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Magnamalo is Monster Hunter Rise‘s box-art monster, but while it’s a hard fight, that doesn’t make it the worst thing you’ll face in this epic game. [credit: Capcom ]
Since its 2004 launch on PlayStation 2, the Monster Hunter series has stomped in bold-yet-unsteady fashion—like one of its titular beasts—toward legitimacy in the West. I’ve always found that peculiar, because as a bullet-point list, MH sounds like the ultimate in hardcore Western gamer catnip: deliberate slow-and-powerful combat (Dark Souls); teaming up with friends for epic PvE battles to amass loot (Diablo); deliriously tough and crazy-looking monsters and insane weapon variety to match (Borderlands).
But the series mostly thrived in Japan on PSP—in a nation much better poised to support “local wireless co-op adventuring,” one of the PSP’s flagship features. (I’m not sure I ever saw four people in the States playing a PSP in public, let alone doing so in a closely huddled group.) It wasn’t until the series landed on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Windows in 2018 with Monster Hunter World that Capcom corrected some key series stumbles, mainly mid-mission loading times and truly working online multiplayer. As a result, uptake in the West exploded, and MHW became Capcom’s biggest-selling video game of all time.
These days, Western gamers are finally embracing a powerful, portable console in droves, and Capcom has responded in unbelievable fashion. Behold: Monster Hunter Rise, the series’ best game yet and likely the tipping point for anyone who has yet to sharpen their blade on its whetstones.
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