Crucially, Dos's most important change as a sequel is a better balancing of content between its single and multiplayer halves. That statement might be too early for me to personally make when I'll only ever be able to play it online through its private server, which isn't public as of the time of writing this piece, but even just the town-exclusive extra services of the first game make their appearance in the village, and their consistent availability doesn't disrupt anything due to already being balanced in some way: effective pre-quest meals require a bit of experimentation and knowledge, and the Combo Master gives you the choice to circumvent the chances of failed combination attempts (and lost time) via small fees while you work your way up to investing in each Book of Combos.

Quest accessibility also sees some improvements: all major fights are unlocked through regular play, instead of the obtuse requirements the first game had for a handful of its monsters, and some of the original's online-exclusive quests are available in the village, too, though…the funny part is that even some of this game's new additions aren't found offline, either, thoss being Rajang, Yama Tsukami, and Shen Gaoren (along with the returning Fatalis). Having not fought those monsters yet, keep in mind that none of this is tied to any given monster's "quality", even in regards to those from the first game (Lao-Shan Lung is particularly barren as a solo fight), more just that the expanded availability in and of itself a step in the right direction.

These changes on their own are good. Maybe more on the side of "less bad" as opposed to "more good", but a basic refinement of the original game's structure is welcome and valuable, especially as it creates a better foundation for all of the new additions to stand on top of.

And there are naturally very many new additions to be found, and it's fitting that the ones which remain unique selling points for Dos have to do with structure. The main one is the seasonal time cycle, which is also the biggest example of Dos's attempts to bring more simulation aspects into the core gameplay, wherein you're regularly keeping new ecological conditions in mind, and how they affect both which animals are active, and what resources you'll more easily obtain. It's a further exploration of the hunter-gatherer mindset that the series is built on, and helps to give Dos more of an experiential quality, loaded with v i b e s…or so they say.

It's not like I don't see it. Compared to even most of the series now, Dos's systems still give it more of an experimental allure, one that goes a bit to evolve past the regular gameplay at the center of everything, but while that flavoring gives it its unique identity…I'd still be spicy and say it's just that: extra flavor. Whatever you think of the original Monster Hunter's quality, namely its rather bare solo experience, I think we can agree that its systems do still function on a basic level, and I would say that still applies to Dos. Outside of the expected new additions like more fights and equipment, take out the seasonal system, the day-night cycle, village developments…and you could still call it a decent follow-up. They're still nice, just not fundamentally crucial.

And now I get to undo the plot twist, since this begs the question: is Dos still better off for having all of these systems? Do they make Dos a better game and sequel than it would have been otherwise? My answer is absolutely, much better off. It's extra flavor, but the kind that you can taste clearly and cleanly; the kind of stuff that nicely completes the palette.

The actual real benefit of most of these mechanics is in how much smoother they make the inherent grind of these games play out. Namely, by giving each season and time of day its own main items, resource gathering can become greatly streamlined through periodically funneling the player into different priorities. The warm season is easily the most advantageous to the average player because of how common honey is, which then becomes notably rare during the cold. In exchange, though, more valuable bugs and fish can be caught, instead; the more important bugs are then made into the rarity when the herbivore season rolls around, but you keep access to all environments, making it better for general gathering, or...egg deliveries, if you're into that, and also making mining less of a dilemma (humorously, in both of the above cases, the abundant item gets replaced with Insect Husks, but even those can be used in combos now, keeping them from being completely useless). Crucially, very little is made completely inaccessible, just far less common. If you spend enough time at a honey deposit during the winter, you'll maybe still come up on some remnants, but knowing the odds are low encourages you to just move on and spend that time getting something either uniquely available or more bountiful during that period.

