I did just reached Valstrax in Village quests, man, what a fight, it is my favorite monster so I was really happy with how it all went.
And yeah, World and Rise change a lot of stuff, however, for me I cound't say that one formula or the other is better, I mean, I like World a lot more than Rise, but between World and GU, they're very different games that pretend different stuff, and both are excellent, I mean, yeah, the QoL changes in World help a lot, but GU does a lot of stuff very good.
Anyway, sorry about all the text, thanks for your comment haha, happy hunting!