What really made me happy in my gaming career was to see Monster Hunter go from a niche favorite to a huge success in Japan, then gradually expand to the West, and finally hit the global stage with Monster Hunter World: Monster Hunter: World. The company's first major success in Japan was in the United States and Europe. While this may be an oversimplification of Capcom's preeminent beast bashing grinding action arc, the series now has a huge fan base and the resources behind it to create better games for years to come.

Monster Hunter: The Monster Hunter: World series is a visual and sonic spectacle, with gorgeous, flowing animation and spectacular monsters, while keeping the fundamentals intact. Monster Hunter: Monster Hunter: Rise" is another branching point, following in the footsteps of "Generations" and others, and approaching the tradition of portable versions of the series: Monster Hunter: Rise and stays true to the traditions that the series has developed on portable video game consoles.

Of course, Rise was originally designed exclusively for the Nintendo Switch, and while this PC release is a good port with everything one would expect, it falls far short of the immediate visual "wow" factor of World. It also can't compete in terms of textures or the stunning custom-made animations of monster fights.

Nevertheless, there is no doubt that Rise is the superior game.

The problem for new Monster Hunter players is also the game's greatest strength: it is a combat system of almost unparalleled depth and precision, with literally dozens of radically different play styles. Underwhelming at first, Rise easily delivers the best onboarding experience in the series, and in the process introduces several new mechanisms that enhance the hunting experience beyond Generations.

One of the most fun additions is the paramute, a dog that can be ridden. Of course, the palimut is still alive and well, but this dog transforms the game's mode of transportation. Series veterans will recall endless walks around the map they know like the back of their hand, but Rise also adds options such as wall-running and Spider-Man-style grappling with or without the dog, making it an indispensable tool for combat. Not only can you move faster than ever, but doing so feels amazing.

This changes the rhythm of the fight, which is great. In the old Monster Hunter, there would always come a point in the fight where the prey realized it was in trouble and took off. But now, all you have to do is instantly jump on the dog and go after it. It may sound a bit psychopathic, but it is very satisfying to chase a wounded creature that is trying to escape and set it up along with its companions.

Perhaps there is an unobtrusive quality to Lasse. It has taken away the enormous amount of busyness that used to accompany the game. For example, whereas "key quests" for each hunter rank had to be looked up online, now the game tells you. The weapon upgrade tree is also easier to understand. There are mini-tutorials and guidance missions for each important element. Everything that was a bit annoying has been punted.

As a result, you'll spend most of your time playing Monster Hunter hunting monsters: in Rise, you'll spend more time actually hunting monsters than fiddling around with menus and trying to figure out what to do next. The ability to hunt with little to no downtime, combined with the overall faster pace of the game, makes "Rise" much more fast-paced and lively than its predecessors. The verticality of the locations and the way the game zips around them quickly becomes natural, and it feels like the chase has begun from the first few seconds of the game.

Monster hunters are always relentless. If you take their monsters lightly, even the most docile monsters are quickly dispatched. Rise follows the usual pattern of dealing with small dinosaur-like creatures like the Great Buggy and Great Urogi, then introducing rough and strange ones like the Tigrex, cool-headed classics like the Lasalos, and (mostly) awe-inspiring battles with the Elder Dragon follows.

It is actually difficult to describe the "typical" hunt in Monster Hunter: because one of the game's inexhaustible qualities is that there are now dozens of large monsters, which can be combined to create endless new combinations. Also, the game is no longer as shy as it used to be about making monsters fight each other, which happened rarely in the old game, but now happens very frequently (during this time, you can even "ride" a monster temporarily and enjoy a Godzilla moment).

The monsters look really great and the old monsters act more aggressive and surprising than ever. The game is fun: I chose the gunlance (again) because I love gunlances, and while there are some familiar techniques with this weapon, there are also many new ones that feel completely new. The more I play Rise, the more I find it fascinating. There are special moves that give each weapon's moveset a new angle of approach, a 10-ton slam for when you need it (a major drawback of the gunlance has always been its lack of mobility, but in Rise, when you're dog-sprinting, grappling, or force-blasting across the landscape, this doesn't seem relevant (it feels like it), you start unlocking it. Sometimes you try out a new ability, process what just happened, do the chef-kissing maneuver, and give silent thanks to the Capcom brain that thought of it.

The sheer variety of beasts and weapons in Rise means that even though the game is progressing at a tremendous pace, the offering of new elements has not stopped for a long time. There is so much to do, and all of it is laid out and explained better than ever before, eliminating all the little hassles that might have annoyed the player. Sure, this may be the origin of the Nintendos game, and it shows visually. But don't fret. Because "Monster Hunter Rise" can't shake the impression that this series is as good as it's ever been. That is to say.