This was the one that finally clicked for me. I tried MH Freedom 2, Freedom Unite, and 3 Ultimate before this. Freedom 2 I borrowed from a friend but was too young and too impatient to get deep into the game. I lost interest early on in Freedom Unite because of a lack of friends who played it, and that damn Tigrex (too young to understand I was supposed to run), the swimming in 3U was an instant turnoff.
At this point, I'd just give up and tell myself the game isn't for me. But not for Monster Hunter. On paper I should love everything about the game, but with each entry I tried, something turned me off. Then I learned about what changed 4U brought. Gone was the swimming, now replaced by verticality in the maps and mounting. So I took the plunge for the fourth time. I couldn't be more happy I took that fourth plunge.
Starting from that very first prologue mission, where you're fighting a behemoth straight from the get go, instead of getting acquainted for a few hours only with there being a great jaggi fight at the end. My brother and I went HAM on that game. I loved every second of it.