Monster Hunter Rise Review

Monster Hunter Rise is set in the serene location of Kamura Village; a village inhabited by residents living in constant fear of a a Rampage: a catastrophic event where endless waves of monsters attack the village all at once. It’s been 50 years since the last one and the villagers are looking for help to survive this catastrophe. It’s up to the player to work with the residents to survive the onslaught and limit the damage.

Monster Hunter Rise is an Action RPG game where the main goal is to complete the plethora of quests and side-quests to earn rewards, items and new gear. As with any action game, the protagonist can attack, dodge and deflect attacks. You also have a health and stamina meter. The little addendum here is that while the health meter can be refilled with health items and the stamina one slowly refills itself, if you use too much of it without eating (and we’re not talking health items), the max meter will be permanently reduced.

The game is jampacked with intricacies and details but the meat of the game is the combat. Players will come across enemies of all sizes and shapes; the bigger they are, the tougher they area. Battles are quite challenging; even when starting off, the game will now make it easy for you. Thankfully, when landing on a map, you can access your tent switch up weapons; you’ll have a nice variety of weaponry (and the more you progress, the better the gear); from a quick kunai to a massive sword, the game offers 14 different weapon type. You also have a grappling hook that allows you quickly jump around the area or reach higher platforms.

A fun mechanic is your pets. A Palamute and a Palico will accompany you on your journey and lend a hand during battles. The Palamute is a rideable dog that will make exploring areas much more enjoyable as the character’s running feels too slow given the mildly large areas ready to be explored. It also comes in handy when your prey decides to flee the battle; hop on the Palamute and quickly give chase.

If a monster escapes and you manage to track it down, there are chances that another monster will join it the fight and end up attacking your original prey. If the newly discovered monster gets stun, you can actually mount it and dish use it to dish out additional damage to the prey. Problem is your target has no health bar and battles can feel like neverending; although when you see the number of damage dished out change color to yellow for example, that’s a small and subtle indicator that you’re wearing it down. But beware, with lowered health, monsters become more aggressive.

While it does take a while to get going and get in the groove given how much stuff there’s to fiddle with, the game will reward players who stick with it. After a while, you’ll begin unlocking new special moves that will give you a much needed support in combat and adds to weapons new ways to launch an assault against a target. For additional support in your battles, there’s a nifty Supply Box near your tent. The Hunter’s Guild will sometimes offer helpful items for the current hunt.

I did briefly mention the Eating feature earlier where it will allow you to regain lost stamina, but there’s also a crazy deep crafting system where you can use collected items such as Herbs, Honey, Bitterbug; just to name a few of the items available to craft supplies such as health items, enhancing items (Catalyst), Cleanser (allows you to remove foam and webbing from your character’s body); among other helpful items. And any time you can abadon a quest to return to the village with everything you’ve collected thus far.

The village is where you can rest, jump in new quests or side-quests and the obvious shops where you can buy new items and resources and unload extra stuff for a few coins. The more your Hunter rank increases, the more the shop’s selection will expand/improve and offer better items. And sometimes after a quest, the Guild store will have a sale with items available at half price. During sales, the Lottery becomes available and you can enter by spending Zenny (in-game currency) or using acquired Lottery Tickets.

The game looks fine for what it is. Given Monster Hunter Rise was initially developed for the Nintendo Switch, a now 6 year old platform, it doesn’t take full advantage of Microsoft’s Xbox Series X console. There’s nothing inherently wrong visually speaking, but it does have a late PS2/early PS3 cartoonish look. The environments are highly colorful, character models look great and have a decent level of details. Obviously, the monster variety is very impressive; from tiny little fly like creature to gigantic creatures that will provide its own unique challenge. The soundtrack is a majestic score that matches the scope of the adventure; whether it be the areas or the enemies. It does sound like traditional Asian music properly tailored for the setting and “in-game culture”.

Sadly Monster Hunter Rise does have a few shortcomings. The first one being it can be daunting and overwhelming to newcomers. While the premise sounds simple enough, there’s so many intricacies and things to grasp before mastering this game. Whether it be for crafting, combat, navigating the hub; so many menus and sub-menus to manage, it’s a steep learning curve. Combat also feels stiff and clunky; even with smaller weapons such as short swords. The lack of a proper lock-on system makes things harder than they should. Also if some monsters manage to escape, they vanish into thin air(!). There’s also a time limit for each mission; while it’s fair more often than not (ex: 50 minutes), it hinders players from exploring and fully enjoying the environments.

Monster Hunter Rise is definitely one of the best gaming experiences on Xbox. It’s vast, deep and highly challenging. Although the learning curve is steep; this is the kind of game that you need to invest time in because otherwise, you’ll quickly forget some of the mechanics. Combat takes a bit of getting used to as it feels stiff and lack of lock-on is frustrating. But once you get a few hours under your belt, this game becomes addictive. If you’re looking for a meaty experience to sink hours into, Monster Hunter Rise is a must-play.