Monster hunter riders concept art Pc#
Monster hunter riders concept art series#

And while the Switch’s comparably weak hardware means things don’t look quite as crisp as I got used to with World, it’s frankly remarkable how close Rise gets. Monster Hunter is about hunting some dang monsters, and here the options available, locations to fight in, and techniques to do so with are, on the whole, superb. I missed that a little in Rise, where unlocking new areas or being sent on key hunts rarely had much relation to the story or your actions in it – and again, that’s not a deal breaker by any means or even necessarily something I’m looking for from Monster Hunter, but it’s still a place Rise takes a noticeable step backward from World.īut minor issues like that are far overshadowed by the massive (literal) leap forward Rise takes in the hunts themselves. Its story wasn’t much thicker, but it did provide a nice sense of discovery and continuity that made it feel like you were actually exploring its new continent. That doesn’t make the fights around those scenes any less exciting, but it’s important to point out that the improvements World made weren’t only mechanical.

It’s told through a scant few cutscenes where English voice acting is stutteringly dubbed to match what appear to be unaltered Japanese lip flaps in a way that does neither any favors.

Monster hunter riders concept art series#

Story has never been the point of a Monster Hunter game (Capcom has a series literally called Monster Hunter Stories for that), so it’s no surprise that the one in Rise is as thin as tissue paper. This mishmash of old ideas with some compelling new ones of its own makes Rise feel like a huge mechanical step forward compared to Generations Ultimate, but more of a sidestep in the context of World and its Iceborne expansion. Meanwhile, other things like separate Village and Hub questlines for single- and multiplayer and the ability to tweak a weapon’s playstyle a bit return from older Monster Hunter games.

For example, much of the streamlining World did has been carried forward, including tweaks like load-free maps, weapon-sharpening whetstones not being consumable, and healing items being usable while walking – all of which feel vital after spending hundreds of hours with them in World. That means there’s a mix of old and new ideas here, some of which are more successful than others.

Monster hunter riders concept art Pc#

(For context, World outsold the previously most popular game in the series by at least 11 million copies, so for a huge chunk of current Monster Hunter fans it’s all they’ve ever known.) That’s relevant here because Rise feels a little more like a follow-up to the most recent Switch entry, Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate, that benefits from many of World’s impressive evolutions rather than a successor to World itself – which makes some sense, given World never came to Switch and Rise is a Switch exclusive (until it comes to PC next year). The systems that house all that depth have given Monster Hunter a reputation for being daunting to learn, but 2018’s Monster Hunter World shattered that barrier by streamlining many aspects and making the series accessible to a wider audience than ever before. Success relies on a healthy balance of preparation and skill, and it’s kept fresh by the variety of 14 radically different weapons types you can swap between, the strategic puzzle of breaking and severing specific parts of a monster rather than just whacking at it mindlessly, and the everlasting allure of that next piece of sweet gear. Each hunt is essentially an epic boss fight against a specific monster or two, all of which are incredibly diverse in both visual design and behavior a successful hunt earns you materials used to craft better equipment that will, in turn, allow you to take down harder monsters – and so on and so forth. Its scope and progression can feel flatter than that of Monster Hunter World at its launch (including a conspicuous lack of Elder Dragons), making it seem like a foundation waiting to be built upon – but after spending dozens of hours with Rise’s wonderfully enhanced mobility and faster pace, it’s going to be hard to ever go back to the way things were before.įor those new to the series, Monster Hunter Rise is all about killing or capturing giant, spectacular monsters and turning them into pairs of pants (among other pieces of gear), this time with an awesome feudal Japanese theme throughout. In a series already known for providing thrilling battles you can’t really get elsewhere, Monster Hunter Rise still manages to surprise and delight. There’s nothing quite like piloting a fire-breathing T-rex like a runaway train through an overflowing volcano before using it to beat the crap out of a dragon.