I don't understand why this game has so many positive reviews. I am not a huge monster hunter fan, but I played the PSP games and MH World and Rise feels like a significant step back in every category. After playing for almost 20 hours, I have not finished the village quests and honestly, I don't want to, now let me tell you why: Firstly, the music. Sweet mother of god please I am begging you to include a soundtrack comprised of more than 30-second sound bytes that repeat endlessly for hours. The first thing I did, before even going on a hunt, was turn the music off completely. +1 for it being an option to turn that crap off, still not enough to make you a good game Secondly, the story. It May as well not be there, but no surprise there, it's monster hunter after all. Thirdly, the gameplay. **** genitals. Who in their right mind at Capcom thought it was a good idea to put out an action game like this WITHOUT A LOCK ON MECHANIC?! Its gotta be one of the most frustrating things in the world when you combine it with the fact that the hitboxes are inconsistent, clunky, and frankly make no sense. Critical hits seem to be random, sometimes they hit for 10 damage, sometimes 3, sometimes 1, sometimes it's like I hit a f'ing wall and am also a long-term alcoholic because I stumble for far too long before recovering. Additionally, the button delay. Screw you, you're not FromSoftware, you will not be able to make that fun in your game so please stop. The new mechanics the game advertises as a selling point are neat, but feel like something that would have been cool five years ago. Now that I think about it, thats a really good way to describe this game: "Would have been cool five years ago". What's that Capcom? I can essentially double jump and wall run? No way! It's like my balls dropped all over again! Whats that another time? I can ride a mount? Like a horse? Oh, not a horse? A mini horse? like a pony? Oh, you call it a palamute, totally a new mechanic. Perhaps I'm being a little too hard on the palamute, but then I remember he doesn't f'ing show up 90% of the time you hold down the button that's supposed to summon him. Again, I've been summoning mounts in games for over a decade, WTF? Lastly is just a general question: "why the hell do I care?". This game has no purpose. None at all. You drop into an, admittedly, very pretty hub, get some barebones information that doesn't make enough sense for it to be worth hearing, and then you proceed to do the same handful of tasks until you can't take it anymore and move on to a real game. Not to mention every design choice in this game is focused on frustrating the ever-living crap out of you and slowing you down. There's another review out there where someone mentions that "it's not harder, just more annoying", and man is that true. The game is painfully easy, and at the same time painfully frustrating. Everything mentioned before combined with the fact that it's the same stuff you're doing over and over again just makes the experience painfully frustrating. Like I said, im almost 20 hours in and I just feel like giving up after HR4 because whats the point? The starter armor they gave me is far better than anything I can craft (not to mention, if I wanted to craft it I would have to grind slaying the same monster I already killed endlessly), so the whole point of the game (crafting cool armor sets) seems superfluous. Thank god I bought this used, I am truly sorry for anybody who paid full price for what could ultimately be a mobile port of a once-great franchise. Play MH World, leave this on the shelf, it's not worth it.
