1:03 new stories 2 trailer 14:28 future big updates for rise (collaborations, dlc) 20:04 expectations for 3.0 and meta shifts 22:04 final fight opinions (no spoilers) 26:31 endgame expectations 33:05 endgame loop compared to previous games 35:38 rampage weapons and gunlance problems 42:34 ultimate expansion 47:03 lack of augments 50:50 almudron 52:03 technical difficulties 53:59 valstrax 1:06:58 valstrax armour 1:16:05 apex diablos outside of rampage 1:27:39 apex rathalos outside of rampage 1:35:10 apex zinogre 1:40:48 rating the apex diablos, rathalos, and zinogre (plus evidence that Canta is a god) 1:47:32 new utsushi quests 1:50:12 final bosses armor and skills 2:04:19 armor balance 2:06:53 zenny problems 2:08:56 new battle arena (spoilers) 2:14:04 event quests 2:15:02 bow charge plus, and bow being op 2:18:30 overall feelings 2:24:00 Yuna's feelings

2:21:58 well, I do hope gaijin watch my MHmovie reanimated skit lol D:

1:00:33 Context on monster names for anyone curious: Crimson Glow Valstrax is 奇しき赫耀のバルファルク (kushiki kakuyō no barufaruku), literally "Valphalk with a strange glow". 赫 (kaku) means "to light up", and 耀 (yō) means "to shine" or "to glimmer". The wordplay of sorts comes from the character 赫, which is constructed by duplicating the character 赤, which means "red", so it can be construed to mean a "strange red-red glow". Ruiner Nergigante is 悉くを殲ぼすネルギガンテ (kotogotoku o horobosu nerugigante), literally "Nergigante that destroys everything". It also happens to be a wordplay on Nergigante's alias, 滅尽龍 (metsujinryū), approximately "Extinction Dragon", as "kotogotoku" can also be written "尽く" and "horobosu" can also be written "滅ぼす", which are the characters used in its alias. Bloodbath Diablos is 鏖魔ディアブロス (ōma diaburosu), literally "Massacre Demon Diablos". The character 鏖 (ō), meaning "massacre", is not only complicated, but is also rather obscure, hence why people would not immediately know how to pronounce its name. As gaijin says, variants in general have pretty cool names in Japanese. My personal favorites are the final boss of Rise and Frostfang Barioth (氷刃佩くベリオロス, hyōjin-haku beriorosu), "Berioros that wears a blade of ice", with the word for "wear" being the one used for wearing a sword at one's waist, hence its knight-themed armor sets.

I think the perfect engame a monster Hunter can have is the endgame Monster Hunter Generation had with the Deviant Monsters. The Deviant Monsters were basically 12 engame versions of normal Monsters like Lagombi, Rathalos, Tigrex etc but they had a new design and were much stronger. Every Deviant Monster had 10 quests with different difficulty levels that rewarded you with upgrade materials for the Deviant Armors which could be upgraded from level 1 to 10 and ulocked new skills for the armor. The Deviant System gave us a challange, rewards, tons of Armors and Weapons, a non monotonous Gameplay and hundreds of hours to invest our time in. ...also Monster Hunter Generations allowed us to upgrade every weapon up to an endgame level so we had a lot more options for endgame builds.

I haven't watched it yet, but I saw Ruri stream on twitch and I'll guess that's he's very disappointed he was expecting this update to be on par with the ammount of content we got in 2.0 I also expect Gaijin to be like "I TOLD everyone they should lower their expectations a bit, I had a blast with this update!". I'll come back to the end of the video to see if I was right. Edit: looks like I was mostly right, I'm glad they enjoyed their time with it still, I did too!

I would love if every monster got an arena quest. It's so nice to be handled a random set and have to do your best in the quest. I liked the tetranodon challenge a lot.

If I can make a suggestion for your guys concern with spoiling the final story boss. With how long the content has been out and that it's the very first thing the new update throws at you, skipping discussion seems pointless and people will want to hear you discuss it. So I may suggest taking a cue from Castle Super Beast podcast, and do a 'spoilercast' at the end and you just give a warning beforehand. No extra editing on your part needed and easy for someone who wants to avoid spoilers to skip just by stopping the video/mp3 at that moment.

