Monster Hunter Rise Review
At this point, I’ve been a fan of the Monster Hunter franchise for almost a third of my life. It started when my brother bought me a PlayStation Portable and a copy of Monster Hunter Freedom Unite for my 21st birthday because he knew I was far more interested in video games than alcohol. I liked it well enough but, because I didn’t realize it was primarily a multiplayer franchise, I thought it was monstrously difficult. About a year later, I desperately needed a game to play on the Wii and a couple friends persuaded me to join them in playing Monster Hunter Tri. Having much more fun with friends, I was a loyal fan across three games on the Nintendo 3DS. Monster Hunter World passed me by, thanks to a computer not strong enough to handle the game and having no friends who played it on consoles. But this past week I made my triumphant return to the franchise with Monster Hunter Rise on the Nintendo Switch.
Monster Hunter Rise casts players as a newly licensed monster hunter in the secluded village of Kamura. Though the occasional monster is nothing noteworthy for Kamura, it is periodically set upon by The Rampage, a strange phenomenon that sees scores of normally solitary monsters attack the village in unison. At the game’s opening, there are hints that The Rampage is returning, meaning that along with normal monster hunts, players must contend with the assailing hordes and determine what is causing The Rampage.
It’s fitting that the main plot point of Monster Hunter Rise is The Rampage and constant high-stakes fights because my favorite thing about it is the emphasis on getting players into the fight as quickly as possible and doing fun, flashy moves once there. The first part of this is the first of three animal companions accompanying players, an owl cohort known, in traditional Monster Hunter pun fashion, as a Cohoot. Automatically deployed at the beginning of every hunt, the Cohoot constantly reveals to players where any and all monsters are on the map. At first I was on the fence about this, part of me missed the challenge of tracking a monster via paint and tracks, but I soon came to appreciate it for how much quicker it got me to the actual monster hunting in the game about hunting monsters. The second aspect of the game’s high energy theme is another animal companion: the Palamute, large dogs that players can ride on the hunt. Palamutes are markedly faster than the player and never tire, making them ideal modes of transport towards the monsters. Better still, players can use items from Palamute-back while still moving, eliminating periodic stops to drink a potion or sharpen a weapon.
The third and most versatile factor of Monster Hunter Rise’s high-octane theme are Wirebugs. Though they appear to be massive fireflies, Wirebugs produce silk strands of incredible strength that are used by players to zip around the hunting ground like an off-brand Spider-Man and execute bombastic special attacks. Compared to the Palamutes, Wirebugs aren’t as useful for sustained travel, instead used for short-range rapid movement. This allows players to get away from monster attacks, close distances quickly, or jump in for an aerial attack. Players can also use Wirebugs to pull themselves to walls or other vertical surfaces and run up them, provided they have the stamina to make the climb. Not content to stop there, Wirebugs also give players access to special attacks unique to each weapon class. These attacks temporarily render one or more of the player’s Wirebugs unusable to perform an attack that is almost a hyperbolic expression of one of that weapon’s capabilities. The great sword, my weapon of choice, is a weapon all about devastating single attacks and the Wirebug moves echo that with preposterous leaping attacks, while the lance, a weapon all about attacking from the personal bastion of a huge shield, has Wirebug moves that harness blocked attacks to boost the player’s own power. These attacks are an enjoyable extra strategic layer and, more importantly, feel extremely cool.
Paradoxically, while the theme of The Rampage brings dynamic fun to Monster Hunter Rise, The Rampage itself is a sizeable wet blanket on the game. The very literally titled Rampage Missions represent The Rampage coming to town and turns the game on its head. During these quests, instead of departing for a hunting ground in pursuit of a monster, players instead garrison the walls of Kamura Village to fend off the oncoming monster stampede. To do this, players set aside the weapons they’ve spent the game learning and improving and play an Orcs Must Die-style third-person tower defense game. This entirely new game is, looked at in a vacuum, pretty good. There are an interesting variety of defensive structures the player can build and use, including the ability to summon various inhabitants of Kamura to fight The Rampage. That said, these missions are a bizarre inclusion and feel like a frustrating, pointless diversion. The saving grace of these unwelcome speed bumps is that in 35 hours of playing, I was only required to do these missions twice, and one of those was with the help of a cadre of internet strangers found through the game’s multiplayer. I could have chosen to do more to earn their unique resource rewards, but it never felt worth it. Maybe when my friends catch up to me and we can play these together, it won’t be as bad, but I can’t imagine it ever being good.
Monster Hunter Rise is a very welcome modernization of the franchise that brings some welcome quality of life changes and a delightfully frantic intensity to the combat. The Rampage missions are unquestionably a bad spot but it seems like a thing players won’t need to engage with often if they don’t want. I think the main thing that might give players reason to pass is a problem with the Switch itself. Joycons are small with smaller than average shoulder buttons and iffy analog sticks. If you have trouble using Joycons in fast-paced situations that require a moderate degree of technical accuracy, you might need to buy a Pro Controller or other accessory to do well in Monster Hunter Rise, which is as much as the game and then some. I don’t imagine that will be a concern for most, but it’s worth mentioning. Other than that, I can wholeheartedly recommend Monster Hunter Rise for it’s full $60 price tag.
Buy this game at full price
It’s worth every penny they’re asking
