MONSTER HUNTER RISE: SUNBREAK REVIEW

MONSTER HUNTER RISE: SUNBREAK REVIEW

Monster Hunter Rise Sunbreak has two sides. The first will see you go on an adventure in a luscious forest, collecting insects and catching little monsters in search of a snail: you will then be photographed and rewarded with a very attractive snail hat. The other side of Sunbreak is your hunter, an enraged red-eyed monkey lying helpless on the ground as your monster knocks down your unlocker. Or maybe it's a giant dragon with a rhino horn, one shot at you with charges (which also spews venom).

Over and over again you will watch the hunters fall to the ground.

One of the cute aspects of Monster Hunter is that in a game built on wild action and where nature's teeth and claws are red, the hunters are still 'fainted' when a giant raging beast is knocked out. Don't worry, everything will be fine. The real twist of the blade is that it has limited persistence in each mission, such that 'carrying' three times (you're taken back to base on a cat-driven stretcher) means restarting. It's a strange thing to have an old feeling in 2022 - the feeling that you've left 40 minutes behind in a fight and have to do everything all over again because you hit an extra hit or got a dodge.

Monster Hunter Rise was originally released on Switch in early 2021 and arrived on PC in January this year (here's our review). In the lineage of portable games older than the all-dancing Monster Hunter World, Rise is definitely packed with weapons to try, monsters to hunt, and boxed (and sometimes wearable) items. It also greatly improved the player's movement, smoothed out area transitions, and made it a smoother single-player experience than before.

I wouldn't say Rise is an easy game by any means. However, it's a game intended for most players to be able to finish with real snags saved up to post-campaign hunts (one of the things about Monster Hunter games is that they have multiple points that you can call last). It also stopped at the 'High Rank' hunts where the series traditionally went on 'G-Rank' and later 'Master Rank' hunts, and the training wheels really came out.

Monster Hunter Rise Sunbreak is Rise's paradisal addition and cold-hearted fixer to engage players more gently. This is for the hardcore and for you more or less.

But Sunbreak's opening leaves a lot to be desired. Your entry in the expansion is a variant of the Hermitaur, a crab-like foe. While it has some new moves and hey, this is a new Rise fight, it's an extremely familiar beast and encounter.

It's a theme that has arguably lasted longer than it should have. Sunbreak promotes your hunter to Master Rank quickly, but you won't really see a new monster until you're ready to go to Master Rank 3 - which means a dozen hours of hunting. To some extent, this has always been the Monster Hunter endgame, and most longtime fans of the series won't blink, but a full-price expansion that's front-loaded with a few new moves and battles against palletized versions of old monsters… not as exciting as I expected.

One change introduced almost immediately is the 'switch skill swap', which essentially lets you bring two different toggle skill charges (think: special moves) into battle. At first it's just a nice thing to have and comes with a neat bespoke animation that can turn into a dodge. It's then further woven into the texture of your hunting style as you acquire power-ups that activate when switching skills, allowing you to go overboard on things like weapon sharpening and minimize downtime.

The skill switch type refers to Sunbreak as a whole. It's a minor change, but the more you play, the more it becomes clear how much it improves prey. My main weapon and transition skills are so different that I'm a bit in the way, but this adds a dynamism where you can identify and deploy what can really be useful against a particular monster. That's what this expansion is all about: perfecting an already great hunting experience.

Sunbreak only adds five real 'new' monsters to Rise, and some, like Espinas, have appeared in older games. Espinas is a good example of what Sunbreak really wants to do. You will not encounter this thing until Master Rank 4, at which point you must say goodbye to your mother and make sure all your earthly affairs are in order.

Espinas is like Diablos' older, worse brother. A giant dragon that loves to attack you over and over, with huge wings that can catch lazy escapes and a terrifying huge horn that will shoot you without fail. He doesn't have any fancy moves, he just runs towards you over and over again until he catches you, which he will, and his secret sauce is to poison you. That means even if you get shot and somehow survive, this thing is Usain