Haven't shared about this for a while, but I've been slowly plugging away at the Moga Village quests, and just hunting in the forest in general collecting resources. Upgraded my great sword to a Carapace? Looks like a large pan pipe, but does the job on a Great Jaggi and Qurupeco (which I've now trapped and killed many times obtaining many scales and feathers). The last monster I took down was a Barroth, and that was right on the edge of running out of time, but during this fight I found out that you can combo attack between the X and A buttons to string together some lengthy, albeit in a straight line, attacks. Good for when a monster is taking a breather, and you can get 6 hits in.
I love how, so far, the first time you meet a new monster it's a hell of a challenge pushing you to your limits, then after a few upgrades (like 10 hours later), that monster is now a formality and its extinction rating hits critical.