YMMV / Monster Hunter 4

• Catharsis Factor: After the Plesioth terrorized many Hunters throughout the first three generations of games, it can be refreshing to see them as the subject of a fishing minigame on Sunsnug Island, where catching them causes them to die immediately upon landing on the wharf.
• Creepy Awesome: Nerscylla is well-remembered for not only being a creepy Giant Spider with several status ailments up its sleeve and having large web nests in two different locales, but for wearing the hide of a Gypceros. 4 Ultimate introduces Shrouded Nerscylla, who uses the hide of a Khezu, another monster known for being creepy.
• It's Hard, So It Sucks!: 4 Ultimate gets this from series veterans who feel that the Apex monsters add more frustration than fun to an already challenging game series.
• Narm Charm: The Zamtrios's inflation mode looks utterly ridiculous, with many comparing it to a giant beanbag chair, but is nonetheless an iconic part of the monster. Even less narmy with the Tigerstripe Zamtrios subspecies introduced in 4 Ultimate, which has better control of its inflation mode and uses it for several severely-damaging attacks to horrifying effect, like its sky-high Ground Pound.
• Nightmare Retardant: The Frenzy's effects on monsters is horrifying, distorting their roars and turning them into Ax-Crazy creatures bent on attacking the local wildlife indiscriminately, on top of drastically shortening their lifespan. Its effects on humans should the Frenzy gauge fill completely is...just temporarily stopping your health regeneration and causing Frenzy clouds to drain your health slowly; the former is often seen as a minor convenience since most players prefer to instantly refill health instead of gradually letting it recover, and the latter are relatively easy to avoid. If anything, a Hunter getting hit with the Frenzy is Cursed with Awesome, because attacking enough in the Frenzy state results in a temporary Affinity boost.
• Salvaged Gameplay Mechanic: After the previous handheld Monster Hunter games restricted multiplayer to local wireless, which was a point of frustration for many players not in Japan due to the difficulty of finding other players in their area to play with, or requiring an external add-on to use online multiplayer (ad-hoc for the PS3 version of Portable 3rd, and a Wii U app for the 3DS version of 3 Ultimate), Monster Hunter 4 finally features built-in online play as a handheld game while also still having local wireless multiplayer.
• Scrappy Mechanic: There aren't many players who are fond of Apex monsters in 4 Ultimate or the associated Wystone mechanic. To elaborate, Apex monsters have hard bodies whereupon attacks will bounce and do no damage almost anywhere, and you need to use the Drive Wystone to get around this and eventually suppress the monster's Frenzy. Problem is, the effect is temporary, and once it runs out there's a considerable cooldown, meaning you're helpless for a while if you fail to suppress the Frenzy or it comes back. For many players, this goes beyond being a reasonable challenge and into an exercise in frustration.
• Take That, Scrappy!: Those who hated the Plesioth in earlier games due to its infamous disjointed-hitbox hip check and act of staying out of reach in the water (until it could be chased into the water for an underwater fight in 3 Ultimate) for long periods of time get to take their anger out on it in this game, where Plesioth is demoted to a rare appearance in a fishing minigame. Not only does it not fight back, but catching it causes it to die instantly.
• Woolseyism: In the Japanese version of 4 Ultimate, monsters that have overcome the Frenzy and become more powerful as a result are referred to as "Extreme" monsters. The term can sound like a case of Totally Radical or otherwise unusual to English-speakers. In the English-language localization, they're instead called "Apex" monsters. As in, an apex predator.

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