The story of Monster Hunter Rise is not unlike previous entries in this monstrous series. You play as a recently promoted hunter that has to help a village called Kamura prepare for the next wave of “The Rampage”. This is a disaster that struck near the village that caused a group of monsters to be enraged and to attack everything around them.
For those new, the Monster Hunter franchise, the game is an action RPG that is played in the third person. Focusing on gathering resources to craft weapons, armor, and items that will help you defeat the monsters of this vibrant land. In addition to gathering resources, it is possible to find things like weapons, armor, and items on your adventures as well. Gathering these resources is done by harvesting them from plants, defeating monsters, and in containers or chests. Monsters will either drop resources, weapons, armor, or items once defeated. They may also be harvested from the monster once it’s been slain. Though it is possible to find useful things out in the wild to aid you in battle, the focus of the game is gathering resources to craft or upgrade your weapons, armor, and items.
When you start the game, you create your unique character and pick a character class. That class will help determine the skills that you can use along with the types of weapons and armor you can equip and use. In addition to the character you create, you also choose both a dog and cat companion. Both companions have custom classes just like your main character which help determine how it behaves and how they may assist you on your journey. The dog can be used as a riding mount and can also help to attack enemies around you automatically while you’re not riding it. The cat can be set up to locate secret items, heal your main character, or can be set to use a few different weapon types. How the cat behaves is dependent on the class you choose for it to be.
NPCs in the village can give you information, sell you goods, or offer you quest contracts. The information they offer could range from information regarding an enemy you might encounter on your current quest or general information about the village or land around it. Goods sold by the NPCs are typically going to be the same as what you could find in the wild but just a bit more convenient as it’s all in one area. They can also sell you upgrades for your weapons and armor as well. Quest contacts that are offered by the NPCs in the village are either going to be main quests to advance the story or side quests that can be done in an effort to help obtain upgrades to your equipment.
Aside from the traditional NPCs, you also have those that focus on the multiplayer aspect to the game. These multiplayer-focused NPCs offer a means to trade with other players and as ways to meet up online and go questing. The last element that I want to touch on in the village is the item boxes or chests. These are a staple in the MH series and are used to store pretty much anything that you either can’t carry with you or don’t want to carry with you so that you can have room to gather things while on a quest contract.
Playing this game on the Series X, this game looks stunning. The world you are playing in is vibrant, lifelike, and full of detail. The textures are well done and very crisp and the grass looks like grass and rocks look like porous rocks, nothing flat and bland about the environmental details in the game, that’s for sure. Each area is very large and full of things to see, do, and hunt down. Depending on the area you’re in there may be a very short loading sequence which may differ in length depending on the platform you’re playing the game on. In my time with the game, I noticed the most loading areas being in the village which is likely due to the number of environmental set pieces and abundance of NPCs.
Human or humanoid characters aren’t hyper-realistic looking but rather have a manga or anime-type look to them. Monsters in the game are pretty detailed and look a bit more realistic if you will than the humans or humanoid NPCs. No matter where you are in the game, the camera movement is smooth and fluid without any issues at all. Overall performance is just as smooth and fluid as the camera with there being no performance issues to speak of, save for maybe the first couple of FMV sequences.
The compositions in this game rival those found in some blockbuster films of the last couple of decades. The music tracks offered in this game help to bring everything to life, from the village you’re helping to defend to the quest contracts you set out on. They help to make you feel like you have a purpose, like what you’re doing really matters. Battle music that plays during each encounter makes you feel both on edge and driven to win the fight to earn the loot that you will surely get once the fight is over. Ambient sounds of the natural wildlife both neutral and hostile give you the feeling that you’re never truly alone.
Having played my first Monster Hunter game on the PSP back when it was new and never picking up the series since, I was a little concerned going into this new iteration. You see, I didn’t care at all for the first game I played in the series, but I am glad I gave this game a chance. There is so much content here and the world you play in is just so full of life and presence. This game is a ton of fun and I would recommend this game to anyone that’s a fan of the Monster Hunter Series to definitely pick up this game! Even if you’ve found that you didn’t like a previous entry to the series but are a fan of action RPGs like it was for me, I would highly encourage you to consider picking up this game.
Disclaimer: A review key was provided