Monster Hunter

• previous Monster Hunter: "Oh, f*ck, it's Deviljho!"
• Monster Hunter Rise: "Hooray! It's Deviljho!"

I've been playing around with the tutorials of the demo. Very much enjoying it so far. Can confirm that there are options for spoken dialogue to be in either English, Japanese or "Monster Hunter Language", which I'm quite happy with, as I find repetitive calls much less annoying if I don't actually understand what they're saying.

Wyvern riding so far is a bit underwhelming. It could just be demo/tutorial weirdness, but I seemed to be dealing way more damage with my Sword and Shield than Arzuros' claws, even with the Mounted Punisher. Of course, said Punisher does come with a guaranteed knockdown, so that's something, and knocking your mount into a wall is nice free damage, but I do hope that I'll be getting more out of it once I try the "real" quests tomorrow.

Mobility with the Wirebugs feels real nice once you get used to it. Gives you great mobility, allowing you to make good distance in a very short time. Climbing still seems a bit tricky, but I'll get it down eventually.

Liking the endemic life system that they're showing here, and I hope they'll end up being as useful as they sound.

All in all, pretty cool stuff. Slightly annoyed at the remapping of the Guard button, but I haven't tried changing it in options yet so maybe it's fine.

How much mileage you get from mounting seems to depend on the monster- Arzuros has low damage output as you said, but the bigger ones like Mizutsune or Rathian do more damage on top of being able to inflict blights- on the monsters for once, not you!

Aside from that the Mounted Punisher seems to always force a knockdown on the target, you're safe the entire time you're mounted, and you can just launch the poor creature as a projectile too... so it should be potent for most players, though I can see it being a Scrappy Mechanic for speedruns.

Edited by NesClassic on Jan 8th 2021 at 3:23:11 AM

Oh, right, Blights. Real happy about that one. You can also inflict Blights on monsters by throwing elemental dung beetles at them, and the effects are quite massive.

Like, Thunderblight allows you to deal KO damage with any weapon. Not just by striking the head, but over their entire body (though the deal needs to be sealed with a blow to the head). That's nuts.

Just got done with my first hunt in the demo, and I went with the charge blade, since that became my weapon of choice in World, and I did not count on the control scheme being so different, and there not being a weapon training mode.

All in all though, so far so good, once I get used to the controls.

I just found the Rise version of Mizutsune's theme, and it's a joy to listen to.

Anybody else enjoying the demo?

the demo has actually revitalized my love for the series after Generations felt so lackluster and World felt so... not monster hunter.

I'm absolutely loving the game and more weapons than I usually do, i'm so very excited for the full game's release

also, my favorite monster mizu is back!!! 🥰

good points aside how was Generations lackluster?

The Gathering Hub and new single player hub were very... not well designed, especially compared to 4U.

the more important bit is that, in spite of what i liked about generations, the game had major issues with how many quests exist that are just pointless slogs. gathering quests, small monster quests, and basic/easy large monster quests make up a huge bulk of what your early and midgame are going to be.

and then you have to do it again in high rank.

in addition, the styles were often counter-intuitive to Monster Hunter's design philosophy, on top of some of them being more blatantly broken than others.

styles and arts were sure flashy, but ultimately lead to gameplay that actively encouraged a lot more "charge at the monster and react" than the "learn the monster's pattern and you're rewarded for patience and learning" that made previous games' designs so good. (i'd also levy that criticism to World, to some extent)

i definitely put a couple hundred hours into it, of course, and i do love certain things about Generations like 3/4ths of the fatal four, deviant monsters, and QOL stuff, but overall generations just gets very tiresome before you ever get to the cool stuff, and the cool stuff doesn't feel as good because the gameplay started to reward different things

Rise actually caught me off guard with how well it integrated the stuff that i actually liked about World and Generations. Having what were essentially Arts attached to the wirebug cooldown suddenly gives you the cool aggressive stuff, but you still need to be patient and learn monster patterns to use them properly, and being attached to a cooldown that's attached to fantastic defensive options as well creates an interesting risk/reward dynamic.

of course i'll see how i feel about it when the full game comes around, but as of right now Rise feels like it's succeeding where Generations didn't.

