I technically "beat" this game quite a while ago, in that I saw credits. I wanted to hold off on calling this game done until I hit a more meaningful milestone. Well, today I beat Fatalis, so I'm going to call that as done as it's going to get. After over 300 hours of monster hunting, here are my thoughts:

The slinger is an interesting gimmick, but I'm glad it's not making a return in Rise. I appreciate the greater control you have while aiming pods, as opposed to throwing flash bombs and the like in previous MonHun titles, but I think its implementation was kind of clunky. It has this sort of dual-layer system where you can load an environmental pod (stones, redpits, etc) and then load a crafted pod (like a flash pod) from your inventory. You'll fire the crafted pod if you pull the trigger, but you still technically have the environmental pod loaded when you unequip the crafted one. This is annoying when you really want an environmental pod for a flinch shot or something, because you have to scroll back to the item you want to unequip to change pods.

The clutch claw is also pretty neat, my main complaint is that it seems like it should have been better incorporated with the very similar mounting system. I also had a lot of frustration trying to clutch claw onto the right monster part, I suppose that just takes more practice to get right. Like the slinger, I'm not sad to see it go in Rise, but I appreciated the novelty while we had it.

My main weapon, greatsword, was a lot of fun to play. I liked that it had a more active style with the true charge slash and especially the tackle. I had a lot of fun counter-hitting monsters with the tackle, seldom as I could pull it off. The game also got a lot more engaging once I started having flexibility in my builds for Focus. It turns out there were a few moves that I never really took advantage of, as I only learned about them about 250 hours in by watching a video guide. Also, while GS is pretty much only a raw-damage weapon, I liked that the Frostcraft skill and the Alatreon fight gave me the opportunity to change up my style a bit.

Multiplayer is great, of course. My only problem here is the bizarre way co-op works for main quests: you can only co-op a quest if everyone has already seen the monster reveal cutscene. Pain in the ass, let me tell you. I played the whole main quest for both games with friends, and this took a while to figure out. It still doesn't really make sense to me.

Lastly, Fatalis was a very frustrating but ultimately good fight. It was a great way to cap off the experience. As a greatsword main, the combination of extremely dangerous attacks and a fairly strict timer really forced me to optimize my play by learning what attacks were safe to punish and when it was time to play defense.

This is the first MonHun game I played this much; before this I only played MH4U through low rank. It was a great experience overall and I'm thrilled to play Rise when that drops.