Review cover Monster Hunter Rise (Nintendo Switch)
Official GBAtemp Review

Product Information:

  • Release Date (NA): March 26, 2021
  • Release Date (EU): March 26, 2021
  • Release Date (JP): March 26, 2021
  • Publisher: Capcom
  • Developer: Capcom
  • Genres: Action, RPG, Adventure

Game Features:

Single player
Local Multiplayer
Online Multiplayer
Co-operative
Grab your sword, we’re going hunting!

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I love hunting monsters. I want to preface my review with that. Joining the series many moons ago with Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate on both Wii U and 3DS, I’ve found myself excited for each new release, even going out of my way to play the 3DS games 4G and Double Cross before they hit western shores. It’s a marvellous series of grinding for the sake of grinding, and having a great time doing so with friends. Quite happily, I can say Rise is no different in this department.

The setting of our latest entry to the series is Kamura Village, a traditional Japanese-themed environment. As a recently-qualified hunter, it’s your job to go out on quests and strategically hit things to death with an assortment of fun weapons. The game doesn’t give you much in the way of plot to sink your teeth into. Monsters are getting angrier than usual and attacking the village in what is known as a Rampage. This is the first time it’s happened in 50 years, and you’d better be sure you’re going to find out what’s causing it! After a small bulk of text to introduce you to the village and the various shops you’ll no doubt be frequenting, you’re left to your own devices as to how you want to progress through the game.

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As with the majority of previous games, World excluded, quests are split into two categories: Village and Gathering Hub, with quests further split between low and high rank. Typically speaking, village quests are where you’ll find the game’s story. Featuring monsters with weaker attacks and less HP, this is the exclusively single player portion of the game, and the ideal place to start for newcomers or those who want to explore what little narrative there is. Hub on the other hand is where the multiplayer content, and often the bulk of the quests lie. Featuring tougher monsters that are usually balanced to tackle multiple hunters at once, hub quests are where the real challenge and meat of the game can be found. Wanting to experience all that the game has to offer, I decided to start with village.

Village quests are broken down much as they have been in previous games. You have different ranks of difficulty, denoted by stars, with you needing to beat set quests in each rank to progress to the next. Rinse and repeat until you’re playing quests in the highest rank. One of the most significant quality of life changes jumps out to you as soon as you enter the quest menu: key quests are marked. And you don’t need to beat every key quest to progress. What this means for people who perhaps don’t want to meander through every quest is that they can pick and choose the ones that sound best for them. Not having to check a guide online to find out what’s required is a brilliant bonus too.

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Posing between quests became a regular occurrence.

Looking at the quests themselves, I find myself mixed. As you work through what’s on offer in Kamura Village, you’ll find yourself constantly put against new threats. That’s great. It keeps things fresh. Where my problem lies is in the fact that these new threats are the vast majority of the content; that is to say a quest that requires you to hunt a single monster. I like hunting monsters, but I want more. With Generations Ultimate as its Switch predecessor, I almost feel spoiled for just how much was available to me. There were double monster hunts, hunt-a-thons where you’d be required to hunt at least three, quests based in the arena, standard three, four, five monster quests. More than anything, there were quests, numerically speaking. Looking solely at the low rank village offerings of Generations Ultimate, I could count 189 available quests on my incomplete save file. Village quests here total 53, with more than half of these being a single monster hunt to make said monster available to you. One pleasant surprise to village questing is how it does actually have an impact on your hunter rank now, the number that dictates which quests you can take on in the gathering hub. Traditionally, these are entirely disconnected, requiring you to hunt all the same monsters again. Now though, you’re given special licence quests to complete after achieving so much in the village. These quests are absolutely brilliant fun, and completely stand apart from the rest of the village offerings in the challenge on offer. Beating all three of these quests as they come up will propel you to high rank in the hub, which is especially nice given there’s no high rank village quests.

The gathering hub has similar offerings to that of its village counterparts. Notably here though, is the complete omission of gathering quests. There are absolutely none that can be done in a multiplayer environment, and only a handful of small monster hunts. It may be a game about hunting big monsters, but when there’s content that could so easily be made into quests just sitting there unused and your content offering is so limited, it seems foolish not to use it. Of interest, hub quests dynamically scale in difficulty based on the number of people hunting. This means monsters are perfectly manageable solo, and don’t become too easily overwhelmed should you decide to play with others. In my experience, I found quests lasting between 10 and 15 minutes regardless of whether I was playing solo or with others. Though this is far shorter than I’m used to in other games, often exceeding 30 minutes per quest in older titles, monsters still pack a punch. Even in endgame armour, I found myself feeling vulnerable if I let my guard down, regardless of the monster being fought. The quests that are available, though limited in number, have genuinely provided the most fun I’ve had with the series to date, much of this fun supported by the gameplay of World blended with the new Wirebug mechanic.