You might already know, but Mecha-tetranodon's real name is actually Toadversary. Edit: rampage bow 6 I think has a ramp up for shot choice that automatically gives level 4 shot. I think it was on rage gaming's dragon piercer build.

Maybe I’m just taking too long to get through all the content, but we already have a decent end game. That lazurite farm to get all the decos takes forever. There’s a lot of layered armor to get. You have to farm a bunch of unique Apex monster parts to make every fully upgraded rampage weapon, and several weapons (think DB, bow, HH, even GL now) benefit from a full arsenal of rampage weapons them. Then there’s the rampage skill grind for every weapon, and of course the charm farm is still pretty relevant to most of us. Rise has the end game grind, it’s just spread out through most of its content. I’m not killing Safi 400 times, I’m farming all the apex’s, farming elder dragons, farming the final monster, doing rampages.... I mean hell, there’s still loot I need out of almost every type of hunt. I suppose it helps that I cycle between 5 different weapons. And one of them’s the bow (which I’m working on rapid and spread rampage weapons for each element so 10 rampage weapons just for that), but the end game here in rise is massive. I’ll never get everything done. I don’t know what more of an “end game” I’d want.

I think the only thing I’d like for endgame is a difficult version of every monster because it adds like 30 extra hours of content. I’m fine with no investigations and I’m still gonna play rise a ton anyway just for the fun of it but I’d really like a hard version of monsters because it adds more incentive to play in general.

As someone who barely used gunlance, elemental shells sound interesting. Maybe less fixed than regular, but with the elemental qualifiers to take advantage of weaknesses. Or to inflict blights.

I personally think they’ll add a lot of content over time due to one major reason: it’s on the switch. they’re monetizing it better so there will be more money to make more content. being on the switch what is the switch notorious for? Most switch games physical copies don’t really lower all that much in price for long periods of time, meaning most people actually wait for digital sales. These digital sales give more money to the company rather than being 1 copy just resold and shared with others. Second is their dlc system. From what I’m seeing, their dlc packs are being pumped out with each update and the dlc content is pretty popular (such as voices). These small but stables sources of income add up over time especially with how many copies are out and will continue to sell, creating a constant income funnel. All this revenue will allow them to pump more and more content out ONLY if they’re willing to. They’ll have the money for it, it now comes down to whether they want to pump out content or focus on other projects/the next expansion or game.

Really making my weekend chill time here, lads. Kudos!

On the end game stuff... I think the problem is that we don't have a replacement for the tempered system. What those gimmick systems offer are extra difficulty AND reasons to hunt weaker monsters. 4 had Apex monsters, Generations had hyper monsters and deviants, and world had the tempered and arch tempered monsters. In theory the new Apexes should be the end game but there aren't enough for it to feel like an end game.

As someone who was somewhat disappointed with the update (mainly cause it didn't add much gear to craft) I'm definitely interested to hear what you two and Yuna think of it! More Stories 2 discussion is also awesome, thank you!

I just have to say: I LOVE the banter between you two in this podcast! It just gave me a great smile throughout. Thank you so much!

37:00 80% of the gunlance tree already was useless, rampage gunlance just showcased how capcom doesnt know how to balance gunlance

I want to get this out of the way now. 3.0 and 2.0 were not “free EXTRA content”, it has already been proven that both of those “free updates” were supposed to be in the game AT LAUNCH. With that being said, my problems with 3.0 is that they didn’t add a tempered/hyper system even though every single monster has “normal” next to their names in the Physiology tab, the apexes don’t have their own armor or weapons, and the lack of change in the endgame grind. If they fixed two out of three of those problems I wouldn’t have been disappointed at all, but the fact of the matter is this game was in development for three years before Covid or the ransom attack even happened, and the game still feels like it’s missing core pieces to it.

I really like how the full Valstrax set is perfect for GS, my favorite elder dragon set being perfect for my favorite weapon

No gear from apex monsters is probably the largest mistake they made. To me it just seems a bit lazy. Its nice they brought these monsters in but it sucks that there is no real point to fight them. Im super hoping they make an update from these because it has so much potential, but at the moment they dropped the ball on them.