And at least with the demo hunts available to us the wirebug does feel like just that, an OPTION. They're not making 80% of the monster hardened like world did to force you to use the clutch claw. It's an extremely useful optional tool that can save your bacon or let you get those style points during the hunt. It feels good to use, and you're looking for reasons to use it, instead of knowing that there's no point in doing anything else.

The wirebug kinda feels like, at least on insect glaive, a sort of re-do of the aerial style modifications made to the pole vault, without removing the high vault itself.

Neato. Maybe I'll figure out more as I play more.

Okay, playing around a bit more, my concern regarding the Wyvern Riding is mostly gone now. Though the results of the Ride isn't exactly game-ending, it's still a real nice bonus, and mounting a monsters for the first time can be done in a matter of seconds. It is really easy to pick up a nearby monster, get some free damage in on your intended target, and continue as usual.

Potential downside is that it is maybe a bit too easy to get that first mount, even if you didn't really intend to. I'm not one to complain about free damage, but I can imagine some people won't enjoy the interruption of their flow.

I wonder if the mount threshold is lower in the demo just to show the feature off more.

Haven't been able to mount anything more than once per hunt yet, but I'm not fishing for it after the first one either.

Little on the long side but I enjoyed Max's insta fear of Khezu

Edited by FrozenWolf2 on Jan 11th 2021 at 6:39:09 AM

Sometimes, fear is the appropriate response.

I think this really is how they intend to balance it. I've heard reports saying it is possible to get more than one mount if you really focus on it, but it's not worth the effort.

Khezu has got to be the coolest design I hate.

As for Wyvern Ride, I'm having a hard time getting mounts with just Silkbinds. Any tips?

I've downloaded the demo for Monster Hunter Rise. Trying out the series for the first time.

I'm having some trouble mounting the dog. What am I supposed to do to do that?

Hold the A when next to dog.

Also you can hold down R and move your right analog down to issue the "Let Me Ride" command.

Aside from Silkbinds, any aerial attack can go towards letting you ride as do monsters naturally attacking each other!

Though, I think it's also possible for the monsters to meet up before you can reach one of them and end up triggering the mountable state while no one's around. The first mount should have a low threshold to trigger, so if it isn't showing up odds are good that it was already used up before you had a chance to do it.

Edited by NesClassic on Jan 15th 2021 at 11:20:57 AM

How do I aim the gun weapons. They feel fairly irritating to use.

By default you hold the ZL button to enter aim mode, use the right stick to move the reticle while in aim mode, and press ZR to fire. You can also enable gyro controls if you want.

Oh, and here's a trick on how to practice weapons as much as you want in the demo. Choose the Wyvern Riding training quest, you'll face an Arzuros that deals less damage and can't die. If you avoid using jump attacks and Silkbind attacks, you can fight the Arzuros as long as you want, and the Wyvern Riding quest doesn't reduce the number of times you can play the demo.

Edited by MJTrooper on Jan 15th 2021 at 11:55:30 AM

Never played World. Why do people hate on the Handler?

From what I've gathered, it's because she's a Reckless Sidekick that tends to get to the monsters before you do... which naturally means she gets into pickles a lot. Or gets stuck riding one in the case of Deviljho.

I only remember that happening twice, once with Odogaron and the other with Deviljho. Most of the time she's close enough that the monster corners both player and Handler at the same time.

Also for some reason people despise her for not being the Guildmarm, but I never played her game so I have no idea why.

I thought the Handler was ok; I found the Excitable A-Lister insufferable though. Until my huntress and him had their badass teaming up moment against Fatalis that is. He earned my respect that day.

In other news, only 2 giant gold crowns left, and 5 mini crowns until I've gotten both achievements for Iceborne.