Pretty fun, with a few major hiccups. The world design, presentation, animation, all of that is fantastic. It looks extremely nice and fluid, and feels really satisfying to play most of the time. The music is really great as well. Most monsters are fun to fight with a few exceptions that get very obnoxious. Also, I like the difficulty. It's not afraid to stomp you into the dirt and I think that's cool.

Now for the issues that hold it back. For one, the tracking mechanics don't add much. I like the idea of actually hunting down the monster before the fight starts, but it's so simple that it is no functionally different from Rise's "run straight to the boss" approach almost all the time. Some missions can also feel padded, making you stop and search multiple areas tediously. The pace gets really choppy at certain points, and can interrupt the usually great flow of hunt, upgrade, prep, hunt.

I hope iceborne can improve upon a lot of this game's weaknesses. I also don't quite get why this is viewed as much superior to Rise, which is something I personally had more fun with. Maybe Iceborne will be the difference maker there too. Anyways, fun game with some dumb pacing.