You have stats and skills that you improve iteratively, but the core gameplay is real-time combat with monsters where you need to dodge and time your attacks. Let’s start with what exactly this game is. All the mechanical density and design details really come together in satisfying moments where you get to smash a giant transforming sword-axe into a roaring monster’s face mid-charge, breaking off its horn and sending it tumbling onto its ass. There just aren’t that many games that blend the addictive make-numbers-go-up motivators of RPGs with the compelling get-better-at-execution motivators of fighting games the way Monster Hunter Rise does.

Once you can break through and get used to enough of the Monster-Hunter-isms, you’ll find the rich flavors of something that isn’t really found elsewhere. Rise is absolutely the best first Monster Hunter game to play, but you still need to learn how to play a Monster Hunter game. You used to need to consult a fucking fan wiki just to know which parts of the monster you were supposed to hit. It’s hard to overstate just how much Monster Hunter World changed things.

2018’s Monster Hunter World was a revolution for the series in terms of quality-of-life improvements and general approachability, which is part of what made it Capcom’s best-selling title to date (finally unseating 2009’s Resident Evil 5).

The Monster Hunter games have historically been really esoteric (despite their incredibly simple titular premise), which I think is part of why they hadn’t been that big outside of Japan for the first 5-10 years of the series.

I want to recommend Monster Hunter Rise to you, especially now that the Sunbreak expansion is out.īut recommending the sixth mainline console release of the Monster Hunter series feels a little bit like recommending the sixth season of The Expanse: it’s good, but if you haven’t been following it all along, you probably feel like you’ve missed the boat already. In Monster Hunter’s case, “the boat” isn’t several installments of plot or lore (the series has no story to speak of across games), it’s several installments of familiarity with the game’s mechanics.

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