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Things can get a little hectic with a full party of four.

This game’s gimmick of sorts, the Wirebug is fantastic, and I’ve only come to enjoy its inclusion more as I’ve spent more time with the game. It’s really one of those additions that are what you make of them, and they have a great deal of useful utility. At a basic level, you can aim in any direction with ZL, and propel yourself using ZR, this consuming one Wirebug charge. Using this, you can get around maps and explore in a way previous games just couldn’t manage. On top of this though you have Wirebug attacks, powerful moves unique to each weapon. I’m really fond of how some of these bring back abilities seen in previous games, with several Hunter Arts from Generations making an appearance in this form. With each weapon also having a degree of customisation in the form of Switch Skills, you can tune your hunting experience to how you want to play in a fun and unique way. With my Dual Blade setup for example, I feel like I’m playing a blend of the adept and aerial styles of Generations, with one Switch Skill allowing me to propel myself into the air, and another allowing me to dodge into an attack to deal damage to a monster. This kind of freedom is welcome, and gives you a number of ways to keep the same weapon fresh.

Rise gives you five areas to hunt in. You have the green area, the desert, the ice place, the volcano, and one kind of unique place, as well as a few special arenas. Of the five core maps available, three are new to the series: Shrine Ruins, Frost Islands, and Lava Caverns. Shrine Ruins ties in well with the larger traditional Japanese theming of the game, littered with abandoned buildings, and a large mountainous area to explore. Of the new maps, it’s by far my favourite, with the other two feeling a little more by the books. The best maps of the game for me however were the two I’ve yet to mention: Sandy Plains and Flooded Forest, both originating in the series’ third generation of games. What they’ve done to these two maps is nothing short of magic, and to see the developers at Capcom try to rationalise the spaghetti of previously-zoned maps is a joy. Though the Flooded Forest is notably less flooded than it was in 3 Ultimate and more swamp-like, there are plenty of key areas you can pick out and say “hey, I remember here!”, and even some that made me go back to 3U and realise I never noticed them. I mean, how many of us really noticed the colossal pyramid in area two? I certainly didn’t.

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While I found myself really enjoying the maps available, to my surprise I had the most fun with the new arena. The arena itself isn’t anything out of the ordinary. It’s a big circle with a few new destructible towers you can climb up, and the usual button-operated fence down the middle to split up monsters where you’re fighting more than one. What makes this arena more fun than usual is the fact the dividing fence can be scaled, completely mitigating the frustrating minutes of downtime should you accidentally seal both monsters on the other side of the fence from you. The few quests available in this area stand out to me as my shining moments with the game, and goes onto highlight a change made to monster behaviour in other areas.

Of the abilities the Wirebug grants you, one I neglected to mention earlier was Wyvern Riding. Similar to mounting in previous games, you can ride a monster after inflicting so much damage using Wirebug attacks. While you’re on the monster, you actually have some control and choice in what you’re doing. You can move the monster around, and make it fight other monsters with a combination of strong and weak attacks. On top of this, you can launch the monster you’re riding into a wall, or other monsters, to inflict a fair amount of damage. It’s great to actually do something with a mount, and the game really incentivises it with up to three shiny drops being available per monster when attacking a monster while mounted. These mounts ultimately end in a finisher, which leaves the monster knocked down and vulnerable to more typical abuse from hunters. On paper, this all checks out, but to accommodate for the fact the game wants you to bring monsters together to fight each other, a change was made to how monsters interact with one another, and the group hunting them.

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Unlike in previous titles, monsters don’t really gang up on you. After using the finisher to immobilise the monster you’re fighting, your mount just… leaves? In my 120 hours of playing, I haven’t used a single dung bomb, these usually handy for making a monster run away from you. They just aren’t needed. If two large monsters are in the same area, you’ll see either a turf war or a small attack sequence that results in one monster becoming mountable. If you finish or mess up the mount, they’ll just leave the area anyway. Monsters fight other monsters–that’s cool! But losing the pressure of having multiple threats chasing you down is a big loss for me. The only time you run into this now is in the arena, where the fence is used to balance the threat in a closed space admittedly well.

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When it comes to an endgame for Rise, there’s only really one option for you: Rampages. The hot new thing to grace the series, a Rampage is ultimately a Monster Hunter-themed tower defence game. You’ll place down turrets and face a few waves of monsters, before eventually slaying the leader of the Rampage to secure the victory. Based on how many objectives you complete during the quest, you’re ranked and given rewards to match. I think they’re great fun, but they rely heavily on you playing with other people to bring out their best. Much like hub quests, difficulty is scaled based on player count. This means you can play this game mode solo should you want to and utilise what automatic turrets are available to their fullest. Where I had the most fun though was basking in the frantic nature of the game mode with friends over an equally-frantic voice chat. You can also be paired up with random people, which has been a far better experience than I would have expected. I do feel matchmaking will drop off after the initial hype of launch dies down though.

