Monster Hunter Rise on the Switch and PC

The Anjanath was cool. You know what was not cool? The Bazelgeuse.

Yes, I’m still mad.

I thought I was enjoying Rise more than World, but the more I play it, the more it seems the reverse.
The maps are very different and feel both more intimate, but more vast in World, and the monsters moving around all the time feels infinitely better than the robotic “tick” processing of Rise.

Also the monsters have been anything but the horrible Hit Sponges they have become in Rise (and from I gather, that trend began with Iceborne, which I didn’t buy).

The Bazelgeuse in Rise was one of the easiest monsters to hunt. I can’t wait to discover her true form!

I loved World so much, but the Iceborne jumpers were such a pain in the ass.

Edit: Feh! The gunner aiming in MHGU offends me so much. Clunky as hell. Maybe I’ll try hammer.

I never liked the aiming for the bowguns in MHGU (they require a lot of twitch reflexes and turning around), but coped with it for the bow, and it’s satisfying feel of impunity against some aggravating monsters (Rajang >_<).

I’ll continue to tell my World adventure in the wrong thread.
I just enjoy it a lot, although I can’t play online yet, as I am focusing on my beloved Lance, and haven’t found a piece of armor to counter the other player’s staggering.
I thought the environments were nice, but the arrival at the Coral Highlands honestly took my breath away like few games did since Shenmue 2.
Another thing I have been enjoying (I’m still playing at very low rank) is that some monsters just mind their own business without even noticing you, while others are more protective, and some will downright hunt you down if they got a grudge against you (like old time favourite Rathian). In Rise, all the monsters behaved according to the same aggressive framework — justified vaguely by some pretty silly story element that didn’t make sense past a point.

Are you on PC?

Sadly, yes. Need to move the game to the mostly empty SSD too, as I think it’s one of the few that’d benefit from it.

Iceborne monsters aren’t hit sponges, really. The real problem with them is how much they move and how fast they are, which means you hit them less, and thus it takes more time to beat them, which may give the impression they’re hit sponges.

I guess that’s why my main weapon in Iceborne is pretty much the Sword & Shield - the added mobility, coupled with the ability to do big damage when you get an opening, is a pretty good option against the super-mobile monsters in Iceborne.

Iceborne also had the clutch claw - there was the classic rotation “tenderise, bash them into the wall twice to enrage them” before actually fighting which meant monsters spent almost all their time enraged so at max hyperactivity. Is there something similar in Rise? Maybe the wyvern riding bits?

Oh that sounds in some ways similar to the pattern to properly fight a lot of monsters in Rise, although it is not required, as the game is much easier.
Monsters do spend most of their time enraged, because of the fixed conditions at which the rage state should happen, and because of all of those flags being queued and triggered in succession for 20 minutes. Not my favourite part, as I always enjoyed exhausting and knocking out monsters in MHGU.
Also, I don’t know about World, but Rise makes exploiting bad status very pattern-ish. You get to trigger each one once per fight, usually quite early, and that’s about it. It makes a lot of the special ammo/moves/stats on weapons redundant, and going for pure damage the only “right” way.

I’ve seen my group play (the console T_T version of) Iceborne for a while, and any hunt was taking well over 30 minutes. If those are not sponges to you!
And with the monster being enraged all the time, it looked absolutely exhausting.
Rise suffered from the same lengthy fights in its current endgame, until a few crazy builds were found.
I have the feeling those super healthy monsters were the result of a sort of powercreep happening in the game because of a couple of very strong builds (light bowgun and double blade were the ones I recall) making the game easier, and the workaround they found was to pump the hit points ten-times on post endgame monsters. Which leaves the standard weapons builds as mosquitoes flying around the monster, a mere distraction to them.
I guess that’s why I focused on the lance and shield in that game, ha!

Yeah, I really did not like the clutch claw “one way to play” railroad they introduced to Iceborne. I loved the base game so much and the expansion really left a bad taste in my mouth. I want to go back and finish it, but I’m afraid it will just suck all the way through because I find the claw way too fiddly to be fun.

There are ways around it. I mean, Sword & Shield has an attack that will wound the part it attaches to automatically, and it’s often easier to pull off correctly than a “normal” claw attach. It was another reason I played S&S a lot in Iceborne.

On the other hand, if you’re a lance player (and I love lance in MHW), you might have a much harder time softening the parts you want, so there’s that. :(

Well, I’ve always danced around the edges of being an SnS player so maybe I ought to give it a shot.

~35 hours in I finally made it to high rank.

I like the idea of the gunlance, but I keep getting beat up due to the commitment times of all the different moves/combos, so I can never get my shield up quick enough. I ended up finding myself turtling a bunch and doing shield pokes, at which point I might as well play lance.

So now I’m debating going to lance, bow, or maybe give charge blade another shot (and ignore the sword until I start getting into a flow). I just want to change to a weapon that allows me to react quicker.

I’m trying to decide if I want to buy this. World was my first game in the series, and even though my playthrough feels incomplete since I quit before the end of Iceborne, I have no desire to go back to it now. This game seems like a simple way to get some Monster Hunter action without having to play World again. Rise seems to be shorter than most MH games, which is a plus. $48 on sale is a minus.

My other concern is what weapon I’d use. I really liked insect glaive and longsword, and I liked the charge blade. I’d be tempted to use one of those again but that feels a little boring. So I’m a little paralyzed and might just forget the whole thing.

It’s a fine game for what it does, which is a friendlier World environment to play in. Sadly, it also means the game is much more predictable, and if you’re looking for challenge, you might want to wait for the expansion, hoping it doesnt simply turn into grind but actual challenge.

Otherwise, MHGU is right there, still active as ever, and with the best gameplay of the series ;D

Keep in mind Rise is releasing on PC in 5 days too.

I don’t think I’m looking for a challenge. I just want to have fun hitting stuff.

Yes indeed.

I love how Capcom thinks anyone cares about some video filters.

There is a demo to figure if you find the hitting stuff part pleasurable. There is also one for the VASTLY SUPERIOR mhgu.

I am up to about 60+ hours in Rise. I really enjoy it but definitely enjoy World better, and if it wasn’t for the fact that World won’t let me pause the game I’d probably be playing world instead (I like the environments more, plus I’m not that far into Iceborne).

Rise’s special quests (called rampages) are more fun than Zorah by far, but I absolutely hated it the first 1-2 times until it finally clicked.

Thanks. If anyone is willing to take the time, I’d be happy to hear from more veterans whether they think my use case is a good fit. I’ve already played the demo and thought the combat was fun as always. The environments are boring but didn’t really bother me. I just wanted to ride quickly to the monster.

HLTB shows it’s a much shorter game than other recent entries. Is that just from the lack of expansions or is the base game smaller in general? It’s actually a major plus for me. If I can get in, kill monsters for 20 hours with minimal extra cruft, and get out before the February gaming deluge, that would be perfect.