This is your usual Monster Hunter with a few new twists, some stuff removed, plenty of tweaks, and just plain old rushing(on the developers part.) I've been playing this game for less than 15 hours as of writing this review so my review may change in the future. So here is my review with all the little things I have noticed so far.
First I will start with the tweaks that were made which separates this game from Monster Hunter 4 U.
1. The Charge Blade was rebalanced so that you don't become an unstoppable juggernaut when you master it.
2. The Long Sword was made viable again, by making the Spirit Gauge mechanics the same as Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate.
3. The Meownster Hunters and fishing have been reworked a tiny bit.
4. The upgrade system was completely redone, in that the weapon trees are the same, but the way to get them is different. For example in the past to get the Eager Clever you had to go through the Iron Katana Tree like this Iron Katana > Iron Katana "Grace" > Iron Katana "Gospel" > Eager Clever. Now it is level up the Iron Katana to LV 3 then you can transform the sword to Eager Clever.
Second there are a few parts where it feels like the developer has rushed and cut some corners.
1. Cutscenes- If you've played a previous Monster Hunter game you would have noticed nice if not beautiful cutscenes when you see a monster for the first time in the village. Well now all you get is the Monster either running or doing a simple attack as the cutscene.
2. Size- Many people won't agree with me on this, but the size of the game namely the fact we have 4 towns to go to. This may seem pretty petty, but when you consider most of the quests can be activated at any town then you kind of defeat the whole purpose of gong to different towns in the beginning.
Third is twists and removed content.
1. Twist #1- Hunting Arts. With the hunting arts you get to make moves that you wouldn't be able to make normally, such as doing a Double Slash with the Long Sword, which cuts the enemies multiple times, to allowing you to make what I like to call a super dodge, which dodges through any and all attacks while putting away your weapon. The only downside to hunting arts is that they must be charged before you can use them once.
2. Twist #2- Hunting Styles. While the Hunting Arts are the flashy one shot cannon the Hunting Styles are the fighting style you have chosen. There are 4 styles, one that is the normal Monster Hunter style, one all about using brute force to solve the situation, one that excels in doing acrobatic jumps over/on monsters/ party members, and one that is all about defense and countering.
3. Twist #3- Prowlers. Later in this game you can choose whether you wish to play as a human or a palico.
4. Removed Content- All I have found to be removed aside from a few monsters/dragons is G-Rank.
TLDR:
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Hunting Styles/Hunting Arts | Rushed Cutscenes |
| Rebalanced the Long Sword | Too many towns with too little to do between them |
| Prowlers | No G-Rank |
| The new weapon upgrade system | No Shen Gaoren(oh well) |
| Carapaceons make a return |