MONSTER HUNTER RISE

Once the preserve of handhelds, Capcom’s beast-slaying series made a spectacular splash on home consoles with 2018’s Monster Hunter: World, giving the publisher its biggest hit to date. Downsized – but far from downgraded – for its Switch debut, Rise could yet go one better. It compensates for any loss of visual fidelity with tangibly improved pacing: the battles deftly balance spectacle and speed.

Any rough edges are all-but invisible in portable mode, Capcom’s RE Engine squeezing every last drop of horsepower from Nintendo’s hybrid hardware.

Rise follows the series’ established rhythm. You hunt each beast, carve

it up and trade its parts at the local blacksmith for better armour to battle faster, deadlier enemies. Yet the tempo is subtly boosted by new animal allies. A sharp-eyed owl highlights monster locations, saving you the bother of following their tracks. Palamutes, meanwhile, are large canine fighters that can be ridden into battle, while weighing in with attacks of their own.

But it’s the Wirebug, an insect grappling hook, that makes the biggest difference of all. It lets you recover from being knocked off your feet by a sweeping tail or swiping claw, while unlocking a string of special attacks. And it can be used to tangle up your quarry, letting you launch it into walls to temporarily stun it, or even bring it into a rival monster’s territory for a Godzilla Vs. Kong-style kaiju fight. Towerdefence set-pieces in which you defend your village home from rampaging monster hordes add extra gloss to a new series peak. Chris Schilling