it is finally done. now i schleep. CORRECTIONS/EDITS: - Bubbly Dance already existed in MHGU. No clue why I forgot that lol. - TU3, which released while this video was being edited, introduced a new Melding Type called Aurora, which allows you to meld a Talisman with a specific Skill in Master Rank. - Palamutes can be made more effective than Palicoes through specific builds and are often preferred by Speedrunners. However, the overall utility of Palicoes still outweighs that imo, so the point in the video still stands.

Monster hunter Rise is an incredible game, but I think I will still always prefer how immersive world was, finding monster tracks and exploring for monsters made me feel a deeper connection to the game than with rise.

One thing to note to your HR2 section: During Sunbreak's "Gathering of the QUrio Quest", not only was there a huge thematic presentation in the mission, it actually had real effects on gameplay as well. During the missions, except for the target monster, NO LIVING CREATURES EXIST. That also means NO endemic life. This includes Hunting Helpers, Traps (like the Thorny Toads) AND Spiribirds. You were FORCED to take on the quest without a couple of the Game's unique mechanics. And this being the only mission like this, it not just gives you that impression of "something is really wrong" with only thematic presentation, but it SLAMS IT INTO YOUR FACE with gameplay effects that you, as a player, actually feel. There are a couple of other things worth nothing, but I'll leave it at that.

I actually really liked the scout flies and the whole tracks mechanics tbh. Once you leveled up the scout flies it also didn't matter you could track easily with the flies.

magnamalo felt underwhelming to me because i was EXPECTING him to have a few appearances before the real fight going into it, much like almost every flagship monster there's ever been. so when i got to his little 3 star village quest i was expecting at any moment to be on the floor in a scripted death before he does some cool shit and then runs away, but instead he just dropped dead!! super underwhelming, absolutely no build up and the fight felt super anticlimactic because i could tell i was supposed to be afraid of him but he was just a pushover that got exposition 20 minutes before he died

Definitely what they could have one with Apex armor was similar to what Allmum parts did for the base Ibushi and Narwa armors by letting you upgrade them further to add a new special skill. For example, take Apex Azuros parts to upgrade the base Azuros armor and weapons that till not only update/change the stats and skills on the armor/weapons as well as give them that darkening dragon element effect

After playing my entire life, MHW is what finally convinced my brother to join me on hunts. 1500 hours later we still duo every day.

Having watched the whole video, I think the core reason why I was able to thoroughly enjoy rise for what it is is because I knew what I was getting. I knew it wasn't gonna be world 2 at all. I knew it would be gameplay/combat focussed and I really enjoy that. I love world and rise for seperate reasons, so I don't think it makes a lot of sense to compare the two. After all both are amazing games, in which I've spent thousands of hours. good vid!

I'm absolutely in love with the way you presented and organized this video, very cool

The biggest reason I prefer Rise over World is the monster roster. As you said, the variety is much better compared to World's, the new monsters do a great job of mixing their mythological motifs with designs that stay true to the Monster Hunter creature philosophy, and the cast of returning monsters are really exciting. We have highly beloved monsters like Valstrax and the Magalas, Astalos and the crabs are treats, and seeing Espinas really opens the possibility of seeing more Frontier monsters in the main series. However, you bring up a really good point over how the monsters in Rise/SB lack the ecological details from World, and having them just aggro on sight only gives the impression of video game bosses. It's a shame, because it makes an otherwise better roster less memorable than the weaker one that came before it.

On the topic about the weapon cosmetics. First time I saw the plushie weapons my first thought was "oh shit that's cool what hunt do I have to do for that" and it's honestly a problem that there isn't one

On the topic of difficulty from HR3: While there is definitely less of a focus on mastering the monster fight, I think what rise replaces that with is mastering the weapon due to the abundance of options which is part of why Rise is so fun to play. However, at that point it comes down to what you want to get out of it, as you can get moveset mastery out of other action games while the monsters are unique to monster hunter. Most would probably want a balance, though that's probably easier said than done.

After watching the entire video, I'm so happy someone finally made this. You are awesome. Great work.

The point about Partbreaks around 1:31:20 is a bit misleading since World is the outlier here, in every Game, except World, Rathien will still poisen you after you cut off her Tail, and since Rise started development as a follow up to GU rather then World, and had to go throu some big developmental shift because of World success, i can also see why this Detail may have been overlook

If World had the more varied roster of Rise, it could have been a 10/10 for me. Just cause it's my favorite game doesn't mean it is perfect, after all.

@Oceaniz Agree about wirefalls making avoidance much simpler. One thing I did not hear you mention was the strategic cost. Wirefalling basically used at least one bug which means that bug is not available for special attacks. The more you use the bugs for avoidance the less you can use them to attack. This made for some moments in the game where I had to decide to either wirefall to get back in the fight quicker or save it for a big attack.