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50 talismans collected, and none of them were good.

What makes Rampages so good for endgame grinding is the rewards you get from completing them. Frankly, you get a lot, and a lot is exactly what you need if you’re wanting the best gear. While crafting armour and weapons relies on you collecting a set list of things from a variety of monsters and gathering points, talismans are different. Talismans are equipment that come with skills, and slots to put skills in for yourself. What makes talismans so powerful is the fact the skills they offer you are random, and some combinations just can’t be found in armour alone. To get talismans, you need to throw your leftover monster parts into the melding pot. With each part being assigned a point value, you need to put in a set amount of points to be awarded a random talisman. Since Rampages offer a lot of parts, as well as tickets that have a high point value, they’re where you’ll be spending most of your time if you want a constant stream of talismans. It can be frustrating. With so many possibilities, getting exactly what you want is incredibly uncommon, creating a somewhat artificial stream of content to support the lacklustre amount of standard quests. It’s fine, but if you don’t enjoy Rampages, you’ll find yourself running out of things to do once the final boss has fallen.

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All in all, Monster Hunter Rise has me conflicted. It is without a doubt the peak of the series when it comes to gameplay and overall ease of access. Where it falls short however is in its sheer lack of content at launch. While I have no doubt this will be rectified over time, with the first major update scheduled for later this month, I can’t hide my disappointment in just how little there is to do for somebody like myself who’s already seen and done it all. For now, I’ll keep doing the occasional Rampage with friends and happily replay 3U on the side, waiting eagerly for when that new content drops.

Verdict

What We Liked ...
  • Iterates brilliantly from World's gameplay
  • Wirebug is a great addition to the series
  • Traditional Japanese theming is stunning to look at
  • Rampages are incredibly fun with a full party
  • Reimagined third generation maps are incredible to experience
  • The Dango song
What We Didn't Like ...
  • Not enough quest variety
  • Not enough quests as a whole
  • Can feel a little too easy at times
  • Limited endgame while we wait for content updates
10
Gameplay
Building off the momentum and quality of life changes World brought with it, Rise presents the most compelling gameplay of the series. The speed and fluidity of World's gameplay blended with the new Wirebug functionality leaves you with a Monster Hunter game not necessarily groundbreaking, but compelling all the same.
9
Presentation
While this is no doubt a visual downgrade from World, the game is still a marked upgrade from Generations Ultimate and other portable entries. Leaning heavily into its traditional Japanese theming, the whole package comes together wonderfully for a style I can't help but adore. Once released on PC, it'll truly shine.
-
Lasting Appeal
Lasting appeal is something difficult to score with the game as it is now. More than 100 hours in myself and constantly going back for more, Rise presents the standard Monster Hunter formula to keep you invested and grinding for better gear. Having said that, the content just isn't there to support the formula yet. With the first major update coming later this month I have no doubt this will be resolved, but it's a mixed bag at the moment.
9
out of 10

Overall

Monster Hunter Rise is the best Monster Hunter experience to date from a gameplay standpoint. Iterating magnificently from World's shift in pace, the Wirebug gives you freedom and manoeuvrability in a way the clutch claw could only dream of. What holds it back at launch is its limited content offering, leaving long-time fans like myself dead in the water while we wait for the first of what will hopefully be many major content updates. For those wanting everything I'd recommend waiting a few months, or even grabbing the PC release next year. But for others content with a steady stream of new content to keep them coming back, there is no better time to jump into the series.
If you sank 100 hours in the game, it's safe to say that it's at least an 8.
Now if they were enjoyable or not, the grade could be refined?

In the end, was it fun?

Yeah, at 100+ hrs and constantly going back for more even without the new content... it gets no score for lasting appeal? I thought that was odd as well.
 
H
If you sank 100 hours in the game, it's safe to say that it's at least an 8.
Now if they were enjoyable or not, the grade could be refined?

In the end, was it fun?
No, the game wasn't fun. The game just scored a 9 for no reason!
 
Crazy how some of the screenshots look almost next-gen, and others look like they were taken from a Gamecube game. Looking forward to the PC release.
 
I've been streaming this game since the day after launch (Amazon shipped it late,) and been enjoying the fuck out of it. I did run into some issues on stream but those were ironed out in recent updates. I have to say my favorite feature is the crazy amount of customization that I've been playing with. I am trying to make my character as tomboy as possible and I have my friend helping me accomplish that. This be my character, Scarlet, with her Palamute named Vincent and Felyne named Beans

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Reactions: Xzi
No particular order, in all of them you start off fighting small monsters and end up fighting large, intricate ones by the end. World and Rise are probably most beginner-friendly, though.
I found Monster Hunter Generations to be easier than previous games but I still agree with World and Rise definitely being more beginner-friendly compared to previous games. I started with 4 and literally had no idea what I doing until a few of my friends helped me and I watched some of ProJared's guides. If there is one thing great about the Monster Hunter community, is that there's no shortage of players wanting to bring new players into the community. I've been hard-pressed to find anyone who wasn't willing to help when it comes down to getting into Monster Hunter.
 
