Sunbreak coming to an end and the very high possibility of MH6 being announced real soon kind of got me itching to give this another shot. Won't be doing shit like Behemoth of The Leshen (unless I go back to cheese them with MR weapons), but I will be doing maybe a couple of the HR events to at least get some decos before Iceborne. Greatest Jagras here I come!

Anyways it holds up real good. Much shorter than I remember, but when this launched I also had a job that had me much busier and I was doing everything. This time around I've skipped a lot of quests and only really focused on making one armor set to get through HR (gotta have that Odogaron set with the slutty hips babe). Can confidently say people who called Rise too easy are fucking insane cause I steamrolled everything in this even in HR. The only real challenge coming from having an LR set while hunting something like an HR Odo or Bazel being a dickhead. None of that matters though when expeditions don't have real quest failure though.

Music is all around pretty good too. It's not Third gen or Fourth gen or even Rise/Sunbreak tier, but I may have judged it a bit too hard over the years. The Elder's Recess theme is genuinely underrated for starters and besides Bazel I think Vaal may actually have the best unique theme in the base game. It's so good.

Used Glaive and gotta say? Lots of fun! Can't believe I barely touched it in my initial playthrough. Used all the weapons in the game then, but eventually just defaulted to my usual of GS with some Switch Axe. Love the mobility IG received here and jumping up to dive down with that one move Iceborne added having the moth go apeshit spraying C4 Mothra dust everywhere is so good. Even if the game's choice of particle effects are so ugly and annoying as my screen becomes a mess of sparkles and embers, but who cares bug goes boom.

Gotta say while I think Rise (some really unfortunate Covid development cycle issues aside) and Sunbreak are definitely the better games of Monster Hunter's 5th generation and are also the ones with a better art direction that feels more in line with MH. World remains as impressive as it was back in 2018. It may not be perfect and it may have some annoying shit (I will find whoever programmed the constant roars in this one), but in a time where studios are willing to nickle and dime you for the smallest thing (which Capcom aren't exempt to by the way lmfao) this is still a game with so much content and so many things to do along the way with just the base entrance price. The time sink that comes along with it alone is worth the price and Iceborne will eventually just double that as MH expansions are basically just an entire extra game.

A genuine true modern classic and for all its faults... I think I kind of really love it still? Yes even the Handler cause now she'll just randomly put on the cat costume with the looping seasonal events and it has been HILARIOUS seeing her run around with that thing. Truly the Aqua Konosuba best useless loser of video games.

Also on a last note god bless the loading times while playing this on PS5, holy fuck.

The first few weeks of this games launch is some of the most fun I'd ever had with the entire franchise. Just me and the boys running off into the Ancient Forest on the first day with shitty gear trying to take down Anjanath and Rathalos early? Getting lost in the shitty maze like level design? Finding weird shortcuts and then getting lost cause they turned us all around? Shit was choice.

Would go as far to say the first blind playthrough of this is genuinely one of the funnest Monster Hunter games ever. Playing on a big TV, comfy on my bed with my controller, the size of the world, the feeling of adventure? The presentation is so fucking good even with one of the dumbest stories ever put into any video game I've played.

So what kind of kills this game? Well, its endgame grind and the post launch content does. Reskins of Elder Dragons that hit harder. Going out to get tempered Elder Dragon tracks, coming back to Astera (which has a fuckhuge loading screen), praying for RNG to give you a Tempered Elder, getting the Elder, hoping it drops the Streamstone you want, repeat. For a game called Monster Hunter this endgame loop made it so you were only fighting 5 or so monsters over and over. Don't even get me started on the fake MMO/always online/live service FOMO nonsense this game loves to push.

Is the game terrible though? Nah. Does it become more of a chore to play? Yeah. Should you still play it? Nah bitch if you have Switch just get Rise in March lmao.