I’m on an 18 hour roadtrip to florida so good timing boys

Maybe the problem with rise isn't the volume of content, but the ease of which you get through it. As a PC player waiting till next year, I can't speak from personal experience, but that's the vibe I get from the rest of the community. Personally, Monster Hunter is a game that has always been satisfying to me for three reasons; winning the fight, mastering the fight and crafting the gear. Endgame grinding, unless you were doing charm runs, never existed untill World. So, if people are complaining about the game, then I think that one of those aspects isn't up to snuff with what we expect. Either winning the fights does not provide a sense of achievement anymore, mastering a fight no longer feels like a dance between equals or the gear is lackluster and limited in it's design or viability.

I've talked mad crap the last few weeks over the difficulty of rise, but the more i okay the more i fall in love with the game. So thank you so much for these podcasts and you're passion for these game's. It just wouldn't be the same without you two!

You dont have to use character edit voucher for dlc voices btw

You know what would be cool? Lao Shan Rampage

I find it funny with how gaijin talked about others liking something that you don't since that's how I felt with world and iceborne.

Important to note you can use 4 pieces of Ibushi/Narwa and ANY armour piece and stormsoul 4 will add +1 to the other armour pieces skills. So Kaiser helm would have Crit eye 4 and crit boost 2. Only applies to the skills that come natively on the piece and not decos. Downside is that the skills from Narwa/Ibushi will max only at lvl 2 with stormsoul 4.

Dragon Quest Monsters was so good. My first DQ game and I was in like 6th grade, had no clue what it was and woah boy was I an instant fan. Good stuff guys!

I mean, if all you play is for fun in the endgame then what’s wrong with Investigations? They are quite literally infinite quests. If the algorithm functions correctly, the need to even add more quests becomes irrelevant. Why is the community so much against that concept?

One thing I'd like to see if an apex from one of the new monsters, I'd say Goss harag and he could have some new ice weapons to use like having the wrecking ball fist but dual wielded and he can do a super powerful tornado spin attack or maybe a scythe-like weapon to fit the title of the limb reaper, love the work that both you and Gaijin are doing, keep up the good work and take care of yourself ☺️

In college and 3 of my roommates also play and 2 of our other friends. Rise has been a great experience! Thanks for the content guys! Listening to y'all has been big part of my studying time.

What people want is the grind of a live service game without having content gated like in MHW. It doesn't necessarily need to be a live service just a system where people can grind at a reasonable rate for builds.

Valstrax's ambush prompt seems to happen whenever it does the big dive bomb attack whether its during the fight or coming in from another area. Also the Felyne Silkbind cant stop Valstrax from going into the sky. 1:33:50 I'm pretty sure that move he's talking about is taken from the Dreadqueen's G Rank move where she causes wind pressure and follows it up with a fire attack, but for Apex Rathalos the wind pressure is replaced with another fire attack.

I gotta say, I wasn't really interested in MH Stories 2 initially, but hearing you guys talking about modifying monster genes, changing elements, having low tier monsters use high tier monster abilities has all peaked my interest.

This should be an interesting podcast. Looking forward to hearing both of your opinions!

You guys talking about BB Diablos makes me wanna visit GU. ❤

the way my brain works is that i like to check boxes. World gave us weekly tasks to do and we got rewards for it, but in Rise there's nothing like that. No weekly stuff, no investigations, no tempered monsters, no deco grinding (as much as i hated it, but it gave me something to do). I know there's always the grind for new builds or weapons, or fashion hunting every now and then, but that's not my thing. I need quests to clear, and tough monsters to grind for, but the game is super easy as of right now, so im not motivated to grind for anything. I think im ready for a break.

My first Jhen Mohran kill in MHTri is pretty closely tied to my first Lao kill in MH1 and I gotta say both were masterfully done with what the games were at their current generations.

The two issues I have with 3.0 is that I was hoping for at least one more mid-high tier monster and I wish we'd gotten a better replacement for the Nargacuga weapons. I know it's possible to get the Rampage weapons on par, but I'd still like to have something new.