The point about it being more friendly to newcomers and casual players resonated with me. I tried playing world on my friend's computer, but the mechanics were kind of complicated and I didn't understand the appeal of the fights, awkwardly moving around trying to hit a monster when both of us are kinda slow... The Rise demo drew me in instantly. Now I have hundreds of hours in Rise and Sunbreak, and I want to play World+Iceborne now that I have an appreciation for how the weapons have totally different feels and it takes some practice to get into the flow of a new weapon, but it really works and feels satisfying once you get it.

I feel like the main reason Magnamalo failed to have that sense of danger to it was its tie to the Rampage. Which, as a feature, failed as well since not many found the Rampage to be enjoyable. It would of been more impactful if during the rampage before Magnamalo appeared we could see it beyond the defenses picking off other monsters that were repelled. That way you could actually see it and see how ferocious that monster is through that interaction. That way, when it appears to throw an Arzuros at us it holds a bit more weight. Then they could have Magnamalo appear in quests afterwards to interact and antagonize the player more until it is time to finally fight the beast.

Rise is odd in comparison to world and especially MHGU but I think the data leak, Pandemic, and the team doing things like switching from loading zones to seamless zones changed a lot of things they had in mind originally. It just feels like due to world success they had to implement things that they didn’t initially intend to. Even though rise was a bit rocky I’ve still loved both games. Also outstanding review and especially theming, listening to the HR segments was fun!

I like MHR, and just started playing a couple days ago, but I still prefer MHW overall. In world, the monsters feel (to me) more intimidating and publishing. They're big predators that stalk and kill you, whereas Rise just feels like generic battle time. Mechanically, the fighting in Rise is a lot more fun, but every fight so far is pretty easy to just jump into and go, rather than all the stealthily studying my opponents from a safe distance beforehand I did in World. Also, what really sold World for me was the tracking aspect. I LOVED having to find footprints and marks on the wall to track down the monster, rather than just instantly knowing where my quarry is and chasing it down. MHW really feels like "Monster Hunter" to me, and MHR is kinda just "Monster Fighter."

This is probably the best monster Hunter video I have ever seen. It’s so well made and kept me super entertained throughout it all. The quality never wavered, and it kept making me rethink how I think of games. It was genuinely engaging, and gives me a shining example of how to fairly examine a game in efforts to understand and love. I cannot articulate how much I want to gush about this video. Seriously. Just amazing.

I love how through sheer willpower alone you changed my perspective of you from an MHAtuber to a Monster Masher

Before I even finish the video. Yes. It’s good enough. Especially through the lens of it being a portable entry developed by the portable team. Not the team that developed World. Theoretically they could’ve ignored most of what world brought to the series but they kept a decent amount while still maintaining the “portable” mh feel that you can tell a decent chunk of fans missed. World had a lot of tedium injected into it despite everything they shaved off to streamline the series. I’m glad those things stayed in world but now I’m terrified gen 6 will be more of the same.

Stellar video and incredible effort. Was a pleasure to watch. Thank you for the hours of entertainment.

For me personally, walking around the maps in world/iceborne is my fav aspect of the game. I load into expeditions to get my photo quests done, explore and appreciate the detailed and complex zones. the wirebug WAS fun, yet now i have pathed out rise's maps too optimally now and find myself on "auto pilot" more than iceborne ever did

Fiorayne shield bashing Gaismagorm is the moment I loved her and all the new sunbreak characters

Thank you for putting into words what I’ve been trying to explain for a while now. I will share this video often I’m sure

awesome video! I did skip some parts concerning some of Sunbreaks mission and story since I'd rather experience it myself soon. Also thanks for letting me know about the Grind that is armor augmenting in this game, I will definetely be using a mod to choose the augments I want, just like I already got a mod to give me a rainbow spiribird at the start of each quest.

As a vet from MH3U, I'll say I've preferred Rise overall, and then Sunbreak took it to another level. World really did create a living, breathing environment but it had so many flawed mechanics and gameplay designs. The map designs, including the base hub were annoying to navigate. Unskippable cutscenes, bland weapons and armor, and so many important mechanics and tools hidden behind side quests that the game never goes out of its way to bring attention to. Rise scales things back a bit and stays closer to the original formula for MH. What's really important in Monster Hunter, what makes unique and attractive to such a wide audience now? Is it the attention to detail in ecology and designs, the cool gear, the combat, the weapon variety, the characters, the story, the music, the maps? Maybe not even Capcom knows for sure 😂 but I appreciate the ways in which they try to improve the formula, MH has always been the kind of series that only gets better.

In reference to the endgame I personally want to make my opinion in defense of especially fatalis armor at the end of iceborne. Since the gameplay loop is fight a monster so you can make gear to fight a stronger monster, fighting the final boss and then having its armor to do endgame things tends to be pretty satisfying and is why I feel endgame benefits monster hunter quite a bit. Which is why I personally believe for icebornes final hoorah of fatalis and it’s absurdly overpowered armor was great if it’s the last true new challenge to overcome why not make its gear the strongest of all so the hunter feels as strong as the challenge they conquered.

