Monster Hunter Rise has spent a year exclusive to the Nintendo Switch, but 2022 starts with a PC port of Rise being one of the first major video game releases of the year. I’m a big fan of Monster Hunter, to the extent that it’s absurdly easy to find me talking about the franchise in some form or another. To that end, I’m going go talk about what makes Monster Hunter Rise a really good video game.
Before we get to that, however, let me explain Monster Hunter. As its name might imply, the game has you go around hunting monsters. Killing these monsters will reward you with monster parts that can then be used at a blacksmith to make new weapons and armour. This new set of equipment then helps you set your sights on bigger target, and the loop continues. Find monster, kill monster, carve monster parts, turn parts into new equipment.
Of course, there are a lot of nuances in the whole process. Each monster is akin to a boss fight in any other video game. Monsters all behave in certain ways, use certain attacks, and it’s up to the hunter to figure out these attacks and look for openings so that they can unleash their trusty dual blades or great sword. And the armour you make from these monsters have more function than just looking nice and giving you a boost in your defense stats; armours are equipped with skills that can boost any number of a hunter’s capabilities. These skills range from something as simple as raising the attack stat to more complex changes like boosting the power of certain types of ammo for light and heavy bowguns, or increasing the amount of charge a switch axe can hold.
Oh, I just named a bunch of weapons there without actually explaining what any of them mean. Monster Hunter has a bunch of different weapon types—Monster Hunter Rise has 14—each weapon type essentially playing like different games from each other. Dual Blades, for example, sacrifice weapon reach in favour of lower amounts of damage dealt absurdly quickly, making it ideal for slapping on status effects to paralyse monsters or put them to sleep. The long sword, on the other hand, favours aggressive play with its myriad counter attacks and propensity to trip monsters and cut off tails. The great sword favours a methodical approach to hunting because of its slow speed, but what it lacks in speed it makes up for in sheer power, boasting the highest single-hit damage in the game.
Monster Hunter has historically been an incredibly nuanced game when it came to its combat system and the various monsters you hunt, and Rise is no different. In fact, Monster Hunter Rise adds on some more nuance in the form of its new flagship mechanic: the Wirebugs. Essentially acting like grappling hooks, Wirebugs greatly increase the mobility of hunters regardless of their weapon of choice, letting them fling themselves into the air or swing around like Spider-Man.
Wirebugs are also intrinsically tied to how Monster Hunter Rise’s various weapons now play; each weapon now has two Wirebug skills, expanding the arsenal of moves available to any hunter. The long sword, for example, can now use a Wirebug to execute a Sakura Slash—a devastating attack that raises the long sword’s damage potential for a while. A lance can now fly around the monster by using its Wirebug, attacking it from several different angles in the span of a few seconds.
Ultimately, a Monster Hunter game is only as good as its monsters, however, and Rise does not disappoint. Evolving from Monster Hunter World’s and Iceborne’s somewhat limited range of monsters largely being dinosaurs in some way or another (with a few notable exceptions in Iceborne), Rise has expanded upon the roster with great new monsters, as well as returning fan favourites.
The new monsters in Rise are based off Yokai—creatures from Japanese folktales—and are excellently designed. The Great Izuchi, for examples, makes for a great first hunt for new players, while the cover monster—Magnamalo—makes the most of its Samurai armour-inspired design by using its tail like a polearm. There are, of course, wonderful returning monsters, like the lightning-based Zinogre, the hyper-aggressive Tigrex, and of course, everyone’s favourite Dragon Ball-inspired monster, Rajang.
Monster Hunter Rise removes more of the barriers between a hunter and their hunt that Monster Hunter World originally removed. Like World’s instant plant gathering, mining spots can now be mined from instantly. Whetstones are still infinite, and you don’t even have to spend too much time tracking monsters down any more. From the moment you start a hunt, you’ll know exactly where your target is on the mini map, and hunters are encouraged to get to the best parts of the game as soon as possible.
The only real complaint I can come up with for Monster Hunter Rise is that, despite the variety of its roster of monsters, you’ll run out of monsters to hunt relatively soon. How soon you run out ultimately depends on your skill levels, after all, and I only really ran out of things to hunt after spending around 50 hours on the original Switch release of the game. For any other game, 50 hours is a lot. Monster Hunter Rise, however, always leaves me wanting more. More monsters in more zones. And of course, more weapons and armour.
It’s worth keeping in mind that Summer 2022 will bring with it the Sunbreak expansion for Monster Hunter Rise, introducing Master Rank hunts as well as an expanded roster of monsters, all with new equipment, and likely new zones to hunt in. Until then, however, Monster Hunter Rise is still an excellent game to spend time in.