Look! I’m not Bague! I’m Chewbury! And I’m a bloke! This is a direct result of the Rath Heart Armour making me look like a cupcake in MH4U.
Oh Lordy! It’s a new Monster Hunter game. And I haven’t even reached G-rank on MH4U yet! Well, that’s embarrassing! Anyway, all is not lost! Just like MH4U played sufficiently differently to MH3U that it didn’t supplant the previous version, MHGen does the same thing – in spades. The jumpy mechanics introduced in 4U are still there, but there’s a whole new “Styles” system which allows you to switch up both your play style and the special abilities that style gives you, depending on the fight you’re doing.
For example, this time round I’m using the switch-axe as my main weapon. I’m also using the ‘Aerial’ style rather a lot. This basically adds a little jump to my dodge, meaning I can vault off monsters (which makes special attacks fun and mounting easy). The trade off is that I can only select one special move and my combo finishes can only be triggered while part of an aerial chain. Other styles allow you to select up to three special moves and provide a wide range of defensive and offensive options.
On top of these new mechanics, there’s a buttload of new areas and new monsters as well as a VAST array of villages, areas and monsters from earlier editions, right the way back to Monster Hunter 1. I think I could probably play this one forever.