Capcom surprised players during their Monster Hunter Direct digital event last week with the announcement that a demo for Monster Hunter Rise would release on January 7, 2021 and will remain available until February 1, 2021.
As fate would have it, I lucked out and got to play the Monster Hunter Rise demo on my nephew's Switch yesterday. I could only play in offline mode, so I limited my gameplay to my two main weapon classes from World for about 2-3 hours.
I have some thoughts on the limited amount of time that I spent with the demo. It should be noted that players are limited to 30 hunts maximum on this demo. That's more than fair unless you're one of the content creators who will be combing this demo down to the smallest detail or want to give this a whirl with as many friends as possible online. Playing the demo will unlock rewards in the retail version of the game, so that is something to look forward to as well.
*** Disclaimer: I'm not versed in all of the "official" terminology for this outing of the series, so forgive me if I don't have the names of the new techniques and skills right. ***
I'm not a series veteran in the least as World was my first exposure to the series, but I do like this more "ninja/samurai" theme to this game. It's like this is set in the Onimusha universe or something now in terms of costumes and designs. Visually, this looks exactly how I would imagine a "portable" version of World to look on Nintendo's platform. I will say that playing this for a few hours in portable mode on a Switch was like hell on my wrists. No way in hell if I bought this console I would play any game in this configuration. This is up there as bad as some of the first generation games on PSP in terms of discomfort to play. That's not on Capcom though, that's a Nintendo issue.
I raved about the music in the trailers and I loved it in the demo as well. Great stuff in that regard, definitely living up to the standard I've come to expect out of these games.
In terms of general gameplay, I do have a few concerns. Maybe it was just me, but stamina drains INSANELY fast in this game. I thought it was bad from that change from Monster Hunter: World to the Iceborne expansion, but geez did it seem really noticeable here. I can't say that I'm too crazy about the change that you have to hunt through endemic life for stat boosts instead of eating for that stuff at the start of hunts. They get points for creativity but that seems like a boon to pad gameplay time per hunt when you have run around the entire map at the start of every hunt for stat buffs and vital items/perks.
Moving around with the Wirebugs is going to take a lot of getting used to, but it seems like it'll be fun once you get the hang of it. Even after 2+ hours I felt like I was fumbling around trying to swing around with it. I agree with a lot of opinions online that seems like what Capcom wanted to do with the Clutch Claw in Iceborne.
If you played it in World, then it still functions essentially the same, the only "big" change is that your attacks are split between two "stances" now. When you hold a charge, you can hit the power-up button like you did in World and it switches stances, indicated by the icon under your health and stamina bar turning purple. Purple stance is where your lvl. 3 Brutal Big Bang charge is now while your max charge ender in yellow (default) stance is your grounded Spinning Bludgeon along with a new Upswing that combos into an overhead blow. I have always found the grounded Bludgeon borderline useless unless your applying status effects, but even then the midair/sliding variation is MUCH better.
Starting off, I dunno WTF people are talking about online where Capcom got rid of the reload cancels to this weapon, but I was doing all of my old combos just fine here. The biggest change for me that realized right off the bat was that you can do charged shelling right off the bat without initializing an attack first. People were begging for that feature in Iceborne but no dice. In that regard, I was glad to see that here.
While I enjoyed the demo, I'm content enough with what I played with here that I wouldn't be the end of the world if I didn't play this at launch like many of the friends that I made in World would be doing. I don't doubt that this is going to be another great outing for the series, but at the same time, I'm not going to be going out of my way to play this either. For those that do, happy hunting!
OVERALL THOUGHTS
I'm not a series veteran in the least as World was my first exposure to the series, but I do like this more "ninja/samurai" theme to this game. It's like this is set in the Onimusha universe or something now in terms of costumes and designs. Visually, this looks exactly how I would imagine a "portable" version of World to look on Nintendo's platform. I will say that playing this for a few hours in portable mode on a Switch was like hell on my wrists. No way in hell if I bought this console I would play any game in this configuration. This is up there as bad as some of the first generation games on PSP in terms of discomfort to play. That's not on Capcom though, that's a Nintendo issue.
I raved about the music in the trailers and I loved it in the demo as well. Great stuff in that regard, definitely living up to the standard I've come to expect out of these games.
