Monster Hunter Rise on the Switch and PC

There’s a bit of discussion in the Monster Hunter World thread, but I think this deserves its own thread.

Looks way better than I expected from a Switch Monster Hunter.

I’m all in on this!

There was a bit more info in the Direct where they revealed the game:

There are also a couple of Japanese livestreams coming up at TGS in a week or so, where they’ll show off live gameplay.

Definitely gonna get this. In fact I got MHGU for $16 to warm up.

I’m anxiously waiting for the gameplay footage to show whether this will play more like World, like Generations or (wishful thinking) a dreamed mix of the two.

Or wishful thinking, like dark souls.

Having never played a Monster Hunter, I am always a little impressed by the fervent loyalty and enthusiasm the series seems to generate among its fans. What’s the core gameplay loop like? What is it that Makes Monster Hunting Fun?

It appeals to the simulationist in me, a bit. Monster Hunting requires preparation to a variable extent. You need to sometimes tailor your equipment and items to the kinds of things the monster will do. You have to learn the monster’s “habits,” not only its attack patterns and weak spots but where it likes to hang out and so forth. You get to learn the lay of the land (in World at least), good places to find certain items, good places to fight certain monsters. You have to learn the quirks and combos of your chosen weapon(s). It’s part fighting game, part Shadow of the Colossus, (smaller) part Hunter: Call of the Wild.

Oh, and in World for me at least, a big part of the fun is just doing pick up hunts with random people. I like it a hell of a lot more than vs play.

For me, in World ( the only MH I’ve personally played ), it is the very constrained gameplay loop itself that makes it fun. Slap on some gear, grab some potions, and go fight a huge monster. Typical fights are 15-20min so it serves as a great quick in-and-out game when I don’t want to devote hours and hours to something. The monsters themselves are typically quite large, so it is like a continuous stream of MMO boss fights without quite a much setup (at least for my more casual style).

For good players, there is more to it. Gear optimization, harder monsters to choose from, speedruns, etc. For those at the very top-end of play I can only assume the novelty eventually runs out without addition of new monsters to fight (which hasn’t been an issue to this point).

From what my son has told me, other MH games tend more to the harder-core Dark Souls type crowd. Preparation is much less casual, extensive crafting is required, and not sucking at combat is a thing. This is why something like Generations can exist at the same time as World. And he tells me quite often to not even bother trying (as he knows my skill level in World…)

Your son is right. What I like about Classical MH is learning harder and harder variations of the monsters: some are terrible, some are joys to fight. In multiplayer with virtual friends, epic or wacky things happen all the time. The monster’s personality comes through the way they fight you and you fight them, that’s really unique.
Often you are told you shouldn’t mash buttons in games, but MH is really the one that punishes you if you do, and rewards you thousandfolds if you don’t.
Also each weapons (and style) in MHGU is like a new game. Learning a new one reboots the game’s enjoyment.
I also like that you have to make hard choices about what to bring: your limited inventory space is a very important limit in the later game. See, interesting decisions on top :O

It’s amazing.

Hey now - you don’t know how bad I am at MHW :)

I meant about his assessment of older MH, not about your skills!

All we really know is that it uses World-style open maps, rather than the discrete zones of the older games, with more emphasis on quickly going vertical.

I do doubt they’ll go back to making you carry picks, nets, etc.

Any particular aspects of the classic games you are hoping to see? :)

This is literally the only thing I care about. While I’ve played some MHGU, I haven’t progressed enough to notice any difference between it and MHW (which I completed) as far as combat itself is concerned. But oh my god I’d be lying if I said that I’m not constantly accidentally zoning to a new area during encounters. It’s my one complaint about the game.

I was wondering about the “open world”. It felt like larger maps, but not necessarily an open world? I understand I am in the minority of people who really love the old “arena” style split rooms (it makes everything just less confusing to me).
Speaking of confusing, I love the simpler graphics of classic, and they seem to have gone for that here, although the game looks quite a bit drab compared to GU.

Watching World, I also dearly missed the annoying Palico backnoise. It’s one of the first thing that annoyed me in MH 15 years ago, but Palico being balls of noise and stress is just part of the stress relief and fun of the game. I also liked the grunting, no speech but gibberish atmosphere of the earlier games: it made it feel like this was a quite primitive and fighting for survival human society, but a slightlly comical one at it still. It seems this one may have voice acting, sadly.

As for stuff from the classic, I actually hope there will be picks and nets and stuff: one of the decisions was to bring those and be greedy, or to bring more monster pestering or party boosting items.
Of course this only mattered in multiplayer.

I also hope the slower pace and unforgiveness of making poor moves of Classic is there. When you commit to a defensive or attack move, you don’t as much react as anticipate in Classic, even in the maligned Adept style. I understand this is what was throwing a lot of people off before World, as you need to really learn distance, moves and pacing of various monsters, and you are mostly getting punished during the course.

I hope players can be a real pain to each others in multiplayer if they don’t know how to coordinate. That is a really, really huge thing in Classic. Learning your hunting mates habits, minding your placement, taking turns at attacking the monster or distracting it, knowing what to aim for when attacking the monster depending on your weapon and style… Classic is really an incredible multiplayer experience — 4 players going solo on a challenging monster hardly ever ends in anything but a quick “hunt failed” prompt.

I finally hope that we get to play again as Palicos. That was an awesome change of pace and scale.

TGS gameplay!

Looks awesome! I especially like the rideable thing.

Interview with the director and producer from TGS: https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2020-10-06-monster-hunter-rise-looks-like-itll-be-the-best-of-both-worlds

I think the biggest confirmation from the interview is that ‘so tasty!’ is back! Yay!

Some Greatsword gameplay and narration.

Some dual sword gameplay. I wonder if meth is a requirement for that weapon, the character seems a bit of a spaz.