This is the most streamlined Monster Hunter yet and one of the best. It combines the DNA of old Monster Hunter, specifically Portable 3rd and World into an efficient, fluid and truly remarkable achievement carving a fascinating way into the future of the franchise. At about 70 hours this is by far the shortest time I have spent with a Monster Hunter game and the lack of a G/Master Rank or tempered monster equivalent to really incentivize the endgame grind is a bit disappointing and the Rampages are interesting but ultimately tedious and repetitive. Still, the variety created through Wirebugs and Switch Skills adds so many interesting layers. In Generations I quickly bounced off the excessive amount of different styles and Hunter Arts, this new system is very similar but actually integrates naturally through the design of the monsters and world around the Wirebug concept, which is important for me to accept such a drastic design iteration. I really hope they manage to supply this game with steady content to solve most of my issues, but the future seems bright for Monster Hunter. We have come a long way since the days of fan translation patches on the PSP, huh.

I PLAY THIS GAME
EVERYDAY
E V E R Y D A Y
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

i play long sword and i know people hate me :(

Takes the modern trappings of Monster Hunter World, and translates them to a more action-oriented format, like previous 'Portable' Monster Hunter games before it. To say it 'succeeds' would be a understatement.

The presentation is superb for a Switch game, with amazing visuals, and textures for the models that, while low-res, look brilliant in moment-to-moment gameplay.

The monster variety is almost perfect, with the lack of Brute Wyverns (the bipedal freaks) being the only glaring flaw, and the music is among the best in the franchise.

The base game's only major flaw is that it's too easy, and even then, the DLC expansion Sunbreak released, not only fixing that issue, but adding PLENTY more incredible monsters to the lineup.

It doesn't get much more perfect than this. One of the best games on the Switch, bar none.

- 90 hours played
- Weapon of choice - Light bow Gun

YouTube tells me that I can’t prefer this game to World. YouTube also tells me that comparing them is unfair due to the Switch’s limitations. Limitations be damned. I loved this game. Also since World is the only other game I have played in the series, that’s my point of comparison.

I recently completed base World and whilst I enjoyed it, I found its sluggish combat and immersive elements frustrating. Rise doesn’t suffer that at all because it’s made for handheld consoles. Its gameplay is designed around pick up and play short bursts. This game wastes no time and I appreciated that.

The combat is fast, flashy and always frantic. The wire bug enables fantastic levels of traversal. I was flipping around these arenas bullying the monsters. It felt amazing. The monsters can’t really compete with your mobility and couple that with some Insane damage output and Rise can be a very easy game. But it’s still enjoyable and its gameplay loop is maddeningly addictive.

I much preferred the hunt quests in this game. Gone are the immersive elements of looking for tracks and scratch marks to find the monster. The maps are already scouted by Cahoot, your pet owl so the monsters show up on the map at the start of the quest. The Palamute dog mounts act like horses, making traversal faster and getting to the action quicker. The quality of life changes make picking up bone piles and mining spots much faster, one click of the button picks up everything from the spot. Instead of three separate presses of the button in World. They also added a pause function in this game which I really missed in MH World.

Despite the graphical limitations of the Switch I much preferred this games art style. I felt it had more character. There was no issues with visual clarity and reading what was on screen and I loved the monster designs. Especially the little monster symbols drawn on the quest board.

The monster roster felt more unique as there seemed to be more types of monsters other than Wyverns. Quest wise there’s not much variety. We get Hunt, capture and rampage quests. Hunt and capture are self explanatory but Rampage is something new. It’s a horde mode style of mission and to be honest, these were awful. I only played those required for story progression and then forgot about them entirely. I also wasn’t a fan of the Spiribird system. Collecting Spiribirds every hunt to increase my max health and stamina got boring fast, therefore I never completed a hunt with a full health or stamina gauge. Outside of the missions where a Max Spiribird is supplied right at the start.

Overall I loved my time with Monster Hunter Rise but there’s a decent chunk of the game I just don’t care for. The inclusion of the Rampage missions is the only thing holding this game back from 5 stars.

Top 5 Monster Designs
1. Magnamalo
2. Anjanath
3. Mizutsune
4. Rakna-Kadaki
5. Khezu

Top 5 favourite monster fights
1. Magnamalo
2. Mizutsune
3. Anjanath
4. Rathalos
5. Rajang

Top 5 least favourite monster fights
1. Jyuratodus
2. Nargacuga
3. Barroth
4. Basarious
5. Tigrex

I ADORE this game's movement system so much, as well as its flashy moves. it feels like an arcadey version of world, as can be seen in the total lack of non-functional endemic life. its arcadeyness is not a bad thing at all, rather just signifying it as a different game from world. it's faster paced and less grounded than world, but it's much more fun and energizing. you know, like an arcade. arcade arcade arcade.

my one gripe is that the game feels unfinished, even with the updates tacked onto it later. I completely understand that that's due to covid, but it does affect the game for me. however, the gameplay itself is mwah delicious.

This is basically a paired down version of Monster Hunter World, which isn't generally bad, but it does mean the game loses some of the luster from the World Experience.

While there are fantastic additions to the combat loop like the Wirebug and the paired down status of the areas means more bit sized hunts, It also means there are less new monsters with the majority of them just being World monsters for the entirety of High Rank.

Still excited to try Sunbreak which i have heard nothing but great things.

