The Experience
The very first thing that springs to the surface is just how great this game looks. The colors are sharp, the character models are pretty smooth, and it just looks clean even on a GTX 980. The jungle environment you enter into is full of foliage to collect, small insects and animals to kill, and place to climb; your character shits on Spiderman's ability to climb a rock face. The best part, no pop in graphics. One issue is for some reason, they did not release this game with widescreen compatibility so you will see the large bars in my screenshots, which I have to play with. It isn't terrible but there is just so much more space for the great atmosphere this game has.
Past the beauty is some compelling gameplay. You are a monster slayer that has come to this new land along with your feline companion. (I am already deeply in love with this little cat and I just met him.) The game takes you through a basic tutorial on the combat, which is pretty straightforward. The combat is from a third person perspective and you will have a few different buttons for different attacks. These attacks depend on the weapon and can be utilized for different situations. For example, with the Katana, you can slash, poke, or use energy and do a large slash. You then take these attacks to the beasts assigned in your quests, all the time trying to dodge its attack. Some of them will even run away, requiring you to use hunting skills to track them down, or just follow some flies that show you the way. Either way, you have to kill it before time runs out.
At first, the UI is pretty overwhelming and was obviously set up for a controller. There is a lot going on and I mean a lot. From the quest board to the blacksmith, the menus are busy and only a quick read through a brief description gives you an idea what anything means. You are asked to go to the smith and improve your weapon early on and figuring this out is rather easy save for the weapon trees you are exposed to, which as of now mean nothing to me. I am not sure if you can only progress down one path or many. It isn't too clear here but hopefully in-game time will fix that. 
Lucky for me I have a few friends who bought this game and in my first two hours was able to experience the multiplayer. While it did kick me from the original server I was in, I was able to join with a friend and meet in the common area up at the top of the town. We were able to do a lot that you can do in the town including picking up quests for more than one person. This is where I experienced what I already see is the best part of the game. It's a lot of fun killing giant beasts, its even more fun to kill them with your friends. It helps that the encounter was smooth and I had no connection issues. It feels like the enemies might have a bit more health but at the same time, the encounters work much the same way as single player. With only a brief time in the game, its obvious that this is going to be a great experience. It has a very JRPG feel with enticing combat and gameplay that is easily accessible but carries hints of a deeper level of complexity. The voice acting has been good so far and the writing interesting enough to follow along. As long as the experience maintains this game is living up to its reputation. A few release patches for push-to-talk and friend notifications popping up non stop would be nice though...along with widescreen support.
TL;DR:
So far Monster Hunter: World is living up to the hype. The gameplay they far has been smooth save for some quality of life bugs from the port.
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