There's smaller things in this system that also interact with how you manage your inventory: Melynxes can always be a problem, but particularly so in the breeding season, where they appear in high-activity areas. Where you could otherwise skip out on bringing Felvine with you, it now becomes much wiser to pay that little safety tax. What helps with playing within this system is that you're given an easy way to play around it: it doesn't cost too much to instantly skip ahead to a different time of day, or even a different season, and time always slowly passes in the town, even in menus, which means there's a few times where you could let the day change without idling too much, or even at all. As for that specific branch of time management itself, while certain items also have different prevalence depending on the time of day, its main affect is on the environments themselves, specifically the desert's temperature change, which forces you to remember to bring the proper drink type. The other primary change is that a lot of specific sections, area connections or even entire portions within each map are cut off at night, though truthfully this is the weakest element to me. At best, it just limits where you can go on a macro level, like with the path to the jungle's upper temple being submerged by the waters at night, but at worst (by which I primarily mean the volcano), it makes individual areas much more awkward to navigate...things are taken, but there's usually nothing added back to compensate, at least outside of some altered item drops. I would have preferred to see all the areas work the way the new swamp does, where nighttime sees poison pockets swell up in the marshes, a change that doesn't directly limit your movement, but still makes you be more mindful of your surroundings. Namely, going from area 2 to area 5 forces you to step into one, making that shortcut a bit more of a risk, even if you can otherwise heal easily. Creating navigational decisions like that strikes me as the right kind of direction to go in.

Still, all of this means that you're always free to stockpile like crazy on anything particular, and not have to worry about it running out for a while, or keep gathering in a more balanced way. Type-based item stack limits are initially something to consider, but storage upgrades are thankfully so much easier to get now (the first Organizer Guide is one-TENTH of the cost it was in the first game) that, while making the choice to sell any excess in the early game is interesting, and still a worthwhile dilemma to include, you can eventually be a little more lax as time goes on.

The end result is that gathering is, in a sense, more segmented (and more by the actual game rather than mostly player priority), but each "segment" gives out much more of its benefits than a flat system might have otherwise provided, leaving you much better off given you've played to each season's strengths. And this isn't just for the main gimmick at the center of it all, a few other mechanics help to further encourage this kind of preemptive decision-making. The fluctuating monster bounties are a way to both let you make extra bank on any given fight, and slowly keep you from monotonously grinding the same fights over and over, at least if you care about the direct payout. It's also worth noting that these bonuses exist on top of a given monster's base quest reward, and aren't the only sum you're earning: carting even once in the first game could be extremely punishing given how tight money was, but the extra cushioning this time around makes it so that one or two slip-ups every now and then isn't too big of a deal.

The new Subquests give you even more of a safety net in the event you choose to do them, sending extra Supply items to the camp immediately upon their completion, encouraging you to take that detour should you need that backup. And they come with their own money and item rewards after all is said and done, which can be greatly appreciated whenever you need them; in light of how weapon upgrades take up the bulk of your expenses, and how much certain trees can demand a lot of specific rarer materials, some play-styles can benefit greatly from taking these extra steps. Going even further, most quests let you end after doing any Subquest, letting you recuperate if a fight goes south, but it also lets gathering quests and lighter hunts exist in a way that doesn't clutter up the quest menu, just with the caveat that you'll need to be wary of whatever big beast you chose to have out and about.

And perhaps most importantly of all in regards to monsters, a huge change this time around is that capturing is always an option, instead of being quest-specific. Most of the time you'll need to make tranquilizers and traps on your own, but having the opportunity to nab extra rewards off of every monster is just yet another example of how Dos lets you play your way into even more payouts than what was possible before. That doesn't mean supply-exclusive items have gone away, if anything they're actually much more abundant here, but now this system is balanced in a very cool. Outside of throwing knives (which are situational anyway), these are all tools you can create yourself, but the supply-specific variants are treated like the other common items from the chest and as such will be removed from your inventory should you still have any leftover. This not only prevents easy stockpiling, as was the case with the free flash bombs in the first game's Velocidrome hunt, but it still encourages players to experiment with item usage during hunts since there's now no longer-term loss to doing so...in terms of just using up whatever limited amount the supply variants come in, that is.

