A great follow-up to Atelier Ayesha, taking place in a new area with new characters and some returning previous characters as well. The game still has a huge focus on crafting items with special properties and effects, but the battle system has been improved a fair bit. The game encourages at least two playthroughs, once with each character to get the true ending on the second playthrough, but I don't have that kind of time, so I played from Escha's perspective and read up on everything else. Suposedly Logy's side of things isn't too terribly different (which makes sense, given they spend 99% of the game together). So, if you enjoyed the first game, definitely pick this one up!

A really fun, cute RPG about a cute girl who's a little air-headed named Ayesha looking to save her sister and master alchemy. The game has a big focus on crafting items & equipment with all sorts of special properties and effects so you can decimate enemies in battle to the point where grinding for EXP is rather discouraged. It has a nice handful of different endings and plenty of interesting side characters to boot. It's a fun game with some decent replayability. Your first run shouldn't take more than 25-30 hours either, so it certainly doesn't over-stay its welcome.

This is probably the longest review I've ever written. If you don't want to read all the specifics, I have a TL;DR at the bottom.

So, let me get all the negatives out of the way first.
My main gripes consist of:
1.) Uninspired early weapons, they're all so disgustingly bland. Look at any previous MonHun entries and even the starter weapons (once you get out of the Bone or Steel paths) all wind up being fairly unique in accordance with the monster the weapon is based on and then later in those same paths just change a bit more. Here, you're stuck with "sword with [monster's] fur super-glued onto it" for half the game. It's so uninspired and disappointing.

2.) The armors are also, for the most part, pretty damn drab. Again, pretty disappointing when you compare to past games. There's a FEW really nice-looking armor sets, but most of them visually suck. And in one instance, Xeno'jivaa's armor, they went too far and made way too busy.

3.) The more "realistic" style, in general, has ultimately served as a net-negative in regards to the visual style and art direction. It's not BAD, but the previous MonHun games did it all better with it's more colorful, varied, and slightly cartoony style. Some of the environments (and especially Astera) are quite drab compared to maps and towns from past games. The biggest offender though is the character models' faces. Everyone looks ugly and uncanny as sin.

4.) Ancient Forest. Look, I get it, they're going all-in on the HUNTER thing and plopping you into a jungle with all the twisty windy paths and many vertical levels, but that doesn't make the frustration of navigating it any better. Even after playing this game, TWICE MIND YOU, logging over 100 hours each time, I still dread this god-forsaken map, it's never not a nuisance to play on and always get lost in. I hate it more than anything else in this game.

5.) Monster variety. This game is hurting pretty bad for monster variety, even after Icebourne. There are some pretty cool new monsters, yes, absolutely, but the overall diversity of monsters and monster types, on top of some of the ones they decided to bring back were a real head-scratcher to me considering NONE of them were from 4 Ultimate, which had the absolute most diverse roster of monsters to fight in any mainline MonHun title. There were so many cool and interesting monsters they could've drawn from to add to this and instead we got stuck with a piddling 34 or so monsters. Icebourne did add another 30 or so, which was nice, for sure, but I think it would've been a lot better if they'd delayed the game and put more of these into the base game instead.

6.) The lack of need for the Gathering Hub. By being able to post/accept online-quests from the lower-areas of Astera and main area of Seliana, they've essentially nuked the necessity for players to properly gather in the Gathering Hub like in past games. They even brought back the arm-wrestling. Being able to chat, arm-wrestle, and get drunk with other players before/after hunts was such a great thing, but now it just doesn't happen, because it's easier/quicker to post/join a quest from one of the quest-boards. I feel like they even tried to remedy this somewhat by giving Seliana just one quest-board and then also making the Gathering Hub in Seliana much more attractive than the one in Astera, but I still never saw that many more people actually waiting in the Seliana Gathering Hub.

7.) The new system for Armor Skills (and the complete lack of negative skills) is lame as hell. You were rewarded in the other games for learning the armor skill system and crafting your decorations and making it all come together just right with the right charm was so satisfying. But now DECORATIONS are random drops? I hate it. Charms being random drops in 4U made more sense to me since they were usually +7~+11 points to a single skill later in the game, and it was pretty easy to get charms with two skills on them, but decorations being random drops now? That shit sucks. And I CAN see one positive of this being you don't get any newbie/obviously-carried players who have "clownsuits" with no activated skills like you would see in MHG/MHGU and MH4U, which was often pretty detrimental to the overall hunt in the past games, but I feel like they made it too simple instead. They could have just kept the same armor skill system from before, but maybe just provide better explanations for how the skills work and activate. Because as it is now, there are NO negative skills. There are no drawbacks to whatever armor you're using, and not near as much fun or pay-off to be had strategizing your armor and weapon builds for specific monster types or even one specific really tough monster.

8.) Limited-Time Event Quests. This is the absolute worst fucking thing. In previous titles, once you downloaded the new Event Quests, you had them FOREVER and could play them at your leisure, but here they're all limited-time. If you miss out on an event quest? Too bad and "fuck you," you just get to wait until it comes back into rotation.

9.) You CANNOT pause the game. Seriously, what the fuck? Obviously, if you're doing an online hunt with others, you won't be able to pause. But when you're just SOLO hunting you can't pause either. I know this has to be in relation to the SOS Flare system, but they should've just made SOS flares launchable only from the base camp, where it takes an extra second to establish an online connection and thus enter Online Mode, instead of just always being online and unable to pause the game.

That's all for the negatives, but I do have some good things to say too:
1.) The quality of life improvements in regards to inventory management, equipment, sorting, load-outs, and shopping is an absolute godsend, as well as the fast-travel system that lets you zip from one side of the map to the other.

