escapevelocity

I feel ya man. Or rather... felt? I was in the same spot as you when I got around to the endgame of GU (XX in my case). There was so little technological improvement over the years, and the gameplay kept getting more and more fast/light in a way that didn't gel with me the same way that this series did when I started at P3rd.

Then came W/IB with its MASSIVE tech improvement and a slight return to a little more heavier feeling weapons, breathing such a nice bit of fresh air into the game that it got me playing a combined 1000+hrs for PS4/PC. Getting the monsters to behave more naturally, both in their natural habitats and during combat was a huge plus too.

I'm a little cooled on Sunbreak because Rise swung the needle WAAAAY towards fast/light combat again, without fully inheriting W/IB's tech improvements... But like you, I'll probably buy day 1 and get my money's worth in fun and play time, if nothing else. I'm hoping the eventual "MH6/MHW2" will correct course a bit and try to innovate in ways that doesn't go against the series' charms.

Graces always has a difficult place in my mind... I used to be a big Tales fan that got in at Symphonia, got HOOKED, and actually went back to play every mainline game up to that point, and every mainline game afterwards too. That is, until I hit Graces, which I had to put down partway.

It had arguably the best combat in the series (though I might actually push for ToD remake for that title) and decently high enough production quality for a Tales entry. But man, I could just NOT vibe with the aesthetics nor the storytelling in this game. I always felt like the Fujishima designs were much better crafted and modernized over the Inomata designs, which feel, at least to me, overly "shojo-manga" and very "80s~90s fantasy light novel" in its sensibilities (though these characteristics worked fine for titles like ToD and ToE). Graces to me felt like the culmination of all the things I didn't like about Inomata designs packed into a whole dense game, and the thought of having to look at Hubert's design for 50+ hours just killed so much of my motivation to play. Coupled with the thoroughly bland storytelling that felt like overplayed young teen anime tropes one after another, it only took me one unsaved boss fight to finally put it down for good. It may sound like a shallow reason to dislike a game, but this is Tales we're talking about here; It's basically an anime in a B game format, where a significant portion of the reason to play is in the story and characters. I should note that the storytelling quality in these games had been on a downward spiral since ToS2, but that certainly didn't help the case for ToG.

It really is such a shame though, because as I mentioned earlier, Graces had a fantastic battle system that it evolved from D Remake and made into a basis for titles coming after it. Sometimes I wonder if I should try to pick it up again and finish it for good, but that hasn't been a possibility due to a bricked PS3. Then again, Berseria took some cues from Graces' combat and has been an ok experience so far, so maybe I can try to rekindle my interest in the series that way.

Here's to hoping Arise turns out good! Though the recently released gameplay footage didn't inspire too much confidence...

@genessee: These characters are fun to think about for sure! The first Cold Steel game had some nice twists and turns too, so my hopes are high that Sky delivers in a similar way.

@commodoregroovy: Wow thanks! It's nice to hear my ramblings are entertaining someone. IDK if I'd be able to keep this up as a weekly thing once the quarantine ends, but the plan is to go as far as possible into the series!

@zevvion: The damage numbers were turned on by default, but could be turned off. Perhaps you or someone else had accidentally turned them off?

Also, marzz's explanations are great, but those elements are what indicate "how much of your potential damage output you are actually putting out". For example, if you use a bowgun and shoot a standard bullet at a monster's legs from very far away, you may see a small-ish gray number "3." However, if you shoot the same bullet from a closer distance (where your crosshairs change shape to indicate optimal distance) at its face, you might get a much higher number like "15," along with a slight shake of the screen and tiny pause (a "hit stop" as they're called) to convey the impact that the bullet had. Yes, the difference is often that stark. You repeat the process with different targets and different ammo types, and you can figure out exactly where and how to hit for maximum damage. Imagine unloading all 60 of your standard Lv.3 shells precisely on the head! The monster would be dead much quicker than if you were just randomly shooting (A similar process can of course be applied to melee weapons). When you land a huge hit with high damage output on a soft spot of the monster, the hit stop and other effects gets increasingly more pronounced. Landing a fully charged swing of a Greatsword on the monster's weak spot will have the screen shake violently and the entire game world pausing for a third of a second to appreciate the absolute brutality that just transpired. It's a good feeling yo.

As for what I feel like you're actually asking, the feedback about how hurt the monster is, there are tells for that too. Learning these tells is a big part of what makes you feel more experienced as a hunter actually. I'll skip over the limping animation that the monsters do when they are near death, because it should be pretty obvious. One easy one is how many parts of the monster you have broken. Each breakable part of the monster, like the horns or tail, have a set amount of health allocated to them, which you would deplete to break/cut off. So if you start attacking a monster while not necessarily focusing on the tail, but the tail gets lopped off anyways after a short amount of time, you know that you're wrecking that monster. Conversely, if all you're attacking is the tail and it's taking a loooong time, you know you're in for a bad time. A more subtle clue is how often the monster gets flinched from your attacks. There's a whole system about flinch resistance values and flinch damage depletion over time, but... we won't get into that here (that's speed runner territory). Essentially, if it looks like you're hitting a monster over and over but it's not flinching at all, you might not be doing too well in terms of damage.

With the part breaks, the flinches, the hit stops, the impact sounds, particle effects (and previously some bleeding effects), etc., Monster Hunter is actually REALLY good at giving you "feedback" about your weapon and monster, and not in the boring way like a health bar (which is why some veterans were opposed to the addition of damage numbers in World). However, it's something that you have to naturally absorb as you play... If you're unsure about the game, I suggest waiting a little bit after launch to see what some of the more experienced players put up on videos and streams or renting it from a friend. It's a weird and tough game to get it to "click" with you, but once it does, it'll never let go. Happy Hunting!