Monster Hunter controls are excellent. I don't know what your issue is with them or where you read that they're terrible to make you think it's some kind of general consensus, but it's not. The only problem I could imagine is the uncomfortable camera controls on PSP, which was alleviated on 3DS by the addition of the touchscreen d-pad or the circle pad pro. Other than that, there has never been anything wrong with Monster Hunter's controls.

The circle pad pro does greatly improve its playability, but doesn't make up for everything else wrong imo.

I'm going to need some examples of Monster Hunter's supposedly bad controls, because they're damn near perfect as far as I'm concerned.

You're confusing me with GTAexpert. I said mechanics and design choices. Controls can loosely fit under mechanics I suppose.

You new to COMG?

I did not confuse you, I figured when you said the CPP "improves its playability, but doesn't make up for everything else wrong" that the "everything else wrong" was related to the "playability."

Anyway I'd love to hear about these outdated mecahnics and design choices as well.

Everything else wrong in terms of it being outdated. It only takes playing other good hunting games like God Eater or Toukiden to see the faults in how MH plays. By design choices and mechanics, I mean lack of targeting, pace of fighting, the interactions with your characters and the enemies. I feel like my character is running through mud and going slow motion when playing. How they show the story and main quest makes the world and people around you feel super hollow. While they did finally add AI characters to MH3U, it's a missed opportunity with your companions being completely disconnected from the world. That and the online mutliplayer hasn't evolved since the first entry on PS2. Very disappointing at the missed opportunities for game modes and features that should have shown up by now.

It reminds me of Pokemon in a lot of ways. They have a huge following and are now unable to change the core of the game much without pissing off fans. There's more things to nitpick, but I don't want to completely trash the game. I just don't think someone complaining about parts of it is something that shouldn't come across as surprising. I don't hate the series, it's just lost its magic after playing through other games in the genre.

Well hopefully some of your concerns are addressed with 4 Ultimate, it seems to put a lot more emphasis on movement. The bare-bones story may be considered "outdated", but I don't consider it a bad thing. It's really easy to jump into a hunt at any time. I can't imagine any way in which I would "evolve" the online, I think it's one of the best multiplayer games I've ever played. I don't exactly need 20 other hunters running around doing stuff, so I don't see expanding the multiplayer with brute numbers as an evolution.

Complaints aren't suprising, Monster Hunter isn't for everyone and a lot of people don't get it or have moved on to other games. But calling the controls "absolute crap" is silly. Monster Hunter has fine-tuned its controls to suit its gameplay, they work exactly as functioned and the game is not remotely "unplayable" due to them.

By evolution, I'm not talking about upping the number of players. Why isn't there some type of competitive multiplayer mode? You can easily have some sort of PvP or at least an objective based mission/hunt where you compete against the other team. Look at what Freedom Wars is doing with its multiplayer modes (normal PvP in addition to some cool scoring that allows areas of the country to compete against high scores of other regions).

Eh, that sounds like more of an extra mode than an evolution. Monster Hunter's mechanics aren't really suited to normal PVP. It doesn't mean they have to change their mechanics just to accomodate a different gameplay mode. As for competitions, that's alright but again, not really an evolution so much as a different game. Monster Hunter is all about jolly cooperation and I don't think that makes it outdated.