While we’re all waiting for the Destiny 2: Lightfall drop in February, we must find something to do, right? We could platinum God of War: Ragnarök, but that might take forever. We could wait for an update for Witcher 3 on the PS5 to make the Ray Tracing Mode work, but who knows when that is dropping? There are a lot of different ways we could spend our time waiting for Destiny 2: Lightfall, but why not wait for it by hunting monsters with friends?
Welcome to Monster Hunter Rise on the PlayStation 5. It is an updated version of MHR that reminds us that Capcom not only has published a fun game with a simple concept but also that they give a shit about updating their games to the current generation. I mean, have you seen their Resident Evil games? Sheesh.
Let’s get this going.
Hunting Monsters
My experience with MHR has been limited to this point. I had dabbled in the series a few times with friends, but never fully committed to it because it just didn’t immediately catch my interest. As I have gotten older and wiser as a gamer, I have valued the opportunity to play more games with friends online that are more cooperative than competitive. This game fits the bill of playing with friends and doing something together against a common enemy. In other words, PvE is just the best when it’s friends against monsters.
Anyway, if you have never played this title before, then you’re in for a treat. You go and hunt monsters. Shocking, right? To push this agenda, you are given constant quests that lead you to the side and main quest missions that will occupy your time. As you progress in the game, the animals become more massive and harder to bring down. They require more strategy than hard-nosed hack’n slash, which perpetuates a deeper, more meaningful gameplay experience than maybe what appears at the beginning. There is a progressive arc of difficulty as you push through the main and side quests with monsters. They seem to adjust steadily as you adjust on your end, which should be the case. There really isn’t a boring fight at all. That doesn’t mean that Capcom doesn’t try to change things up a bit as you move forward in the game.
So as not to completely drown you with hunting animals the entire time you play it, you also have side quests for materials and minor bugs/creatures. Along the way through these quests, you can also meet and help other people in your village with their needs. For example, early on in the game, you meet a gentleman who wants to make your armor but needs ingredients to do so. You must go out and find what he needs and bring it back to him. It’s not complicated, but missions like these help shift gears on the gameplay for just a smidge while providing some balanced variety. And trust me, not all non-hunting missions are bad. In fact, they can be relaxing and just a ‘hit the right spot’ change of pace.
Staying with quests, they come in the form of village quests (main quests), subquests, and urgent quests. The latter of the bunch is pressing, as you might get an order to clear a path that a monster has been terrorizing so that someone can bring supplies through, or you might just need to hunt down an ingredient for the main person of the village. Regardless of the quest, the game is filled to the brim with things to do, not to mention you can go on these quests with friends or someone online. That’s the main crux of gameplay for Monster Hunter Rise, as it wants you to plan, execute, and take down animals or complete quests, while also giving you the choice to go solo or with partners. While the former isn’t too common in MMORPGs, the latter is very typical. Having a variety of quests that you can choose from and shift with difficulty is a nice way to give gamers a variety of events to complete.
The challenges of this game come in the form of strategizing the best way to attack. If you’re a numbers person, you’re going to fall in love with the different equipment configurations you can prepare your characters to have for specific hunts. Having armor or a weapon that is catered to a specific monster helps to strategize the best approach to a fight with the said monster. Having more protection against fire or other elements specific to the monster makes for a pleasantly complicated good time when coming up with an approach strategy. In addition, the MMORPG structure where you assign people duties during massive battles against big baddies helps to keep the gameplay cognitively engaging. The strategic thickness of the entire gameplay process is nothing short of brilliant.
As for the monsters themselves, you’re going to do a lot of hacking and slashing. You will find very unique monsters that, while easy to figure out their patterns, can be incredibly difficult to bring down. This is where the aforementioned strategy comes in. Learning and analyzing the monsters helps to understand their weaknesses and what you need to prepare for when choosing weapons and armor. It also helps to know this information for your buddy companions (a cat and a cool dog) that also sport weapons and armor. Sometimes you can balance power and defense with your friends, which helps to take down monsters quickly. If you have the right combo, then the hunt is usually not too bad. Again, it all goes back to strategy and learning the monsters, which the game provides plenty of information for each creature. There is so much fun in the planning and executing stage of this game, which seems fresh because of the number and types of quests it throws at you.
Crafting is huge as a hunter
If you’re a huge fan of crafting, then you have come to the right place. The developers at Capcom have made crafting a large chunk of this process. It does two things in the game’s design. Firstly, it creates motivation to go on collecting hunts. This means you might have some quests where you go and collect materials. Collecting said materials might equal out to ingredients for something you need to craft or upgrade, such as weapons or armor. It could also mean gathering material to create potions or buffs, which is always a helpful part of the MMORPG gameplay process. The motivation to collect items may not be as sexy as the motivation to go on hunts, but MHR makes it worth your while to do both.
