I enjoy this more than base World, for sure, the roster becomes a bit more varied, the weapon and armor designs less dull, Seliana feels like a hub designed by people who actually play the game. But. But unfortunately, the way I felt about World remains: I don’t really feel the urge to play this game, ever, with it doing nothing I don’t think other entries do better. The Sparks Notes of my World thoughts is I can go to Rise (and, now, Sunbreak; especially since Sunbreak fucking owned) if I want fast arcade modern reactive combat, and any Monster Hunter before this for slower, more methodical stuff, so I never really want to play Iceborne; I still have to beat Fatalis, and I imagine I will periodically hop in every now and again until I do. At the same time, Iceborne doubles down on the MMO lite mechanics and its combat updates (most of the new moves, and of course the clutch claw stuff^) I have to actively force myself to engage with, where the equivalent stuff in Sunbreak (switch skill swapping) made me a massively more adventurous, diverse hunter. I never really want to hang out or luxuriate in Iceborne like I do in other Monster Hunters, I mostly just want to hunt the thing to get the thing to make the thing. It doesn’t help that I couldn’t care less about things like ecosystems and stuff…when people point to other games missing some of World’s more complex monster-monster or monster-environment interactions, I mostly think, well, I guess that dev time went into making the fights in the other games more fun. Oh well.
^ I do think the clutch claw stuff is a little over-hated. It’s annoying, but you don’t really need to use it on all but the highest end monsters. I rarely used it and didn’t see a huge increase in hunt times over high rank (once I had a decent, but still bad (see below), build going).
And I hate RNG decorations. I am a humble greatsword main who has played this game for over 100 hours and I do not have a single focus decoration (ok: I have one, but it’s paired with affinity sliding, which is not helpful for GS). People who prefer this system to RNG charms are, I think, unfortunately, insane.
^ I do think the clutch claw stuff is a little over-hated. It’s annoying, but you don’t really need to use it on all but the highest end monsters. I rarely used it and didn’t see a huge increase in hunt times over high rank (once I had a decent, but still bad (see below), build going).
And I hate RNG decorations. I am a humble greatsword main who has played this game for over 100 hours and I do not have a single focus decoration (ok: I have one, but it’s paired with affinity sliding, which is not helpful for GS). People who prefer this system to RNG charms are, I think, unfortunately, insane.