Monster Hunter: Rise (Switch, PC, Game Pass, PS4, PS5) - B A S E D

HaruKazuhira wrote:4U is bittersweet for me because it was when I first got hit by burnout. I was ready to go all in on that game, even traded in my original 3DS with a bunch of games for a New 3DS model to play it. I loved everything about 4U and the setting. But around 40 hours or so I just hit this wall, something I've never felt with MH. It honestly sucked since this is like one of my fav series. I mostly blame myself since I did go pretty hard into 3U before that. But I really wasn't expecting to get hit that hard. I also ended up skipping Gen. Wasn't until World where my hype for MH got reignited.

4U is by far my favourite but unfortunately I never got far into G rank. Funnily enough I think Gen on 3DS was where I got burnout, maybe because it felt like such a step down from 4U.

Not picked this up yet as I'm trying to stick to my rules of actually finishing some games before buying new ones but I can't wait to jump in soon!

Movement in this feels SO GOOD. And with the hidden lore collectibles to find around the maps it has a hint of, weirdly, Death Stranding in it if you go out solo exploring, setting down shortcuts with great wirebugs, finding lore collectibles amongst the ruins, with this pure focus on traversal. That's obviously not the game but it's what I've basically been doing so far - that and spending far too long just talking to villagers so I don't miss any of the dialogue. I just hit 2* village and I've been playing for hours

Worth it though as I've found some things my girlfriend completely missed - the cohoot nest in the buddy area, the ninja cat who tells secrets in the player's house (and I'm glad I found this right away for the dialogue updates for each village ranking!), the doctor felyne on the roof, and a couple of cohoot "send out" points in the village - next to the cohoot in front of the steel works and the man on the roof overlooking the docks. Loving all the village characters, but especially the poet!

EDIT: I just said this to my friend, the game feel of this is on par for me with like Mario Odyssey or MGSV, it just all feels that good. Nothing like the clunkiness it used to be but still with all the depth and complexity.

Just ordered from the game collection. Looking forward to getting into it.

VlaSoul wrote:4U is by far my favourite but unfortunately I never got far into G rank. Funnily enough I think Gen on 3DS was where I got burnout, maybe because it felt like such a step down from 4U.

I've heard nothing but great things about 4U and I'm pretty sure it prob would have become one of my favs too if I stuck with it. Gen looked so different that my old timer MH mindset just couldn't grasp all these new concepts the game throws at you lol. Wish it came out on Switch sooner because it released after World and I just couldn't find myself going back to the old world style of hunting after that.

OrangeRKN wrote:Movement in this feels SO GOOD. And with the hidden lore collectibles to find around the maps it has a hint of, weirdly, Death Stranding in it if you go out solo exploring, setting down shortcuts with great wirebugs, finding lore collectibles amongst the ruins, with this pure focus on traversal. That's obviously not the game but it's what I've basically been doing so far - that and spending far too long just talking to villagers so I don't miss any of the dialogue. I just hit 2* village and I've been playing for hours

The way the maps are designed in this rewards you the more experienced you are with the layout. Something World kinda missed the mark on a bit. I'm glad they kept the tradition of learning curves with Wirebugs too. It's so damn satisfying spacing out swings and jumps to reach certain areas to the point it straight up feels like parkour lol. I stumbled across my first relic in Sandy Plains which was cool too. Gonna refrain from trying to look these up so I can discover the rest naturally as well.

Had some more time to play this today, finally. I hunted a couple of Great Izuchis and like yeah the first drome monster you fight in these games is easy sure but I killed this thing in like three minutes with the starting DBs, which is kind of concerning in terms of the difficulty of this game, but idk early days. Really glad to see they changed up Arch-Demon mode in this game so that it retains the demon mode dodge while Demon mode retains the movement speed of world, and also the new Arch-Demon combos are a good addition I think.

Also man this game is like, super japanese even when compared to most of this series

HaruKazuhira wrote:

VlaSoul wrote:4U is by far my favourite but unfortunately I never got far into G rank. Funnily enough I think Gen on 3DS was where I got burnout, maybe because it felt like such a step down from 4U.

I've heard nothing but great things about 4U and I'm pretty sure it prob would have become one of my favs too if I stuck with it. Gen looked so different that my old timer MH mindset just couldn't grasp all these new concepts the game throws at you lol. Wish it came out on Switch sooner because it released after World and I just couldn't find myself going back to the old world style of hunting after that.

I was playing Gen and World alongside each other for a while, and honestly when I finished world I went back to gen; the old style felt almost refreshing after all the new gooseberry fool in world. I guess it's like video game comfort food?

OrangeRKN wrote:Movement in this feels SO GOOD. And with the hidden lore collectibles to find around the maps it has a hint of, weirdly, Death Stranding in it if you go out solo exploring, setting down shortcuts with great wirebugs, finding lore collectibles amongst the ruins, with this pure focus on traversal. That's obviously not the game but it's what I've basically been doing so far - that and spending far too long just talking to villagers so I don't miss any of the dialogue. I just hit 2* village and I've been playing for hours

Yeah I've been playing the exact same way haha. The return to uneccessarily expansive flavour text is great too because that was really missing from world, and in retrospect the hubs felt comparatively lifeless in that game.

Fantastic game, I love how brilliant the traversal is now as it's so quick and easy to get about. It's kinda hard to go back to the older entries now.

