Monster Hunter Rise for PC is an action adventure game, the sixth main game in the Monster Hunter series. This game has taken the best bits of the previous five games to offer a distillation of everything that fans love about the game. As always, the player is the eponymous hunter, tasked with capturing or killing large creatures.

About the Game

The story begins with your graduation from the Monster Hunter academy. You are immediately taken to Kamura Village and filled in on the back story, which is that there has not been a monster outbreak or attack for about fifty years in the Village. But the signs are ominous that a ‘Rampage’ is about to occur, so you and your fellow hunters must prepare as best you can – with some help from the old hands, of course.

As a newly qualified hunter, being prepped for the coming Rampage, you must complete a series of quests to ensure that you and everyone else will survive what is coming. There are a number of useful tools to use, some of which are innovations in this game.

For example, the Wirebug grapple tool helps you to move fast and easily. Wirebugs are little beetles, and it is the female of the species which is useful to Hunters. They are essentially a recharging resource that let you jump through the air, scale any wall, help you recover from big hits, and so on.

Wirebugs’ powers also pair up with special Silkbind moves, which are powers that use the silk produced by the Wirebugs themselves. This silk can be used to tether rideable monsters, climb higher and so on. It’s hard to overstate just how much you will use your Wirebugs as they influence the pace of the game both in and out of combat, bringing extra power to your conventional weapons in the heat of battle for even more exciting contests.

There is a huge cast of monsters to hunt, capture or kill. There are at least thirty different beasts, of whom ten are unique to this game: try to get them all, whether it is the fruit throwing Bishaten who looks like a bird-monkey hybrid; stylish Aknosom, the fire crane; or the immense platy-turtle Tetranadon who seems to have been inspired by the Japanese art of sumo.

With each monster, you can reduce them to a biddable state, by inflicting damage upon them. At this point, you can indulge in a spot of Wyvern Riding – or using that monster as your steed to take down other monsters!

The map is seamless with no divisions between regions or areas, and as the name implies, verticality is key – learn to go up. When you are scaling cliffs, walls and mountains, you can continue the main business of the game: killing monsters! Killing monsters scores you loot (usually monster parts), from which you can craft bigger weapons and better armour so you can take on bigger and more powerful beasts.

You’re not alone in the game, you have a Palamute (a pal who is a malamute dog) who is both an AI companion and a fast travel mode all in one. You can ride on your Palamute to save your stamina when travelling across the map, and they can also climb well and help you attack monsters to double your gains.

Palamutes join Palicos in the roster, the latter being cat-like humanoid companions from the previous Monster Hunter games – whoever names new characters has not improved their punning levels in all this time…

The Nitty Gritty

There are various ways to play: single player, local multiplay, and online multiplay. In single play, you can choose two companions from any combination of Palamute and Palico as you prefer.

There is also a survival mode, neatly called Rampage, where you must defend a village from a never-ending horde of monsters that just keep on coming. This feels like a tower defence mode, which teams well with the regular gameplay as a way to mix things up.

The graphics look great having been heavily inspired by Japanese mythology and medieval feudal culture. The gameplay is crisp and snappily responsive, which is what you need in a game such as this which depends on speed and precision. Making these moves is a positive pleasure thanks to the highly responsive game, not the torture it can be with games that lag at just the wrong moment to let the villains catch up with you.

As you progress to High Rank (the super hard levels), it is not just you who gets better at fighting more monsters, the scenery becomes tougher to traverse, the enemies become more cunning, better at fighting and generally continue to keep you on your toes. But the rewards are also suitably boosted, so that’s a fair trade for most players!

There are rewards for navigating about the map which are a nice bonus given that you get all the fun of poking around the edges of the game. You can play through the story arc, or take your time and complete all the side quests as you go, the choice is yours. If the Nintendo version of this game was good, the PC version is even better, with smoother action and truly cinematic visuals.

Types of Weapons To Try

There are fourteen types of weapons within the game, and you can try them all, improving your skills and stats the better you get. Some of the weapons are unconventional, which adds to the fun of the game!

• Swords: straight-forward and easy to use: hold the hilt and stick it into the villain!
• Shields: hide behind them, throw them at unwary enemies, think of other ways to use them
• Staves: similar to swords but less sharp! Essentially long sticks, staves can be used to devastating effect once you have mastered how to use them
• Bows: keep out of harm’s reach and pick off the enemy, one by one
• Guns: like bows, guns are great for sniping, but you won’t have long after the first shot rings out before the monsters are running away or hunting you down
• Hunting horn: toot this horn for some sonic damage – blast your enemies into disorientation with this one
• Noxious toads: make the attacking monsters feel ill and back off for a moment, giving you time to run in with a sword, or take your best shot

And many more!

Monster Hunter Rise for PC is available for purchase on Instant Gaming for a fraction of its retail price. You will receive an official key and be able to play the game in seconds. Play smart. Pay less.