The secondary reason why crafting is thick here is that the game just wants to be massive, even in hindsight when it is not. It wants you to work and explore repeating landscapes and not feel like they’re small in stature. Looking around for material and finding it can mean climbing mountains, digging up random bones on the ground, or just keeping a sharp eye out for something highlighted and interesting. Collecting ingredients for crafting items means that you explore more of the landscape and forget that each part is limited in its girth. The environment limitation isn’t a major downfall because you continually rank up and open more quests which opens more areas that are more unique in their style and show enough variety to feel like the overall land is huge.
Anyway, you have a lot to think about in this category of the game. Crafting and collecting work hand in hand adds a different type of feel to a game where hack’n slash is at the forefront. As I have stated in past reviews, I’m not a huge fan of crafting, but honestly, I don’t mind it with MHR. I think it’s function is defined and doesn’t get in the way of the gameplay. Rather, it compliments it.
Controls can be a bit too controlling
Having braved the worlds of God of War and games like Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order, having full control of a third-person character always is vital for maximum enjoyment. My point is that if I’m in the heat of battle and I see something about to go south, I should have the ability to break off from my action sequence to avoid damage. This is something that makes sense and it is vital to avoiding frustration during battle scenes. Both the above-mentioned games do this quite well.
While I do enjoy the controls in Monster Hunter Rise, especially with the multi-function and quick change for item use (hold down L1 and click the circle or square to quickly scan items in your pouch), the battle controls are restrictive. They’re restrictive in the sense that I can’t break my action motion once it starts until it is finished, even when I know the enemy is about to kick my butt big time with a body smash or throw something at me. I should be able to break the action sequence if I detect that is happening and have a good chance to roll out of the way. That would be optimal when it comes to battles and it would make everything so much more enjoyable. It certainly makes sense for modern gaming controls.
As it stands in MHR, once you begin your action animation sequence during battles, you have to see it through before you can go into a defensive stance or choose another action. Ultimately, it’s forgivable because more than not you’re going to get what you need to be done without much damage in the process. For the flow of the game, especially during major battles, I would like a bit more flexibility when it comes to breaking formation and avoiding damage. Again, GoW and Jedi Fallen Order have spoiled me in this respect. But it should be a more common control integration for third-person action games these days. Controls should be based on reactions and not animation sequences.
This is my only big complaint about the game.
One feature that was implemented in this game was the ability to use wirebugs. I like how this game names everything for its purpose. Wire. Bugs. Anyway, these are short-lived line throws to project the player out of danger, as well as help the player climb to higher ground. You can have multiple wirebugs on your person that create an additional strategy for your gameplay style, especially in the defensive position during a fight. While it doesn’t necessarily replace or forgive breaking action animation during a fight, it’s still a nice addition to the gameplay control features. It can be used as a strategic advantage both offensively and defensively. No matter which way you choose to use it, it’s a nice part that helps forgive the older control designs slightly.
Speaking of upgrades…
PlayStation 5
Gorgeous and fast. Those are the two things you’re going to notice about MHR on the PlayStation 5. The graphical upgrade on the PlayStation 5 is noticeable from the get-go. The textures in the environments, the details on the characters themselves, and even the draw distance and amount of NPC activity in the villages are noticeable on the PS5. The textures aren’t the only significant upgrade, you also have some amazing lighting and shadows that go along with it. Everything seems to visually hit where it needs to hit. If you’re looking for something visually pleasing for your PS5, then this is something you should consider. Capcom did a great job with MHR in this respect.
What is also equally outstanding, but probably won’t be fully appreciated are the load times. Going from village section to village section takes less than a second. When you get the onscreen indicator to ‘move’, it will fade out, then immediately fade in. I have no idea how Capcom did this for a game that is so online-dependent, but they figured out the PS5 workflow brilliantly. This time shift is also present when you’re going from village to quest. It’s almost instantaneous. It is ridiculously fast for a game of this type. Everything loads in so quickly and so beautifully. It’s very impressive to see this portion of the PS5 game in action.
When all is said and done, Capcom did a great job with using the PS5’s capabilities to improve the gameplay of MHR. It’s the little things, especially when nothing goes particularly wrong in the process.
On that note, let’s wrap this rambling up.
Conclusion
Capcom’s Monster Hunter Rise is an entertaining game. It has enough depth, action, and crafting to keep you and your team occupied for a while. It’s not perfect in some respects, but it’s good enough when you’re looking for a team-based game that is more coop than not.