While we're here, I have to give a mention to how well-organized the quest menu itself is, being primarily sorted by location rather than "difficulty", but you still have the option to use monster categories as a filter instead…though, ironically, this leads into what I would consider one of the game's only flaws on a fundamental level, that being how the quest rotation can periodically be even worse than the first game's. Only having 5 quests randomly cycle at a time could be annoying, but at least it was always 5. In contrast, Dos can sometimes leave certain fights out of the pool even when they'd otherwise appear in whatever time bracket you're in; the funniest example is how you can sometimes end up with Basarios being the only available fight at the volcano. Even in the context of animals in our own reality going through migrations, I don't find it beneficial as a simulation mechanic, the downtime it creates doesn't feel in line with the other cyclical mechanics because it's more completely random than it is relatively determinative.

Equipment, on the other hand, is unquestionably improved. Better balancing's been made overall (the Sword and Shield actually does real hits on big monsters now, and Lances are much less capable of stun-locking everything), but both sword types also get some helpful key additions: the Greatsword's new charge attack rewards good timing and angling with big damage, complimenting its usual hit-and-run nature by being such a massive commitment in most situations so as to not always be the ideal option, unless your setups/reads are consistently on point; the aforementioned improvement to the Sword and Shield would be great on its own, but now being able to use items as it's still equipped makes both all of your usual utility options even more potent, and securing healing opportunities a bit easier, all the while getting you back into the fights faster than the norm…a very powerful trump card in the right hands.*

Of course, new weapons make their debut, too, and, alongside the changes above, the underlying thread between them all is a stronger focus on aggression, while still being balanced by fundamental caveats:

- The Longsword can perform an infinite string, and comes with a powerful Spirit Combo, but the associated Spirit Gauge decreases rapidly, forcing you to recognize when to just take safe potshots and retreat with Fade Slashes effectively to max it out and secure its buffs, rather than over-extend and risk taking spending time recovering from damage.

- The Hunting Horn's two horizontal swings can also string together infinitely, and it even has its own weaker (but faster) version of the Hammer's super-pound, but buffing with songs mid-combat is risky due to its slow speed.

- The Gunlance has excellent range, and shelling extends its melee combo potential significantly, but it can eat your sharpness fast, and longer combos only get increasingly more risky. The Wyvern's Fire can deliver big damage, and (like shelling) does so regardless of sharpness, but if shelling ate that, this move devours it, and it's always a very hefty commitment you'll have to brace for, in both startup and cooldown time.

- The Bow lets you hold charged shots while on the move, and Power Coatings are like extra butter on top, but the former abides by the same stamina management as the Hammer and Dual Blades (or an inventory tax with Dash Juice), while the latter requires either lots of combining, or frequent purchasing...yes, Dos gives you more money overall, but not too much as to make this something your wallet can just ignore most of the time.

All have their respective drawbacks, as with any weapon, but they still pave the way for new offensive potential when played well. Interestingly, mobility in general is a theme with all of the other new weapons, too. Movement speed is higher across the board, and every Hunting Horn has access to the movement buff melody; even the Gunlance isn't an outlier here, with its forward lunge easily being one of the best attacks on any weapon, serving as a gap closer, combo starter, and even a slick evasive tool.

While not really an option in the early game due to a lack of slots on most gear, the new Decorations do still help to boost loadouts a touch. Armor is mainly where these are applied, but even some weapons have slots, too. Interestingly, manually removing gemstones will destroy them, which can be brutal, but I at least respect how this makes you doubly sure about the commitment. Gems already set in weapons being destroyed after upgrading, on the other hand, is an odd quirk, when armor upgrades are thankfully safe from that, but the system overall remains a good addition for providing just enough flexibility over your skill points to help make builds both more potent, and more personalized, even if the decisions are still cut-and-dry for some play-styles.

