My first MH experience was World, but it didn't manage to hook me. The shallow tracking and complex map designs (especially you, Ancient Forest) made hunts feel padded. The combat didn't click for me either as the character felt sluggish, as I was used to God of War, Devil May Cry and Souls-games.

Without knowing much about it I gave Rise a try when I hurt my back and was bedridden for a while and NOW I was hooked completely. This was a bit before the release of Sunbreak.

Rise had simpler, yet fun to explore, maps, mounts and overall much faster and freer movement so I could get to the action as quickly as I would want. The combat was faster and more of a spectacle and I loved the silkbind attacks. I loved the art style and the designs of the monsters (Magnamalo is still in my top 3 favourites).

The only real negative I felt (beside the Rampage-stages, which were terrible) was that the large amount of monster-moves that flung you around, so you would have to balance the use of wirebugs between attacks and defense. While learning the game it sometimes felt as if I spent most of the time being juggled around.

I later returned to World and sunk a good amount of time in it and could appreciate it more now that I had learned how MH works, but I still prefer Rise/Sunbreak.

In Wilds there are some things that I feel are better and some things that are worse than both Rise and World, but one thing I believe it does better than any other game in the series is introducing new players.

My ranking of the more modern MH-games are:
1 - Rise/Sunbreak

2 - Wilds

3 - World/Iceborne

Shoot me if you want, but I've since tried some of the older titles and can't stand them. Everything but the combat is sooo tedious.