I cannot fathom the amount of time and energy that went into creating this video. Not only that, making it interesting and enjoyable while not forcing the viewer into watching it all in one go is something absolutely commendable. This is without exaggeration one the best pieces of content in the platform. Amazing job with this

You gained a subscriber! Great video dude! 🙂👍🏻pretty long but it's a deep dive and a very well done one I think. Hope you are having a great day! ❤

Glad this isn’t just a “bashing other games to make this one look good” kind of review so far, hoping it stays like that

This came on a good day. Many thanks, Ocean Man. I appreciate your work immensely.

Man I keep coming back for that intro alone, just so good. MH music is amazing, and the custscenes really pop with that editing

i love these videos, thank you for making this!

I feel like rise & sunbreak was a mixed bag of experimental gameplay ideas that might or might not return in the future. I have a few suggestions to get the best of both "Worlds" for mh 6: -bring back health & stamina augments and consuming ancient potions & well done steaks to max out health & stamina, but also carry over attack and defense (red and orange) spiribirds. -implement both World and Rise style endemic life together. -keep a large (and crucially varied) roster of both large and small monsters (Sunbreak has the most small monsters at 23) -add many environmental interactions for both hunters and monsters -give every large monster armor (maybe also weapons?) -no rng decos -many turf wars -a return of the old mounting system (with refinements) -no mandatory mechanics introduced in the g-rank expansion (like clutch claw) -game changing mechanics must be there from the start Are these good points? It's 3:52 so I really need to go to sleep...

Hello, MH1 vet here, there is a misconception about the series that you seem to have. There has always been a split in the series that began with the dev teams in MH Dos, this split showed itself fully within the differences between the Portable and Main series games. This difference being that the Portable series has always valued mechanical difficulty and weapon mastery over the more grounded and tool based combat of the Main series. If you want a good example of this look at the differences between MH4 and MHG. The Main series has always been aimed at bringing in new fans while the Portable series has always been aimed at the more hardcore of the fanbase. You can look to the countless dev team interviews over the 18 years of this series to get an understanding of that. I also find it odd that you refer to Rise as "casual" when there were and still are countless interviews that state the game was created primarily for the hardcore Japanese audience that did not enjoy World's more laid back style. Both styles of gameplay have their value, we as a community need to stop this endless bickering that has started to divide us, because at the end of the day we are all MH fans. Though they may be different it is all Monster Hunter and our shared love of the series should be what binds us. On a similar note, I find it extremely odd that you say that Rise is not for the "core" fanbase. When everything about its Monsters and Weapons is a love letter to the veteran community that came before. In short thank you for your time and I sincerely hope you remain a fan of this wonderful series.

amazing video. about the feeling of the game not having content, i've also spent a bit of time thinking about a reason for this, and aside from the points you made, i think there's also the fact that builds are much more easy to complete compared to world, since as you said, talimans don't matter that much to closing builds but decorations on world were a nightmare to farm, and compared to older games as well, since you don't need to repeat quests that much to craft all gear pieces and the weapon of a specific monster.

2:03:07 Spiribird jumpscare (Amazing video, also, been enthraling watching your videos as of late

I honestly can't wait to watch this, much luv & thx 4 providing us good content 🤩. I know this took a lot of work but we really appreciate everything you do 🔥🤘🏾🖤!!!

I actually like the new poses and gestures and stuff from the event quests instead of just more of what I've already done clearing the game. Getting cosmetics or struts like that is basically the only reason I'll even touch event quests :/ otherwise I'll focus on clearing all the rank quests

too many people hate on the Devs, when what deserves the distaste are the directors and leads who control the business model. The devs only do what they are told, putting all of their effort into into what they are told to. The business model of a company is the true problem.

Great video, enjoyed all of it!

Love seeing inspiration from Tim Rogers. That man has pioneered such a captivating format of video.

i actually like the melding pot in rise over my experience grinding for one in 4u. In Rise you can get melding points from any monster which made it feel more rewarding for each monster part rather than having item build up dust in your chest. As well as it being integrated in a way i actually enjoy, using monster parts (the thing you make gear out of) to make talismans, which is basically a armor piece. compared to 4U where it felt like i stopping to spend time to mine in the middle of an already long quest. Or worse if you wanted to actually get good talismans at a reasonable rate you would repeat the same easy quest over and over until you get something passable. Overall my experience getting a good talisman in rise was far more enjoyable because i got it through the monsters i killed while in 4u it felt like i was spending hours doing nothing to get something just ok.

This is awesome. Thank you for putting this extremely in depth review together.

