It's the streamlined, simplified, casualised Monster Hunter, and I still look at 99% of it like a dog looking at a sum. Endless menus that mean nothing to me, an item box full to the brim with icons I will never understand. I take on quests to unlock stickers that are immediately lost within the labyrinthine options. I will never see them. Where would I equip them? One of my several "shortcut" wheels? Who knows? During the final battle, I found myself asking "Which button do I use to attack with again?" by which I meant "Which combination of buttons do I use to ready my weapon to attack with again?" Sometimes I send the Argosy out. Why? I don't know.

But here's the thing. Name a game. Any game.
Monster Hunter Rise is better than that game.

Johoho!

I'm glad Namco had enough sense to bundle the hi spec demo with R4 instead of trying to sell it. It's very cool as a "look what we've done!" but there's no getting away from the fact that there's less than 20 minutes of entertainment to be had here. They even put a football game on the disc too. Did they ever put a demo of Ridge Racer out on a free disc? In doing so they'd have made buying the full game pointless.

The only reason I'm logging this is because I want to talk about R4 more. I got a physical copy to play on my little CRT and I love it.