This is one of those games you either love, or hate.. i love it even more than the first one!
Anyway, the graphics look beautiful in this game. There are new areas such as the snowy mountains that just take your breath away. you can play missions at night too, and the areas have pretty big changes from day to night. some areas of the swamp will poison you at night for example, and it will rain in the jungle during the night.
The sound effects are awesome in this game, but not a whole lot of change from the first one, just some slight music changes.
Gameplay is even better this time, with new weapon types and still the pretty good controls from the last game. i had trouble in the first game, because there was no weapon class between the huge strong and slow sword and the small fast and weak one, but they put in a middle ground with a big sword that swings a little more lightly but doesn't give defense.
So there is not much i can say about this game really.. if you liked the first one you probably have it and have played it all already, but if you have never tried monster hunter before, give this one a shot, rent it first. You won't be disappointed..