Monster Hunter. When I was a kid with a PSP I bought Freedom Unite since the box art was cool. Had not a fucking clue what was happening or how to even understand the weapons.
Years later I bought a 3DS, 3 Ultimate, and even a circle pad pro for it. Nope, still just didn't even crack an hour of playtime because everything was just so strange. Finally, in probably 2019 or so I decided that there was too much cool word of mouth about the series for me to not try and figure out how it worked.
I got Generations Ultimate, and decided that if I could figure out how to play Monster Hunter that I wouldnt be a complete failure in life. I just played, found that nothing made sense, but just... kept going anyway. I started researching what the different weapons were for, realized that they're basically just different fighting game character-type movesets, and from there I slowly explored the game until id ended up burning 240 hours or so on MHGU.
I discovered Monster Hunter World after that, and it was all over for me. I never get to g rank, but I've put probably a combined over 1k hours into the series, which is much more than I usually would for other games. Just fucking fantastic games in almost every way, except for tutorialization.
That’s because Rise and World are WAY better than the old games. Less clunky inventory, better movement, better everything. Trying to play MH3 or earlier is like pulling teeth now after Rise. It’s so much better in every way
I got the monster hunter on 3ds (MH 3 Ultimate), and I liked playing it, got pretty good at it, but man....the graphics on that system just isn't right for that game. They tried making it look to non pixilated on a system that was too pixilated for it.
I've planned for quite a while to get it as a rom for my PC or steam deck and use some filters to smooth the jaggedness out of it and see how it does, but still haven't gotten around to it yet. Really need to get on that. I played like 30 hours worth and stopped.
it's originally a wii game (MH 3), for the Wii it looked impressive IMO. considering it a full port to the 3ds impressed me too. but yeah, it's a console game on a too small handheld for most part.
I didn't have issue with the size, really. I just didn't like how the graphics looked on the 3ds.
So I did some digging around a bit, and while I can get the 3ds one to work on my steam deck with online play and much better graphics, it's a pain in the ass. But I can get the wii version on there and looking great quite easily but no on line play. I never played online anyhow, so I plan on going that route and saving myself a bunch of setup time.