Monster Hunter: World was the first game of the Monster Hunter franchise that I had ever tried. I started and restarted multiple times before it finally clicked with me and I got sucked into the gameplay and mechanics. I tried multiple weapons and playstyles, and I experimented with load-outs that I found to be fun and engaging. My enjoyment from this point lasted many hours and I only scratched the surface of the DLC before I finally got fatigued enough to put it down. And while Monster Hunter: Rise was a Nintendo Switch exclusive at first—which definitely showed in its graphical quality—it eventually came to Steam and I found myself using my Steam Deck to begin more thoroughly moving through the latest installment.

The Short of It

What I’ve Played

• Single-player only

• 40+ hours

• Seen credits

Pros

• Traversal and dog-familiar mechanics make the maps easy to explore quickly

• Wirebug mechanics add to the traversal and combat in ways that add significant depth to the overall experience

• Tower-defense mode is relatively fun and more engaging than previous game special encounters

• Some unique monster designs

• Monster Hunter charm is still present in its fun goofiness

• Added weapon modes open up combat in cool ways

Cons

• Maps, weapon designs, and armor designs are bland in comparison to what was on display in Monster Hunter: World

• Music ranges from weak to outright bad; I turned it off completely after a short amount of time

• Takes a long time before encountering a monster that poses a real challenge

• World seems empty and stale in spots

The Rest of It

Story

You’re part of the monster-hunting group that is situated somewhere in the world that is overwhelmingly Japanese in tone and style. There are monsters in and around the area that need to be hunted. Occasionally the town is under threat and you need to defend them. The end.

I honestly forgot the story as I was still progressing through it because it matters so little to the experience. You’re not playing Monster Hunter for the meticulously crafted narrative or complex characters. If you are, then you need to reassess what games you’re playing and why you don’t play games with an actual story.

Gameplay

The gameplay is truly where Monster Hunter: Rise stands out, even in comparison to other Monster Hunter titles. We’ll get to what makes Rise special in a moment, but first, we’ll briefly talk about the gameplay of MH in general for those who may not have played one before.

There are far too many mechanics in any Monster Hunter game to fit into a single review, but the overall structure is pretty much the same. There’s a central hub that has a variety of services and stores to help you on your adventures. You can gather materials, send out lackeys to hunt for materials separately, grab a meal for some temporary bonuses and buffs, and craft new gear to improve your hunting opportunities. Once you are ready to move out, you can travel to the map on which the quest’s monster is roaming and begin the hunt.

While hunting for a specific monster, you are also able to hunt other large or smaller monsters in the habitat. Killing or capturing monsters yields rewards that you can then use to craft gear and items. On the hunt, you can also just explore the map and gather materials. This includes grabbing bugs, plants, bones, or any other special items you happen to find, which can then be used to craft items to better improve your hunt. If you haven’t noticed, there’s a fair amount of material gathering and item crafting in Monster Hunter, as that is the core gameplay loop: you go out on hunts to get new materials, to then get better gear, to then go on tougher hunts and get new materials for better gear.

Where things are interesting is in the combat with the monsters. There are plenty of small monsters to hunt and net some basic rewards, but they’re usually relatively weak and die quickly. The big monsters, however, are like boss fights as they have much more health and their own sets of special skills and phases. Unless you have high-level gear and are hunting weak monsters, these big beasts are likely to take around a dozen minutes to a half-hour to beat. While fighting them, you’ll have to use the variations of the attacks of your weapon to strike during openings in the monsters’ defenses, while being aware and cautious enough to avoid the monsters’ wrath. Some monsters come with their share of traits that can make them especially deadly. If you get hit too many times, you’re likely to get stunned or knocked out completely, which can lead to mission failure if it happens too often. This is where having the right consumable items can change the tide of the battle, but it’s a delicate balance and can be difficult to manage during an intense battle.

How you approach each encounter depends on your loadout and playstyle. Monster Hunter: Rise has a number of weapon types that have been in many of the previous games, which can be used in both long-range and close combat. I personally prefer using slower, heavy-hitting weapons like the charge-blade and big sword, but with the new mechanics of Rise, even the big weapons have more versatility and movement to make you a tricky threat for any monster. Each weapon has its own set of moves that can lead to big attacks, status effects, or defensive abilities that you’ll need to master so you can attack at the right times and avoid the strikes from the monsters in the process. It’s all a juggling act of using your weapons, items, and skills effectively at the right moments and hitting the monsters hard in the right spots to capitalize on opportunities.

