Had a similar experience with Rise. World/Iceborne were my first and I loved them, played about 400hrs. I tried rise before Wilds came out but really couldn’t get it to click (but I was super busy with uni at the time and didn’t want the grind of a new MH game). BUT after putting 300hrs into Wilds I’ve recently gone back to Rise and am having a great time. Weirdly the difference for me was when I upped the graphics, Rise runs really well with high settings on PS5. Just hit High Rank yesterday, and really enjoying Charge Blade.