A common criticism is that the controls are bad. And while this is true, i think the controls work fine in the context of the game. The monsters move-sets are very basic, they charge, they bite, they swipe they're tails or they hip-check you. This means that keeping track of the monster even with the awkward controls is not that hard.
With that benig said, Monster Hunter 1 has some other problems. The small monster usually represent a bigger threat than the big monster, which is just silly. Your inventory space is quite small. The camera on some zones just didn't work. And the grind required to advance in the city is just absurd.
But despite all this problems, this game still has moments where the monster hunter gameplay shines, moments where the game is actually fun. It just happens that this moments not always occur and most of the times you're forced to deal with the frustrating part of the game.