I am about 25 hours in now, and I am finding this is one of the best games I have played in the past 5 years. There may be 5 areas, but they are bigger and FAR more interesting than those in Twilight Princess which I found fairly bland. The game kind of reminds me of Rune Factory Frontier which is another one of my favourites.
As for monsters taking 30 minutes, usually this only happens to me the first time I hunt a big monster. Afterwards, I know how to take them down and have better equipment; then it is much faster. IE. My first Great Jaggi battle seemed to take 25-30 minutes; the next time I went out free hunting, I was able to take down two of them in about 10 minutes.
This is also the first game since Starcraft which has really got me interested in online play (I tried numerous titles, including WoW, Halo, Civilization 4, lots of browser games, free online RPGs, Metroid Prime Hunters, etc....) this one I am actually finding to be very well done and lots of fun. I like not worrying about being on a constant schedule as well (I already have a job which does that to me).
I describe myself as a little dose of toxic masculinity.
