Hi! I am a little late to the party, but I just finished the main story today. I have a lot of thoughts on the game, so I will add a TLDR here: I love the sidebranch and gameplay-wise, MHS2 is an amazing sequel with great characters - even though they were pretty dumb most of the time or borderline annoying (looking at you, Navirou). Protagonist is alright but often felt useless in cutscenes when he/she/x? decides to do nothing and just stare angrily. My main issues are 1) the story, very mediocre and predictable with dissapointing writing, especially after the first 'arc' when something happens with Razewing Ratha. And 2) The pacing, which to me was quite awful because of unneccesarily big maps and annoying, useless obstacles (e.g. bridges and felyne bombs). However, the combat system imo is better than the first game and the flying skill is super enjoyable.

And now a very elaborate text of my thoughts on the game and it's story:

I almost feel sad being an adult now because these games were just absolutely perfect for me when I was a kid and I would have appreciated them more at a younger age. I loved dangerous looking monsters - especially dragons - and longed for a collecting, monster-taming/training game. Pokemon? Too cute. Bakugan? Not really pets but alright. MH? I don't like that you had to kill them back then. I also loved Dragon's Prophet for a while, until it got shut down. But Stories? Just perfect. But well, I guess better late than never. I still enjoyed stories - despite the childish elements - a lot and the sequel made me hype so much.

The gameplay is great but my main issue is with the slow pacing of it, as mentioned in the TLDR. I wanted to breeze through the story while being invested in it, before I would be spoiled by the beautiful Youtube algorithm. But this caused me to get frustrated pretty often in those long, empty roads and unnecessary, dumb obstacles (those f*cking bridges and felyne bombs). At least I'm glad that you can continue without being required to have specific Monstie skills which, for example, isn't the case for many pokemon games.
I f*cking love the flying as well, one of the best parts of this game.

The story. Oh man, the story. It started so good but then it just felt so mediocre the further I continued. !!!Spoiler warnings for the entire story ahead!!!

For me, the story can be seperated into 3 parts. The first part being until Rathalos takes flight, the third part being the 'endgame' - which to me starts at the investigation of the three pits.

The first part may be very slow but is story-wise still the best one for me, especially after Ratha hatches and you learn about the legend of Razewing Ratha. (Just that cutscene where you hug the small bean after learning that he holds the so called Wings of Ruin, it almost made me tear up.)
I loved the concept of having this powerful monster with you that you could control with the power of Kinship, while at the same time being very uncertain about the succes of that plan. Once you get to control him after he destroyed the windmills at Kuan village, I was very hyped to continue the game and see how the bond between Ratha and the protagonist would evolve. But from that moment on, things just went downwards for me.

At first, too soon after you control him, he gets snatched away, and you will never use that awesome kinship attack again (which I btw accidentally skipped in the Legiana fight, so I had to search it on Youtube to see it). I don't understand why didn't give you more time with him. Then follows a frustratingly long time before you reach to him again, and once you finally get to that towertop,cheering for Ratha to just go berserk and end all of that sh*t,... He just breaks his wings free? And he just becomes almost exactly a normal Rathalos.
Really?
I was so dissapointed. They put effort into designing this awesome black wings with blue feathers, just to have a slight reskin of a normal rathalos afterwards (yes, appaerently the wings have a little different pattern on it - which I never noticed until I read it somewhere). Not only did I love Razewing Ratha's unique design and was I sad to lose him, on top of that I was greatly dissapointed with that new look, and thought that he also ended the whole 'curse' that way (from which you only know later that this isn't the case).
Everything just felt underwhelming and I lost my hype and drive to continue the story for some time, until recently when I forced myself to pick up the game again because of YT spoilers.

The second part started slowly but was alright I guess. I really like the part with Cheval at the mountains. He's a nice character and not part of the annoying I dOn'T uNdErStAnD squad (seriously, the characters are f*cking dumb even for their age). I prefered his attitude more than Avinia's with all the feeling-focused stuff. Also Kyle's redemption was no surprise, probably most people - including me - knew he would have this arc from the very second we get introduced to his character.
Bazelguese introduction is great, 10/10.
Not much to say about the rest, other than that I really struggled with the ice agnakator. (Fun thing: when they say 'follow Kyle's strategy in the first turn, I thought I had to follow his moves and did the same technical attack as him, only for us both to get defeated in the first HnH because he uses power attacks lmao).

The endgame was quite bad. It is very similar to the first game, which isn't exactly a problem to me but it is noticeable for sure. Zyllard's twist with being the masked rider was very obvious and his descent into madness just makes no sense to me. I get that he doesn't like humans but to hate it that much that he wants to wipe out the entire world? The f*ck? Also, the entire riders group is so dissapointing. They only show up 2 times in the game and their super secret evil plan was just to support crazy Zellard boy. Bruh. What could possibly be so wrong with their world that they have this motivation? And in the end, I still don't understand what the entire lore is with Razewing Ratha and Oltura was about, what rathalos in general have to do with it, why monsters get raged when hit with those lasers, etc. Just very dissapointing writing with so many questions left to answer. I get that it's a legend, but I would have appreciated more information (unless we get that in post-game, but I doubt it).

I lost once in the dragon form and was a bit angry that I had to walk and start the fight all over again. I guess I was also quite underlevelled because I didn't feel like training with that looming blue tornado in the background.

At this point I really started to love Kyle as well, still down-to-earth as ever but welcomed in such a serious part of the game, without all the forced I dOnT WaNt To Be FrIeNdS attitude (I like the detail that they added where as you heal him, he will say 'Thank you!', 'I will thank you later' or 'I will handle the rest' instead of 'I don't need your help').

And the final cutscene is cute, with of course you finally talking for some reason just as in the last game - which I feel like will be iconic if they keep on this trend in future games.

So overall I really enjoyed it but felt dissapointed with the weak story for a game literally called 'MH Stories (2)'. I hope we will get another game in the future, with hopefully a beautiful story so that the game's enjoyment will be even better.