I was a bit late on the whole "Monster Hunter World" train, lacking a console to play the game and generally being too distracted by other endeavors to really pay it any attention. This was despite me being a long-time "Monster Hunter" diehard. Even as the reviews rolled in and the sales numbers skyrocketed, I remained blissfully unaware of the world I was missing out on. But once summer came around, I found myself unable to resist the game’s open-world allure. As of the typing of this article, I have put in over a hundred hours, devoting myself to the sacred art of monster hunting. The more that I played the more I found myself learning. If you don’t mind, I’d like to share some of my findings.

1. Practice makes perfect.

Firstly, the "Monster Hunter" motto: practice makes perfect. It’s a cliché for a reason because it holds a little nugget of truth. When I first booted up "Monster Hunter World," I knew nothing about how the game worked. It all felt so radically different from other Monster Hunter games that I felt as though I had been knocked all the way back to square one. Even the very first monsters would send a shiver down my spine. Now that I am a hundred plus hours in, I can take out the strongest monsters in the game without breaking much of a sweat. I’ve had to put in the work to memorize their patterns and various tells so that I can take advantage and slay them. This game series has always been the one place where you can always find ways to improve. Each spasm of button presses leads to a new discovery or a new option to select. Most video games do this, yes, but none of them do it so smoothly and incrementally as to feel completely seamless.

2. Be prepared.

Secondly, the world is always out to get you and you need to come prepared. There are millions of scary things that are positively salivating at the chance to ruin your day. There’s a whole arsenal of items and talents you need to have on hand in order to properly deal with them in a smooth manner. I don’t have to tell y’all how that correlates with the real world. Everything sucks in the real world and everyone is out to get you. It’s up to you to make it out alive, and you’re gonna need a lot of tools and a lot of skills when the final boss of your life shows up and starts breathing fire at you.

3. It won't always work out.

Finally, it’s not always going to work out like you’ve planned. You’ve reached the monster’s nest and it has fallen asleep. There’s no place for it to run. And then out of nowhere, one of its little friends comes along and screws up your fantastic plan to trap the beast. Frustrating, definitely, but par for the course. When you finally get your footing again, the moment has passed, the monster has awoken, and you’re just going to stand there with your sword in your hand. Sometimes, that’s just how it goes. Despite all your best efforts, not everything is going to work out. Adapting is key. And that’s a life lesson you would do well not to forget.