Rise was my first monster hunter game. If you wanna get *extremely* technical, then it was stories 2, but rise was my first *Mainline* MH game, and is now one of my favorite games of all time. I started by borrowing it from the library, and I even beat it that way, and even though I would give it back because it started to get a little boring without sunbreak, I still kept going back because the fights were so goddamn fun. Then I got sunbreak and rise as one for Christmas and didn’t have to borrow it. TU3 was probably announced or released around when I got it, but there was still so much for me to do and I absolutely adored it and still do, and it’s kinda crazy how one game turned monster hunter into what might be my favorite franchise of all time. I do tend to wish (quite a lot) that the monsters were as fleshed out as they were in world, or that more of the maps were areas that could support monster combat, but there’s a reason I’ve sunk a little over 500 hours into it even with school constantly bearing down on me. I even ended up getting freedom unite emulated on my laptop because of it (even if I forget it’s there and this have not made enough progress to even slay a congalala or cephadrome or hell even a few cephalos). Despite all its flaws, I absolutely love this game and it has made me a devoted fan of the series who will absolutely return to the hunting grounds when MH6 inevitably releases

The most glaring problem I think rise has is that it doesn't feel like you're hunting monsters in this one, I haven't played world and started with generations. And I loved the prep work and being dumped in the map having to search around and tag the monster once you find them. It felt like a hunt, rise just tells you where the monster is and all you really do is beat it up.

I'll probably have another comment, but I have to say this everywhere: spiribirds are the single worst addition to monster hunter since the dawn of time. I NEVER eat for anything other than bird caller at the top of my dango skewer, and still often slip bird caller deco into any build I can

I’m a new sub and I love your videos. I really appreciate the way you segmented this video because it makes it easier to stop and consider if I should stop watching and get back to work! ADHD friendly.

First off, thank you for an amazing effort. Top notch video. I have two Monster Hunter game's. Still trying to get into them.

While I like characters with names better, I think characters going by their occupations or other titles was meant to tie into the apparent focus on community rather than individuals (or at least the focus I gathered). I think actual names suit post world monhun MUCH better though

I hope this ends up getting the infamy (In a positive sense) of jacob's Dos video, as "That ludicrously long video about 1 singular MH game that's controversial" or in short, "That 4 hour Rise video". Praying for this to blow the hell up.

What a majestic video my dude. Watched the whole 4 - almost- hours couse I was hyped for Rise coming to ps5 and you delivered such a great analysis on the game! Fucking loved the concept of quests being different parts of the video!

quick question, out of those total quests for each game, how many are those can you play with other hunters?

As a hbg main one of my main complaints with world was the removal of the siege mode, because being unable to use your favorite playstyle sucks. So the delight of my fellow hbg users and my self when we were finally able to play human turret again was ecstatic, even more so when they made it good in tu3.

The primary reason I take World over Rise is due to the world feeling, well, like the creatures actually LIVE in it, Rise it just feels random and heartless, with the wirebugs not exactly appealing to me either, I kind of miss the generations hunter skill arts stuff more honestly if I had to pick a skill system to stick with.

I would honestly love if the next Monster Hunter have the combat of Rise, with the immersion of World. Makes me wonder how the next game will top it, or how they’ll keep the gameplay fresh.

The Gathering of the Qurio Quest really was special. Some of the older games actually did stuff like this as well, in less overt fashion. As an example, I remember in that one quest the Tigrex first appears in in Freedom Unite, the Popo it preys on (and that you are supposed to gather from) are notably absent from their usual habitat. The Epioth in the quest you first meet Lagiacrus in also have slightly altered spawns, because the Lagiacrus is near. Environmental story telling can do SO much in gameplay-focused series like this one and, even as someone, who grew tired of cutscenes and video game stories a while ago, I can really appreciate stuff like this - stuff that lets me experience the story by having to interact with its implications. On that note - I'm not sure yet if this will come up - Rise absolutely botched Magnamalo in my opinion. You can actually encounter Magnamalo in free hunt expeditions after it first interrupts a rampage and is painted as this hyper dangerous menace. Problem is, unlike other flagship first appearances, this is NOT an overpowered super version. This is regular old Mag, slayable on sight if you know what you're doing. Sure, a new player might get caught offguard by the moveset, but the point is that it's very much killable before it's supposed to be in the story and it undermines everything. It's especially baffling because they had a perfectly OP Magnamalo in the demo preceeding the game's release. That one instilled more respect than the low rank one carrying the story. EDIT: okay. I should not comment mid-video lol

As someone who has unfortunately fallen on the side of "Not really liking" Rise much, this video did a fantastic job of exploring its pros and cons. Great job showing why people can and do both like and dislike it, good stuff. I dropped playing a little after reaching High Rank, which I know from past Hunting experience is typically when the games "actually start" and begin to get really good, but I just hadn't meshed with the pacing and presentation up to that point, and didn't see that changing going forward. The arcade feel is nice for quick hunts, but I have other things that scratch that itch well enough already. I typically played MonHun BECAUSE it was an investment that I felt I was progressing in, and base Rise just wasn't giving that. Which is a shame, because the new monsters are some of my absolute favorites in the series. The yokai inspirations are very clever and fun to see implemented. The arguments for the improvements made in Sunbreak actually make me very intrigued though. The fact that ALL weapons can reach Rank 10, while perhaps a small feature, is something I've wanted since I started back in 3U, and is a huge selling point for me. The removal of Rampages, Apex fixes, and the weapon possibilities alone kind of make me want to give the game another shot to get there. As a final point, I'm glad that you addressed your second point of why people find the content "lacking". I definitely think it's how fast hunts go now, coupled with how quick it is to fly through content. The content is there, and there is a lot of it. But it's like eating popcorn vs a full meal (representing the prior games): Popcorn is fun and can fill you up, but it just doesn't give you the same satisfaction as a well-paced meal. It's the illusion of not being satisfied, despite roughly the same result.

