Monster Hunter Rising to the occasion
by Sam Billot, Senior, iPreparatory Academy
by Sam Billot, Senior, iPreparatory Academy
Everyone who knows games has heard of the Monster Hunter Series, but not many have played. The newest release, Monster Hunter Rise, is gaining drastic amounts of attention and popularity. So far it has sold 6 million units and is still selling more.
For those who didn’t realize by now, Monster Hunter Rise is a game about hunting monsters, but there's a whole lot more than that. Primarily, there's a massive amount of material gathering and crafting: killing monsters and carving parts off, gathering herbs to make healing items or antidotes for poison, and mining small ore outcrops to aid in crafting weapons and armor are a few tasks.
Weapons and Armor:
There are 14 different types of weapons from basic swords and shields to a giant horn used for bludgeoning monsters and playing music. All of the 14 weapons can be crafted in different ways using the materials from all the different monsters.
Gameplay:
As for proper gameplay, the player chooses a mission or particular monster to enter one of the 5 colossal open areas. These areas are pretty generic but they are definitely sizable and take some time to get around; luckily Rise introduced two new mechanics that aid in exploring these maps. First and foremost, there is a new mechanic called a wirebug that act as miniature grappling hooks in order to gain very large amounts of verticality for climbing mountains and quickly dodging monster attacks. The player can also have 2 pets to take into battle, a dog which you can ride to get around the maps quicker, and a cat which deploys many helpful tools during fights. |
The gameplay against monsters is rather straightforward; the player hits them with a weapon of choice and tries not to get crushed/incinerated/eaten or whatever else the monsters can do. The variety of monsters to hunt is quite notable: there are standard fire breathing dragons, scaly bears, and venomous chameleons. In total, for the moment, there are 38 monsters in the game, but the developers are planning on adding many more. |
Graphics, Soundtrack, and Story
Overall, it’s an improvement for Nintendo Switch, which is an underpowered console compared to its competition. The game is coming to PC and other consoles in the future so keep an eye out for that. The soundtrack is an absolute treat because the songs fit the Japanese inspiration of the game world and the moods of battle. The story, like most monster hunter games in the past, is lacking at first, but will be continued with updates and downloadable content. There is also an option for multiplayer, so 1-4 friends can stay on the hunt together.
Monster Hunter Rise is a very good game, especially for spending free time--just trying to get a specific part from a monster to make a specific set of armor is incredibly fun even with how tedious that sounds. If you have a lot of free time, enjoy crafting and discovering new things every moment, I highly recommend this game. When you have the time give it a try, or maybe try the free demo which gives you a small selection of monsters to fight. I have already clocked in 150 hours into the game and I’m showing no sign of slowing down. Maybe you can enjoy it just as much as I am.