2) The areas all being one big uninterrupted map with no loading zones is so great. I love it. I can't tell you how many frustrating moments I had in hunts where a monster would get into a loading zone, you go to attack it, and instead cross into the next area.

3.) The idea of monsters having turf wars is pretty cool. It makes the world feel more alive, but the system feels really kind of bares-bones at the same time once you see the same exact turf-wars play out over and over with the exact same outcomes, but I'm sure it's something that'll be improved upon in a sequel, or so I hope.

4.) The ability to capture/make pets out of some of the smaller endemic life is really fun. It winds up creating this whole sub-game of trying to find all the little critters you can fill your home with, and some of them are really great.

5.) Being able to customize your home is such a great addition, it's something I've always wanted in the Monster Hunter games.

6.) The addition of the Slinger and how it can be utilized, and then even further expanded upon with the Clutch Claw presented in Icebourne, is all pretty damn swell. I have no complaints about the Slinger, it's great, and nothing's quite as satisfying as saving your teammate's ass by the skin of your teeth when you interrupt a monster's attack with a Slinger shot. And yes, the Clutch Claw was pretty overpowered and actually necessary to abuse a lot of times in Icebourne, but it still brought something new and interesting to the table, and I'm not gonna knock them for just trying since it actually turned out to be such a fun thing to use. That and the special Clutch Claw attacks each weapon has are cool as hell.

7.) Honestly the best thing in Monster Hunter World: all the MOVEMENT. Say goodbye to all the clunkiness from past games. MHW has absolutely mastered the smooth movement, even more satisfying weapon animations, and the ability to pull of some really cool maneuvers much easier. Another huge welcome thing is being able to change your direction at the last second when doing charge attacks, like with Greatsword. I absolutely cannot overstate how good this game feels when you're actually fighting monsters.

This isn't a bad game by any means, but it did not meet some of my expectations that had been set over the last 7 or so years, and for the things I didn't have expectations for, mostly just disappointed me. This is definitely much more fun when you have friends to run around and smack monsters with, but even then I can't overlook the flaws for too long before I burn out again.

I've only managed to put about 300 hours into this game, across both my PS4 and PC versions. In contrast, I've put about 350 hours into MH3U on the 3DS, about 700 into MH4U, and approximately 150 hours or so total into MHG.

TL;DR
As a long-time fan, I'm very mixed about this entry. But if this is your first Monster Hunter title, this is definitely the most newbie-friendly entry and you can't really go wrong starting here.

This game sure did leave me mixed, but pleased. I'm not going to lie, the entire first half of this game really drags, and the recurring thing of "winning a boss fight, losing in the cutscene" is quite frustrating as it happens time and time again during the first few chapters. The gacha-like element of acquiring blades was annoying as well, I'd rather just clear challenges or fight a tough enemy to acquire one instead. And don't get me started on the English voice acting (while a few voices were fine, it was overall still awful), thank goodness for the Japanese voice option. I had basically given up on the game around Chapter 4 at some point. But I finally picked it up again, and I'm so glad I did.

After Chapter 4, that's when things really start moving along. I did not expect to actually enjoy the game as much as I wound up enjoying it, mostly due to the story and the (overdue) development of Rex and the others. By the end, it all gets pretty fucking cool. I'm really glad I picked it back up to finish it.

Nia best girl, Pyra sucks, Mythra a queen.

A really interesting experiment to change up the Pokemon formula. I like a lot of the ideas, but the execution of said ideas was pretty sloppy most of the time. I love the idea of the Dynamax/Gigantamax raids, but it was down to pure dumb luck if I ever got to join someone else's raid and most of the time, it was already timed out, or even worse, I got stuck with NPCs who, on 4/5-Star raids, would usually be the cause of a full wipe. The online portions of Sword/Shield are definitely the greatest struggle, which is not a surprise considering this is Nintendo we're talking about. I LOVE the camping and curry cooking aspects, especially where other players could pop into your camp. I just wish there were more Poketoy options than "stick" or "10 different kinds of balls."

EDIT

After playing the Isle of Armor and most of The Crown Tundra, I can safely say this I still really enjoy this game overall.

The Isle of Armor was definitely weak, forcing you to complete even more Dynamax raids on the Isle itself to make the Gigantamax mushrooms appear was nothing short of a huge annoyance. Only the first 3 you gather as a part of the story don't require doing Dynamax raids, but if you want any more? Well, I hope you enjoy suffering. The story for Isle of Armor was very must just...fine. I didn't dislike it. However, I hate Avery's guts. I want that stupid smug twink obliterated.

Meanwhile, The Crown Tundra is a really pleasant experience. The "story" is woefully short though and just revolves completely around you catching Legendaries. The Dynamax Adventure is REALLY damn fun though. You get to keep any Pokemon you capture during an excursion, at the end of which is a Legendary Pokemon or Ultra Beast not found in the game anywhere else. The Dynamax Adventures also have a 100% capture rate, so you don't have to grind your fingers to the bone just trying to get one. The online experience for Dynamax Adventure was also pleasant, at least when there were a lot of people playing it during the weeks after TCT released.

The sequel to one of the best games I've ever played and just improves upon everything from the previous title while adding new features and a great story. A true, proper, splendid sequel. And yes, Kat is still cute, and the music is still absolutely fantastic.

RIP Online Servers.
Treasure Hunting, Photo Sharing, and playing Challenges against other players' ghosts were all so much fun. I'm glad I got to play this game in full before they killed the online. It will be dearly missed.
On a similar note: Fuck You, Sony.