u/Court_Jester13

I have a bag of frozen diced chicken. I have some packs of ramen, the chicken-flavoured powder sachets of which are extremely salty. My seasonings include cumin, coriander, paprika, chilli powder, oregano. And it seems that unlike the vast majority of people, I'm not actually that much of a fan of eggs.

What can I do to make this ramen less salty?

He was my first Doctor and I forgot about all the subtleties in this first season. The first few episodes hinting at the Doctor's history, Pete Tyler putting the pieces together during the first half of that episode, the one all about journalism and censorship influencing the development of a whole society (that one really hits different given the current climate). Plus the quiet choral parts and dear Gods, the amount of bloom...

I remember watching this for the first time as a kid. Jeez, makes me feel old.

So, I just recently defeated Primordial Malzeno and have mostly finished the entire game, just got to get to MR 50. So, I decided to list my pros and cons of the game. This is my third Monster Hunter game (I'm sure you can guess the other two), and I went in expecting great things. Let me say, I was not disappointed!

Pros:

• The village. I absolutely LOVE large town hubs, and between Wilds, World, and Rise, Rise absolutely does it the best. Wilds just has base camps and even in World, Astera and Seliana are very ramshackle and not terribly permanent. Kamura had an extremely cosy and comfortable, all of the residents are independent and interesting, their stories are really cool... just loved it so much.
• The monster designs. In World, the monsters were primarily furry or scaly. Wilds had some cepholapod and insectoids. Rise has the furry ones, the scaly ones, the bugs, crabs, birds, and everything in between.
• The equipment designs. I loved how all the armour and weapons looked. Like everyone else, I'm sure, my first stop after hunting a new monster was to check the armour and weapons, see how amazing they are. Additionally, layered armour being unlocked relatively early was SO good after playing World and having to wait until the Guiding Lands to customise my looks.
• The gameplay in general. After I unlocked the chainsaw skill for my chargeblade, I pretty much rant hat the entire game. Nothing's more satisfying than chargeblade go brrrrr brr brr chk booboobooboom.
• The new animals. Specifically, the wirebugs are SO satisfying to use, and the palamutes are so adorable and awesome. I loved how creative some of the palamute armours were, and it was really satisfying to get to the top of the pyramid in the flooded forest.
• The main stories themselves. Sure, it could be a bit of a copout to say "actually, that wasn't really the big bad, THIS is the big bad" but I don't care. Getting to the bottom of the Rampage, then hunting down the Three Lords and finding out the source of the Qurio, chatting with David Beckham a.k.a Admiral Aura, hunting alongside Dame Fiorayne (waifu), Chichae was adorable, as was Yomogi and Kagero's near-sacrifice for her... it was all awesome to play through and very emotional at times.
• That one Lunagaron mission before fighting Malzeno. Specifically, the one where everything else on the map is dead, the music is slow and quiet... it's just such a chilling and eerie encironment, the atmosphere was just so awesome.
• Arzuros. I finally get to meet my bear boi honey muncher. Love him so much.

And now... for the cons.

• The knockback while blocking. As said previously, I played Chargeblade and with maximum flinch free, guard up, wind resistance, and every other skill I could think of that would reduce the stagger, it still felt like while I was blocking, I still being forced back constantly. Particularly in Sunbreak, a lot of hte later monsters were sounding like pinball machines with how often I had to block. Sometimes, I could only get one or two attacks in per minute or so before I had to block again. And I tested with lance, a more notorious shield wall, but was still getting forced halfway across the arena with some monsters.
• The spiribirds. It was fun at first, but after getting to the more powerful monsters which kind of require maximum health and stamina bars, it just became tedious wandering the whole map to get my resources up. I'm not ashamed to say I installed a mod that gave me a rainbow one at the start of every quest.
• Mizitsune. This thing was tough enough to hunt, but the violet variant? Absolute pain and a half, I hate this monster. The only time I've ever had any enjoyment fighting a Mizitsune was in Wilds with a gunlance. So I tried gunlance, then lance (that was my test mentioned with the stagger earlier) and it was still miserable. I'll be avoiding this monster as much as I can in the future.

Those are my pros and cons from this game! Let it be known that while the cons were quite frustrating at times (particularly the knockback one, I miss being an immovable wall), I absolutely loved this game. The visual style was really fun, the maps were varied, and when I hit that SAED after a full chainsaw combo, it was reeeeeaaaaally satisfying. Being an altaholic, I've already made a second dude who's using switch-axe. I should mention, I try to main a different weapon with each character in Monster Hunter. So far I've done insect glaive, dual wield, gunlance, and now chargeblade. Who knows? Next time, I may go for lance!

Caldania, Taova, and the palamute who shall be renamed