My only experience with the series is the original on Ps2, where I played all the offline content, the Monster Hunter crossover missions in MGS Peace Walker and recently, Rise. Even with that limited experience, some of the issues you brought up with Rise were glaringly apparent to me. I'm loving the arcade nature of the game but so much of the experience feels stripped away or streamlined to the point of being irrelevant, with the breaking of parts being the big one for me. Much as I'm enjoying Rise, I'm quite frustrated that Peace Walker, a non Monster Hunter game, did this better than Rise. In retrospect PW's mech bosses were drawing very heavily from MH mechanically and as such, shoving a Rathalos and a Tigrex in there was a perfect fit. Gear Rex in particular made breaking the parts feel almost mandatory unless you were really good at the fight, as it could do absurd damage. You had clear points of breakage, clear moment to moment incentive to do it and unique rewards tied to doing so. Where in Rise this still exists on paper, in reality breaking parts feels like nothing changes during an actual fight. Cutting off tails still does but I can break several parts in a couple seconds and the monster will not be impeded in any noticeable way by this. In both the original and the MGS crossover, breaking things made an immediately noticeable difference. Granted PW only had 4 big monsters iirc so it's a lot less work to make all these bespoke details there but considering that wasn't even an MH game, I don't feel wrong in expecting at least that quality out of MH itself. As a giant DMC fanboy I know damn well Capcom knows how to make large melee bosses that react appropriately to damage on different body parts with major incentive to focus on specific areas. Speedrunning Urizen in DMC 5 is all about exploiting a huge damage boost that occurs when hitting a specific part of his body in a short window after staggering him, on the RE Engine so why does Rise feel so hollow in regard to payoff for strategically aiming your hits when that's been a core part of MH since the original? Monsters fighting each other was ruined for me as soon as I understood how Wyvern riding was implemented. Though I'm viewing it from a different perspective than you are. You see it as a problem because two monsters just means more opportunity instead of danger, I agree but feel it could and should be both. Yes you could very well have three beasties on your ass, but a smart player could feasibly use them against each other in a way that's far more skill based and creative than riding. My idea was to use myself as bait to keep them hitting each other by accident, rather than one or both just running away after a few hits. Riding is brain dead free damage and completely ruins the thrill of having a couple big boys throw down. Where instead learning to take advantage of the chaos, while risking multiple strong foes at once could've been really fun. Learn to use a particularly big beast as a shield, which would piss it off and make it lash out at the attacker. Very dangerous but very exploitable, a good risk/reward balance. Instead you either ride one or they stop fighting and run away from each other no matter what in my experience. The wire bug is a mechanic I adore but I agree that the monsters really lack the means to counter it well. Considering the number of times I've been knocked out of a leaping slash from high ground with a greatsword like the monster knew exactly what I was trying to do, the fact they've got no idea how to deal with Spider-Man just sticks out. Between how meaningless breaking parts feels in the moment and how maneuverable we are, the whole game feels very unga bunga. Except for Greatsword due to the glacial swing speed, I feel very little need to learn how a monster fights. I'm just rushing in and going mad, dodging when needed. I can very much treat it like a regular old hack and slash in most cases because I've got little reason to strategize around part breaking and I'm so mobile it doesn't matter how they fight when I can I-frame and close ground so fast. I play with GS half the time just because I'm forced to actually learn and respect these beasts before I can casually disrespect them with it. Overall the system is fun as hell but the only thing that gave me the threatening feel of MH 1 and PW that I understand is core to the series, was trying Malzeno in the Sunbreak demo. That felt like a proper "do not fuck around here" threat. But you've convinced me to get Sunbreak. I'm having a ton of fun with Rise but my gripes are big enough that I didn't see the expansion as worth getting if it was just more of Rise. From the way you've talked about it, Sunbreak sounds like the closest thing to a perfect experience I can get as someone who really appreciates some of the streamlining you've pointed out here while agreeing with a lot of flaws as well.

I never played a monster hunter game, but I absolutely love listening to the explanations. Nice work!