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Reactions: Xzi
No particular order, in all of them you start off fighting small monsters and end up fighting large, intricate ones by the end. World and Rise are probably most beginner-friendly, though.

Okay I'll look into it I have heard of the games since the PSP and I did buy the one on the PS4 but I never played it.
 
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Reactions: The Catboy and Xzi
"lasting appeal is hard to score"
"More than 100 hours and constantly back for more"
It's not that hard is it

The criticism of quest variety is really really dumb, this is a monster hunting game called monster hunter
You hunt monsters and you gather materials
What else do you want, hopscotching with them? A Monster Mario party?
People buy this because they see the name, they see the game and they go "I wanna hunt monsters" and not "oh I hope it has a go-kart minigame"
You're trying too hard to reach for flaws.
 
I love this game I have +60 hours in it, playing this with my girlfriend.
She doesn't love it as much as I do but she never played MH before.
I think she is warming up to it though, Monster hunter can be a bit of a shock if you never played it before.
I remember thinking that combat was clunky and weird first time I tried a Monster Hunter game but it has got much better since then.

I think the first monster hunter game I ever played was Monster Hunter Freedom 2 on the PSP
 
My reaction skill is suckass, I can never play a Mario or platformer without save state, should I give it a try?
 
110+ hours of play behind me, began the license with MH2 (I miss you, Freedom Unite :sad:). I really appreciated the turn operated with World, who gave more place to the scenario and added a long awaited opening between the zones without having some charging time between them.

I feel that Rise is a little in-between World and the old-fashioned games. I'm glad they kept the quality of life improvements coming from World (especially for gathering materials) and all that verticality they progressively added since MH4. The possibility to customize the handling of weapons is great and not as sturdy as it was a few years ago and is definitely a nice move, as multiple same weapon users would be allowed to play them very differently from one to another.

The wirebugs were one of my main concerns when I first put my hands on the demo, but they do help in improving the gamedesign, as it offers new ways to move, attack or dodge. And they even offer some signature moves for weapons (I'm still amazed by that invincible rush with the Switch-Axe :wub:), so it might be confusing at first, but after taking some time to understand how to use them wisely, they would be missed if the next game doesn't include some look-alike mechanics (as they already are a way of balancing MHWorld grapple almightiness since Iceborn).

I can't underline enough what I read about the game feeling a little empty and easy, as I already felt that at the beginning of World and getting back on it after Iceborn's release proved that Capcom managed to pull the right strings to work on new features and adding a lot of content.

For the newcomers, I would say that, like World, it's a good game to give a try to the license, especially if you have friends to play in coop with, and the actual content will give you some good times together, with the promise of having new monsters and quests added along the way, giving you new reasons to call your friends to join the hunt.

The old hunting grumps will find a nice experience, but I wouldn't rush on it, especially if you have some content left to clean in MHW. Waiting for G-rank and the new monsters is a little frustrating when you have done pretty much everything the game had to offer in around two weeks.

...

And also! Tower-defence oriented quests? Sceptical at first, convinced along the way, waiting for more interesting ways of playing it, I hope it will be improved with the coming updates. :creep:
 
I'm not getting this but I did play the demo. They make it so complicated to ride on a wolf.
You have access to a shortcut with the d-pad (first one on the right side, press down to activate it). It makes the :vul2: running to you and your hunter to automatically ride it. Think of it as a car service, especially since it's called by a quick whistle. ;)
 
I'll stay with World. Although I've enjoyed MH games at the very beginning of launch, I become very frustrated with the choppy movements and actions the characters take while trying to focus on killing and chasing a monster. These controls never seem to improve throughout the series. I've not played many Capcom 3-D "open-world" games, but for a developer with such great 2-D fighting games where movements are quick and can flow together pretty well, I'm left wanting more in the controls department. That said, I don't play MHWorld often, because finding friends to play with is hard, at least ones that I would talk to on a daily basis, AND in the same time-zone, these being same reasons I stopped playing WoW. The design, art and concepts are fantastic, and have inspired my table-top rpg creativity, for which I am thankful.
 
Review cover
Product Information:
  • Release Date (NA): March 26, 2021
  • Release Date (EU): March 26, 2021
  • Release Date (JP): March 26, 2021
  • Publisher: Capcom
  • Developer: Capcom
  • Genres: Action, RPG, Adventure
Game Features:
Single player
Local Multiplayer
Online Multiplayer
Co-operative

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