It’s time to RISE!
Capcom’s beloved long-running franchise returns with its new addition to the monster hunter line: Monster hunter rise, released on the Nintendo Switch Console on 26th of March 2021, and its PC release that came out on the 12th of January 2022. With the release came a series of great changes in the Monster Hunting style and the return of old favorites.
New Features in Monster Hunter Rise
For starters, the introduction of the “wirebugs” and “wiredash” system allows the hunters to platform higher places with ease ( wall riding/climbing ). The buddy system also makes a comeback with your favorite Palicos the “felyne” support units and the introduction of the adorable Palamutes, a “canyne” support which is similar to the tail riders back in monster hunter world for the PC/PS4/Xbox systems with more control over their movements and support, unlike their predecessors’ fixed movements. Rise also introduces a new pet companion, the “Cohoot”, Kamura’s own adorable Owl companions which replace the long-time favorite “Poogies” from the previous generation of monster hunter games.
Weapon Changes to Rise
The 14 iconic weapons of the game also got several changes with the return of the Hunting Style system from Monster Hunter generations, this time dubbed “Switch-Skills”. It uses wirebugs in Rise and allows a hunter to use switch skills without having to equip a “Hunting Style” in a similar fashion to Generations. Of course, you start out with a few skills for each weapon so the rest of the skills are locked behind quests.
Progressing through Hunting Quests
The game also makes a return of the split quests, namely the village and the hub quests from old gen monster hunter games before World.
With the Hunting quests to progress through HR(Hunting rank), as it goes from low-rank quests to high-rank quests, Rise also separates the hunting by dividing the story into two parts.
Village (Single-player mode having low-rank quests but does not change your Hunting Rank) and Hub quests (Single/Multiplayer which includes both low rank (HR 1-3) and High rank (HR 4-7) with checkpoints in each HR as a test of strength to progress).
The Gathering Hub in rising also sees a change in session size, with 4 people per lobby over 16 people per lobby in World. The hub also brings QoL (quality of life) changes like adding a Shop right next to the quest counter, a canteen in the center, and the weapon/armorsmith in another room in the hub. Worlds hub only had a quest/arena counter but no provisions counter nor smithy.
The Rampage – Kamura’s Line of Defense
Village quests also introduce us to the Rampage system, a sort of tower defense like hunting but with Monsters attacking the gates to the village and it’s up to the players to stop them. Players can choose to do it solo, or have friends with them that can help take on multiple monsters and stop the rampage from getting through. Rampage also brings stronger and deadlier versions of monsters previously encountered, which are called “Apex” and can deal heavy damage if not careful.
The Premise
The premise of Monster Hunter is a simple one as it’s in the name itself, you hunt monsters. Players enter an area, find the target, kill it, carve it for materials, make weapons or armor out of said materials, find more monsters, make stronger gear, and so on. In Rise’s case, you also prevent the rampage alongside hunting monsters for stronger gear.
The Story
The story is set in Kamura village which is led by Elder Fugen and Guild-master Hojo. The twin sisters Hinoa and Minoto manage Kamura’s Hunter quests. The players have just started out as newly appointed hunter. Elder Fugen suddenly receives a message via cohort that a rampage is about to occur, A rampage that hasn’t been seen in 50 years. And it is up to Kamura’s hunters and the players to put a stop to it. As they progress through the Village story, players find out that a certain monster has been influencing the other monsters with “malice”, corrupting them and making them go haywire into attacking Kamura. The rest of the story is behind the Hub quests and I will not spoil it.
My Monster Hunter Experience
I have a total of 239 hours combined from the switch port and the pc version, and I still enjoy the game on the PC. The enhanced graphics, uncapped framerate, is a really good thing to have along with the addition of filters on the PC port. My only gripe with this game is that there’s no cross-play nor cross-save with the switch console, so I couldn’t bring my switch to save game to the PC, but I hope that the developers behind Monster hunter Rise at Capcom can implement the feature by the time Rise’s upcoming expansion “Sunbreak releases”. Other than that, I have been playing a lot of Rising with friends and it’s been very fun. If there’s a time to get into a Monster Hunter, this is it!
Rise is new player friendly and if you want, try the Monster Hunter Rise demo on steam, it includes 4 quests with difficulty modes, 2 tutorial quests, and all 14 weapons with preset gear for each. It’s also got multiplayer so bring 3 more friends and get hunting. If you DO like it check out the Full game on Steam. For now, Happy Hunting!