A bit late but something that I believe sunbreaks story did really well is as you mentioned actually having malzeno injure foirane. She was the first character in all of monster hunter who actually pitched up and DID SOMETHING. I think it’s a bit over looked how much it did to sell the story. The first character in all of monster hunter to say ‘we did it’ and I didn’t have a snarky comeback along the lines of ‘no I did it you were hiding’ and melzeno injures and poisoned her. For me at least that changed the player monster rivalry from, ‘next time we meet I’m going to beat you just to prove I can’, to ‘oh now now you’ve done it and when I get the chance I am going to obliterate you’. Before it always felt like I had no personal reason to hunt the boy on the box besides that he was a big scary dino who tried to mess with me when I was a newbie, good for your first mh game but after that it doesn’t have the same affect because you know more or less where the boi on the box sits on the food chain and you just came from the previous game where you stood toe to toe with black dragons. But malzeno brings back that sense of malice and gives me a vendetta against him even as someone who has been with mh since the days of pokke village and having to personally tend to the farm Great video btw

The UI Scaler mod is downright mandatory for this game.

It's just utterly relaxing listening to you talk plus the fact that it's about my favorite videogame series. Kudos to the effort you put into this Oceaniz! Thank you

Took me a couple days but overall great video! :) I'm new to the franchise and have about 30h~ on the game now, while I feel a little spoiled on some stuff I like seing that there's a lot of stuff left for me on the game and how it's different from other delivers

As someone that's only played Worldborne and Risebreak, I think I enjoyed world's endgame more. Now, I hopped into world when Fatalis had launched, so for me, I really liked the linear path set out for me. Get Teostra gear, so I can beat raging brachy, so I can get raging brachy gear, so I can grind Safi, so I can beat Alatreon, so I can beat Fatalis. Minmax with mantles, palicos, item loadouts, weapon augments to reach a Best In Slot to try to fight Fatalis, a monstrous wall who will force me to make use of every aspect of my loadout.

great video! I agree with most of your points, besides the layered stuff being too easy to get, i thought the transmog system was a bit too tedious and i much prefer to have easy experimentation than doing that song and dance all over again. but i will say the early game clown suits have a certain charm to them and i definitely think that layered armor should be a late game thing, but i really hope that they don’t make layered armor go back to transmog system

It's not even 2 minutes in, and you have me hooked. Your experience was the same as my own with the MH series. Though I was a bit older I suspect. (I'm almost 40 now) My actual review of MH3:U for the 3DS when I borrowed the game from a friend was "It feels like the game and the system are fighting me every step of the way. Maybe when the hardware catches up to the vision of the game, I'll give it another look" That same friend is the one who talked me into MH:W and I havent looked back since. Its been great so far.

There are some things that kind of carry over and affect others that we might not consider when first comparing games like Rise and World. For instance, the ease of more advanced and perhaps bored, World players to look through multiplayer SOS lists to see where they can help new players with key quests was amazing. This alone added a ton of "content" to the game, as the gameplay of helping a struggling player is totally different from fighting a monster solo or with a group at your level.

Getting kicked for having certain equipment has practically always been a thing. I remember getting kicked out of rooms in Dungeon Siege for having a certain staff that can only be gotten by playing past the end of the game and going through a secret door. Same thing happened in Dungeon Siege 2 when people saw I had a spell that you'd get from doing something similar in that game because people assumed it was a hacked mod.

A game with no content: I think the perception with Rise not having content (besides what you said) is that it doesn’t have content that matters. Like in open world games that advertise hundreds of hours of content and end up being the same 4 missions with different make up. In world/iceborne there was little to no filler quest, every quest had an end to it whether it was just slaying a monster in a different local or helping you get the damn mini-crowns, they had a use other than having fun with it and even those made for pure fun (the three giant mosswines) were unique and to some point challenging, while in rise there are a lot of quests that have no bigger reward than "Fight these monsters AT THE SAME TIME". I think this also correlates with the dlc discussion making us feel that these empty quests could have had some sort of reward just to be taken out to be sold

I don't think I've had such a satisfied smile seeing a MH credits as I did with sunbreak.

Awesome video. Very insightful. I’m new to monster Hunter and I feel good about getting invested in this game after having seen this breakdown of the game

I think the strengths of the MH franchise is that since MH2, not one of the games has invalidated an older title in terms of playability. All the games have their own pros and cons to make them fun to play and are rewarding in their own ways

I love World and Rise for what it be (except tenderise). But i digress. In technical stand point, World is superior version since it singlehandly make MH reach a new high. But if base purely on my enjoyment, ill choose rise over world any days. Rise mixing ridiculousness and fun to perfection make it as 'one of kind' experience. I hope ongoing forward that portable team just stick with this direction.

Here's hoping for some technical updates on the game pass version!

While im not the biggest fan of monsters always being on the map, it is so cool to see valstrax running around during the ambush. You can feel it calculating where to hit in the brief moment it stands still

That was a really good point about the game's lower difficulty making the game feel like it has less content. I think it's a combination of that and the fact that Rise has much fewer TRULY NEW monsters than World and Iceborne, many of the returning monsters having been in World Iceborne themselves. So it's probably that a lot of people who played World are coming to the game and not experiencing anything near the novelty they got in World, even if they were a veteran by that point. People say that Rise has just as many new monsters as other games, but a huge proportion of them are actually just variants of existing ones, with a pallette and element swap, which isn't even really worth half of a new monster.

