Monster Hunter Rise - I'LL TELL YOU WHAT'S RISING LADS

Game of my fucking life right here lads.

I watched the full digital event sat in the snow outside my gym with a protein shake. The trailer got me more pumped than the weights did. Since I got home I've been refreshing the eShop through a whole episode of Star Trek.

Hopefully I can get some practice in with the demo tomorrow before work with the tutorials, before some hunts with all the weapons at least with the easier hunt.

I don't know really which of the monsters are new or old unless they say but Khezu looks dumb, Great Baggi, Tigrex and Mizutsune all look really cool. On cool the Frost Islands as someone that hasn't played Iceborne is really exciting as I feel I'm getting that from this island.

Villagers etc all seem decent enough, just really waiting to go hands on and maybe play some online with ya, it is my weekend in, so doubt I'll be online much till Tuesday.

Was hyped for the product info bit though as thought here we go Switch System then nothing, they didn't even show the special edition of the game.

Mizutsune!  I hope its theme returns with it!  Also, taken some notes out of Stories' book I see.  I'll be changing that voice acting to Japanese straightaway thank you very much.

Ba-Lady-er will be playing some co-op MonHun for the first time ever (for both of us) this weekend.  Wish us luck...  (She's a big cat person.  I'm considering pre-ordering just for the costume.)

mas wrote:

I don't know really which of the monsters are new or old unless they say but Khezu looks dumb, Great Baggi, Tigrex and Mizutsune all look really cool. On cool the Frost Islands as someone that hasn't played Iceborne is really exciting as I feel I'm getting that from this island.

From that new trailer only Goss Harag & Magnamalo are brand new monsters, also by my count the total is at 26 large monsters which means there could be some wiggle room for a few more announcements. (High rank MH games typically have 30 - 40 monsters) Oh also of those 26 monsters 8 of them are brand new for Rise.

Balla wrote:

Mizutsune!  I hope its theme returns with it!  Also, taken some notes out of Stories' book I see.  I'll be changing that voice acting to Japanese straightaway thank you very much.

A monsters theme music doesn't normally change so you are safe there   though in this interview with the sound director and lead composer they mention they will have vocal performances for the first time as well. I'm with you on the voice acting too but instead of Japanese I'll be going for the MH Language option.

This finally appeared on the eShop like an hour before I had to leave for work, and due (presumbaly) to busy servers was downloading at a snail's pace, so I guess I'll play after work.

masofdas wrote:

Khezu looks dumb

Khezu has long been the laughing cock stock of the monster ranks. That said, as well as being stupid and phallic it's also really creepy and unsettling.

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On cool the Frost Islands as someone that hasn't played Iceborne is really exciting as I feel I'm getting that from this island

The earlier games generally had a wide range of locales like a forest, a swamp, an ice area and some lava caves. World tried to be more of a cohesive ecosystem which made it very impressive in a certain way but also lead to a real lack of ice environments and ice monsters, hence Iceborne and that new land mass. I think this game is going back to the older style.
I was actually sitting outside in the snow and based on some comments from Gaijin Hunter I anticipated the reveal of a snow area . . . which is what we got!

Balladeer wrote:

Mizutsune!  I hope its theme returns with it!

With the exquisite Japanese theming, I was sure Mizu would return and I'm so glad I was right! It also indicates the game has its priorities in order. World didn't have any with the lethiathan body type as it was difficult to animate them on the complex maps.
 

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Also, taken some notes out of Stories' book I see.

 
I thought the same briefly, but I doubt it will be so involved. Mounting monsters has been a thing since Dragon's Dogma Monster Hunter 4 and this is just an extension of that, with some limited capacity to direct a monster's movements before they throw you off. The game looks like it's building on the

element of World nicely.

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Ba-Lady-er will be playing some co-op MonHun for the first time ever (for both of us) this weekend.  Wish us luck...  (She's a big cat person.  I'm considering pre-ordering just for the costume.)

