This list is meant for hunters, who have already experienced all that MH1J has to offer, done most - if not all - the hunts, gotten most of the items they want to make, and are generally ready to move on to the expansion, but aren't entirely sure if they won't miss out on some savings.
The good-to-knows:
- Transferring your character to MHG does not remove your MH1J save. Your character essentially gets copied to MHG, with the following changes:
- Some values of weapons, armour, items, etc. will be adjusted for the new equipment system in MHG.
- For cleared quests, data up to 1★ quests for offline and 3★ quests for online will be transferred.
- Your hunter rank will also be preserved up to HR13.
- Hunter points are also set to the initial value for each rank, i.e. if you are HR6 "Warrior" with 6000 hunter rank points in MH1J, your HRP will be reset to 4,200 - the minimum for HR6.
- Rarity 1-3 items, special mushrooms, and golden fish can not be transferred, and will be sold for zenny at double the purchase price from the store. This can potentially give you a good starting capital in MHG, if you want to make some easy money.
- The combination list will not be transferred.
- Some gallery videos will not be transferred
- The village quests in MH1J reward you with the Hero's Sword (SnS) and a Hunter Citation, which can only be earned once per game. Transferring to MHG, you can earn another Hunter Citation from the village.
- Grinding for the Gourmet BBQ Split in MHG can be made easier with item duplication in MH1J (where duping is generally much easier), and transferring duped BBQ Tickets into MHG. This is obviously a one-time and generally illicit process, so be sure you know what you are doing, and whether or not you want that to begin with. You can get the Gourmet BBQ Spit in MHG through either trading said BBQ tickets or by doing the "Revenge of the BBQ!" event quest in MHG by delivering enough well-done steaks, which might even be easier.
- Trading with the Veggie elder in MHG isn't necessarily a 1:1 item conversion any more. There is a slight chance that you will get a different item out of a selection of two. This is usually split into a common (80%) and rare (20%) drop. If you have a bunch of materials saved up for trades, then it would be best to do those conversions before you transfer. However, if the resulting item is Rarity 3 or lower, you should consider keeping the tickets (usually Rarity 5), as lower rarity consumable items will be automatically sold upon transfer.
- There is a limited amount of Gold and Silver Tickets in MH1J for resting at the Guest House. Despite the limit, these tickets are transferable to MHG, where you will be able to earn more tickets. Visiting the Rook and Bishop rooms will reward Silver Tickets, the Queen and King rooms - Gold Tickets. Be sure to earn all of your tickets by repeatedly resting in each of the paid rooms. You should get a ticket every 25th time you do so, up to your 150th visit. Since this would involve 600 visits, this is best done as one plays MH1J online and progresses through the ranks. If you happen to be well off in the zenny department, and feel like you can afford the disposable income, you may be able to just buy all the rooms at once for a total of 3700z. This should in theory give you tickets for all four, once you reach the 25th visit threshold.
- Farming for Rathian and Rathlos plates becomes generally easier in MHG, so if you have all the other necessary components, but are waiting on them to make pieces of the Auroros and Fatalis sets, or you've been meaning to make either a Dragon Massacre (GS), Chrome Razor (GS), Odyssey (SnS), or Lao-Shan Lung Cannon (HBG), then you could make your life moderately easier in MHG. This obviously doesn't come with the same prestige as walking around with those items in MH1J.
- Putting together the base Guild Knight/Maiden is difficult in MHG, requiring many Monoblos Hearts, as well as a variety of new tickets and coins. The Guild Knight S/Maiden S set is equivalent to the MH1J set, but requires the new King Scarab, instead of Novacrystals. It may be best to transfer with the set already made from MH1J, with the caveat of it costing roughly 100,000 more zenny.
- Getting the materials for Fatalis' set is significantly harder in MHG, because of differences in high rank equipment, leading to an overall increase in difficulty for the Fatalis quest itself, compared to MH1J. It's best to gather Fatalis carves and quest rewards in MH1J, and consider if you'd want to complete assembling the set in MHG where other - e.g. Rath parts - might be easier to obtain.