Monster Hunter Rise is a vibe.
…
What more can I say? It’s a game that was perfectly made to please me.
It has
- Cool monster to fight
- A breadth of weapons, each with in-depth movesets
- And most importantly, Practically infinite materials to gather
Monster Hunter has been a series I’ve always wanted to get into. I think my first experience was with Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate on the Wii U. I was never really a portable gamer, and as far as I was concerned, Monster Hunter was a portable series. I played 3 Ultimate for a couple of hours, but I dropped off. It’s hard to say what caused it.
I think the most diplomatic response I can give is that Monster Hunter games pre-World are “an acquired taste”.
World was the first game in the series that I completed. After finally understanding what made the series great, I started playing some Generations Ultimate on the side.
For those not aware, Generations Ultimate was the last traditional Monster Hunter before they made Monster Hunter World, which was an attempt to make the MH formula more mainstream.
Playing both around the same time, I came to appreciate both formulas for what they were. World had, well, open-worlds with no loading screens and much better graphics. While Generations Ultimate had a lot of mechanical depth and a shit-ton of monsters.
Finally getting back on topic, Monster Hunter Rise combines the best of both formulas.
I think a lot of people expected the series to go back to smaller areas connected to other small areas by loading screens for this portable entry, for performance reasons or what have you. But I think it was a really smart idea to keep the open-world design.
And I think the locations in this game are some of the best that I’ve played in the series.
World was great in that it connected the small areas that weren’t connected before. But in retrospect, it still kinda feels like the map design of older games. It’s hard to describe, but the environments still feel slightly enclosed. I guess I only feel that way because of the locations in Rise.
They went absolutely bonkers in making the locations truly open. Inside the bounds of the map, I can’t think of a single wall or surface that you can’t climb on top of. You can get on top of every mountain and plateau you see. There’s this one area in the first map that’s completely enclosed and I can totally see this section being cut out in the older games and even world. The designers really wanted to make each area feel like a real environment that is home to many spooky monsters.
This openness is complemented by the Wirebug. The Wirebug is a gameplay mechanic solely focused on movement. At any time, you can propel yourself into the air and start climbing a wall. On top of that, each weapon has a couple of special moves related to the Wirebug. The Insect Glaive (my weapon of choice) has a wirebug ability where you can launch yourself and get a fair amount of distance, but you stick kinda close to the ground. So if you’re fighting a long monster and you’re in the right position, you can get massive damage as you do a spinning air attack down the length of the monster. Each weapon has little synergies like that.
I’ve talked in other reviews/videos about my caveman brain. I really like collecting materials to upgrade weapons or armor.
Monster Hunter is THE collecting materials game. Every hunt you go on is about collecting materials to upgrade your equipment, herbs to craft potions, and spiribirds to get better stats for that hunt. Finishing a long hunt and seeing a rewards screen covered from top to bottom with monster materials and environment resources is so goddamn satisfying.
That being said, there are some annoying materials to collect. Right now I’m trying to build armor based off a monster named Teostra. Most of the sets in the game are almost always built from parts from that specific monster. Since I’m building a Teostra set, I have to fight Teostra. Most sets are quite manageable. You’ll only have to fight them once or twice to get all the things you need.
But the later sets seem to require a special rare material from that monster, and in this case, I need a Teostra gem.
This gem has a drop rate of 3%.
Luckily, I have that 3% chance from a few sources. When I carve from it’s corpse, each carve has a 3% chance, and you get 3 carves per hunt. Each time you break one of it’s wings or tail, it has a 3% chance, and that might happen once or twice per hunt. And once you complete the quest, its a 3% chance to appear in one of the 2-4 slots.
That might seem like a lot of opportunities to get this item, but math’s a bitch, lemme tell you.
I’ve fought him like 3-4 times trying to get this gem, and I’m tired of seeing him. I don’t even wanna think about Teostra. If I had some other progression to work towards, it wouldn’t be as bad, but I need to do this before I do other stuff. I’m at the final boss in the story, but it’s been kicking my ass. Two of the four times I’ve fought this final boss, it reached it’s low-health state, then I died and failed the quest. So I need better armor.
Which leads me to Teostra. And I don’t wanna fight this asshole anymore.
So yeah, it’s annoying. I’m sure I’ll get that gem or just beat the final boss with my slightly weaker arm piece. But for now, I’m just gonna take a break for a week or so.
This is really the only time I’ve been frustrated with the grind though. Don’t let what I laid out earlier put you off and make you think the whole game is like that. It’s only end-end-game stuff.
Would I Recommend It?
I probably would have told you this for Monster Hunter World as well, but there’s never been a better time to play Monster Hunter.
Tons of people are playing and post-launch support looks bright. Even if you play all that’s in the game now and don’t mess around with any monsters added in future updates, you’ll get like 70 hours of enjoyment out of Monster Hunter Rise.
Monster Hunter Rise is the culmination of the series and embodies the best parts of what makes hunting monsters fun. Check it out at your local Nintendo Switch.