In terms of general gameplay, I do have a few concerns. Maybe it was just me, but stamina drains INSANELY fast in this game. I thought it was bad from that change from Monster Hunter: World to the Iceborne expansion, but geez did it seem really noticeable here. I can't say that I'm too crazy about the change that you have to hunt through endemic life for stat boosts instead of eating for that stuff at the start of hunts. They get points for creativity but that seems like a boon to pad gameplay time per hunt when you have run around the entire map at the start of every hunt for stat buffs and vital items/perks.
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| The endemic life in the environment to offer stat buffs seems like that will be a double-edged sword at first glance. |
I joked about this with friends too, but I'm already over the one-liners and phrases that are uttered by your hunter during combat now. I've heard from various sources that you can turn that off in the menus, but man, I was getting annoyed with that after the first hour.
Since I was playing the demo entirely in single player, I could barely tell if both my Palamute and Palico were contributing to the battles, but I can at least say that my Palico was definitely helping me out with his healing gadgets when I needed it most. So that's always a plus in that regard.
GENERAL GAMEPLAY
MOVEMENT
Moving around with the Wirebugs is going to take a lot of getting used to, but it seems like it'll be fun once you get the hang of it. Even after 2+ hours I felt like I was fumbling around trying to swing around with it. I agree with a lot of opinions online that seems like what Capcom wanted to do with the Clutch Claw in Iceborne.
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| The Palamute is your trusty doggy companion in MHRise. |
To be honest though in terms of movement, I was riding my Palamute (doggy companion) more than swinging around anyway. If you're familiar with the Raider Ride command(s) from World, then it works in the same capacity. You merely bring up your Palamute in the menu and hit a button to mount it and you're automatically jumping on and ready to ride. The biggest difference between how riding your mount in this game functions between this game and World is that you have full control of your mount while riding it. Hell, you can even make your doggy drift if needed while chasing an elusive beast. You're also able to gather materials and mine for resources while mounted too without having to dismount.
I'm split on this new concept honestly. I think it's a massive improvement from the traditional mounting mechanic that I was used to in World, but seems rather cumbersome at times in terms of how hard it is to control (at least to me anyway). I did like executing the special moves of monsters against other monsters when I did have a chance to mess around with it. Like who wouldn't want to give another monster a taste of how it feels to get hit by Rathian's signature tail flip or triple fireballs? I guess that struggle with this mechanic to really hammer the point home in terms of the monster fighting against you controlling it like a puppet, but I could see players having fun with pitting monsters against each other on the vast maps.
WYVERN RIDE (New Monster Mounting Mechanic)
There's a full tutorial both in the demo and over on the Monster Hunter YouTube channel by Capcom explaining the new mechanic in-depth, so I'm not going to get into the gritty details of this mechanic.
I'm split on this new concept honestly. I think it's a massive improvement from the traditional mounting mechanic that I was used to in World, but seems rather cumbersome at times in terms of how hard it is to control (at least to me anyway). I did like executing the special moves of monsters against other monsters when I did have a chance to mess around with it. Like who wouldn't want to give another monster a taste of how it feels to get hit by Rathian's signature tail flip or triple fireballs? I guess that struggle with this mechanic to really hammer the point home in terms of the monster fighting against you controlling it like a puppet, but I could see players having fun with pitting monsters against each other on the vast maps.
(Laughs) They completely dumbed down getting wall bangs with this new feature too. You can get three back to back on the monster without having to strategically position the monster to do so like in World. On the plus side, if you don't want to use this mechanic, you can go right into the finisher and continue hunting the monster via traditional means, so it's not being "forced" upon players like the Clutch Claw mechanic was in Iceborne. I think that aspect will have more players warming up to it than not.
WEAPONS: HAMMER
If you played it in World, then it still functions essentially the same, the only "big" change is that your attacks are split between two "stances" now. When you hold a charge, you can hit the power-up button like you did in World and it switches stances, indicated by the icon under your health and stamina bar turning purple. Purple stance is where your lvl. 3 Brutal Big Bang charge is now while your max charge ender in yellow (default) stance is your grounded Spinning Bludgeon along with a new Upswing that combos into an overhead blow. I have always found the grounded Bludgeon borderline useless unless your applying status effects, but even then the midair/sliding variation is MUCH better.
I could be wrong, but it seems like you can't roll cancel out of the cooldown of a lot of animations like you could in World. This could be just limited to the demo, but it was like I was a sitting duck on enemy attacks more often than I cared to admit on the demo.