Oh, do you have a girlfriend? You never mention her

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I'll be changing that voice acting to Japanese straightaway thank you very much

The_Jaster wrote:

I'm with you on the voice acting too but instead of Japanese I'll be going for the MH Language option.

I'm probably going to have two characters, one to play with you guys and one to play with my friends IRL here in Japan, so I think the main one I mash with will be in English and the one I use in Japan will be in Japanese.

The_Jaster wrote:

(High rank MH games typically have 30 - 40 monsters) Oh also of those 26 monsters 8 of them are brand new for Rise.

30-40 sounds like a nice number to me. I'm torn - more new monsters is better for Mash, but personally I really dig seeing a lot of returning monsters.

I do remember playing some ice looking maps with you guys on one of the games maybe 3U and have on the other games, which I've surprisingly played a lot of them but don't really remember much overall part from hey I use Dual Blades, that's a Jaggi that's an early Monster all that sort of stuff

I've just downloaded the demo which I'll hopefully play a bit of tonight

So, I put a good few hours into the demo early this morning when it came out & then again this afternoon, to no ones surprise I love it to bits already.

I get looking at footage you could see they are going for a mix of MH World combat and hunting arts from MHGU (if you've played em, natch) and they have nailed not only that but comfortably made it it's own unique thing. General wire bug movement is so fun and from the weapons I've played so far the silkbind moves add even more depth to an already great combat system.
The only downside I can see is they have decided to give the Insect glaive the slowest kinsect bug meaning getting your much needed buffs to improve your move set is much harder than it should be & I can see it honestly putting new players off the weapon. Looking forward to testing out some MP hunts with you's soon.

Buskalilly wrote:

Oh, do you have a girlfriend? You never mention her

Fiancée mate. You are legally allowed to stab me though.

Demo. downloaded. Exciting times! Guess I'd better not try the glaive thing.

I managed to get some time on this last night. I did the two tutorial things, then I gave both quests a go with the Great Sword and both quests a go with Long Sword. After hammer, I'll move onto messing around with weapons I don't already know.

First impressions, though, damn this is good. I've dreamed of this since the Switch was a twinkle in Iwata's eye. And I really mean first impressions, those title screen songs were gorgeous!

Balladeer wrote:

Fiancée mate.

Oh, now you seem much less annoying . . .

The_Jaster wrote:

The only downside I can see is they have decided to give the Insect glaive the slowest kinsect bug meaning getting your much needed buffs to improve your move set is much harder than it should be

Balladeer wrote:

Guess I'd better not try the glaive thing.

I feel like as a newbie, you're not gonna get too into the bug stuff anyway, you're gonna concentrate on vaulting around with a big spear. Which admittedly is less of a thing now than it was before we had wirebugs . . .

Actually the one thing the IG has over anything else is the amount of distance it can cover with it's aerial moves, I found myself overshooting monsters a bit because of it. Also I guess you could just focus on getting the one buff (red) rather than all three.

I've played with the first row of seven weapons on the easier hunt, so far I'm thinking banger.

Good news: the demo.'s probably sold me on this.  Bad news: The Lady didn't like it at all, and I think it's pretty poor for series newbies.

Between this experience and my brief time on the only other MonHun I've played, which was a 3DS demo. (Ultimate?  Generations? ), it's like night and day.  I can actually see where I'm going, for one, rather than it feeling like the character takes up half the screen and the camera doesn't play ball.  The continuous environment feels and looks really nice, and when we got an Arzuros to fight whatever the main monster we were chasing was, that felt great!  Even better when I got on the Arzuros, despite not knowing how I'd managed it or what to do once I was up there.

Also, despite what Buska said up there, I really got on with the wirebug!  Combined with the Palamute, it makes movement feel really nice and dynamic.  The only weapon I'd say I really had a good go with was the Dual Swords, which is also what I picked in the last demo.; but it felt much quicker and easier than it did on 3DS, so I enjoyed it more.