VlaSoul wrote:

OrangeRKN wrote:Movement in this feels SO GOOD. And with the hidden lore collectibles to find around the maps it has a hint of, weirdly, Death Stranding in it if you go out solo exploring, setting down shortcuts with great wirebugs, finding lore collectibles amongst the ruins, with this pure focus on traversal. That's obviously not the game but it's what I've basically been doing so far - that and spending far too long just talking to villagers so I don't miss any of the dialogue. I just hit 2* village and I've been playing for hours

Yeah I've been playing the exact same way haha. The return to uneccessarily expansive flavour text is great too because that was really missing from world, and in retrospect the hubs felt comparatively lifeless in that game.

The hub is great. Not just lots of (very well wriiten) dialogue to add flavour, but npcs moving around between quests and interacting rather than static positions or just set paths. Makes it really feel alive. Didn't get any of that from World

Pretty much share the same sentiments about Kamura. Everyone has their own unique mannerisms too, it all just adds to the feeling of the place being alive. I think the only thing I'd say I wish the village had was maybe more visitors from outside Kamura. The folks mention how the place is a tourist attraction of sorts so it would have been cool to see different kinds of characters visiting the village you could interact with.

I get that although they do explain that the rampage has stopped the usual flow of tourists. I did like how previous games have had hot baths or whatever with rotating visitors. I still miss having a farm to upgrade too.

I love Rondine and the Argosy. From what I've already gathered - blatantly undercover as traders and here to steal the secret of Kamura steel

Lore? I'm too busy tryna figure out how literally everything works lmao. Having a lot of fun so far despite probably not taking advantage of a lot of stuff I'm meant to. It's strangely addictive. GRCade Team hunts when?

OrangeRKN wrote:

VlaSoul wrote:

OrangeRKN wrote:Movement in this feels SO GOOD. And with the hidden lore collectibles to find around the maps it has a hint of, weirdly, Death Stranding in it if you go out solo exploring, setting down shortcuts with great wirebugs, finding lore collectibles amongst the ruins, with this pure focus on traversal. That's obviously not the game but it's what I've basically been doing so far - that and spending far too long just talking to villagers so I don't miss any of the dialogue. I just hit 2* village and I've been playing for hours

Yeah I've been playing the exact same way haha. The return to uneccessarily expansive flavour text is great too because that was really missing from world, and in retrospect the hubs felt comparatively lifeless in that game.

The hub is great. Not just lots of (very well wriiten) dialogue to add flavour, but npcs moving around between quests and interacting rather than static positions or just set paths. Makes it really feel alive. Didn't get any of that from World

Yeah plus people are around their actual houses, and the place is full of random kiosks you can't buy anything from. World has this colonialist feel which is fine for what it is, but the human part of its world then feels artificial, whereas everyone in Kamura seems to have both names and pre-established relationships with other characters. Only thing its missing is a farm like in pre-4th gen

Jezo wrote:Lore? I'm too busy tryna figure out how literally everything works lmao. Having a lot of fun so far despite probably not taking advantage of a lot of stuff I'm meant to. It's strangely addictive. GRCade Team hunts when?

would be down for this

Defeated the cover Monster this morning and the credits rolled, but I have a whole list of new 5 star quests. I'm also HR 3 with under 15 hours played. Really enjoying this one, much more than I did with World.

MH has a surprising amount of Lore which has been consistent throughout the series. It's just the devs never really elaborate on it much, even going as far out as refusing to. We still don't know where Kamura is located because they wanted to leave it up to fans to decide lol. I kinda wish they weren't this hush as the world of MH is rich, but the execution of how it's presented through narratives has always been weak. From what I've gathered from fans, 4U seems to be the strongest in terms of story.

Speakin' of team hunts would be cool to have a dedicated place to set up rooms. I guess Discord would be the place to go.

I just saw a TV advert for this, and when it said the title my mind immediately inserted “makes my willy”.

HaruKazuhira wrote:MH has a surprising amount of Lore which has been consistent throughout the series. It's just the devs never really elaborate on it much, even going as far out as refusing to. We still don't know where Kamura is located because they wanted to leave it up to fans to decide lol. I kinda wish they weren't this hush as the world of MH is rich, but the execution of how it's presented through narratives has always been weak. From what I've gathered from fans, 4U seems to be the strongest in terms of story.

4U has you travelling between multiple villages as you progress so it has more of an RPG-like advancement to it. It also has a great set piece opening that establishes that feeling really well with the sandship and d.mohran.

I loved how Monster Hunter Stories took the world and made a proper story RPG out of it. In general though I think the way worldbuilding is handled in the main series is really good as it is. The main problem with it is the same as pokemon - how the earlier games have less monsters and explaining that away is just difficult!

Good to know once you hit high rank

Magnamalo is scary. HR3 now

Can't see this being beaten for my goty

Currently going through 4 star. First Rampage hunt was pretty fun, tho I can see why folks aren't that big on it. Looking forward to more challenging ones. Also the Lava Caverns is such a cool area.

Not sure how I sit with rampages yet but its basically a different game and that's cool. I like the sub genre of tower defence where you play a character but the two rampages I've done have been very chaotic without the time for me to learn it or get comfortable - that seems maybe a deliberate design choice. As a reimagining of a lao shan style repel at the fortress quest I think its an improvement from just a drawn out dps test.

All the maps so far have been brilliant, really impressed with them.