5th Gen Babby slightly pissed off by MHFU
First post and consequently rage here, hello. I don't use my Reddit often. Anyway, I've been playing some Freedom Unite over the past few days. As someone who played the freak and back out of Worldborne and a shorter but still plentiful amount of Risebreak (favourite game so far btw, yes I have ADHD) + all of Wilds's title updates so far, and dabbled into a bit of 4U, old gen is a pretty interesting experience. A lot of quality of life is degraded compared to what the series would get later, which is pretty damn annoying (looking at you, breakable pickaxes and bug nets. Whetstones are so common though that I don't mind), but the kind of aged nature of the game as well as all its crustiness and archaisms somehow make for a pretty hard, albeit comfortable game to play. I didn't grow up with Monster Hunter but I did grow up with a PS2 & PSP (which themselves were getting a little dated at the time).
Thank goodness for emulation letting me bind Dpad to right stick by the way, because I have poor dexterity and that weird grip would destroy me ordinarily.
All of that being said, while I'm not very far in yet (Village 3*, did some Hub 3*s with friends), and I like to think myself a decently calm person (ironic for this subreddit), a few things have, indeed, been pissing me off. I usually play GunLance, because I love how it plays in World and Wilds, though I also really like DBs, so I chose to play them over the more basic playstyle old gen Gunlance has.
As fate would have it, however, playing a shieldless weapon is kind of a mistake for me, because I've noticed the monsters in this game are stupidly relentless in their attacks. Coupled with pretty big hit boxes, it becomes kinda fucking hard to commit to any sort of prolonged assault even when the monster is knocked down, because it stays knocked for a grand total of... dunno, 4-6 seconds, a deceptively long amount of which are spent entering Demon Mode and, depending on my proximity, approaching the damn thing before actually using the big damage rush. Then it gets back up in the middle of it or during my end lag and slaps me away unceremoniously to leave me feeling like a deflated balloon.
As such, I've had to half-adopt a kind of Dark Souls-like playstyle where a lot of the fight is spent carefully observing the boss and I only really attack when I'm mostly sure it's safe. Though I say *half-*adopt because I forget to do that just as often because, uhh, I love getting up close and attacking as much as I can. So it's kind of a 'get good' on my part, but whatever, I'm trying. Quite damn annoying though.
Also, the Insector was (were? they're DBs, but the name is singular) worth every bit of grinding for that huge green sharpness bar, but God Damn was it long. You're gonna tell me to get 10 Hornetaur Shells, with all the added inconvenience of getting a carveable Hornetaur when there isn't even a quest with Hornetaurs as the actual target? Yes, Monster Hunter Freedom Unite, I will, but come on.
One specific monster, the old incarnation of Congalala, who I've been told is a classic pleb filter, certainly pushed me to my limit. I tried fighting the 1* hub Congalala on my lonesome, scaled for multiplayer as it was, with somewhat crummy gear and preparation because I completely glossed over Village Quests and I felt like I was one or two hits from carting at almost all times. Up until my last attempt it went quite quickly with me burning through my potions and herbs pretty fast, then I spent inordinately long on the final one desperately hopping from zone to zone looking around for herbs and mushrooms to craft potions while being harassed by the plethora of small monsters in every area (or, what ultimately happened, just eating the damn herbs), until Congalala found me and after a bit of more panicked fighting I deployed a shock trap and tranq bombs in a panic. Thank fuck it was at low health, because I did capture it, and I feel kind of badass for that, but I'd rather not do that again. Damn.
I'm sure I'll get used to MHFU as time goes, but this game does not currently forgive my attention span and play style. This is a bit of a subdued rage as it's written, but believe me that in the moment whenever I get knocked around by something like Daimyo Hermitaur I want to, for those couple of seconds, crunch a wooden beam apart with my bare teeth.
Has anyone else who started with 5th gen or Wilds gone back to play the older titles and felt their ass kicked by them (or some parts of them, at least)? I like this game so far but I can't deny I've got those little grievances.