Hey, what do you know. Here’s a game review.

There are two stages to the Monster Hunter experience.  I call the first stage “Monster” – a new monster beats you up and you be like, “how the hell do I beat this?”  Eventually you do and it’s super rewarding.  You begin to get better and better at the game, then you find yourself at the second stage – “Hunter”.  At this stage, the game becomes a sport game.  You no longer “beat” the monsters, you “hunt” them over and over.  You are already at the end game, but the fun has just begun.

In terms of gameplay, Monster Hunter Rise is no doubt the best in the series.  CAPCOM really understands action games.  Rise keeps the awesomeness in World and takes it to the next level.  The sheer amount of QOL improvement is unbelievable.  Just like everyone has been saying in the reviews.

However, I have mixed feelings about Rise. I wish Rise was initially released on PC. I wish World had the improvements that Rise had. The hardware limitations of Switch have really limited imagination. Everything in Rise feels…small. Even though they improved the graphics for PC port, it’s still rough. The UI is still low-res. Even though I’m playing on a big TV, it feels like I’m playing on emulator with 400% zoom. Have you seen how stunning Astera is in World? The whole village is powered by waterfall and is made up of ships travelled from the old world. In Rise, you just have a small Japanese village. Do you remember how breathtaking Ancient forest is in World? It’s huge and it feels alive. In Rise, maps are just parkour playgrounds made up of simple shapes with low-res texture.

Story telling in Rise sucks.  The story is like a cringy show meant for 9-year-olds.  It’s cool that they integrated traditional Japanese stuff into the game, but it failed to impress.  Monster designs are good, but they lack character.  If you compare the flagship monsters, Nergigante from World is ruthless and ambitious.  He doesn’t fight with any cheap gimmicks but only brute force.  He has presence throughout the story till the end of Iceborne.  It gives you a sense of rivalry and you respect this beast.  Meanwhile, Magnamalo in Rise is just an angry boi and Nergigante-wannabe.  You don’t know much about him besides him hitting like a truck.  

There are memorable moments in World’s story telling, which I have yet to find in Rise.  I remember I was absolutely stunned by the final boss battle in Iceborne and so glad that Reddit community was very careful not to spoil it for us.  I remember when travelling back to the old world to face Fatalis, Aiden’s “Ya ready?” question gave me flash backs to the very beginning – he asked the same question when we were in the ship to the new world.  It made me realize that I have come such a long way, starting from hiding in bushes to avoid Jagras, to now preparing to fight literately the strongest monster in the world.  What a subtle and brilliant way to wrap up the adventure!

World showed us that there can be more to the experience than just “Monster” and “Hunter”.  Unfortunately, Rise only focuses on these two. Maybe they didn’t have the budget, maybe they needed to keep the file size small.  Coming from World, I was already a “Hunter”, no monster in Rise really made me struggle, so I didn’t have the “Monster” part of the experience and jumped straight into the “Hunter” part.  You can see why I was let down.

With all that being said, I still can’t wait to launch the game for another hunt.  Like I said, the gameplay is awesome.  I’d definitely recommend.  I just wanted to express my feelings as someone who came from World. I’m sure many can relate.