So I picked up Generations Ultimate on Switch and put a couple hours in and coming from World it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. Took me a bit to figure out how the gathering/maps/paintball stuff worked, but figured it out.
My main question is I'm not sure how the progression works if I'm just going to play this single player (mainly bought it for traveling).
There's the main town and doing quests unlocks more quests. The problem is at least at 2-star, most of the quests are boring shit and only like 3 of the quests are actual hunts outta 12 or so. Do I just gotta grind out all the zzz gathering/small monster stuff to keep progressing? At a certain point does that stop and you can just stick to hunting missions only to advance? Because in World I felt like you could and all the gathering/small monster missions were pretty optional for armor spheres and money.
Then there's all these other town hubs, but I'm guessing they're just nostalgia and the old towns from the previous games? Like they don't have different quests/items/weapons, so you can ignore them, right?
But then there's the gathering hub, which unlike World where it's just the multiplayer place, here it's like a full town and your rank is completely different from the single player and there are lots of cool daily quests, challenge quests, dlc quests to do.
1) Since the ranks are separate, should I just stop with the story mode and play through the game by going through the gathering hub increasing my HR level and doing harder and harder hunts while upgrading? Because I have zero interest in the storyline.
2) Otherwise, in World when you want to grind monster parts you do investigations because the monsters drop more parts. How do you grind monsters here for drops? Just keep replaying their quest over and over?
Otherwise, my initial observations coming from world is gathering isn't terrible but it takes longer so I don't bother gathering when out on non-gathering missions, the paintball thing is ok but if you miss or it wears off and the monster leaves the zone it can be a pain to find them again. I don't mind the zones other than the constant loading. I don't mind the graphics downgrade much. The couple real monsters I've fought so far have been pretty fun and more lively. I feel like it's harder to notice you're being hit and taking damage in this than world. Like a lot of attacks don't knock you down and so if you're not paying attention to your lifebar you don't notice you've been hit and lost half you life whoops.
I only played Hammer in World and trying Hammer here it feels kinda shitty and way less fluid. Also doesn't feel like it has the satisfying skull crushing impact that it does in World. I picked Long Sword for my main in Ultimate. Never played LS in World and it's taking some getting used to with the spirit bar thing but it's fun. I like the hunter art that goes with it at the start where you take a step back and then slash forward at the enemy doing bleed damage and increasing your spirit bar.
Anyhow, seems pretty dope. Haven't even looked into how to use Palicos. I have 2 from the intro tutorial and they help me fight but I need to look into teaching them some skills. Just gotta figure out the main way to progress and grind in this game and I should be good to go after watching a Long Sword guide.
Oh and I miss the jumping and sliding everywhere from World. Feels like that aspect of the game isn't in it unless you pick the aerial style. I'm just using the standard guild style at the moment.