However.

In retrospect it was a mistake to start with the Beginner mission rather than the tutorial, in that we really didn't know what we were doing, and had to work out the controls.  I maintain this is the demo.'s fault.  In local co-op the tutorial doesn't appear, and when the Beginner mission's labelled 'Beginner', I don't feel like it's too much of a stretch to think that it might cater for beginners.  It absolutely didn't.  The result was that we used up all our potions without knowing what we were doing, and The Lady couldn't work out how to reload her Gunlance and got slaughtered.

This wasn't helped by the fact that there's no pause function, and all the menus load in real time, and there's a time limit, however generous that might be.  So we were looking around the menus, but hastily, and odds were good that we missed something.  Even when we found what looked like the relevant section, it told us nothing about our weapon controls or how to reload!  I did eventually try the tutorial, which did help, but still didn't go into those details.  And the demo. throws a massive cluttered HUD at you, full of information, along with all the shortcut functionality; so that felt overwhelming as well.  

How difficult would it have been for the demo. to include a list of weapon commands?  Or is it there somewhere and we just missed it?

Over the two partial quests and my attempt at the tutorial quest I did get my bearings, and I really enjoyed what I played with the Dual Swords, so I'll likely still get it.  Trouble is, I was mostly going to play it with The Lady, and she's been I'd say 70% put off by a demo. that just didn't seem to have considered how to effectively demonstrate the game to new players. I might still be able to convince her to shell out, but it's not been a good first impression.

That's great news.

Monster Hunter isn't supposed to be accessible for Newbies! A big part of the charm is slowly figuring out something obtuse and unknowable with the help of your friends and the internet and some youtube videos. If it just told you how to do everything, you wouldn't have that experience of getting to know the world and monsters and developing a real lived-in knowledge.

Quite frankly, if she'd been able to play the demo, without a veteran player to guide her, and enjoy the game, I'd be worried they'd fucked it. You're meant to bounce off your first attempt or two at Monster Hunter.

Balladeer wrote:

Also, despite what Buska said up there, I really got on with the wirebug!.

That wasn't the bug we were talking about. The insect glaive comes with a big beetle that you wear on your wrist and shoot at monsters. The wirebugs are ace. Once I get properly good at them, it's gonna feel like Attack on Titan or something.

Balladeer wrote:

How difficult would it have been for the demo. to include a list of weapon commands?  Or is it there somewhere and we just missed it?

There was one in there. But again, that's kind of not the point.
I know it sounds like I'm just doing some typical Buska taking the piss, but I'm mostly not. I genuinely think I wouldn't love Monster Hunter nearly as much if it were the kind of game that gave me all the information right away. I know it sounds wanky, but the exploration and mystery and learning and growth happens as much to the player in the real world as the avatar in the game.

All that being said . . . yeah, that feeling doesn't demo well! It's been a big problem of the game for a while. It's better in Rise and World because the demo is multiplayer so people can have a little taste of that feeling. But I think the game was sold to me by hearing about it on podcasts and from Jas and Andy, much more so than by the demo.

Balladeer wrote:

How difficult would it have been for the demo. to include a list of weapon commands?  Or is it there somewhere and we just missed it?

There is one there under "Hunter's Notes", but it's buried deep in the menus so I can't blame you for missing it!

I must admit, I'd have bounced off the game hard had I not had the Mash lads to guide me through the early teething stages of the game. Monster Hunter is pretty overwhelming for newbies, but MHW and now Rise are more accessible than they've ever been at least.

Naturally, I had a blast with the demo. I'm still not sure what I'm going to play in the main game by virtue of the fact I chose weapons I knew how to use as opposed to blundering about with a Charge Blade or Insect Glaive or something.

Aye MH has never really demo'd well.