Gaijin sounds more natural, more giddy. He seems for excited in this episode and I like it. You can really tell his smile is ear to ear with the 3.0 update.

I may be a bit weird, but I’m hoping for some QoL updates soon. Having a talisman sorting feature by skill or slots WHILE I meld would take away the hassle of searching manually in the separate equipment box would be nice

Wait I could've listened on Spotify? Lol should've lead with that guy's. Fantastic pod cast

A few things on the Stories 2 coverage Ruri, i know you love comparing this game to pokemon, but the Rite of Channeling has no equivalent in Pokemon. The closest you can get is copying moves with Smeargle and abilities with Skill Swap, but that doesnt cover the full breadth that the Rite of Channeling allows. You can give your monsties new elemental resistances and weaknesses, give them new Passives they dont normally get, give them interesting set ups of abilities to use, and, as states by Gaijin, heavy amount of elemental application can physically change the monster's color, main element, and even Kinship attack to that element. We have 5 returning characters so far: Navirou as the partner, Reverto as the Rider-understanding Hunter that vibed with a Tigrex instead of dying (first hunt, btw, tigrex), Lilia as the Scrivener commander, Avinia as a wandering rider, and finally, the Channeler, who is referred to as Ol' Dede in the website. "Sarge" seems to only be a nickname from Navirou, as the website named the big cat as Orgo, leader of the Felyne Shelter Black diablos has not been shown before this trailer, but we do have Reverto's Greatsword being made from Diablos and a Monoblos hidden deep in the website's screenshots

i was testing the valstrax charge blade and noticed that the swing of the blade has a unique sound effect, pretty neat!

I'm kinda glad that the content is coming to a halt since there are so many games that already came out and are coming in June/July

I'm always amazed by you two just sitting there talking for 3 hours straight, how do you find the time or energy? I can barely talk to anyone for like 10 minutes without getting exhausted XD

For the endgame I was hoping they would add tempered monsters and investigations or something similar.

"Crimson Wrath Valstrax" would have been a good alternative.

Is it just me or did I not get any notification that the video was up? I hit the bell and everything

If you have a wiiu you can download the first monster hunter stories and play it on your tv. It's $39.

That charge blade joke is unfortunally on point, CB in rise is only savage mode cause SAED style is not only weaker but harder to make consistent

I’m enjoying this update so damn much

About Valstrax Laser... this one may have a wide hitbox.. but he doesn't stager back so fast and you unlike with Shara Ishvalda your actually pretty save between the wings just keep in mind he stagers back a little with is.

3 Ultimate's final fight was with Dire Miralis! Tri was Alatreon.

Yuna really does have that Ultra Instinct

Big facts about watching speed runs to learn new tricks, peppo always has some crazy new trick with longsword, the bomb move in the chameleos speed run is insane

For me, I was super thrown off by the changes made to Valstrax. Managed to triple cart me. It’s weird, because I thought in GU Valstrax was a little too easy.

50:20 the triple false starts of talking over each other due to what I’m assuming was internet lag is pretty freakin hilarious ... looks like @Rurikhan even had to slip a stealth edit to get back on track lol

I'll say one positive about 3.0, Valtrax and the final boss are actually pretty tough. I noticed a lot of moves catching my wirefalls and they deal dummy damage to max level armor

Is it just me or gaijin laughs a lot in this video? It's so wholesome wtf

I gotta disagree a bit with Gaijin on 4U Guild Quests. It wasn't just rajang or shagaru. You could easily do other monsters and get an equally powerful weapon. the reason people did those was because of the weapon design. And design isn't something that's mutually agreed upon being "the best design" so for me I was mostly hunting things like Oroshi Kirin and Diablo's because those weapons looked more cool to me. And it also depended on what weapon you used and what designed you liked most, so the variety was there. On top of this the relic armor sets you could get were pretty unique in design and you had so much variety in those that you could easily be doing like a Deviljho if it had the correct type of armor you wanted. The main reason why it wasn't enjoyed more, was due to the amount of RNG grind it had. Personally I liked that, because it meant that if you got something really rare, people recognized that. Rise only has talismans that kind of resemble that f you get some insanely good one. But it doesn't feel like you're grinding towards that "peak of the mountain" it just happens if it happens in Rise since you can pretty much do anything and get talismans.