Fantastic video, a pleasure to watch! Minor correction on the Spiribirds bit, they did not take away anything prior and replace them with spiribirds. Spiribirds provide up to 250 health & stamina, on top of the standard 100 + 50 from eating. This is completely standard across the series - you always reach maximum health with the Canteen. World modified Health Boost to provide an increase to 200, but that wasn't done because monsters were balanced for 200 health and they just wanted every player to use Health Boost. Instead, they wanted to provide value to a relatively defunct skill - not useless, absolutely has had a lot of use cases across various points of progression across many games (Bullfango mask in MHFU is a classic), buuuut was negated by the canteen pre-quest, and max/ancient potions in-quest. This made it useful, but significantly less so; saved resources and helped niche cases like a friend of mine who is not allowed to heal on any quest (meaning without Felyne Foodie or Health+50, they're stuck at 100 after the first cart), but those are extremely minor relative to the old amount of investment one may need to reach Health+50. Thus there's little usage of the skill relatively speaking. About as impactful as heat/cold negate past the early game - extremely niche, but at least those weren't costly? **To re-connect, overall point is that Health Boost 3 in World wasn't correlated to balance, and Spiribirds did not reduce the maximum health players have access to without engaging with the mechanic.** Another mistaken interpretation is that Max/Ancient potions in Rise no longer provide increased health. This is technically true, but the reason is extremely simple: **Unlike every other iteration, you cannot physically lose your foods buffs including the +50 health and stamina bonus - no carting will ever cause that to be removed.** Thus, there's by definition 0 purpose for Max/Ancient potions to "increase" your health as the *only* case where they would be capable... would be if you didn't eat at the canteen. Which we now have access to at all times in-quest, again making even that option defunct. So, they simply out-mechanic'd the original mechanic and moved on. No correlation to spiribirds, just the canteen buffs. To be even *more* clear, the developers are quoted to have implemented the Spiribird system as a difficulty setting, intending for experienced players to very liberally interact with them if at all. That sheds the most light on their intentions, but that doesn't absolve its issues as you've stated; effort doesn't indicate quality.

A very minor detail criticism that I haven't seen in this that bothers me (outside of kinda talking about the "nature of the hunt" - although you addressed it somewhat with how the UI tells you always where monsters are etc.) is that dung bombs are utterly useless. Not only do you not need them anymore to get out of grabs (because of Wirebug) but because of how potent mounting (again) and clashes are you never would want to use dung bombs. I loved how a Deviljho would grab somebody in 4u and decimate them within 2-3 seconds if people weren't at the ready for flinging dung at it.

i played 2 rampage quest and absolutely hated it glad to hear that i am not the only one. good to know it was scraped later into the game. because i had every intention to avoid every upcoming rampage quest even if it meant not playing rise anymore if it remained part of the core game progression

It all comes down to execution. Rise has a lot of cool additions, but with that, comes a lot of consequences, and I don't feel like what we've gained entirely makes up for what we lost. 1. Namely, Wyvern-riding is cool in theory, but with how it works in practice, the monsters now hardly interact with each other, making the world feel less alive. Bazel can't ruin your hunts anymore because if the other monster takes damage, it becomes ride-able, which is bad for balance. 2. Wirebugs trivialize most fights, and if monsters were designed around them, we'd end up with a gameplay flow that feels more like a dmc style game. 3. (Until recently) Monsters in Rise were designed to have massively increased tracking on their attacks to force players to use more counters, and less dodges. On paper, this sounds like it's demanding more skill and respecting the intelligence of the player, but in practice it means that playstyles which didn't have counters were punished, and when utilizing counters properly, it meant the safest place to fight the monster was in it's most dangerous strike-zones; thus rewarding the player for bad positioning and constant, mindless attacking, rather than teaching them to respect the monsters' strike-zones, take risks for damage, and positioning on the very edges of attacks and following through with creative uses of your weapon's hitbox-- combat in Rise (to me) does not feel like MonHun; it's not what I personally play MonHun for. 4. Everything is gutted in the name of dps. In every game ever, I have literally hated the concept of metas for simply existing; I will actively go out of my way to avoid using them, and in previous MonHun entries, that was more or less acceptable, but in Rise, everything just demands you do nothing but keep swinging, and I find it extremely dull and repetitive.

