Well, let’s do this again. You are a hunter and monsters are threatening your adorable little town. You will be given a quest list full of creatures to track and turn into funny hats. Do it until the townspeople are safe, the build is optimized, and the costume flies like a wire bug. If you play Monster Hunter World’s Iceborn Expansion, or most of the major re-releases of Monster Hunter earlier, Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak will be a very familiar paramute ride through the park. This is an official DLC full of exciting new enemies and some cool new locales. There aren’t many interesting surprises in itself, but these additional qualities reinforce how fun the formula is.
Sunbreak is essentially a brand new game, introducing a functionally identical hub town, Elgado, and developing a new story from there. The story is once again a completely negligible and fully predictable story about how something is hot and annoying all the local monsters. This time, it is set in a European-themed kingdom, not in Kamura, which was inspired by Japan. That character is at least a little funny this time, but the plot isn’t a monster hunter draw, and it certainly doesn’t change here.
As in the old tradition, this expansion introduces Master Rank and makes all equipment immediately irrelevant. This is an assortment of new monsters and returning monsters, as well as an upper layer of hunts filled with more difficult versions of the base game monsters. I will undertake it. It’s not frustrating, but it’s legally fun to reset the bar significantly, so I’m willing to chase again with lots of powerful armor and weapon upgrades. It’s not a new trick for Monster Hunter bags, but one of Master Rank’s greatest strengths is that it can change the behavior of monsters and give them fresh movements, not only to improve their stats, but also to take on new challenges. is.
Both brand new monsters and monsters returning from previous Monster Hunter games continue the Rise trend of being as stellar as they see them fighting. All the new trios called “Three Roads” are especially amazing. The rocky ape-like appearance of Galangorm disguises its explosive maneuverability and amazing elemental effects. Luna Garon adds a fun twist to the traditional werewolf theme. Inspired by Marzeno’s vampires, the move set was really shocking when I first saw it blinking on the battlefield. Older return enemies like Astaroth and Goa Magara will fit as well, look better than ever, and offer exciting and fresh challenges to those who have never faced them before.
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As a place to do that, Sunbreak adds two new locales. Jungle, the tropical island first introduced in Monster Hunter 2, which has been brilliantly rethought thanks to Rise’s seamless 3D maps, and Citadel, a fun and eclectic space that expands. From poisoned swamps to snow-covered peaks to huge ruined castles, one hunt. I liked Citadel more thematically, but the condensed layout of the jungle has made Rise the most useful map ever. Collecting Spiribirds for status boosts at the beginning of each quest isn’t too much of a hassle, and it feels like you’ve learned the valuable lesson of providing those huge patches just by riding a wire bug from your starting tent. However, both locales are very interesting to explore in their own way and are packed with even smaller secrets waiting to be discovered.
Speaking of fixing some of Rise’s mistakes, Rampages are given boots to a near comical degree. The rampage weapon tree is actually the only one that doesn’t expand with the new upgrade options, and the rampage quests don’t seem to have been updated at all. The new weapon will give priority only to decorative slots and completely destroy the rampaging skill system. It can be filled with special rampaging decorations (there is no connection other than the name). This is a surprising reversal, but not at all surprising given how slow the repetitive nature of the Rampage quest was in the end.
I haven’t shed tears about the abandonment of the rampage, but it’s also striking that nothing has been introduced in their place. I was happy that Capcom decided to try such a new quest type. The fact that Rise’s core functionality has been uprooted rather than improved by Sunbreak, even if its appeal doesn’t last long, makes this extension feel much thinner. This is especially true when compared to Iceborne, which introduced its own clever new ideas to the world. Guiding Lands is especially prominent as an interesting take at the end of the game. In contrast, later Sunbreak can’t be ruined by me, but it only adds a small but funny twist to the monster’s difficulty.
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To be clear, Sunbreak has a lot to do. After more than 45 hours, you’ll still have to complete the equipment and optional tasks you want to chase, but there aren’t many fresh ideas that will help you stand out overall than a bunch of cool new monsters to fight.To that end, almost all mainline quests stick to the standard hunt format, with no such thing as the world’s giant Zora Magdalos battle, Seriana’s defense against Iceborn’s Berkana, or the rampage of at least one note on Rise. try Shake things. Again, all the quests I did were still a lot of fun, but Sunbreak can start to feel pretty familiar by the end.
One place where it does something really interesting is the follower quest. Increasing the Master Rank requires both Elgado and Kamura townspeople to accompany certain single-player quests as AI-controlled hunters. Performing the quest unlocks those people as an option for support survey quests (single player only), allowing you to choose two party members. Hunting itself isn’t necessarily challenging or unique, but the AI is surprisingly sophisticated, using items, mounting monsters, placing traps and then standing behind or waiting with them. I can.
Not as robust as the entire single-player campaign, follower quests are initially unlocked as the multiplayer story progresses, but it’s much more fun to shatter parts of certain monsters yourself. The followers you brought will make funny jokes with each other during the quest, and it’s nice to be able to get to know these characters better by actually going out into the field and hunting with them. .. Followers are so well implemented that it’s a bit disappointing that you can’t use them to fill vacant seats in multiplayer quests.Especially for followers, it seems like a nonsensical limitation can From time to time, I accompany some specific multiplayer emergency quests.
Apart from the big additions, Sunbreak brings many quality of life improvements. By adjusting the way you choose your pre-hunting diet particularly wisely, you can change the effect of each dumpling ability by changing the order of choice and adding appropriate decisions to the process. You can now quickly swap two switch skill loadouts while hunting, greatly expanding your potential move set. Similarly, buddies are more customizable than ever, so you can make special moves to build the ultimate pariko without having to rely too much on finding the ideal randomized cat. There’s nothing amazing about all these updates, but it’s great that almost every system is mentioned in some welcome way.