The only thing I can suggest you or your misses can do to get used to a weapon is starting up the wire bug tutorial quest (this doesn't eat into any of your 30 quest tries & there's no monsters) but DON'T activate the quest step from the chap at the base camp. Ride down into that big main area then open up the start menu > then hunters notes > weapon controls which gives you a look at the basic controls and some simple combos to try out, once you feel you have a handle on whatever weapon you picked test it out on the Great Izuchi quest.

Yeah, I'm... not so fond of games that hide half their controls away, or pride themselves in their lack of accessibility. I don't think that's exploration, just bad explanation. I can kind of see why people may like that, but for me it's weak design! I also don't think it had to be a poor part of the demo.: a more obvious list of weapon commands (thanks for pointing that out gents ) and a co-op mode for the tutorial quest would have gone a long way towards helping.

Thanks for that idea Jas, she's willing to give it a shot! I do really hope she manages to get into it, because I want to play this one more than I ever have the franchise before. I want to see what y'all see. I'm more likely to do that if I have a fellow hunter in the same house.

That's good to hear, oh also if she isn't completely set on Gunlance the normal Lance might be a better fit while still giving great blocking/counter hit options.

Yeah I was gonna say Gunlance isn't a great choice for beginners, it's one I'm still only barely comfortable with. Get a slashy sword or a smashy hammer when you're learning, don't go mad and niche.

Balladeer wrote:

Yeah, I'm... not so fond of games that hide half their controls away, or pride themselves in their lack of accessibility.

The thing is, I could word the same things differently and make it sound good. I like games which have hidden depth and trust the player to discover things. I could describe BotW that way, and I know that game wouldn't have demoed well!

I'm excited for Balla to get really into this, then go back and replay Monster Hunter Stories and like it a whole lot more B)

It even took me a few hunts to get into this demo because of relearning the controls (the way the wirebug moves switch from ZL to R when bowgunning is really unintuitive) but now I really can't wait for the full game! I'm still not sold on riding as a replacement for mounting (especially as bowgunners get a bad deal there as they can't deal ride damage) but otherwise this is looking fantastic

OrangeRakoon wrote:

It even took me a few hunts to get into this demo because of relearning the controls (the way the wirebug moves switch from ZL to R when bowgunning is really unintuitive) but now I really can't wait for the full game!

Not sure if unintuitive is the best word to describe it but that did initially catch me out a few times when I swapping from melee to gunner & I got used to it after a few hunts or so, it's also just one of those things where there isn't any alternative because how many buttons a controller has.

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While we are on the topic of Bowguns I have to say I love the gyro aiming controls they have implemented as it just allows you to be that bit more precise with your shots but you will definitely have to change some of the default settings to get it to it's best. Sadly though I don't feel it works as well for Bow which is my favourite of the ranged weapons but I guess you can't have everything.

I've now the easier hunt with all the weapons and it's not really helped which one I'm going to use with the main game.

Did the harder hunt with sword and shield but I could end up using almost any of the weapons come launch

Did you manage to beat the harder hunt, Mas? If so, nice one! And did you play solo or online?

I did and solo,

Had some faints mind and it looked like I was playing a Souls game with a few hits, roll away and repeat

Dark Souls combat has always had a strong hint of Monster Hunter in it!

The_Jaster wrote:

OrangeRakoon wrote:

It even took me a few hunts to get into this demo because of relearning the controls (the way the wirebug moves switch from ZL to R when bowgunning is really unintuitive) but now I really can't wait for the full game!

Not sure if unintuitive is the best word to describe it but that did initially catch me out a few times when I swapping from melee to gunner & I got used to it after a few hunts or so, it's also just one of those things where there isn't any alternative because how many buttons a controller has.

Yeah for me it's the inconsistency of using ZL when sheathed but R when weapon out, it adds a little cognitive load to wirebugging mid-battle as you have to adjust back and forth but especially with HBG where I am quite often putting the gun away to move around. I'm mostly ok with it now but it definitely took a few hunts!

Can't speak for gyro aiming but as I am exclusively handheld and hate gyro aiming every other time I've tried it I think I'll give it a skip!