Coming from Monster Hunter World, it’s not necessarily more of the same as the core concepts are different, favouring faster fights, more mobile enemies, smaller maps and a more streamlined experience with a more arcade-like direction. The game is better when you have the Sunbreak DLC, which really opens up the experience and keeps it fresh.
Pros
Some good changes to existing monsters, with a nice new roster of its own and relatively better hitboxes on new enemies. Wirebugs add some mobility and makes combat more dynamic. Palamutes are a nice addition and are fun to have around and use to explore maps. More customisation of individual skills through wirebug use and builds. World design, characters, NPCs and the soundtracks are great. NPCs are a great addition and probably the best part of Rise, as each character is unique, helpful and specialises in different weapons and aspects of combat. This keeps hunts fresh, allows for better single-player quest experiences and makes these NPCs feel alive. They each get mini quests/hunts to complete and then get recruited. Overall, the game feels cosy with its setting, your character origins and the hub areas, which are each distinct but have character.
Cons
Maps can feel dead compared to World; most of it is a blur because you are riding on your Palamute to hunts, which are all marked. No more tracking monsters and seeing their habitats and then coming face to face with them, or being ambushed – it’s all marked on the map, taking that sense of exploration and discovery away. Wyvern riding is cool the first few times, but it gets boring, and if using NPCs, it happens all the time, so there is no need for you to engage in the mechanic. Spirit birds are probably the worst mechanic ever, apart from Rampage fights, tedious and bloated for no reason. The grind can be felt, which is not a good thing because then you won’t want to boot the game up to fight the same handful of monsters. Gear and skills changes are questionable. Fights lack the dynamism of the world, and everything is tied to wirebugs. You are faster, monsters are faster and get even faster when you reach master rank and special variants, making combat a slog of always chasing the monster around, which gets even more frustrating when adding anomalies that require specific spots of monsters to be attacked. It lacks the spectacle that World offered with certain fights and main bosses, and only a few are really challenging your handling of the game's mechanics, rather than just using the wirebug or gimmick arenas. Multiplayer is a mess and convoluted for no reason, it's not as good as World, and that cuts down more of the play time you will get from hopping into quests to help others, or be helped yourself. It's unstable, and the lobby system is a downgrade with random disconnects still occurring. The game really needs Sunbreak to be good when most of the QoL and features would have been better in the base game, to focus on other things in the DLC.
Overall, a great game to get all the way to the end of each rank, all fights and see the amazing monsters added in this instalment. I hope we see Goss Harag again, as that fight was amazing and captured the essence of a monster that actually wants to hurt you, like Raging Brachydios, Deviljho and Rajang. The game is only worth it with Sunbreak, and luckily its often bundled together at good prices. Try the demo and see if you like it!
