Initial Thoughts?

So those of us who actually have the game, what do you think? Personally I love it even more than MH3U!

Well 3U was a step down I feel even though it had more content than tri quality over quantity.

My hunter is ready :D http://kukuruyo.com/2015/02/13/monster-hunter-4/

I'm on RC3, there's a lot of new monsters on the initial stages an some comebacks like Kut ku, the Glaive is very fun when playing as a team cause you are allways bringing the monster down by jumping on top of him, the bad part is that the pointer to aim cannot be moved.

two days in, 13hrs of play, I am loving it! Especially being able to play online directly since we don't own or want a WiiU.

The climbing and ledges definityl make combat much more fun, but I just cant get the aerial aspect to work in Single player (the monster is always too close or too far).
The Everwood seems like its going to be awesome, once we really figure out how it works.

And I love my Felines way better than the shakalakas.

Initial thoughts: Yup, this is gonna take over my life just as Tri did.

Goodbye social life

Here are my first thoughts of the game after completing village low rank:

The game feels really nice and fluid. Moving around is nice and free, and some of the different changes to the weapons makes combat flow a lot better. The environments are also super nice. Since they're built around climbing and jumping, areas are no longer just different shapes of flat land. Other than that, it's the same old monster hunter and I love it.

I do have a few minor issues with this game though. The beginning is still slow as all hell, and while this game does it better than most in the franchise, the tutorial is still pretty trash. For some reason, you can also trade for monster materials of monsters that aren't even in the game. What's the point? I understand why you would want to do that for Plesioth, but I really don't see the point for any other monster. Why do that for fun monsters like Narga and Ceanataur while shitty monsters like Basarios and Gravios are actually available for hunting? Other than that, upgrading glaives feels needlessly complicated, and the low rank monsters felt like glass. I don't know if I would count that as a legit complaint though since I'm familiar with the franchise and know what to do already.

Going in blind has been pretty fun so far, and hopefully I can get my new3DS soon so I can continue playing. I'm still addicted as par for the course.

As a vet going into this game, the visuals have been amazing (great eye-candy), the music is good, but not intrusive (I still like turning all music off and playing with the "natural" sounds...), and the playstyle gets a big plus in my book.

The early monsters do feel pretty weak... but I chalk that up to experience. I am pretty sure those going in new to this genre will not find them easy at all.

One absolutely great thing about this game are the cut-scenes. They have been blended into gameplay so much better than before. And the Icing? Fully interactive and monster destroyed landscape. Without ruining the fun, one word: Rathalos in H. Hollow. Or how about the sinking/flowing sands of the desert... the hidden levels in everwood... I could go on, but... no.

I love the fact that ALL quests are tied to outcomes in the game. No more "only do key quests". If you want to unlock certain monsters, you HAVE to do some of the other quests

Spoiler:

.

And finally, the game is so wide (so much to do other than just hunting), that you could spend hours just doing the mini stuff here and there, and getting good outfits for your cats and yourself ect, ect.

I feel bad saying it, but MH4U might be the pinnacle of the BAM genre.. I don't see it getting any higher, so it might only go down from here... and that might be the only "CON" at the moment.

Started the first MH game in 2004 while in asia... (You didn't really need to know what they were saying at the time) and picked up the english version when I got back. Played almost every MH released in the west and some that weren't. The evolution the game has taken from the 1st one to now is quite nice. It still feels like and MH game but adds so much that the others didn't really have. Aside from the water levels in tri(3U) the series hasn't really taken that big of a leap forward in any generation of the game. Even frontier in many aspects stayed pretty much like the others overall.

4U adds much more though and seems to make the game more accesable to newer player than any of the others before it. Tri being the last game that actually felt like it welcomed new players.

I can't talk about 4U though without talking about the visuals and the New3DS. I see very much why they used 4U to promote the N3DS. The 3D in the game is beutiful but before the n3ds' release playing the demo still seemed restrictive with the older 3ds as far as playing in 3d went.. actually playing all together now that i've played it with the new system. Owning a slide pad attachment and using it with 3U and the 4U demo I still feel it wasn't needed and hindered play more than helped. Playing it on the new system though I find myself often using the "c" stick and enjoying the new touch screen set up quite a bit. And while in 3U I still had some things on the top screen HUD, I now have it completely clear to enjoy the visuals and 3d.

I've thought about going back and trying 3U again with the new system but realize that there's very little reason to do so other than to say I did. when playing 3U there was still reason to go back and play Unite or any of the psp version, with 4U I don't see a need or a want to play any other version at this time.