Alas half nice looking combat and wide expanses can be good on paper, however they can also lead to boredom fests like monster hunter and with the first game gaining the nickname of xenoblade yawnicles I am going with lots of caution. Monolith soft have some less than stellar games in their library as well.
To me it looks like YOU do not like the jrpg genre at all.
MH is a FANTASTIC game and so was Xenoblade chronicles.
I do agree that you need to put A LOT OF TIME in these kind of games.
But after you struggled the first 50 + hours you cannot put your controller down, I guarantee it.
Also I side note: these games are almost always hard to get into and hard in general, so that might explain your subjective thoughts about this genre of games.
To give you an idea about how many hours some people played on MH3Ultimate:
2000 hours is no conception ( yes 3 zeros ).
Well, you're a gamer or....
I thought Xenoblade was pretty ass and I played it for the sole purpose of being "fair".
Like I can't think of anything fun about that game.
Oh man you poor, cynical man.
Try to enjoy something new sometimes.
I personally find Nintendo very comfortably co exist along side other game company's.
They always have something different to offer, wich makes owning the AAA games truly something special.
This and next year will be good, just a few titles but VERY good titles.
Starfox, XenobladeX, Zelda, ??? who knows ONLY on WiiU.
Better start saving...
Also playing AAA games on XBOX, And PS.
Damn fine game, but never I once had that gut feeling that stomach turning feeling opposed to a AAA Ninty game..