Monster Hunter Rise
While World delivered Monster
Hunter’s (and Capcom’s) biggest sales to date, the series has always felt most at home on smaller screens. Its own rise began, after all, on PSP, when Japanese players would gather in public for wireless co-op battles. So it’s no surprise that Rise should focus on mobility – your hunter has never been more agile, nor able to get back to the front line so quickly. Still, it’s ironic that Capcom should espouse the value of a wired connection. Yet your bond with the new Wirebug, a multi-faceted insectoid ally, is transformative.
When you’re exploring, it acts as a kind of grappling hook or web slinger – you can use it twice before it needs to cool down, though if you find more in the wild they’ll temporarily increase the gauge. You can use it to cross gaps, or latch on to walls to run up and along them until your stamina meter is depleted. It opens up a recovery move that gives you a softer landing when you’re swept off your feet. You can perform a vertical or horizontal dash – the former ideal for leaping over a swinging tail or a jet of water; the latter letting you close the space between you and your quarry.
But the most game-changing ability it delivers is Silkbind, which opens up weapon-specific gambits, and with successive attacks can leave a monster vulnerable to being mounted. Rather than the usual bucking-bronco minigame as you try to get in as many blows as you can before being thrown off (a timer ticks down when you’re in the saddle, but slowly), you can now assume a degree of control over even the largest beasts, the tensile strength of the wire letting you wrangle pretty much anything. As such, we end up bringing a Rathian to a Mizutsune fight, our light and strong attacks transferring from hunter to beast. This fills another gauge that lets you pull off a Mounted Punisher – alternatively, you can launch your ride into a wall or obstacle and it’ll topple onto its side, letting you get in plenty of free hits (or regroup).
We’ve seen Monster Hunter’s beasts fight before, but we’ve never played such an active role in making it happen. And with the Wirebug opening up acrobatic dodges and collaborative plays – how about steering a wyvern into position just as a fellow hunter is winding up a charge attack? – Rise’s combat feels more satisfying than ever. With many of World’s quality-of-life features retained, plus an added focus on using indigenous life for stat boosts, it’s also more accessible than Monster Hunter has ever been. Naturally, it doesn’t have World’s spectacular looks, but what could easily have been a downgrade might just be a new series high.