![]() Submissions must be directly relevant to Monster Hunter ASK QUESTION SUBMIT MEME DAY MODE NIGHT MODE MHW: Weekly Reset Thread | Remove Art and Highlight posts | Accepting Mod Nominations ★★★ RULES ★★★ You can find additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy here. These do not influence editorial content, though Vox Media may earn commissions for products purchased via affiliate links. The game was reviewed on PC using a pre-release download code provided by Capcom. Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak will be released on June 30 on Windows PC and Nintendo Switch. As such, playing Sunbreak feels a bit like unwrapping an exciting present covered in too much tape. But instead, I spent the opening hours of the expansion bashing familiar foes, just so I could get to the good stuff. I’d much rather see Sunbreak offer a shorter campaign with more of a focus on new monsters, and give me the option to fight Master Rank versions of the original roster at my leisure. With so many good brawls in Sunbreak, it’s frustrating that it falls victim to one of the biggest villains in AAA video games: bloat. And of course, the vampire-like flagship monster, Malzeno, offers a satisfying challenge that’s kept me nervous but invigorated during each of our encounters - like a flying version of one of my favorite Monster Hunter hunts, Rise’s flagship monster, Magnamalo. The rock-like Garangolm has elemental fists that I can break apart with my hammer, and the two new crustacean-like monsters move in unpredictable patterns because… well, they’re crabs. It’s a shame that Sunbreak is so aggressively exhausting in its opening hours, because each new monster is a joy to hunt. But the idea of fighting a slightly more difficult Rajang than I had to in Rise’s campaign? I’d rather elongate the hunt to 30 minutes and play passively than have to start over again, adopting a more boring but far safer play style. ![]() Not because of the learning curve, mind you, but because I didn’t mind playing overly aggressively, failing, and facing the unfamiliar Garangolm or Lunagaron again. It’s no coincidence that my three failed hunts were all against new monsters that I’d never faced before. More often than not, it did.īut still, like the rest of Sunbreak, this difficulty curve feels best when fighting unfamiliar critters. Each time a beast sent me flying and I attempted to counterattack rather than heal, I felt my elbows tense up, hoping the beast wouldn’t punish my greed. But I always knew when I was making a risky or stupid play. The Master Rank monsters can do a shocking amount of damage in a single, simple blow, which certainly caught me off guard. It’s to Sunbreak’s great credit that I almost never felt like the game had robbed me when the screen went black and my Palico carted me away. In fact, unlike Rise’s main campaign, Sunbreak’s later hunts were difficult enough that I failed three of them - my first failures since the uber-hard Monster Hunter World: Iceborne. In Sunbreak’s Master Rank, even the more innocuous monsters managed to take one or two of my three lives, forcing me to buckle down or risk a failed quest. And, in the beginning, Sunbreak is extremely light on new experiences.ĭespite the early hunts’ familiarity, Sunbreak does ratchet up the difficulty significantly. Sure, Monster Hunter is all about grinding for gear and perfecting the hunt - but new challenges are what I want from expansions. So each time one of these old beasts came up as a quest option, I couldn’t help but roll my eyes and pick the monster I was least sick of. I worked to get here, but Sunbreak still bides its time before it rewards me with cool new stuff. At this point, I’m tired of the original game’s roster. That’s not to mention the many times I farmed them in the year leading up to Sunbreak, and the times I hunted them when Rise came to PC. Sunbreak is a late-game expansion, so it’s frustrating as hell that I’m still fighting monsters I already fought twice during the main game. While the Urgent story quests usually introduce a beast that’s new to Sunbreak, the quests in between ask me to hunt returning monsters like Kulu-Ya-Ku, Pukei-Pukei, and Aknosom. In order to increase my Master Rank - unlocking Urgent Quests that progress the story - I need to prove my worth to the in-game characters by choosing from a variety of non-urgent hunts. But instead of Low Rank and High Rank, Sunbreak offers the far more difficult Master Rank. ![]() Much like Monster Hunter Rise before it, Sunbreak’s quests are broken up into ranks. And Sunbreak is eventually another great expansion for another great Monster Hunter game, but it’s a little too interested in the ground it’s already tread. Ordinarily, that would be a compliment coming from someone who called Monster Hunter Rise one of the best games on Switch. Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak is more of the same.
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