Very well put. I sooo agree on the Sunbreak endgame, I'm having an absolute blast with it, far more so then even Iceborne. The anomaly quests/investigations are sheer perfection imo, and it looks like they're paying a bit of attention to the rng slog that is Qurios armor crafting via being able to target either skills or defense now, hopefully they tweak it further. On the topic of anomaly coins and parts, you get waaaayyyy more rewards there in the higher levels, but I definitely agree that they lower levels could use a bump in reward numbers. Hit the nail on the head with wyvern riding and it trivializing invader monsters. Between that and maps, I'm really missing the fear of needing to sneak around carefully in order to scope out what's actually on the map at any given point. Also fully agreeing on Kamura's characters, there's supposedly this horrible calamity coming and everyone's scared, but everyone just acts super goddamn cheerful all the time like nothing is wrong. It all felt really flat (and that lottery music needs a mute button). As for comparisons to World, I replayed World/IB, I think its been 5, 6, 7 times now? Absolutely adore that in its full package, I have no problem just deleting an existing character I have to make room for a new one, because the whole thing is just great. I can't say the same for base Rise, overall I really didn't have a lot of fun there. I'm only replaying through it a second time because I got stuck on wanting to play through it with a fan character and didn't want to erase my existing one. In this case I'm happily taking the defender weapon in order to slog through Rise as quickly as possible just so I can get to SB, because Sunbreak's general gameplay is so good for me that I think that alone is making it surpass World/IB for me, not even taking into acount everything else that it improved upon (Follower system my beloved, I've been wanting you for so long).

There are so many 3 hour videos on Monster Hunter and god damn I love it.

great video! Commenting to say I super super agree with your comments about the roster and new monsters in rise and sunbreak, the new designs are soo fun and the returners are so welcome, especially to the ones who didnt make it in world. The base rise newcomers are so enchanting, especially with the traditional japanese poetry cutscenes they get: the MH language and Japanese voice acting really enhance the mystique of them.

Having started with Tri and playing all games since, Rise is my favorite (barring nostalgia for Tri) so far. It's just... good? Idk, it's less of a slog than world and has the most fun actual mechanical gameplay of any MH yet.

i bought the extra bit of plastic that made the camera controls workable.

Great video to watch during a 12 hour boring workday thanks

Regarding people using the word "lazy." I think it needs to be taken within context. That context being that it is a comparative term. People don't say the devs were lazy as in they took the day off and went for a walk in the park. They use it to compare levels of effort between dev companies. It's like calling an F1 driver slow. Yes, any one of them is faster and puts in more effort than any one of us common plebs. No one is denying that. Doesn't mean some of them are not slow among their peers.

I would say in Sunbreak that dogs are more for damage and status build up while also providing mobility but cats are more for during the fight utility cuz dogs are very useful in combat especially as a GS user myself where the monster going to sleep and me getting that TCS off is absolutely immaculate. And also for a lot of weapons it's very good to enter a fight with all your wire bugs so having a dog there to get to the monster so you don't have to spend the wire bugs on the way is more useful

On the content note, I think that rise has way less repeatable content, or at least way less grindy content. World, while having less monsters, had the giants of Kulve and Safi, which were gigantic timesinks (I have a friend that spent more than 400 hours trying to get an eletric Kjarr bow). Worlds monsters also were really skill creepy, which meant that the set of the monster that just released was probably gonna be better than the one you were using, causing you to farm all the new Monsters, while rise is much more modest about it. (I for one am still using Narwa/Ibushi confort set for CB because, well, the new armor options either aren't really my style or are too much of a hassle for me personally.) Anomaly investigations are also more intimidating than guiding lands as an endgame farm. Why? Tell a guy he has to upgrade his forest to level 7, while it is at level 4, and his mind thinks "oh sure ok 3 levels how hard can that be". Tell a guy that is level 50 in anomaly investigation that for some of the last upgrades in his weapons are unlocked after level 181+ and he will simply say "fuck that". Another thing of note, while the grind for Transmog and Augments were locked behind the Guiding Lands in World, Anomaly Investigations only unlock Augments. This tiny difference actually means the world for endgame grinding. Most people want to use transmog, especially the cool endgame ones, and it just so happened that the cool endgames one where locked behind a lot of grind, which then led people to just grind it out. Most people however, don't give a shit about augments, see it only as very extra extra min-maxing. The thing im trying to say is, while World Guiding Lands felt like obrigatory content since everyone wanted to look cool, Anomaly Investigations feel truly optional since not everyone wants to get the last tiny shred of damage out of their weapons.

Banger video you have my like and subscribe.

Im watching this, because it’s three hours long. You SIR, are a trooper.

I couldn't disagree more when it comes to afflicted monsters, I find the glowing cores an annoying chore and I feel like the entire experience is just frustrating.

Absolutely loved this review!

And now, even on top of Risen, we have Hazard quests and "Ex" Risen ! I love this endgame so much, even if I find it really hard to keep up with the anomaly ranks due to having much less time to play than before. Thank you very much for the video !

In regards to difficulty I personally think that the small change of being able to heal on the move, was by far the most impactful. You used to have to time your heals in order to not get murdered, now with the use of a Palamute you can even sharpen whilst moving.

Oh, this one is a big boy, see y'all in forever! RiseWasPrettyCool/10