User blog comment:BannedLagiacrus/Discussion of the Week: MHWI/@comment-4969421-20190914200141

Disclaimer: As a fellow PChad, I'm still yet to play Iceborne.

1) World left a really bad taste in my mouth. It starts out well all the way until postgame, at which point you're left with nothing else to do other than farm the same 5 or so monsters over and over for decos and augments. Instead of fixing this, title updates did the total opposite: they only made things worse. Kulve has you playing a gacha to get weapons, and Behemoth completely eliminates the point of set building by having the absolute best armor in the game, Drachen. The rest of updates are either AT monsters, which are nothing but rehashes with bloated HP and one or two new moves at most if you're lucky, and collab creatures that I do not care for and gameplay wise are among the worst designed in the franchise. At that point, I had zero reasons to continue playing the game, it just wasn't rewarding and I was frankly not having fun at all. I dropped the game around Extreme Mememoth and I haven't looked back since. I'd rather just spend my time playing games that are actually fun and enjoyable, MHGU among them.

2) Lukewarm for the aforementioned reasons. Getting G-Rank was nice, and an expansion rather than a separate game made sense. However, deep inside I knew it wouldn't fix the base issues World had. To this day, I am still unsure whether it will or not. I'll have to play the game to decide. And hope they don't ruin it again with updates.

3) G-Rank. I actually don't mind "Master" as a name, it reminds me of Zelda, but I'm used to G at this point. And I feel like they changed it for no other reason than to make the game feel special. And that's just pointless.

4) The worst mechanic introduced in Iceborne, by a landslide (avalanche?). Terribly balanced, high reward/zero risk clutch. Entirely trivializes hitzones, turning the monsters into walking weakspots is possible. Lasts for a long time, and even when it wears off it's extremely easy to just reapply again. Usable at any time, monsters don't build resistance to it nor is there any sort of cooldown to use it. You can spam it relatively safely (even moreso mid combo) and chances are you won't be punished for it. Even if you grapple onto the wrong bodypart you can just jump to the desired zone. Almost no stamina loss. Piss easy stuns when non-enraged that come with huge damage entirely for free (on top of the damage you'll be dealing when the monster is downed). To "balance" out this retardation, G-Rank monsters have enourmous HP pools that make the use of Clutch Claw a requirement if you don't want 40 minute hunts. So you can't even just ignore it and pretend it doesn't exist like you could in World with baby blankets (despite some update monsters *cough* Luna seemingly designed around their use). Please take it away and never bring it back.

5) It's definitely a cute feature, on top of it being pretty handy to quickly transverse the maps while sharpening your weapon or just enjoying the scenery. Would be nice if it becomes a staple.

6) Yet to play the game so I can't answer this.

7) Binoculars got botched up for some undisclosed reason in this game so having another way to observe monsters or the environment is welcome.

8) For Seliana: They listened to fan complaints and fixed some of the issues, but I still prefer Astera myself, it feels so much more lively. Really good theme, though. Also, why do so many W+IB names end in -ana? Seliana, Velkhana, Legiana. Did they run out of names? For Hoarfrost Reach: I don't like they seem to be embracing the whole "take one key biome out of the base game and add it back in the G version) shtick. However, the extra time put into the Reach does show. It's both gigantic and wondrous, has a bit of every other ice area in the franchise as well as some Rotten Vale in it too. And much like Coral Highlands, it has plenty of hidden places to explore and neat little secrets hiding everywhere. Some of my favorites include the giant Beotodus skull, the shed Kushala husk and the spawning spot of Wintermoon Nettle.

9) Will possibly change once I play the game, but I like Nighshade Paolumu and Fulgur Anjanath. They both have color schemes that I find aesthetically pleasing, and Anja turning into a wanderer is interesting.

10) Ebony Odogaron and Coral Pukei-Pukei. Ebody Odo concept wise is almost completely lacking in originality. I kinda let it slide with Tobi-Kadachi, but this is getting ridiculous at this point. The current state of the Fanged Wyvern class is ashaming. 5 elements, 10+ status effects and they just have to reuse the two that are already covered by the previous sole existing member? Fans have been clamoring for more Fanged Wyverns since P3rd, and this is the best they can do? The class is nothing but shitty filler monsters that nobody cares about and now two discount Zinogres. The only remotely okay new one is Odogaron. Hugely disappointing. For Coral, I just don't like its coloration. It looks like Ronald McDonald to me.

11) It's really nice they took the time to give them more new attacks and make them feel more distinct to their regular counterparts. Hopefully it sets a new standard to meet when it comes to both variants and subspecies.

12) Velkhana fits with the new setting of the expansion, but I'm not too keen on its design or its fighting style. It doesn't look all that interesting.

13) Frankly? I don't like them. I would be completely okay with the game having nothing but new monsters. I feel like W+IB has so far failed to capture the feel these monsters had in their debuting games. Though there's some exceptions, the movesets are often sluggish and watered down. At this point, we've been hunting these monsters for several games in a row and honestly have a better time hunting them in older games. And oh my god, the sound design. Completely soulless. It's not just the new remixed themes, monsters get new sets of growls and roars that are just terrible compared to the original. Bunch of new sounds that are not only completely unneeded, but also sound nothing like the monster did originally. Why does Brachy make pig sounds? What's with Zin's pathetic howls? Why is Glav completely silent when it's sharpening its tail or performing its roundslash? Awful.

14) Gammoth is a great monster, so seeing it again would have been great. It could have taken Banbaro's spot in the Hoarfrost and give us an actually good 4th gen rep. Shame it didn't make it in.

15) The Hoarfrost gang (Beotodus, Banbaro, Velkhana) I find pretty meh and forgettable. I don't think they're outright bad editions though. I fell in love instantly with Namielle from the moment I saw him for the first time and has become my favorite Iceborne monster unopposed (As well as one of my favorite designs in the series) He almost single handedly sold me on the game, it felt like the one monster I was waiting for, if that makes sense. I'm also quickly warming up to Shara Ishvalda (I think its amazing themes might be playing a part on this). It seems one of the more interesting final bosses so far.

16) Recently I've been jumping on the Seregios train. It's a better 4th gen rep than the one we have currently and it seems it would be easy enough to implement, given its ailment and skeleton are already in. Another personal wish of mine has always been Mizutsune in Coral Highlands, but it seems like Leviathans are dead in the water for now unfortunately.

17) Some more skeleton variety would be nice, but I think anything is fair game really. Just PLEASE no more gachas. And no collabshit either.

18) A good game, hopefully I think spin-offs can wait for the time being. They should keep working to improve the World formula, it has infinite potential but they have to get things right first. As long as it stays on PC I don't really mind, but a main game for Switch would be also be great.