1:56:26 I've used that exact dual blade build and I can confirm that it's very fun to avoid​ everything Edit: I also had an evade window​ lvl 1 talisman

rip they forgot to mention our boi tetsucabra being in stories 2

If you use the valstrax weapons with the valstrax armor, the contracted dragon blight will NOT remove your elemental damage. Just an FYI

Beating EX Bloodbath Diablos was one of the most memorable gaming moments for me. I was sooo disappointed.

37:10 sorry to tell you but those Gunlances were already useless before the final Rampage GL. I’m happy I can just slap on layered Rathalos GL on it anytime I want.

I have been waiting for this one!

my apex rating for the 3 most recent apex monsters, Apex Diablos - 5/10, he just felt really disappointing, wasn't really that aggressive, doesn't hit hard and is just kind of a punching bag Apex Rathalos - 9/10, my first hunt against him me and a friend got smacked around for 15 minutes until we finally turned the tables. Amazing fight that rewards for you for understanding his tells and punishes you hard for screwing up Apex Zinogre - 10/10 Love my thunder doggo, love his aggression and how you need to be at the top of your game for the entire hunt, it just feels amazing and so rewarding when you finally take him down

Ok, if you don't really care that much about full 100 percent optimization then what draws you to a Gunlance? For me it's the look and the style (Normal, wide). I understand if something like the Daora GL invalidates the rest of the tree but the Rampage GL can basically do what you need it to. I wanted a cool looking Gunlance that I didn't have to change up my whole playstyle for and I have it. If I want a certain element or sharpness I just change the skill. It's the endgame weapon in my eyes. I guess I don't understand people being opposed to rampage weapons. The idea of "invalidating the weapon tree" seems wrong to me because to me it seems like its saving you time and grinding to get a good weapon, and you still need rampage mats to change things.

I think we all have mixed feelings about this 3.0, i saw many people wanting armor sets out of the apex monsters. The pickle boy and so many things... I loved valstrax so much. But in terms of new builds or things like that to stir up a little bit the things, well there is not too much tbh.

I got my camera out during the kushala and magna turf war the first time I hunted it. I didnt know the dive bomb was coming, and got a pic seconds before impending doom 😂

I kinda want Apex Nargacuga just to get those silverwind attacks back.

I hope rise has an endgame similar to ultimate 4 guild quest. To increase difficulty mb make it impossible to restock items at the camp on higher lvl quests etc.

I decided to go into 3.0 by trying out the insect glaive, and it made The final boss and CG Val so much more epic!

Soo excited 😀 great work man

Stories 2 is going to be an insanely good RPG, can't wait 😆

Oh gosh, the comparison to dragon quest monsters made it even more appealing than it already was! Played the heck out of it with my sister when we were kids

"How do you do a HBG to Apex Zinogre?" Don't

gonna call it now, ace attorney in monster hunter!!!

47:19 100% agree, healings augment + mantles made world endgame much easier than arise endgame IMO. I’m really glad it’s not back, it’s nice actually needing to bring potions again

Finally beat Valstrax today. Looking forward to getting into the next set of HR7 quests that have been unlocked.

I hope when the G-rank expansion comes we fight a Fire, Ice and Water serpents and their set mix with the Narwa/Ibushi for more options

1:12:50 ruri letting out his inner Gaga

I am super disappointed with the rise updates so i bought mh4u and i am playing trough that right now. But i am still going to watch this to help a fellow hunter out.

