It comes down to what you are using and the enemy you are fighting. You'll find you may have to shift your attack patterns between different large monsters. You'll also find that learning how a monster behaves during a fight to be key to slaying it.
I really suggest any new hunters to the series to wield the Lance/ Gunlance weapon. For some enemies, it's actually quite foolish to think you'll beat them in the first go. That said, it's better to spend the first encounter enduring hits while learning how the enemy works, so you know when you have opportunities to strike them.
I imagine the demo not to have the more ridiculous enemies. Things like Barroth, Barioth, Rathalos and Uragaan gave me trouble in MHTri.
Well, easy is the wabbit, slightly more threatening than a great jaggi, but far more mobile.
Hard is the biggest ahole in mh. The plesioth. Imagine barrioth levels of jerkpants, that can swim, and is constantly pms'ing.
Not necessarily hard, hes a just a jerkface
Well taking a look at the manual it didn't explain anything that I didn't work out myself, the combat itself isn't explained in the demo which it definitely should be. I was left dodging that giant rabbit creature until it was doing some animation which I could attack it, I was just confused and mashing the attack buttons with two little companions following me for no apparent reason (other than knocking the ice off me when I'm frozen).
There doesn't really seem to be much depth to the combat from my impressions with the game.
Thats probably because you are a button masher. You said you read the manual, which gives a detailed description of what attacks each button did, and combinations of buttons, and instead of considering that, you mashed buttons, and then blamed the game.
Go play dragons dogma, monster hunter is not for you.
Attacks are easy and spammable without drawback, special moves are clearly displayed on screen via programmable 'hot buttons', there is a lock on feature, that enables the player to effortlessly run circles around the slower, nicer monsters who attack much less, have huge tells and pauses before moves, requiring much less observation, dont typically rage, dont really move around a lot in comparison, and have lifebars so you dont have to be observant of their behavior.... And it looks REALLY flashy while doing it.
Edited by 3Dude, 25 February 2013 - 08:56 AM.