User blog comment:Kogath/Monster Hunter 10 Year Anniversary and MH4U Announcement!/@comment-1721003-20140126210337/@comment-1758220-20150311145035

MH3U was all of Tri's content, 95% of Portable 3rd's content, and new content on top of that. There was more added content in MH3U than was in the original MH3, period. I don't get why you're complaining about that. And the reason they didn't localize MH4 was presumably because if they did, the western MH series would be an entire game behind Japan, who already had 4G on the way. So they skipped the original and just did the expansion because a) more content without losing any from the original MH4 and b) now Japan and the west are on the same page in terms of what to look forward to. Usually the west gets a game released long after the Japanese version, and the Japanese players are getting all excited for the next one.

On the animations/sounds/etc being copy/pasted, my question is why do you need certain things like that to change? Why should Rathian suddenly have a totally different voice just because she's had the same roar since she was introduced? Why do you need a new whetstone-use noise? Why do you need a drastically different meat-cooking animation? MH4 introduced new movement animations depending on the incline, new animations for jumping, climbing, falling, diving, etc. The sound cues usually change between games or generations, as each generation has its own unique identity and theme. Basically, the animations and sound effects that haven't been changed are the ones that least need to have anything changed about them.