Where Rise sets itself apart from other MH games is in its traversal and the bonuses the wirebugs provide. In addition to having a small cat companion who acts as a weak version of another player dishing out damage and healing, you now have a dog companion that is big and fast enough to ride. These guys zip all over the locales and can climb certain surfaces quickly to get you from one end of the map to another in record time, which makes tracking down wounded monsters a lot easier. These little guys also have their own set of attacks and act as a second friend in battle. Neither the dog or cat is going to completely distract the monster during the battle, or deliver the fatal blow, but they do their part to help in a pinch.

Traveling quickly is not limited to just using your dog buddy, however. Rise allows you to run up practically any surface and parkour your way to the top of a mountain, so long as you have enough stamina. While previous MH games required you to climb only certain parts of the terrain, Rise gives you a ton of freedom to move around. In addition, the wirebugs are nifty little things that allow you to zip through or hang in the air like a trapeze artist with a grappling hook. Each bug operates with a cooldown, but it’s fast and you’re able to use them frequently to get around any hazard, including the big monsters. The bugs are not only useful for jumping around during battles. They can be used to set up big attacks, or used with special abilities of your weapons. For example, the charge-blade has a shield that can deflect big attacks, but the wirebug can be used with it to buff your defenses even more. With all these mechanics in play, Monster Hunter is at its best and the additions of Rise elevate the experience to the best it’s been.

Presentation

This is where the game takes a bit of a nosedive for me. It’s not too often that the overall presentation of a game has a really significant effect on my experience to the point that it overshadows the gameplay or story. However, that certainly is the case with Monster Hunter: Rise.

In terms of gameplay, Rise is easily an improvement over Monster Hunter: World. Returning monsters have new attacks to shake up the combat. Your weapons have new attacks and special abilities in conjunction with the wirebugs. You can mount monsters and have them do combat with each other. Your companions and wirebugs let you zip and jump all over the landscape, making it easy to explore and catch up with escaping monsters. Some obtuse mechanics in World have been simplified. It’s difficult to complain about the quality of life changes that have been made in Rise to keep things interesting.

The problem is that Monster Hunter: World’s different maps, including even the main hub, were so dense in details and layers that Rise feels extremely bland by comparison. Rise was originally a Nintendo Switch exclusive, so the game was significantly trimmed down in terms of detail to be able to run on the platform. I believe it’s so significant a trimming of detail that it is a heavy detriment to the game. The maps are just boring in comparison. Sure, there are underground caves, waterfalls, big structures, canyons, and secret paths to explore in Rise’s terrain. And traversing the terrain is easy with all the acrobatic mechanics at your disposal. But the world is bland and really lacking the detail that pulled me into World.

Likewise, I don’t care much for the various weapon and armor designs. While there were a ton of outfits for you and your palico buddy in World that looked cool or goofy enough to be entertaining. Some weapons were so badass-looking that I jumped around from weapon to weapon just to try them out and see if it was more fun. That simply isn’t the case with Rise’s equipment. The number of armor pieces that looked interesting and the total weapons I’ve seen that made me think “that’s rad” has been extremely paltry by comparison. Since weapons and armor are not something that should have been impacted by the paired-down design for the sake of Nintendo’s hardware, I can only look to the artists for the lack of interesting gear.

It didn’t help that I didn’t care for the music and overall sound. Rise took a very Japanese aesthetic approach to its world and presentation, and while I’m a former weeb who doesn’t typically have a problem with the Gagaku style the game uses to introduce new monsters, I quickly did two things after the first couple of hunts: I turned off the music and I stopped watching the intro videos to the monsters with sound on. First of all, the music is just bad. When you’re exploring the maps or fighting the monsters, it’s not terrible. It’s just your typical ambient or battle music—completely mindless and forgettable stuff. When you are on the landing menu or in town, however, you have to suffer the annoying singing of one of the maidens who never shuts up. I didn’t care for her songs and got tired of it quickly. I also didn’t enjoy the little haikus that introduced new monsters. If you have Japanese audio selected, it’s told in the very theatrical Japanese singing format, which is appropriate for the theme. It’s not necessarily something I wanted to hear over and over, but it’s even worse if English is selected. In English, the poems are rewritten to rhyme, like lame nursery limericks.

TL;DR

Perhaps you feel differently from me if you’ve played this for yourself, especially if this is your first experience with the franchise, or your perspective has not been colored in the same way mine has. However, I just found Rise’s world and style to be extremely bland and even occasionally grating when I compared the game to its predecessor. Despite the undeniable improvements to the gameplay, I would much rather give up the wirebugs and quick traversal to return to Monster Hunter: World to revisit the different lands and monsters that were present in the main game and DLC. Rise is still a worthy entry in the series, and recommendable to Monster Hunter fans, thanks to all the great new mechanics it brings to the table. I just hope that Monster Hunter: World’s spiritual successor ends up being more like World in style and scope, and more like Rise with mechanics and gameplay.