Honestly I’ve spent so much time playing again that I’m absolutely mad for it.
Why? Because I finally have a friend to play a bunch with! I had accidentally bought an extra copy on a huge fucking sale and send the code to a bud, and then Karen got her own copy, and now me and Karen are playing all the time.
The thing about the MonHun series— as someone who has been playing since MH3U— is that the learning curve is vicious to new players. The game really depends on people who are experienced to reach out and help newer players, or for new players to do a bit of research outside of the game in order to get everything they can out of what they have. I would like to say that that unites a good community, but it does make it really frustrating for lone wolves or people entering fresh. I almost lost Karen to that learning curve before she hit her stride and found what works for her.
I got to pick up my main character again to try to smash through Iceborne while playing with her and MAN it’s so much fun playing with someone else. Learning monsters, explaining mechanics! The utter joy at seeing her learn and pick things up and actually enjoying the game!

I also started a new character to do MonHun RP as well.
Honestly, I can’t get over how much fun it is. It’s still fun after all these years. I started playing back when I was living in Canada and lost my original character, but now I am enjoying my new Buster (my main’s name) and really vibing. It makes me feel great to get out a lot of aggression and both learning new monsters and revisiting old ones. I’m so excited for more!
Also, just like so many… man, is it great not having to fill my inventory with picks and whetstones and all that stuff. I also just love getting to really dig in the ecological bits of the world. Just. It’s delightful. If I want to spend a few hours just walking around and looking at things, I fucking can, and no one can stop me!!!!
Here’s some bonus screenshots, because I like that cut scenes do some silly stuff, and that you can just. Have your character chill.




At some point I will move on to the next few games (Rise, then Wilds), but for now I’m just happy here and doing everything I possibly can.