I have an idea about how they can add Apex Armour or something similar, like how they... spoilers below!! Made Narwa/Ibushi armour have Stormsoul after you upgrade the armour enough, they could have an event quest for each Apex (like how they added Arch Tempereds) where they are super powerful and after beating them you get a ticket for that specific Apex, 1 needed per armour piece, and after that they gain some new skill, like Honeylust (Arzuros), or Venomheart (Rathian), or Blazing Soul (Rathalos), etc and each one gives a set of additional effects dependant on the amount of levels of each unique Apex skill... for example; Honeylust for Apex Arzuros Lvl 1- increases the damage done with Green or lower Sharpness by 5% (Stacks with Bludgeoner) Lvl 2 - increases the damage done with Green or lower Sharpness by 10% (Stacks with Bludgeoner) Lvl 3- increases the damage done with Green or lower Sharpness by 15% (Stacks with Bludgeoner) Lvl 4- Triples the amount of Honey gathered from Honeycombs Lvl 5- Attack +2% for every piece of Honey in your Item Pouch (Maxing out at 20% with 10 Honey) or Venom Heart for Apex Rathian Lvl 1- increases Poison buildup by 5% Lvl 2- increases Poison buildup by 10% Lvl 3- increases Poison buildup by 15% Lvl 4- Doubles the damage done by Poison Lvl 5- Attack x1.5 against Poisoned monsters or Blazing Soul for Apex Rathalos Lvl 1- Increases Fire element by 5% Lvl 2- Increases Fire element by 10% Lvl 3- Increases Fire element by 15% Lvl 4- Fire Element attacks can now afflict monsters with Fireblight Lvl 5- Attack x1.5 against Fireblighted monsters you get the idea and for how to upgrade them, I'd imagine the cost would be 1 Apex *insert name here* Ticket, 2 Rampage Ticket 7-9 (depending on the strength of the Apex) and 1 Gem from that specific monster (Beast Gem, Rathian Ruby, etc) and as for appearance, they could simply add a darker tone to the base armour, for the red bits on Rathalos, the bone bits on Diablos, etc Now that'd be a great idea

I don't know why but I just temper my expectations because this isn't the Master/G rank version. While other games did have more I just never really invest into endgame stuff until Master/G rank because at least 75% of stuff isn't useful in the next rank.

I know this is not Canta's video but Canta is the real mosnter hahaha, classic comment, I watched him first time using Long Sword vs Diablo in World and it was like a new level of Monster Hunter (and I've been playing since 4U)

1:32:50 *Cries in CB* I miss the 4U days 😭

I haven't played Rise or 4U but they should bring Gogmazios as a rampage monster as in the lore he would invade a town for (gunpowder) he could be a challenging rampage. Idk Edit: Or they should make Gogma the Fatalis of Rise. But it doesn't matter as I'm already happy that Valstrax is back.

I bought Stories 1 on my phone for £3. It looks great, plays great, and being on Android would be so easy to port this version over to the Switch. It's madness they haven't done it yet.

I was expecting hyper or tempered monsters, and perhaps a new melding method. I am hoping they include something that increases difficulty like we had in the last two base games. I am happy with the advanced quests and the difficulty of Valstrax. Difficulty increase is starting to creep in I hope!

I’ll be honest, if we have to wait for the Ultimate expansion to MH: Rise to get an actual endgame, and the weapon changes/balance the game needs right now, I’ll be highly disappointed.

Today I mounted a Valstrax that ambushed me while I was hunting a Bazelgeuse . . . I think update 3.0 is great.

My only disappointment with 3.0 is the lack of answers about the apexes and magnamalo. What he has to do with the rampage? What really is Hellfire? Is he the cause of the apexes? Why the same apexes appeared now than 50 years ago? With the end of the story these questions will stay unanswered forever, unless they go back to it in the G rank

Oh god it's two and a half hours, here we gooooo

Rampage Dual Blades are great because you get Para with elements and theyre actually better weapon choices then the normal ones with the certain element also about content in Rise ATM The Portable Team isnt lazy just look at GU Covid took its tolls and everyone suffered a loss of time so just be patient im really sure were gonna get Apex armor and other "missing" content at some point

Even though it says collaboration we did get new monsters from collabs in world. I know we had a small RE collab in world but it did say capcom collab in the roadmap and i would love to see a licker appear in rise.

Fantastic

I think anyone who describes a game as a kids game in a derogatory way shouldn't be allowed to eat ice cream or enjoy anything else not specifically advertised as adult only.

Excellent, just in time for my deco farm session too