\\TL;DR at the bottom\\

The community that I was introduced to in Generations Ultimate (my first MonHun game) largely carried over to World, and while I did enjoy GU and meeting the community, learning from the veteran hunters who taught my scrub ass, I didn't truly fall in love with the series until I played World.

GU (and I assume the rest of the previous games) had a lot of content to chew through, the EX Grind is pretty nutty, having to go through 14-15 (I can't remember exactly) hunts for each deviant before you get to hunt the EX (you can hunt other's EX's whenever though, but you won't get same rewards for beating your own posted EX). There were 93 Large monsters in GU, which is a mind boggling amount.

There's a reason I'm talking about GU right now, and not just because GU is the only other Monhun game I have experience with. GU was supposed to be a sort of last hoorah for the old guard though, a sort of amalgamation of all the previous generations.


Where GU went to celebrate the past generations, World set to bring in a new generation. They changed a lot of core mechanics of the game. Past games were slower, more methodical. Your positioning and knowledge of the monsters mattered more than your reaction speed and your ability to put together a number crunching madhouse of an armor set.

The community was a lot tighter back in the older games, but that's not always a good thing. World expanded the community tenfold (more than that, actually) and you can find just about any kind of help you're looking for on Youtube. Before, the "mainstream" source of information was Athena's Ass (a program for building armor sets) and GaijinHunter, who, credit where it's due did a great job at bringing ideas and concepts to the masses, often got the numbers wrong. Information is much more widely accessible and more accurate to boot now that the game is on PC (a first for western audiences).

If I'm being honest... if it wasn't for a certain friend we'll call "hammer bro", I probably wouldn't have finished marching through GU. I wouldn't have been much interested in World due to my experience with GU. I never would have met the amazing community I did in GU which largely carried over to World and only a select few still dabble in GU. What I'm saying is... thank you GU, and thank you Hammer Bro for introducing me to Monster Hunter. And thank you Capcom, for making World one of the greatest games of our time.

This review serves as a review of GU, MHW and my experience with the MH franchise from those two games.

GU by itself was a 6 or 7 out of 10 for me, really fun game, but I jumped in at the wrong time, and if I wasn't reached out to by a friend of a friend ("hammer bro") I almost certainly wouldn't have finished it or even got into World.

World was a 9 or 10 out of 10 for me, absolutely fantastic game, even if I never played with anyone, this game is still great fun solo. As a new player.... you can't possibly pick a better starting spot for the franchise than World. If you find the concept of hunting large monsters and constantly pushing your limits even remotely entertaining, pick this game up! It goes on sale frequently, but even at full price it (and the Iceborne expansion) are 1000% worth your money and time.

Thank you Capcom, GU, MH community and Hammer Bro,

An Avid Hunter thanks to you.