Broken Base / Monster Hunter

• Monster Hunter 3 (Tri): Some aspects of the game divided the Monster Hunter community back in its day. Was the game's release on Nintendo's Wii the right choice or not, considering that the previous games were only available on Sony systems? Is the underwater gameplay a great idea or not (and if the former, was it properly implemented or it could have been better)? Does the addition of the Medium Bowguns and Switch Axes compensate the removal of Dual Blades, Gunlance, Hunting Horn, and Bow? Should there have been more monsters from previous games, or was it the right choice to present a predominantly new bestiary? Many of these topics were addressed in Portable 3rd and 3 Ultimate.
• Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate: Are the Apex monsters a brilliant challenge or do they show that you can take That One Boss too far?
• Monster Hunter Frontier:
  • The issue of whether it's is an awesome game that deserves to be localized for international gamers, or a hilariously broken spinoff that should just stay in East Asia.
  • Monsters from the main series appearing in Frontier. Some people are fine with the main series and Frontier integrating, while others see a Double Standard; sure, monsters from the main series get to show up in the spinoff, but no spinoff monsters sans Hypnocatrice and Lavasioth get to appear in the main series?
• The series' Competitive Balance being affected by the overall changes in mechanics (new weapons, special moves, monsters and monster abilities, items, armor skills, etc.) is another major point of contention between the fanbase, with some veterans claiming that the newer mechanics have shifted the emphasis away from methodical combat and more into hack and slash territory in many different ways^note in effect claiming that some of the Fake Difficulty was actually necessary for the game's mechanical structure while defenders of the changes are claiming that many of the additions were not only needed to breathe new life into the series, but were also necessary for addressing quality of life issues that the original titles had in spades.
• Even the method of playing the game can divide the players. Is it more fun to find ways to speedkill monsters and therefore avoid tedium and frustration, or is it more exciting to drag out and analyze the fight in order to show that ugly wyvern some fancy tricks of your own, like cutting off its tail right in the middle of its sure-kill attack?
• Monster Hunter Generations:
  • A contention that arose with the Hunting Arts + Hunting Styles mechanic is the rise of the "Meta Only" attitude among a portion of the fans. While the mentality has been present in earlier installments^note some fans will openly berate others for using what they perceive to be "sub-optimal" loadouts in the belief that the game is all about damage and speedkills, even if the party under scrutiny is using a fairly competent setup that simply wasn't meant for speedkilling to begin with — see the entry on "method of playing", the fact that certain weapon and armor skill combinations work extremely well with certain Art / Style combinations has given birth to a mentality that if you're not using Meta-approved gear and Hunting Art / Hunting Style setups, you might as well not join a lobby.
  • Is the high emphasis on style and action an exciting way to shake up how players hunt, or is it a disservice to the franchise's tried-and-true formula?
  • Is Generations' overhauled upgrade mechanics^note Short version: Upgrading no longer needs extremely rare materials that practically never drop; upgrading now boils down to feeding a weapon materials of a certain category until it Levels Up/Evolves a great way to cut down on the franchise's infamous grind and make the series more accessible for newcomers, or does it alienate older fans by removing a key component of the series that made it unique?
  • Is there enough content in the game? This is an especially sore point for Westerners, as it's been a while since they last received a Monster Hunter game with no G rank (Tri; Portable 3rd and vanilla 4 were skipped over) and thus have likely gotten used to games having three rank tiers instead of two. Then there are those who point that there's so many different monsters — more than 4 Ultimate, in fact — and equipment pieces that the game can be forgiven for it.
  • Are Hyper Monsters more fun to fight than Apex or Frenzied Monsters? Are they at least a reasonable replacement?
  • When it was announced that Generations Ultimate would add the option to transmogrify two pieces of equipment together, putting the stats and skills of the first item on the model of the second, the reception was mostly positive, with people liking that there would be more diversity instead of everyone wearing one of a few armor sets in the late game. However, some people dislike that it removes "Fashion Hunting", the art of coming up with original combinations of armor that both look and perform well.
  • Showing "true attack" like in Generations, Generations Ultimate, vs "bloated attack" like in other games. Basically, in most games, each weapon's true attack is multiplied by a weapon type-specific constant not used in any damage calculations to produce the attack value you see on the screen. Some players prefer having true attack shown since it is the number used in damage calculations and it lets the player see if their weapon is as powerful as it should be given the monster they are hunting. Others prefer bloated attack since while it may not be necessarily accurate, it still gives the player a rough idea of how powerful their weapon is since true attack does not take things like "motion values" (a multiplier applied to each attack move) into account.
• The existence of Monster Hunter: World (and eventually Monster Hunter: Rise, as well as their respective expansions) created a permanent rift between fans of "classic" Monster Hunter and modern. Classic MH fans prefer its more deliberate gameplay and focus on the monsters, and see World as casual garbage with a lackluster endgame. Fans of World prefer its more accessible gameplay and greater detail, and trying to convince them to try older games will lead to responses of "why would I want to play an objectively worse game?" The release of Generations Ultimate after World in the West solidified this, with classic fans cheering that their style of Monster Hunter is still alive, while those who started with World or see it as an upgrade in every way scoffing at the idea that Capcom would bother with a game that they view as outdated and not worth localizing anymore.