astalos looks ace

Well I pick some flowers and got some money for it! Pretty bad ass

I've spent too much time, money and materials on the first Mizutsune armour, and I still feel weak as hell.

You could if you need materials, but it's better to search for a quest that features the monster, think you'll get more rewards.

Use prowler mode for the collection quests, they're quicker and don't need pickaxe /bugnets. I sometimes go for the large dinosaur ones if I need raw meat.

If it's listed in the sub quest requirements, I might do it, for the rewards and money.

Snow Baron Lagombi is a feisty bugger.

Use Kiranico to find out what key quests there are, so you don't get stuck doing endless Egg Carrying shite.

Use Gaijin Hunter's tutorials on youtube to learn the complexities of your weapons (try a few before deciding to stick with one, avoid ranged weapons as a beginner) 

Don't worry about armour until High Rank. Maybe farm a Testsucabra set if you like defence and health, or a Jaggi/Velociprey set if you like a huge attack boost

Always eat at the cook! It gives you a health and stamina boost, and you can also get unique buffs by combining ingredients.

Always take a few minutes to carve kill and carve a few herbivores at the start of a hunt for raw meat, and mine/bug catch if a monsters runs off.

Don't forget paintballs, traps etc - use the item set options at the chest before you leave town to register item sets so you can just load them quickly without faffing in your chest.

Cool. Finished my first quest! So far I'm enjoying it although there's a Fuck load to take in.

Cheers tempy! I'll no doubt be back with some specifics at a later date.

The game is 9 iterations deep now, it's the same formula built upon many times over. Fantastic resources and forums exist, and they're meant to be exploited to play it. You have to accept that it's designed to be played how it's played primarily in Japan - a group of people sat together experiment to work things out. If you're on your own, well luckily there's online co-op, but also a wiki, a reddit, kiranico, various armour/skill calculators to download, youtube channels, and this forum. It's a great big co-operative experience, a bit like Souls was back in the day.

The mushrooms quest you're on is saying Jurassic Frontier, but that's just the name of the map. All of the locations in the game have a name. It's primarily useful because when you learn which ones need Hot or Cold drinks so you'll know what to take along. As for the shrooms, they're in the area full of fungus and cobwebs from memory, which is either 9, 10, or 11. 

Palicos are hired in the ranch area to the right of the village, and they're assigned in your little house, from the board if I remember. You just equip them to active slots. They act as AI companions when you hunt. There's a lot to them this time around that I am not really sure of. Each one has a type, and they can get EXP and learn new skills. All I know is having one with a heart (healer) is very helpful for longevity in the field.

There's almost no point doing the tutorials at all, it's a game that's best understood through asking others rather than trying to brute force it. No point spending 20 hours trying to figure out where you can get a specific item from when you can just look it up on Kiranico. It's all about the hunting anyway, best to streamline your experience. Eventually it all becomes second nature.

Oh there's also a pretty good manual for the game here: http://game.capcom.com/manual/MH_Gen/en-UK/

Once you've figured out how to pick Palicos etc, it's worth switching to Prowler mode (using the blue Palico board) when you do any gathering quests – playing as a Felyne means you don't run out of stamina and don't need to carry a pick axe or bug net (or any other items) so you can get round the map quicker and carry more stuff.

My portable gaming time is at a minimum at the moment so that means I've only just had my first crack at a hint. That first guy.

I need more potions and heals it seems! Got me down to a sliver of health and I had to bail by subquest even though he limped off somewhere. Didn't want to risk it.

I find it a little hard to connect with my attached sometimes. Seems like once you start the attack you can't change the attack direction which I'm used to in DS. Or maybe it's just the weapon I'm using. I also need to get used to not having a lock on.

Was quite thrilling though. Very nice animations.

Yeah the maccao. It's fairly easy to telegraph his attacks but I'm still a bit still slow with the dodging and so on.

LR Teostra got me through a good chunk of HR, then I made the HR Gammoth set because it's a fur coat and massive fur hat (for girls, anyway). Now I'm in boring old Glavenus for the fire res. Going to use it to farm the HR Teostra set (via his Advanced village quest) and max the hunting horn, then use that set for Dreadqueen Rathian because it has good fire res and negate poison. I want to try out Sword and Shield but the Horn is just too good.

Using the Snarfonix atm which is a giant harmonica on a stick so I'm dishing out large heals with blasts of blues. GOTY.

We played 4U together! Once or twice...That was my first MH game though. Only got Gen after trading No Man's Sky but I'd say I'm enjoying it more than 4U, probably because I have some idea of what I'm doing. The invincibility on the adept evade is making it a lot less frustrating, too.

Dubs wrote:

Using the Snarfonix atm which is a giant harmonica on a stick so I'm dishing out large heals with blasts of blues. GOTY.

Loving the Hunting Horn too (mostly using Long Sword though), i'm always keen to find one that sounds good (ie. never bagpipes!) as well as having the right buffs. Think i've currently got a Tetsucabra which makes a nice oriental rattle.