters I put the most time into, freedom unite, and world, this one has by far the least amount of content...which is still a lot of content worth the price of admission in my humble opinion. YMMV, I enjoy it, play it now, wait for dlc, wait for pc, no wrong way to go at it. I'm playing it now on switch, and when im done, it'll be like world, I'll probably be done till the next new release years in the future.
Time played as of this post 46 hours 43 minutes.
More or less my "review" of the game. Going back to even playing world is probably impossible for me now. GUD GAM
*edit*
Some random notes I notice. I think part of the ease of this release is specific to wirebugs. You can do a knockdown recovery move, kinda similar to a fighting game in this game. Monster knocks you down, durring the knockback animation where you ragdoll helplessly, you can just wirebug in any direction away from danger with your weapon sheathed so you can pop a potion or something. It's a bit odd to use at first, get knocked back, hold ZL and hit A and a direction, its probably the single biggest cart prevention mechanic in the game to be honest.
*edit 4/10*
So I changed my mind AGAIN on lance sweep. I was against it, then for it, then against it, now FOR IT. 60 hours played. Here's what lance sweep don't do. ITS SLOW, doesn't hit very high up, it's not a poke so lance aesthetics.
Heres what lance sweep do, it's a sweep with a BIG AS FUCK ARC JESUS, the monster is sometimes behind me and I'll still hit, great for out of position stuff. Actual good damage for downed monsters. But something I noticed as I played, and as the community brings up, it's slow...and does a lot of damage but it's slow...you know how fast lance loses sharpness by it's poke poke poke? Very fast, but liberal usage of sweep (which I find I use it a majority of the time now) means sharpness is less of an issue than ever. Less attacks = less sharpness loss = even more damage. It may be an attack that goes against the spirit of the weapon, but I think it overall makes the weapon more fun to play after you get over the learning curve.
*edit 4/13*
"cough" 77 hours "cough"
I have done all of the village quests finally, all the high rank hub quests, just need to get through the low rank hub stuff. I finally played another weapon, heavy bowgun. I don't know jack shit about it, but slap a shield on it with a few points in guard and I got through the "rajang + zinogre" quest in hr7 with minimal fear of carting. Current meta seems to be pierce, when I want to play spread...so maybe I'll figure out what I need to do spread, but pierce is fun enough. I run my lance with guard 5 evade window 4, so im mixing guard and evasion, which is something people don't do, so yknow fuck the meta. All damage does in this game is reduce the time a hunt takes, and in a lobby of 4 players, not dying is my priority. Just because the community at large believes something to be optimal, doesn't make it more fun for you as an individual.
People are complaining about the talisman rng postgame experience being horrible, but imo it's not much different than the .000001% augment droprate meta of base pre dlc world, so it is what it is. Keeps people playing, which keeps people in lobbies, so it ain't a bad thing.
A monster hunter fan who does not like this game is actually wrong. Yes an opinion can be wrong.
*edit 4/16*
Last edit to this post, about 81 hours played. Pretty much done with what I want to do with the game in it's current state, may come back later when dlc hits. To call it a "short game" would be silly. There's plenty to do.