Maybe it's just me but the hammer and the gunlance felt like they were missing the "weight" behind their attacks. If you've played a lot of these games, you'll know what I'm talking about in that regard, whereas you always had a sense of how heavy your swings/strikes were or generally how far they were going to hit. There were too many times during this demo where I was genuinely surprised something hit or didn't hit because of either the lack of the weight behind said strike or attacks hitting where I thought they wouldn't since I misjudged the distance.
The two Silkbind attacks you got are pretty interesting too.
The two Silkbind attacks you got are pretty interesting too.
- (Aerial) Spinning Bludgeon (requires 1 Wirebug to execute) - You slingshot yourself into the air and come down like in World. This shit is hard as hell to aim but you can charge this or even charge buffer it during other moves. Doesn't have any type of armor during the execution so you can be knocked out of the air doing it so keep that in mind.
- Impact Crater (requires 2 Wirebug to execute) - I thought this move would have been insanely good when I saw it in the weapon trailers, but I'm HIGHLY skeptical of it now. This is only worth doing when the monster is downed/KOed. Much like the other Silkbind move mentioned above, you CAN be knocked out of this animation at any point of it in the air.
WEAPONS: GUNLANCE
Starting off, I dunno WTF people are talking about online where Capcom got rid of the reload cancels to this weapon, but I was doing all of my old combos just fine here. The biggest change for me that realized right off the bat was that you can do charged shelling right off the bat without initializing an attack first. People were begging for that feature in Iceborne but no dice. In that regard, I was glad to see that here.
The front and back hops for evading attacks are somehow WORSE in this game than World. Once again, Gunlance mains are going to have to dump skill points into max Evade Extender. There is one caveat that I noticed though. You're able to side-hop left or right in quick succession and fire a shell off. That was something that you couldn't do in World, so it's something to add to your defensive tactics in this game with some of these already more agile/mobile beasts.
Another change is that you actually can guard during Wyvern Fire and manually aim (more than you could in World anyway), but the animation for Wyrmstake is slightly longer than World's, so you're a sitting duck if you just happen to whiff that. I'm almost certain that the armor set that you're using in the demo has at least Guard 2-3, Guard Up, and Normal shelling capability on the weapon itself. Otherwise, I don't see how you are running with 6-7 shells per clip with Long or Wide shelling.
Speaking of shelling types, there's a clue in the Hunter's Notes. It mentions a playstyle difference for Wide shelling, so we can expect different shelling types in the full retail release.
Much like the Hammer, the Gunlance has Silkbind attacks that comes in two flavors:
Much like the Hammer, the Gunlance has Silkbind attacks that comes in two flavors:
- Counterstance (Requires 1 Wirebug to execute) - I've tried this thing like numerous times, but I don't know what the hell is the trigger for it. Either I was too early or too late to get it to trigger. Seems like it would function like Lance's counter from World.
- Massive Overhead (Requires 2 Wirebugs to execute) - You jump up and come down with a massive overhead then can follow up with multiple shells that launch you up into the air in succession. I could see this making airborne enemies much more tolerable. Blows through your complete clip of shelling though. You do recover a sliver of sharpness from this move too.
MONSTERS
GREAT IZUCHI
He serves as the demo's version of Great Jagras. Much like Great Jagras, he has his homies attacking with him as a pack, so that would make for some interesting tag team attacks in tandem for hunters to be wary of. Seems like he's not going to be quite the pushover that players tend to expect to kickstart these games with. I noticed that his tail tends to get stuck in the ground like Nargacuga's does after using his tail like a giant mace.
MIZUTSUNE
After seeing streamers who got early access to the demo fight this thing, I knew that I would hate fighting this thing and I was absolutely right. He brings the best and worst attributes of what I loved and hated (sliding around like an evasive mofo and those fucking water lasers) about fighting Namielle in Iceborne and cranks it up to eleven with the bubble-based offense. This was my first encounter in dealing with bubbleblight and I thought it was rather hilarious. He seems to get really pissed off near-death as his scales turn red and he deals more damage to his attacks.
It should be noted that a Rathian is roaming the map during Mizutsune's quest, so you can fight that optionally as well.
CLOSING THOUGHTS
While I enjoyed the demo, I'm content enough with what I played with here that I wouldn't be the end of the world if I didn't play this at launch like many of the friends that I made in World would be doing. I don't doubt that this is going to be another great outing for the series, but at the same time, I'm not going to be going out of my way to play this either. For those that do, happy hunting!
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