Monster Hunter — My current obsession

Is the Monster Hunter games my latest gaming obsession? Maybe. I couldn't go a day without playing it, that's for sure! Yes, this is why I've been quiet on my gemlog for the last few days. Lots and lots of Monster Hunter: Rise in my spare time. I managed to pick it up on the last day of a sale, too. No regrets

I know there will be those who claims Monster Hunter: World is the better of the two. While I agree, I still prefer Monster Hunter: Rise better. A lot of the the points I'm about to go over are stuff I've discussed with my partner. He much prefers World over Rise, though he based that on comparison videos 😝

My Anxiety

"Wait, that has nothing to do with the games!"

This is true, but it was a major factor in my ability to enjoy games like Monster Hunter. So it's the first point I'll address!

I'm pretty sure I suffered some level of anxiety my whole life. I know I had a strong fear of failing. It grew progressively worse as I got older. The pandemic took all that and threw it into overdrive. It was just more stuff to worry about, plus one of my parents grew sick. I won't go into details but it was a pretty frightening time.

While I started playing Monster Hunter: World before the pandemic, I remember feeling pretty stressed by the game. I couldn't go more than a few hunts before I had to tap out as a result. I met my partner during the pandemic (through an online gaming community). Eventually we tried to play Monster Hunter: World together. No amount of his reassurances that I was doing well, or was not deadweight fell on deaf ears. I couldn't be convinced.

Finally, after one panic/anxiety attack too many, I got fed up, got treated. I felt like a different person. One that isn't as afraid of taking risks. It didn't make me reckless but I felt more free to pursue the things that piqued my interests. This was about six months ago. I finally started playing Monster Hunter: World and Rise recently and the experience have been very different than in the past. I actually enjoyed the games! My partner said he can't see himself go through 4 hours of Monster Hunter: World, despite how much he likes the game, but I wasn't even bothered by the idea of that. In the past, even just one hour felt like too much.

I hope everyone's takeaway here is, if you're mentally suffering, don't wait decades to deal with it. Deal with it as soon as you're able, it might help you be the best versions of yourselves, the one you never thought you could be because something always held you back!

Now that part is out of the way, I will move onto the parts of Rise I like and wish existed in World!

Quality of Life

There's a number of small mechanics details that ultimately makes the game more enjoyable for me.

Different Wayfinding

Maybe some people liked the scoutflies in World. I didn't. I hated how it would disappear the moment I get into combat with small monsters. It's the worst in Ancient Forest (World) because of the sheer verticality in the Northeast corner of the map. You know, the part of the map (Azure) Rathalos like to hang out in. Yes, I did have to hunt one recently, with my partner. He was more familiar with the map than I was and was able to get to the monster much sooner than I could. I get how waiting for me to finally find my way around isn't the best thing to do, so I don't blame him for getting to our target quickly. It's just frustrating when I'm trying to rush, following the scoutflies and BAM! I managed to piss off some small monsters and now I have to figure out where to go on my own...when there's at least three to four different levels to navigate through. A bunch of tunnels. It's a freaking maze that the minimap cannot help me out of!

In Rise, you just get an arrow pointing to the shortest path to the monster. This did take me a moment to accept that it's the shortest path you can actually traverse. It doesn't take into account that you can run up walls and whatnot. At least, it didn't when I was on my Palamute (a mountable hunting buddy).

Greater Mobility

In World, you have to hope they put down those wedge beetle that you can use your slinger on to propel yourself upwards. You can only climb up walls where there are vines all over it. Or some kind of climbable surface.

In Rise, you get wirebugs, but you get to choose when to use it. Even in battle! I've used it several times to pull myself out of prone, to get away from a big attack, or to get enough distance to sharpen if I've forgotten to!

You can run up majority of surfaces in Rise. The only limitation is your stamina. This you can improve on with the proper food buff, Dash Juice (right after you take it), etc. Hell, you can even use wirebugs to help you get up further. You recover stamina while you're doing that!

I mentioned Palamute earlier, and that's another feature World didn't have. There is some mobility limitations with a Palamute, but they are somewhat similar to the one you have in World. They can only run up climbable surfaces. They can mantle if the ledge you're jumping onto is low enough.

So far, Rise doesn't seem inundated with vertical maps. Sure there are places you may need to wall-run up to, but doing that has largely been a matter of convenience (and gathering purposes), not a necessity. I suspect it has to do with the fact that we have Palamutes as a traversal option so they had to keep the map relatively flat to make using them more fun than a pain.

The Food Menu

I still find World's food menu a bit of a mess. I get the whole fresh ingredients for the whole dish = max buff. It's more the fact that it has status effects, and food buffs, and having to choose which dishes I want and hope those ingredients are fresh this time. Or hope I have the gourmet voucher to make them all fresh.

It just feels like a lot going on when I just want to get out there and hunt.

Rise simplifies that with, "Pick 3 food effects you want. You're getting the best buff regardless if those effects trigger or not!"

The Environment

In World, the ones you can use like Paratoad, or "randomly placed" hanging rocks, to your advantage if you can time it right. I'm not typically good enough in a battle to do that.

In Rise, there aren't random traps like that I can think of, but there are plenty of "hunting helper" type of endemic life that you can use. The aforementioned Paratoad? You can pick those up and use them from your action bar.You don't need to get good enough to have command over the battlefield, you can set those up when it works for you. Of course, you are limited to just 5 of them. Maybe I can increase the capacity but I haven't gotten far enough to know if that's an option.

Wrapping Up

I'm sure at this point, it looks like I just don't like World. Or that World is bad. That's not true. World is really pretty (even without HD textures turned on) and there are certain things in World that I wish I could have in Rise. For instance, you can Kinsect Charge the insect glaive in World. That way you can pick up two buffs at the same time instead of one, which could make the effort to get the super buff less wasteful. You can aim your slinger, where you can't aim your kunai in Rise.

I think it really boiled down to the fact that I never really had a chance to get better in World. I'm not talking about the battle part, I'm talking about having to figure out for myself what every little part of it did. I never took the opportunity to learn the maps and get familiar with the winding, twisting paths. That's mostly on me.

Rise did simplify a number of things, so getting comfortable in that game haven't demanded more of my time and effort. Maybe playing the game solo have made it easier for me to learn everything at my own pace.

Still, my increasing interest in playing Rise have made World easier to get into as well. I'm glad 95-98% of the skills I picked up in one game transfers pretty easily into the other!

I see myself continuing to play those two games until Monster Hunter: Wilds comes out! I deeply hope that the streamlining they did in Rise, and the liveliness of World, makes it into Wilds. I can finally look forward to this game as much as my partner does!

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