TO KILL THE BEAST, FIRST READ THE FINE PRINT
Monster Hunter: Rise (Switch, £49.99)
Verdict: Dedication’s what you’ll need ★★★★✩ Mundaun (PlayStation , Xbox, PC, £15.49) Verdict: Art class ★★★★✩
THINK you’ve got what it takes to hunt monsters? First, you’ll need to spend a million hours in the gym, perfect a hundred fighting styles, learn the creatures’ ways and vulnerabilities . . . and read loads of tiny text on a small screen.
Ah, yes, it’s another game in the Monster Hunter series, which set you and your cute-critter sidekicks loose on a verdant world in search of big, scaly beasties to vanquish. These have been chart-toppers in Japan for nearly 20 years — in spite of (maybe because of) their complexity.
It took the slightly streamlined Monster Hunter: World in 2018, for them to catch on here. And now comes MONSTER HUNTER: RISE on Nintendo Switch.
It is said to be the most accessible yet.
Among its labour-saving innovations is a movement device (or ‘wirebug’) that will have you zipping around the monsters in next to no time.
But Rise is really only accessible by Monster Hunter standards. Its opening hours are a workout for fingers and mind as you try to learn combinations to run, ride, communicate, craft and slaughter.
The screen fills with text boxes to remind you to hold down one button while tapping another — before directing you to the game’s extensive built-in manual.
If this sounds intimidating, maybe it is.
But the rewards for sticking with Rise are tremendous.
It is as satisfying to stalk through its feudal Japanese landscapes as it is to finally defeat a monster.
Time to get reading, hunter. n MONSTERS of a different kind exist in MUNDAUN. These are the sinister ones that hide in shadows, and at the edges of your mind.
The gameplay is familiar enough: walk your way through a story, with a little light puzzling along the way.
But Mundaun’s style is anything but: its alpine village is composed of computerenhanced pencil sketches. The result is charcoal-dark but beautiful.