The “post-game” is literally what’s left of the game that you can play after completing the main story. Those’re the mechanics, but what about the post-game? Let’s start with a definition of terms. RELATED: Dip Into the World of Customized Mechanical Keyboards And “hours” isn’t an exaggeration -depending on your skill level, a hunt can take anywhere between ten minutes and close to an hour, it’s nuts. That deep focus is hypnotic, and can keep you enthralled for literally hours. Hunting with your chosen weapon while learning the moves of a monster make you hyper-aware of the moves you make. And because this game doesn’t follow a EXP-based level-up system, battles become easier with literal experience. They all have different moves and ways of telegraphing them. Speaking of opponents, it’s the monsters of the Monster Hunter franchise that give the game its heart and personality! In Rise, whose worlding is based stylistically on feudal Japan, you’ll find monsters inspired by yokai (supernatural beings), fire-breathing wyverns, thunderwolves, giant bats, creatures that border on god-like, and other manner of monstrosity that indicate a thought-out ecology. So what you get then is a game that rewards not necessarily twitch reflexes, but decisive and intentional inputs that tactically take into account the moves of the opponent. This isn’t surprising coming from Capcom’s fighting games, where animation frames make or break combat.

The flavor!īut weapons have very specific controls, with strict warm-up and cool-down animations that can make movement feel clunky. The nuances of each weapon are so different that you could go through a slew of missions with one weapon, then pick up another weapon for the same string of missions, and it’ll feel like a different game. Heavy weapons like the Great Sword and Heavy Bowgun hit hard but make you less mobile, while light weapons like the Dual Blades and Bow feel much faster, but require more precision and stamina management. Monster Hunter asks you to choose among 14 different types of weapons, which all handle very differently. Good stuff! But the real magic of the game lies in two aspects: its core mechanics, and its post-game. Because all your opponents are essentially kaijus (monsters), every battle is a boss battle.

The elevator pitch for getting people into any Monster Hunter game is that it’s an RPG where you fight dinosaurs and make armor and weapons out of their body parts. RELATED: Netflix May Soon Start Offering Subscription-Based Gaming Services, Too (For too long I’ve been stuck in this prison of loving a piece of media so niche that no one gets my references! That ends today!!!) We’ll talk about why Monster Hunter games are generally super fun to play, and why Rise is special. Monster Hunter Rise is the most entertaining, sanity-preserving timesink you’re currently not playing. As I write this, I’ve clocked in at about 147 hours of gameplay. And when I bought my copy of Monster Hunter Rise for the Switch, I jumped on that fast. I’ve sunk nearly 500 hours into that game. MHW was my first encounter with the franchise, whose games are famously known for their steep learning curves, hidden mechanics, and controls that feel clunky for first-timers. I was playing a bunch of Monster Hunter World, the latest (at the time) mainline game of the Monster Hunter franchise, before the Iceborn DLC expansion came in. To stay at home, get sedentary, and stave off boredom was the most heroic thing you do if you weren’t a medical frontliner. We were all still acclimating to the dark mood that the pandemic gave rise to, our homes turned into armageddon bunkers against our will. Real quick, I just need to wind the clock back to 2020. Read Time: 4 minutes Monster Hunter games are pretty great, but here’s why Rise is special

Monster hunter world time sink