Although Nintendo was not immediately the home of Monster Hunter, with the first chapters removed, every single game in the series was designed and released for Nintendo platforms. This at least until Monster Hunter World, an episode that a couple of years ago marked the return of the brand on Sony consoles. If your first love is never forgotten, often it's not what you end up building a future with, and Monster hunter rise is proof of this (as you continue reading the review it will become clear why). The new chapter of the series, although it manages in many respects to take what good (and innovative) the World has brought, still remains more faithful to previous chapters, either for the possible portability of the game, or for the fact that the production, at least for a few months, will be exclusive to Nintendo Switch. So let's find out our Monster Hunter Rise review.
Hunting for monsters
The village we will start from this time is called Kamura and, like everything else in the game, it takes inspiration from Japanese culture: starting from the game music up to every single graphic effect, detail and HUD, Monster hunter rise it transpires the Japanese culture and does it with strong respect. The plot of the game, as always meant to be almost a detail in comparison to the rest of the work, leads our hunter in search of a terrible legendary monster which, if not stopped in time, could lead to the destruction of the village. To stop him, of course, first we will have to hunt other monsters in order to improve our technique and our equipment, and in doing so many villagers will come to help us, all NPCs well characterized from an aesthetic and character point of view.
Monster Hunter Rise starts his adventure by offering the player right away two types of missions: if those of hunting the classics remain, this time the title also has missions village, useful both to complete objectives and to give newbies the opportunity to discover the game mechanics. This duality makes the title suitable both for newcomers, perhaps in love with what they have discovered in Monster Hunter World, and for the old hardcore gamers of the saga who, accustomed to much more punitive chapters, will find bread for their teeth immediately in the hunts.
Before analyzing the gameplay in this review of Monster hunter rise, words must be spent regarding the aesthetic style of the game: Monster Hunter World, according to some fans of the series, offered a decidedly too realistic and "serious" graphics compared to the saga known on Nintendo laptops. So if this chapter has in any case destroyed the sales records of the brand, Monster Hunter Rise takes a step back and proposes more graphics "cartoonish“, Featuring colorful monsters, much more exaggerated weapons in terms of size and locations with a more radiant color scale. The title, however, aware of the players' desire to have many possibilities inside, offers different biomes, each with characteristic and fantastic flora and fauna to see.
A new way to hunt
The big news of this Monster Hunter Rise lies in the wire insects, a gameplay mechanic that makes the game more dynamic in many respects: in fact, these will allow you to perform various actions in mid-air, which in the previous Monster Hunter it required a lot of technique and the use of some specific attack patterns (only some weapons). Now, however, thanks to these wire insects, our hunter will be able to throw himself vertically, project himself frontally and even jump from one wall to another: obviously you will not have unlimited use of these insects, since they will present their own cooldown, but if you certainly had to rely only on dodges and somersaults before to kill a monster, now you can even pass over it while it charges, or even throw yourself from one side of the map to the other. Exploration also benefits, as wire insects will allow you to climb steep walls in seconds (which will also give you the chance to explore the whole map which now, finally, will no longer require loading from one area to another.
However, the thread bugs will not only serve this purpose: in fact, in the game you can even use them for cvaulting monsters, especially useful when you are on the hunting field with more than one enemy. This way you can get on their backs, use their attacks and deal massive damage to your enemies (for a limited time). The Felyne, these fantastic cats that will offer you support in your battles, but this time they will not be alone: next to you, in fact, you will also have a Canyne, a real dog useful both for moving quickly from one area to another (since it will act as a mount) and really supportive in the fight (since it will bite the enemy and offer you ideas to attack him from behind). This trio dynamic that you will find in single player missions, in multiplayer will become a duo by making you choose which of the two to take you, so you can decide whether to focus everything on attack and movement or support in battle. Talking about multiplayer, the game allows the player to form teams of 4 players to be able to hunt: as always, some monsters will be truly unbeatable if done alone, so it is obvious that it becomes necessary in the long run to have a team (and of course a Nintendo Switch subscription Online).
Simple doesn't mean easy
One of the things that most stands out from this Monster hunter rise it concerns the simplicity applied to the game: if in fact before many dynamics required more grinding, now everything has been simplified in favor of a faster concretization speed. Armor and weapons will require fewer materials to craft, tools for farm materials they will no longer destroy themselves after a certain number of uses and even the use of certain items will not force the hunter to sit still. But don't make the mistake of thinking that simple means easy; if in fact these features make the game more "lively", the idea is that even the monsters will be during the hunt. Moving while using objects or having powerful weapons quickly is a fast road that runs parallel to the increasing difficulty of your sizes, right from the start (at least in hunting) really difficult to complete.
This steep climb, as already mentioned, it is obvious by training in the village missions, and therefore nothing too difficult for newbies, yet the idea of having so many sizes to be able to hunt and of such difficulty makes the game an interesting challenge. However Monster Hunter it has always been a game dedicated to hunting in its entirety, starting with planning and studying the area up to the methods for knocking out the creature on duty. However, the endemic fauna will help you, animals of various types of the place that you can capture for some really useful momentary bonuses.
Artistically we have already talked about the return to a less realistic style, and this is also seen in the monsters you will hunt, all fantastically more colorful. It is also noted that Monster Hunter Rise is a heartfelt tribute to Japan, starting from the music up to the introduction scenes, terribly close to the Japanese world. This dynamic also extends to creatures: although many have already been released in other chapters of the brand, monsters like the Magnamalo make this stylistic choice particularly evident. In fact, it is enough to look at it to perceive how the reference to the samurai, their armor and their stylistic features are preponderant. Technically, the game suffers from some slowdown in the most excited phases, nothing so deficient though. For the rest, the glance is certainly inferior to that of World, but in a certain sense this effect is intentional; the brand with Monster hunter rise takes a leap back not for some limitations of the console, but for a determined desire to give users a game more faithful to its fanbase. If in addition to Monster Hunter Rise, you are interested in the World, we invite you to read our review.
