Recent reviews by eevyern

I tried this song on Hard.
Let's be clear; this isn't a direct lift from the OST.

On Hard, at least, this song introduces a particularly nasty off-melody during the crescendo of Madeline's part of the theme that wasn't heard anywhere on the OST. Hard mode is 50% based on this off-melody with insane off-beats that you need to memorise in order to Perfect.

I honestly don't know whether this is a good or a bad thing. It's a good song, but whether or not it's a good chart is a different story entirely.

feesh.

We got so many answers to fan-theories that's been surrounding everything surrounding Gerald Robotnik, from how Gerald went from a giant lizard to a hedgehog, to Gerald's experiences with Emerl. As a lore drop on its own, Shadow Generations is a love letter to every Sonic fan out there.

As a game, Shadow Generations is quite obviously what SEGA wanted Sonic Forces to be. The stages may feel semi-linear and be a representation of modern Boost gameplay, but there's enough variation and obstacles to keep you actively engaged in each and every stage. Stage remixes are amazing, even though we're visiting the ARK for the 4th game now (Final Rush remixes will never get old, legitimately).

And Shadow finally gets some proper sense of closure from his past, an ACTUAL more fitting end to his story than him flinging a photograph into the wind like he doesn't care. Ian Flynn cooked with this and broke many hearts in the process. This game actually made me feel proud to be a Sonic fan for so long.

it's time to save the damn game, Valve.
#FixTF2

It's like I'm back in 2013... only bigger, better, and definitely more multiplayer-friendly.

The secrets in the game are also massive, though they can be overwhelmingly numerous unless you already have RoR1 experience (since most of the old artifacts are the exact same in acquisition).

Also good luck getting Origin, glass-infusion cheese got nerfed lmao get rekt

It's been a long time since a game has captivated me to the extent I'd wreck my sleep schedule just to see it through. It's been even longer since a game that had no hype built for it enamoured me to this extent.

Hi-Fi RUSH is the game that does both. The gameplay is absolutely jamming, the music fantastic at stringing you along for the ride and guiding your fights. I can't count the number of times I caught myself bopping to the beat, tapping my feet, just because of how charming, amazing the music is.

To put it simply, this game is DMC meets Crypt of the Necrodancer. And by god does it do it well.

If you're looking for some criticism, the only one I have is this: once you get your full repertoire of moves, it suffers the same issue as most beat-em-ups, in that you now have too many moves for you to remember and stringing all of them into some of your combos will be nigh-impossible to do. But even then, every move in this game has a purpose, so all it does is allow you to find your own playstyle, and enjoy the heck out of it.

After so many years, we finally get a sufficiently good Sonic game.
Don't get me wrong, it's not incredibly mind-blowing, but it's a good Sonic game.

Hoo boy, where do I start with this one... First off, I need to preface this by saying that I've played every MonHun game since MHFU (only skipping Tri because I never had a Wii, and including Portable 3rd because yay homebrew). As such, I have a lot of history with this series and I have so many opinions on Rise. I visited some of these opinions in my Iceborne review (which you can see here), but I'll try to explain some in more detail in this review.

This review will focus on how I think Rise fares for beginners.



I'll just say that Rise doesn't feel like a game for beginners. There, I said it.

MonHun has always been this complex little gem with lots of hidden nuances, filled with 'how the hell do I use this weapon', 'how do I dodge that attack' and 'why is that pickle eating me'. The good thing about being a veteran is that you learn these complex little mechanics in bits and pieces: starting from MHFU, I learnt about exhaustion and blight mechanics in P3rd, mounting mechanics in 4, Hunter Arts in GU and all the new movesets from World. It was an incremental learning experience. But in Rise, all of this is present right off the bat. And none of it is explained incredibly well, besides by reading an entire thesis in the Hunters' Notes.

To make matters worse, we have multiple new mechanics being introduced in Rise. Wirebugs, Elemental Blights on monsters, Wyvern Riding, the Insect Glaive being more useless than ever because their only good mechanic is gone , all of this would be overwhelming even for a veteran. It wouldn't be as bad if these mechanics weren't vital to the game, but there's one mechanic that is absolutely crucial to surviving - the Wirebug. There are moves you can't dodge by positioning well or dodge rolling. Instead, you are expected to Wiredash out to safety, which isn't something veterans are used to. Imagine yourself as a newbie, where you barely know what your dodge roll can do, and now you're expected to master another mobility option as well. That's where the issue comes in.
For my newbie friend, it was tough trying to explain to her how to use her weapon while trying to teach her about mobility with Wirebugs. There's going to be too much to absorb for her, and it's only going to be an uphill battle once she faces Mizutsune and is forced to put these mechanics to the test.

And the funny thing is, my friend's plight could be made easier with something that past generations used to do, but removed. In all games up to GU, there would be these barebones training quests for each weapon type. While it was simplistic, it still did give an idea of what each weapon was meant to do and how it was supposed to be played. These quests were removed in World, but at the very least, the game encouraged you to take your time to try them out in the Training Area, with the Field Team Leader giving you the same 'basic playstyle' tips the first time you unsheathed a weapon of that type. Brief, but informative.

