Monster Hunter Rise Sunbreak review
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need to know
what is it? You hunted monsters in Rise, and now they’re back to hunt you.
expect to pay £33/$40
developer Capcom
Publisher Capcom
audit date GeForce GTX 1070, 16GB RAM, i7-7700HQ
multiplayer game 4 people cooperate
association Official website(opens in a new tab)
Monster Hunter Rise Sunbreak has two sides. The first will see you on a mission in the luscious jungle, collecting bugs and slapping little monsters while looking for snails: you’ll then take a picture of it and get a very charming snail hat. The flip side of Sunbreak is your hunter, helpless on the ground when an angry red-eyed beast stomps your keys on the ground. Or it could be a dragon with rhino horns that shoots you with an electric charge (which poisons you).
Over and over, you’ll see the hunter fall to the ground.
This is one of the endearing aspects of Monster Hunter, in a game based on brutal action and nature with red teeth and claws, the hunter still “passes out” when a giant rampaging monster is KO’d. Don’t worry, everything will be fine. The real twist to the knife is the limited duration of each mission, such as “carrying” three times (where you’re brought back to base on a cat-propelled stretcher) means starting over. It’s a weird thing to have an old feeling in 2022 — the feeling that you just hit the wall for 40 minutes and have to do it all over again because you want an extra hit or dodge.
Monster Hunter Rise debuted on Switch in early 2021 and hit PC this January (here’s our review). More of an old-school portable game pedigree than the singing and dancing Monster Hunter World, Rise is definitely packed with weapons to try, monsters to hunt, and loot to stuff in boxes (and occasionally wear) . It also greatly improves player movement, makes zone transitions seamless, and is a gentler single-player experience than before.
(Image credit: Capcom)
In any case, I wouldn’t say Rise is an easy game. But it’s a game that gets most players done, and the real geeks are saved to post-campaign hunts (one thing about monster hunter games is they tend to have multiple points, you might call it the end). It’s also stuck at “advanced” hunts, where the series traditionally goes into “G-level” and later “master” hunts, where the training wheels really come off.
Monster Hunter Rise Sunbreak is a heavenly addendum, a grim correction to Rise’s more modest player onboarding. This one is for hardcore gamers, more or less for you right from the start.
(Image credit: Capcom)
bite me
The full-price expansion to fight palette-swapped versions of old monsters isn’t as exciting as I expected.
However, the opening of Sunbreak does leave a lot to be desired. Your introduction to the expansion is a variant of Hermitaur, a crab-like enemy. While it has some new moves, hey, it’s a new Rising fight, but it’s a very familiar monster and encounter.
This is a topic that arguably lasts longer than it should. Sunbreak quickly upgrades your hunters to master rank, but you won’t see real new monsters until you’re ready to go to master rank 3 – which takes a dozen hours of hunting. In a way, this has always been the end of Monster Hunter, and most longtime fans of the series won’t blink, but a full-priced expansion pack with some new moves that swap versions of the old monster’s palette. Combat…it wasn’t as exciting as I expected.
One change that was introduced almost immediately was “Toggle Skill Swap,” which basically lets you throw two different toggle skill loads (think: special moves) into battle. At first, it’s just a good thing, with a neat custom animation that converts to dodge. Later it becomes more integrated into your hunting style as you get buffs that activate on skill switch, letting you overkill on things like weapon sharpening and reduced downtime.
Skill conversion represents Sunbreak as a whole. It’s a small change, but how much it improves hunting as you play more. I’m mostly firearms, and switching skills is so different that my way is a bit fixed, but this adds a dynamism and you can now identify what’s really useful for a given monster and deploy it. That’s what this expansion is all about: perfecting an already great hunting experience.
(Image credit: Capcom)
Wow!
Sunbreak only adds five real “new” monsters to Rise, some of which, like Espinas, are already present in older games. Espinas are a great example of what Sunbreak is really after. You won’t encounter this thing until Master 4, when you should say goodbye to your mother and make sure your world is in order.
Espinas is like Diablos’ bigger, meaner brother. It’s a giant dragon that loves to charge at you repeatedly, huge wings to catch lazy dodges, and a terrifying big horn that’s bound to hit you. It doesn’t do fancy moves, it just runs towards you again and again until it catches you, it catches you, and the secret is that it poisons you too. This means that even if you get hit and somehow survive, you now have to cure the poison and heal, and this thing will be running around nonstop like Usain Bolt. It is often dizzy. Espinas hates me, and so do I.
Sunbreak retains a lot of what it has. You won’t unlock new toggle skills until master level 4, it’s some time to experience, and you’ll also start seeing new monsters in action. Capcom may not bring quantity in this regard, but it does bring quality.
The five new monsters do feel stingy, but the battles that follow, especially Malzeno, bring absolute fireworks. This ancient dragon is the host of a swarm of vampire moths that infect your hunters as he flies around, exploding fireballs, shattering the ground, and stirring up the elements around you. Oh, and it can warp. Get that stretcher ready.
The old dragons are my favorite fights in the series because Capcom’s designers make you feel like the whole world around you is responding to their presence, and Malzeno really feels like a terrifying force of nature. Its armor set is also incredibly sweet, adding the “Blood Sacrifice” skill that allows you to heal when hitting broken monster parts: yes, they got some blood in there.
(Image credit: Capcom)
Follow me!
Monster Hunter Rise is as good as the series, and Sunbreak is even more so.
Faced with such dire odds, Sunbreak does offer players one help, and it works much better than I expected: followers. You can usually go hunting with your animal companions, but Sunbreak introduces fellow hunters who will enter side quests and a knight, Fiorayne, who will join you in the main story quests.
Fiorayne is a godsend and one of the best companions Capcom has introduced for the series, as she fights like any other player; using life powder at the right moment, grabbing the attention of monsters for long periods of time, disappearing in search of another monster to drag back. Come to think of it, she’s better than some human players I know. Fiorayne adds a whole new element to the series, and could be a sign of where Capcom is headed for single-player in the future.
(Image credit: Capcom)
performance and settings
The performance of the GTX 1070 is excellent – consistent screen tearing in the bars, which I also found to be an issue when looking at the Rise. Otherwise it maintains a smooth frame rate with no performance issues. There are quite a few graphics options and even support for ultrawide monitors.
It’s not a visual spectacle, but it looks great if you ask me. A mid-level machine should be able to run it without a hitch.
The new environment feels denser than in the original Rise, although this may be a function of the expansion adding more small creatures and endemic elements (like two new nematodes). Both are mount-focused, one makes the Punisher attack more lethal, and the other increases the drop rate for monster fights. Consistent with this, it seems to me that the monsters in Master Rank are more aggressive towards each other than the base game, although that’s just my feeling.
Another aspect of Sunbreak before you start facing monsters like Malzenos is the plethora of added things like secret armor sets, companions, master-level layered armor… these things look like fluff, but to some players Say it is very important. Suffice to say, if you’re a fan of traditional Monster Hunter endgames, this offers the customizability and minimal maximization that the series has ever had.
Monster Hunter Rise is as good as the series, and Sunbreak is even more so. It’s also tougher, but it feels like the right thing to do. For some fans of the series, you might add 10 to the score. It really lacks new thrills, even if some of its additions are more significant than they originally appeared and basically serve as a proper endgame for an already expanded experience. Well, it’s not so much a sunset as it’s a sunset.
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