Dumped down the game is about learning your weapon’s moveset and the monster’s moveset to get satisfying moments in hunts. Other reward for learning is getting numbers go up from upgrading or creating your weapons and armor.

Every weapon gives different playstyle and skills given by your equipment can enhance your specific playstyle. Of course there are meta options for armor (in terms of damage output), but other skills can offer so much utility or defensive stuff. Getting a skill that makes your self healing heal others can be a lifesaver. Defensive skills are lifesavers on harder hunts and reduce stress.

Monster Hunter World and Rise (with their expansions) have also pushed the ecology part of the game a lot further. It is really cool explore the different maps and their fauna. Realising that one map is pretty much covered by a corpse of an older game’s gigantic monster is cool. Seeing small endemic life interacting is neat. While this ecology wondering is less seen on the older games, it is still there in smaller scale.

Freedom Unite (can be considered as the 2nd game + expansion) has been the first experience for most western veterans, so it is pretty popular. First Monster Hunter is really janky, even when compared to the other older instalments of the series, and Freedom United improved a lot on pretty much everything. Monster Hunter Tri (3rd) was like a fresh start. Most things were new; like maps, monster roster (old classics as well) and under water combat. Unfortunately Tri had to cut few older weapons out in place for new ones.

The complexity and variety of the weapons, as well as the different monsters and the personalities is what I like about them. It’s basically a boss rush game with the occasional gathering session for environmental resources.

It’s not a game for everyone, and it’s kinda a running meme that everyone drops it shortly after there first time playing it, only to come back years later and get completely hooked.

If you do decide to try it, I really suggest messing around with the weapons in the training area until you find one interesting to you, and then searching up a guide for it.

I’ve never played any of them myself but my guess is that it’s the monster hunting.

I had to actually get my hands on it to find out what appeals. For me it was a combination of challenge, routine, and a clear sense of progression. Hunting materials for gear gave me clear milestones while I was also getting better at the combat at the same time in a more intangible way.

Monster Hunter World was the one I spent the most time in, and my favorite part was the multiplayer. Unfortunately, frustration with that is also what led me to eventually drop it. Co-op with a friend in that game was bizarrely restricted, with a really janky way of going through the story (I eventually figured out that it was just better to do the story independently). On top of that, the multiplayer had technical issues on PC at launch.

I hear that Wilds will have a similar setup for the main story co-op–outright bizarre for a AAA game releasing in freaking 2025–but here’s hoping it won’t have the other issues at least.

I started MonHunt on PS2, the very first one, it immediately hooked me in. At the time i’m looking for an MMO but offline and without the lag. It got monster to slap, thing to gather, quest to complete, weapon and armour to craft, pretty much fit the description on what i want, though i’m still a teenager at the time and i have no idea what the heck i’m doing, the game can be very non-descriptive at time. Also played monhunt 2 but skipped 3, and finally beat 4.

So basically it’s an MMO-like but 1-4 player, and you hunt giant monster while learning their move, then you carve up their corpse and craft new weapon with it. That’s it. But at the time the concept is so fresh people either hate it or love it.