Monster Hunter Rise review: PC Rising

Title: Monster Hunter Rise
Developer: Capcom
Publisher: Capcom
Platforms: PC (reviewed on)
Release Date: January 12, 2022

Monster Hunter Rise is a great game for combat, mobility, and riding the adorable palamute. While some of the weaknesses of the game stand out, those three things will reign supreme amongst the few Monster Hunter games I’ve played.

If you’ve been waiting for the PC version of this game to grab it, you definitely get a large amount of pay off. The textures and graphics are better than they were on Switch. The issue I have is going in and out of the cutscenes (which are locked at 30 fps) gives a lot of chug when you start them and end them. Outside of that the game performs wonderfully on my mid-range rig.

There are 2 separate stories in the village and the hub. The village is a single player focus mode that allows for you to go in fight monsters or gather supplies by yourself. Whereas the hub is much more multiplayer driven. These have stories that flow into one another but are easy enough to understand separately as Monster Hunter’s main ideals aren’t the story but the gameplay.

Let’s talk about the real meat and potatoes, the monster you hunt. Monsters are trying to match your mobility, which is cool with all the new mobility options but becomes a problem with the classically cumbersome weapons that are a staple of the series. This can make some fights aggravating to use something like a great sword, charge blade, or hammer because those big shots will rarely connect unless the monster is already stunned, or asleep. These movements give me the same vibes as Master Rank from Monster Hunter World.

The environments for Rise are also pretty bland. You have these awesome options to wall run and do flips or ride your palamute in these very flat areas. The walls that feel more like obstacles added after the fact than actual parts of the environment. The wire bug and great wire bug make getting to the monster or whatever things you’re supposed to be collecting quickly. So if you’re expecting the fleshed out and gorgeous areas you explore in Monster Hunter World, prepare to be underwhelmed.

If you’re more about swinging swords or shooting bows/guns then Rise does it right and seems to do it well. It does require a little getting used to cause some movesets have changed. The act of swinging a weapon to hit a monster feels as great as ever. The wire bug increases depth by giving 2+ moves that give special damage that lets you mount and ride the monster, which is a ton of fun albeit clunky (I imagine for lore reasons). Which riding the monster is one of the coolest ideas in the game and adds a ton of random fun to combat and tons of depth to the individual ideas.

Monster Hunter Rise (PC) Score: 8

I strongly recommend Monster Hunter Rise, but this isn’t World. It’s harder, less environmentally appealing, and more focused on the rivalry between the hunters and the monsters. Gaining the pieces to build that armor or make that weapon is sometimes a bit more of a grind as the RNG isn’t quite as good but the satisfaction as always is there and strong. But amazing combat and great rewards keep the fun moving, albeit very differently from its most recent predecessor.

A copy of this game was provided to App Trigger for the purpose of this review. All scores are ranked out of 10, with .5 increments. Click here to learn more about our Review Policy.