Monster Hunter Rise is an action role-playing game released for the Nintendo Switch on 2021 with a PC/Steam version on the way in the next year. I'd like to also share my personal experience with the series since this game has had a long history with varying entries and experiences. I mostly played the PSP Monster Hunter games for a while before going to Monster Hunter World completely skipping the 3DS era so not all of my experience here is from Monster Hunter World albeit a huge chunk of it. This game manages to nail a lot of things that I would say make the perfect monster hunter game for me despite the easier difficulty compared to the other titles and lack of content to the point it's not even finished yet at the typing of this review. Despite that, this has been one of the most fun action RPGs on Switch that looks and runs surprisingly well on the hardware.

Monster Hunter Rise manages to combine the "good" elements of the modern monster hunter games (World, Iceborne) and the past monster hunter games to create something that manages to please both here. The new additions to this installment with wirebugs and palamutes completely change the way you play the game in a positive way to the point I can't imagine a monster hunter game without them. This game also manages to bring back the more refined and quicker combat of World without the myriad of other problems the game brought in terms of the structure. That said not all weapons have been created equal here and I can't speak for most of them since I mostly played LBG/HBG/LS during my playthrough. The village and characters themselves actually bring a lot more charm than the previous entries could really do at the time with the limited hardware despite Monster Hunter always having charm in their games. The soundtrack also does a good job in doing this as it gives the village a quiet japanese aura to it and the special boss themes here really sell the grand and epic monsters you're fighting throughout the game and especially at the end. Something that manages to impress here is the general graphical and framerate performance of this game manages to keep 30 frames per second while having 4 people pelt a monster on the screen with various effects. The graphics here might make this one of the best looking games on the hybrid console so far with the developers at Capcom utilizing their amazing RE engine.

Despite my extreme enjoyment with this game, there are some things that I found a bit disappointing and felt tedious at times. The Rampage quests are sort of a mixed bag for me, it's a cool idea in concept but then playing it felt boring as you're relegated to tower defense and holding the right trigger until the counter signal comes up in which you can damage the monster in a normal sense. The rewards are worth it but you spend much longer in these quests compared to the normal hunts. Probably the biggest complaint about the game is the game's low difficulty compared to the rest of the series. I can say this is true as I rarely carted so far in the HR hunts solo compared to the previous entries, triple carting is rare even in the random player games you might get into.

I sorta told myself I was gonna wait for the PC release of this game to finally play it but I eventually caved in and bought it for the Switch. I spent 8 hours a day playing it for the first week I got it and I still have a lot to do. Monster Hunter Rise manages to be extremely addicting albeit easy and moves the series forward in a way I really can't see them moving back from.

Talking about this game is difficult because I’m extremely torn on it on one end I love the mobility (even if it’s ridiculous to the point where you can almost fly) and on the other it completely breaks the game because the monsters aren’t equipped to deal with you zipping around the place with some exceptions.

Weapons are either absolutely braindead like the Longsword (which I use sue me) , severely underpowered like the poor Lance or butchered beyond belief like the Hunting Horn.

Music is also hit or miss listen capcom you really don’t have to fucking shove vocals into every single track it really devalues them when it matters the most. Tracks aren’t all bad tho Teostra and Rajang got good versions but others like Zinogre and Bazelguese got fucked up.

Content compared to previous entries is also severely lacking hopefully the upcoming “massive expansion” fixes that but it’s another $40 on top of this game so there’s that.

Despite all the negatives I don’t hate this game it’s just a disappointment after how good previous entries were. Now would I recommend this to a newcomer? It’s hard to say since it’s the easiest entry so people could just pick it up and play almost immediately but they are in for some shit if they attempt to play the other games which they should.

TL;DR to that mess above is : game is fine just really disappointing but I wouldn’t call it outright bad.

To the dev who made the charm RNG I will find you.

Had 20 hours in World before playing this one.

For a newcomer, the game is quite good, lots of flexibility, movement options, great weapon variety... The combat is possibly the most complex I've seen in games ever. Not the most satisfying, this title still belongs to Souls games, but this one has its own charm.

Hunting feels nice, especially bigger, harder monsters.
I really do think that grinding for materials sucks ass even in this game, but putting some music or a podcast and going against a monster for the 10th time isn't as bad as I thought it would be.

Haven't finished it, and probably won't do it in the foreseeable future. I pretend to make this one, my main "relax game", the game that I go to whenever I want to do some mindless activity.

insanely fun. i've always wanted to get into the monster hunter franchise and i am so thankful that a friend of mine introduced me to rise first. this game does a great job at making you feel like a badass, with weapons ranging from simple to complex that all feel so fun to learn and master, with attacks and movement options that get more complex the more you play. you're constantly unlocking new things which makes grinding the long and tough fights worthwhile as you get shiny new armor or weapons to show off at the end. while all the different monsters seem intimidating at first, they don't make the game too hard by any means as learning how to beat them takes as long as the fights usually last, so you never feel like you need to die a thousand times in order to proceed. to top it all off, this game is super goofy in nature and it fully embraces it making for a really charming experience. if you are feeling like i was and want to try this series but are put off by weird mechanics and slow/clunky gameplay, i would 100% recommend playing this one first as it adds new beginner friendly mechanics without messing with the traditional formula. would highly recommend playing with a friend or three as that is what earned the game a fifth star for me (singleplayer is still very satisfying, however).