Monster Hunter Rise: The end of the gauntlet

If you have been following my little experiment of running each new monster that shows up in a gauntlet with four different weapon types, then you have been following that. Ten out of ten intro, right there, if that doesn’t get you hyped to read the rest of this blog post, I don’t know what will. I have finished the gauntlets and while the uploads are still ongoing, I am no longer recording any until the next title update occurs. I do have some thoughts now, as to how Monster Hunter actually changes once you try out different weapons for a longer period of time, even when some of these weapons really don’t mesh with you at all. Yes, it’s the Charge Blade, you know, I know, we all know, I don’t like playing Charge Blade, but it is what it is, so let’s dive in.

 

The uploads continue, but the journey is over... for now!

The gauntlet – a quick review 

I am gonna leave out a lengthy intro about my history with Monster Hunter, but in short, I’ve been playing Monster Hunter since the release of Portable 3rd and have been playing the Switch Axe almost exclusively since then. I’ve dabbled with other weapons, namely Aerial Great Sword, as well Cluster and Spread HBGs and that’s about it. There, that’s really all the info you need in terms of what has happened up until Rise. In Monster Hunter Rise I decided to try out the Great Sword, Long Sword and the Charge Blade alongside my trusty Switch Axe. Most of this I’ve already discussed in my last post about this gauntlet, or video, depending on which version you follow. I had also put down some ground rules namely, once I get to a new monster, that I’d have to fight the monster with each weapon, as if it was the first time. New meaning monsters I had not fought in Rise up until this point. First time meaning, my upgrades in my fourth run, would have to be identical to the ones in my first. In super simple terms, four hunts back to back without upgrading in between. Nothing too major and again, the majority of this I had already discussed in the previous post and video.

 

I never liked this sentence

In Monster Hunter it’s not your character that levels up, you do!

I always hated this statement. The game has an upgrade system that is deeply rooted into the gameplay loop, just with that fact alone the statement doesn’t really hold any water. Sure if you want to go through the entire game without armour, that’s one way to make this statement true, but for the average player, it just isn’t accurate. Basic pattern recognition isn’t the final skill at the end of your IRL Monster Hunter Rise Skill Tree, it’s literally the first node you should most likely be investing your skill points into. I’d like to move away from the notion that learning how a monster behaves and to act accordingly is an amazing feat of unprecedented skill, when that’s just about the most basic requirement for any action oriented game that pits you against an opposition that isn’t just cannon fodder.

Now I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, Monster Hunter and with that Monster Hunter Rise is absolutely a skill based game and you should be proud of your own accomplishments. Please keep it realistic though. Learning and mastery; they are on opposite ends on the same spectrum, yes, but they are still so very far away from one another, that confusing the two might lead to some rude awakenings. Learning how to use a weapon, how to fight a monster and putting the result of both on display is only the first step on the ladder of… well “git gud”. For most people, myself included, that’s more than enough for most games already though. For others, myself as well in some games, you want to try and go far beyond that. To go back to our IRL skill tree’s Monster Hunter Rise branch, this is where you would want to start investing your points into several different nodes. For one you would want to level up your basic pattern recognition skill to something more advanced on a per monster, per weapon node. Then there’s stamina, focus and high levels of resist against the debuff called monotony. What all of this translates to in the real world in just a single word is that you need to be able to grind and grind a lot. At that point, once you have overcome the grind, the headline of this section might turn out to be true, but again, it would still do for any other game that is hinged on a decision making process based on pattern recognition. 

 

Four hunts, four weapons, one monster

What all the negativity I was blasting off just now is supposed to setup for is the fact, that even after fighting 33 monsters four times, once with each weapon, did not really help me in any way to get significantly better at Monster Hunter Rise. I did not level up at all during all of this. Did I enjoy it though? Yes, very much so. The experience of running each monster, with each of the four weapons I chose was a very rewarding experience. Did it make me a better player though? Again, no! It absolutely didn’t. Did it show me that certain weapons have a much better or worse approach to specific problems than others, yes, but that was to be expected from the outset. What I didn’t expect was that it seemingly took me longer to learn monster behaviours. This might not apply to you necessarily, but as someone who was been playing the same weapon for a very long time, I am very used to certain distances. How much certain actions move me in a specific direction. Where I would end up in relation to the monster after I had executed an action. With these things in mind, I would very quickly understand what moves of the monsters I would have to to avoid, as I could correlate that with the info I already had about my own weapon’s capabilities. What ranges to attack from and how to act after an action has taken place.

This turned out to be quite difficult when I was changing my entire move set with each run, move sets I wasn’t familiar with, and especially against monster that I wasn’t familiar with either. Monsters like Magnamalo and Almudron were really getting to me, as even after the fourth run I still felt like I didn’t know anything about how I would approach them. It took me until High Rank, when I started to choose my weapons specifically for each monster that I really got to learn these two fights.

I think it’s important to say this now; I am not advocating to not try out different weapons, in fact I highly encourage you to try as many of them as possible and give them a fair shot. The salt I am referring to here, while vexing at the time actually gave me a reason to reflect on these fights and to really figure out what I was supposed to do in situations and which weapon type I would prefer the most in those scenarios. Once I decided on a weapon type for a monster, the speed at which I would internalise the information for that specific monster would shoot up. Almudron is the best example here. In village low rank, which is as easy as it gets I was beyond frustrated. Once I decided to go with the Switch Axe in against him in High Rank to grind out that Golden Almudron Orb, it really only took two or three hunts, with unoptimised gear too, to find that the hunt is actually one of the easier ones out there.

 

Monster Hunter Rise - My Long Sword usage is higher

After all this, am I still a Switch Axe main?

No I am not, but it is still my most favourite weapon and will most likely always be the one weapon I will use the most. Right now my Guild Card shows that I’ve been using the Long Sword a lot more, but that’s only because it’s so much easier to farm with it. The Long Sword allows you turn off your brain; can’t really do that with other weapon types. That’s not a jab at Long Sword users by the way, that wasn’t my intention at least, I merely wanted to highlight that, as a positive of the weapon. It really does make farming materials in Monster Hunter Rise a lot easier. Once you’ve played around with different weapon types and actually invested the necessary time into them, you find a whole new appreciation for the game.

I play most Monster Hunter games solo until the endgame starts and this game was no different. I don’t think Monster Hunter Rise is better or worse than other Monster Hunter games before it, but I do know that I haven’t had this much fun with a Monster Hunter game since Monster Hunter 4 in 2013. So whatever game comes out next, Monster Hunter Rise G, Monster Hunter Rise Ultimate, Monster Hunter Rise Blastborne, or maybe even something else entirely if they decide to forego Master Rank in this game, which I doubt, because money, I will keep the Great Sword, Long Sword and Charge Blade sharpened next to my trusty Switch Axe. This last sentence was even worse than the intro of this post. Such a very long and bad sentence, oh well.

What I was trying to get across with this post, even if it started out with a lot of negativity and admittedly ending up with me just rambling on and on… stop worrying about levelling up before you even tried to have fun. Try out the weapons, see which ones you like and then start going after faster kill times. No I am not saying that it’s the only way to have fun, but unless you give the other weapons a shot, you might never know if there was more fun for you in store. Just make sure you pick weapons you actually have an interest in. In my case for example I would never be interested in the Dual Blades, Sword and Shield, the Bug Stix or the light Bowgun for example, just pick something that you think looks cool or has certain moves you’d like to abuse. The latter is quite literally why I put the Long Sword into my line up, Foresight Slash and the Spirit Iai Slash are so weabo edgy, I just had to! I think that’s enough from me, so one last time before I sign off– have fun! See you in my next post or video.