First off, this review is based on my own experience in both Gen 5 titles of the franchise. I have not played other MH titles so comparisons with games previous to Gen 5 will not be made and I'm an extremely average player, so don't take my opinions as those of some very experienced hunter. Also, I won't touch much on Rampage or specific likes or dislikes of the base game, simply because it feels like a pain and through my Rise journey it never felt like part of the core gameplay (and even less in the Solo experience). There's also a TLDR at the bottom.

The review contains MH and specific MH Risebreak terminology.


Rise introduces Wirebugs as its core mechanic to the already existing formula to the game. Wirebugs are used by the player in two main ways, for mobility, and for weapon attacks, or Silkbind attacks as they are called in the game. Performing a movement action or a Silkbind consumes wirebugs and they recharge based on the action taken.

At first it felt, to me, like wirebugs gave the player too much freedom when it came to movement, but that was something that was quickly quelled for me, since most monsters have been given multi-dash attacks, aoe attacks and quick follow ups, so wirebugs fit nicely into the formula in my eyes when it came to movement.

When it comes to silkbinds, they feel neither too positive nor too negative, most of them simply allow for players to find new ways to play weapons, but others can make weapons too dependant on them and abandon the rest of their kit completely, so overall my opinion on silkbinds is neutral, tending to positive when taking into account those that build into a weapons moveset and are mostly there to give variety.

Switch skills are the other big change to core combat. Switch skills are a set of skills within a weapon you can select to go into battle, usually of the same nature but with different effects and applications, having two scrolls with 5 slots each for different switch skills, meaning potentially bringing 10 different skills into battle. Obviously the "META" people will always have some switch skills that they will never touch, purely to lack of damage, but for the average player it can be fun to explore the options the game gives.

Overall, I enjoyed both switch skills and wirebugs (with some grievances).


The biggest surprise I had when playing Risebreak compared to Worldborne was how each hunting quest was treated. Risebreak wants you to go fast, finish the hunt, and repeat, while Worldborne is slower and more methodical, taking advantage of its massive maps to build a proper "hunt".

If I were to boil it down very simply, in Risebreak you're simply fighting bosses, and the arena is kinda big, enviromental threats are almost non existent, and the focus is on combat. I don't mind, once you realise the game was originally thought for handheld devices, it makes all the sense to speed up the fight and other aspects such as gathering and movement (with wirebugs and palamutes). This rewards learning every fight more than Worldborne did, simply because the game encourages you to spend most of the time engaged in combat, and gives the monsters and the players tools to stay on top of each other.

However, spiritbirds contradict all of the speed the game tries to force on the player. Spiritbirds are the way the game allows for players to top off their hp and stamina, and are scattered around the map for the player to collect. This makes it so players have to spend a period of time at the start of the quest simply walking around (either in a pre-planned route they have or simply randomly finding them) collecting stats, instead of popping a potion like you could in Worldborne.

Overall I don't mind the game being much more combat focused, since the combat itself is deeper than in WorldBorne, but spiritbirds make my blood boil.


In RiseBreak all weapons have received means of countering, parrying, i-frame evading and hyperarmoring through monster attacks. This is a trend that im kinda neutral on, because I believe that it's the result of a retroactive cycle between monster design and combat design, that started in base Rise and had to be enhanced in Sunbreak to allow players to keep up.

Basically, by giving players these means of damage avoidance, and lesser punishment, the design of monsters began getting quite agressive in late High Rank to keep up with the capacities of the player, and then, in Master Rank, and adding new switch skills and silkbinds to every weapon, each monster had to be even more agressive and more capable of hitting the player than they would normally be (Risen Shagaru Magala I'm looking at you) at least compared to WorldBorne Master Rank.

Overall, even though I don't mind having each weapon being a Long Sword pseudoclone, I feel like in the bigger picture it makes the defining charachteristics between weapons less noticeable. Not enough for each weapon to feel the same, since this game offers a ton of depth per weapon, but enough to be annoying to be finding the good moment to parry with each weapon, and also making some later fights feel overwhelming in terms of speed and attack frequency of the monster.


Online was something I enjoyed in both WorldBorne and RiseBreak, but the way the latter handled joining felt pretty bad, having you either join a lobby, searching for random quests, or selecting a specific quest and just tossing a coin in case someone was doing it. I much preferred how responding to SOS flares allowed you to see specific player and quest info in WorldBorne, this allowing for a more selective online play.

Followers, on the other hand, are my favourite addition to MH. Since this game was quite bad when it came to looking for Online sessions, having NPCs that could accompany you out on the field not only gave life to solo missions, but allowed you to gain a certain level of utility and safety when playing solo, opening the doors to try new builds and weapons in the more unsafe Solo setting.


There's not much to say about the endgame of Sunbreak, Anomalies, other than it was too linear for me. You level up a separate progress bar that is connected to investigations, and depending on the level you acquire different tier materials, that allow for higher min-maxing of builds through talismans, decorations and curious crafting. If I were to complain, it would be that the amount of damage and HP that monsters have at higher levels is very high and felt artificial, and in general I preferred the modularity of the Guiding Lands. Also the amount of RNG to perfect builds, both in talisman making and qurious crafting, which both give random skills and random decoration slots, felt very ufair and punishing.


Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak is a fun game, fast, with deep learnable combat. The base game has its problems but the whole of the experience is very recommendable if you want a highly mechanical experience with tons of content to sink hours into.


Pros:
-Highly polished combat for each weapon
-More moveset and playstyle customisation
-Higher skill ceiling for every weapon
-Higher loadout customisation
-Followers allow for a more casual yet fun solo experience without having to partake in online
-Simple endgame allows for build min-maxing quite early (except rng parts like talismans or quiro crafting)

Cons:
-Extremely linear endgame bloated by difficulty based on monster tankyness and damage
-RNG based stat systems that are impactful on player builds
-Uncomfortable online if not playing with premades
-Combat being highly dependant on counters makes monster design be overbearing sometimes
-Spiritbirds go against everything that intends to make the loop faster