Yeah, those are gone in Rise. Completely. You don't learn anything about what your weapon is supposed to achieve. At all. No quips about how the GS lands meticulous but powerful attacks, or how the Bow lays down a barrage of pain and support for your team, or how the SnS is the best weapon in the game, hands down, completely unbiased opinion. All you get are rudimentary combos, and then the luxury of figuring everything out for yourself. To be fair, World somewhat did the same 'figure things out yourself' shtick when it came to the moves at your disposal. However, World had a clear advantage over Rise in this regard, one that we took for granted - World had a Button Guide at the top right corner of the screen. This Button Guide sounds stupid, and many of us probably overlooked it for the majority of the game, but this Button Guide also revealed the entire moveset of a weapon to us, especially with how movesets were reworked in World. In Rise, you may discover combos, but you'll struggle to remember how to replicate them. What's worse, beginners will not know how extensive their movesets can be in the first place, because there's just too much to learn and nothing to reinforce that learning.

In conclusion, there's too much to learn in Rise, and too little being explained for beginners to pick up right off the bat. I'd actually recommend newbies start off with World instead, as there's less to pick up there and more of that knowledge would be transferable to future titles. It's also just less complex in general.


A huge gripe I have with this game is a problem with this game as an entry to the MonHun series, and it's also one I alluded to in the Iceborne review I linked to at the very start. Old Monster Hunter games, for all its inconveniences and quirks, always had a way of making you feel like an actual monster hunter. Even in World, you had to track your mark using their footprints, scratch marks, feedings, etc. before you actually found them. You also had to make use of the world around you to cause ailments to the monsters - the Paratoads, Flashflies, etc. were all natural living beings just living their life and only react when you force them to react. All of this happens as you explore the New World around you, keeping track of important landmarks and materials you'll need for future hunts.

In Rise, all this changed. You start each hunt by sending up a Cohoot, which essentially gave you a bird's eye view of the entire map from the start. No longer do you have to track your target; the Cohoot finds it for you from the start. It also helps find every single point of interest for you from the start, from herbs to wyvern nests, to Gloamgrass Bud. There's no exploration needed for you to know where every single point of interest is, even the Endemic Life. Oh, speaking of which, the Endemic Life can be safely picked up and used on monsters as and when is needed. They're no longer natural life, they're just additional helpers that you can literally throw at monsters repeatedly. It takes away from the feeling of being a small hunter in the wild world around you.

Admittedly, this is good for some people, since it gets them into the action of battling a monster straight away. But to me, this doesn't feel like a Monster Hunter game. Instead, it makes it feel more like a Monster Brawler. It may appeal to some, but I've always admired how I grew to be a better hunter through more hunts, learning how to use the environment around me and having to adapt to the environment to better my hunts, instead of fitting the environment in my pocket to use against the monster. But this is a personal gripe, just one I feel conflicts with the theme that MonHun has always had in my heart.


Okay, I swear I had more to write but when I was changing my recommendation from 'Yes' to 'No' on Steam, it decided to wipe the entire review which meant I had to write everything again. I'll probably slowly write everything again, because I had a lot to say, but for now, this will have to do.

Do I recommend Rise in general? Well... it's hard to say. It really is. For beginners, you're better off playing World. For veterans, you'd still be happier with World, unless you're completely done with it and are looking for something to fill that hole in your heart. Rise, in general, is a great Monster Hunter game, that can't be denied. But in terms for its theming, and what it means for the future of Monster Hunter as a franchise, it does depress me a bit to see that it's lacking some of the heart that Monster Hunter carried in its monsters. I'm only hoping that Sunbreak changes my opinion, but until then, I still stand by the fact that Iceborne remains the superior experience to Rise.

wiggle your fingers & jam the keys.

Coming back from Rise, I can safely say that Iceborne is a superior experience (and not just because of G Rank). World has an amazing way of making you feel like a Hunter despite the innovations of the New World; even though scoutflies help you track a monster, you have to first teach them what the monster smells like to get them on the scent. Not having some Cohoot up in the air permanently giving you a bird's eye view of everything on the map through telepathy or something.

The endgame content for World (and Iceborne) trumps whatever Rise currently has; Rise-Apex Monsters have no real bearing on developing endgame equipment, unlike Tempered Monsters. Hell, even 4U-Apex Monsters had uses in developing stronger Wystones to make future fights easier.

Suffice to say, Iceborne keeps me coming back for more, while Rise...just doesn't. The only thing Rise has an edge on is the quality of the returning monsters, which Iceborne doesn't do as well - most returning monsters feature only in G Rank, making them incredibly fast and punishing for new players who haven't learnt their behavior patterns yet, to the point where they became a joke in Rise in LR/HR (looking at you, Rajang).

Oh, and of course, Brachydios is back in Iceborne. 10/10 Guildmarm approves.

If you're reading this in the future when Rise is on Steam and you're considering which game to go for, stick with World: Iceborne for now. Trust me.