And a new Monster Hunter wouldn't be complete without new…well, monsters. The original lineup is more or less unchanged, for better (Kut-Ku and Khezu) or for worse (Rathalos...but someone made the merciful decision to keep him trapped in the post-game), but the new fights remain welcome additions. Just like before, aggressive play feels like a stronger focus here, both on your end and on the monsters': the Congalala's 4-hit combo leaves it wide open, but without the Negate Tremor skill, you'll have to space yourself well if you want to maximize on that recovery window; the Shogun Ceanataur's attacks get extended range once it gets enraged, which is certainly daunting, but destroying its claws can make future outbursts much less so. The new Elder Dragons are the most blatant example of this new philosophy, as three of the four have troublesome auras that must be disabled, which is primarily through damaging their heads enough to break them. Chameleos's ability still gives it an ever-present trick up its sleeve, but its own attacks making it visible gives you some leeway, and while it still has its own ways to make you keep your distance, you still have more periods of safety up against it than the others. The fight's like this constant test on maintaining your awareness of the monster's movements…a sound challenge for a combat system based on commitment, positioning, and enemy predictability, and one that makes it very satisfying to get through on your first go. Great theme, too, I like the idea that it only plays as it's enraged (if you ever come back and see this bit's been edited, it'll mean I finally fought Rajang in particular…I imagine Yama Tsukami and Shen Gaoren aren't too different in execution from LSL).

Backing up all of this is an expanded hub. I've already mentioned the Felyne cooking and Combo Master, but there's a couple of other neat extras: a mine that provides free ore, free useful ingredients from winning arm wrestles against the Master Shipwright, and several merchants, one of whom even periodically sells honey. It's all even more examples of how Dos is slightly but nicely working to make things a little smoother for you…in due time. The Shipwright and his useful rewards are available from the start, but at first, you only have about as much going on as the town of the original, with the add-ons only arriving after developing the village enough. This is done through delivering items or doing certain quests assigned by villagers, with "key" requests, marked by red speech bubbles, being made available after doing enough smaller blue ones . I say "key", but everything can be done at your own pace, especially in regards to the blue requests, where you can always wait for the next season to roll around if you're not feeling what's currently available. The lack of actual urgency does harm the tension of Kushala Daora's first appearance if you decide to be lax, but...eh, it's a very small price to pay. Apart from that, there's no real plot at play here, the allure of progressing is rather just the pleasant experience of seeing this humble place grow into a thriving paradise, which is reflected in the expansion of services and resources you'll get access to by the end. Cuter details sell it more, I like how each level of the forge adds in new apprentices that serve as vendors in place of the granny. You'll have to deal with small delays in the early game, as the given vendor has to move when you want to use each service, but I think that's ok. The return to Kokoto Village is a cute time, too…though I do wish you could still access the Forest & Hills from Jumbo afterwards.

As another carryover from the first game's multiplayer, you even have opportunities to upgrade your own house…though honestly, I like sticking with the original, it has a nice cozy atmosphere to it...there's the one part where vibes win out.

I'm waiting eagerly to dig into the online aspect once it gets fully restored, but I'm good with taking a little break for the time being. Monster Hunter is certainly a long investment, no matter the game, but finally playing Dos has given me a rather pleasant take on the gather-and-hunt formula. It's smooth and rewarding as long as you put a little bit of preparation into it, taking measures to ensure that there's less wrong reasons as to why it's a time-sink.

I won't deny the little slip-ups here and there…small monsters are still crazy aggressive in big fights, climbing is still slow even with the new "sprint" option, and all of the little cutscenes when doing things in the village could have probably been made skippable. Notably, though, I think the quality-of-life in regards to the resource side of the core gameplay isn't part of the drag this time, which feels like the most crucial thing to nail, even when some aspects of it take time to get going, and some materials are still a bit tricky to get. Beyond the experiential aspect, beyond the vibes, it's chiefly an excellent mechanical approach and evolution of the basic concepts established before it…an ideal sequel, through-and-through. While it may still have room to grow into something even more refined, it has strong footing to stand on, even when its flagship monster is built around taking that away from you and making you work to get it back.