Underneath my yellow skin

Tag Archives: Monster Hunter Rise

Dark Souls III for life

Posted on by • 0 Comments

Dark Souls III is the best From game.

Thank you for coming to my TEDTalk, and….

I’m just kidding. I don’t think it’s the best FromSoft game, I don’t think it’s even the second-best From game. It’s my favorite, though, which is vastly different. Elden Ring is second by a hair, and I don’t thnk that’s the best From game, either. I will say that I think it’s innovative and will redefine a genre (open world games) in a way DS III isn’t and won’t, but again, I’m talking favorites here.

It’s funny. Last night in Ian’s chat (he was playing Mon Hun Rise by CAPCOM), I mentioned that I tapped out at Iceborne, the DLC for MHW. I said that it was above my paygrade, meaning it was too hard for me. The person in the chat said that he thought MHW was too easy and Iceborne is when he really got interested. He (I’m assuming he, and I would bet money on it) said that I was the only person he knew who did not like Iceborne. Or maybe he meant Ian because Ian voiced similar feelings.

In the same chat, he said that he never finished Elden Ring because he was a squishy mage and everyone was mean to him. WHat I did not say, but could have, was exactly what he said to me. That I did not know anyone who could not finish Elden Ring (though it would not be true) and that it was easy compared to, say the DLC of DS III. I wouldn’t, of course, because that would be rude, But he thought nothing of laughing at me and saying he didn’t know anyone who didn’t like Iceborne.

I wasn’t mad at him, mind. I just marveled at how insular his thinking was. again, I know it’s human nature to use yourself as the metric of normality, but most people can nominally understand that other people may not feel theh same way they do. I will say, though, that the more you hew to the ‘norm’ (white cis het middle-class man), the less you have to think about how other people view things.


Continue Reading

Falling off Monster Hunter Rise

Posted on by • 0 Comments

I was really digging Monster Hunter Rise (Capcom), pouring hours into it as I had into Monster Hunter World, the previous iteration. i was zipping through the village quests at a speed that surprised me because in MHW, I took my time and did quests over and over again to make armor and weapons. And, of course, I had to make armors for my Palico, Shadow. (Raven was my Poogie. In this game, Raven is my Palamute. Always with me in spirit). I put over 300 hours in MHW and barely touched the Tempered Elder Dragons–and hardly played Iceborne at all. I loved the game and really got into the grind. I wanted every switch-axe and didn’t care how long it took to get them. Not even having to get THREE Vaal Hazak jaws. I think? I looked it up. It was the final form of the Anjanath switch-axe, which needs FIVE Vaal Hazak fangs. Vaal Hazak is an Elder Dragon, just in case it’s not clear.

I did all that cheerfully, buying harder-to-get materials when they became available. I did quests over and over and over again until I got all the materials I needed. I did it willingly and cheerfully, never tiring of killing or capturing the mons over and over again.

In between each hunt, I loved going around  the town and talking to all the important people. The blacksmith, the one with the optional quests, visiting the captured mons, etc. I pet my Poogie every time (not a euphemism) and grew things in the garden. My loop in the town took me ten to twenty minutes and was part of the enjoyment I derived from the game.

In MHR, however, there simply isn’t as much of a reason to visit the townspeople. There’s the blacksmith, yes, and the pal blacksmith, who, by the way, is never specifically mentioned. Or if they are, it’s so fleeting, I didn’t remember. So I didn’t know how to make armor for my pals until I asked Ian about it.  That was several hours into the game. I fully believe the game mentioned it at some point, but they dump so much information on the player at the beginning without distinguishing between what is important and what isn’t.

They got rid of the optional quest giver and just mooshed it into your handler. Or in this game, the village quest maiden (as opposed to her twin, the hub quest maiden). I didn’t like the handler in the last game (as did not a a lot of players, as evidenced by the introduction of a new handler in Iceborne who was much better), but at least she only had one job–to handle your main quests.


Continue Reading

The one true (Elden) Ring to rule them all

Posted on by • 0 Comments
looking good!
Lovin’ my new threads!

So I’ve been playing a shit ton of Monster Hunter: Rise (Capcom) and it’s highly addictive. In my last post, I wrote about some of the issues I have with the game. However, over all, it’s very much a popcorn game. Meaning, I want to glut myself on it even though it has no emotional/nutritional value It’s empty calories, but very tasty ones. It has that ‘just twenty more minutes’ feel to it and I can melt away hours with it without even being aware of it.

As I said in my last post, I tend to do all the smaller quests first. In part, it’s a good way to stock up on materials and monies before tackling the big guys. The beginning quests aren’t that hard–in fact, they are downright easy. Ian thinks the one, two, and three-star quests (how far we both are) are easier than Monster Hunter: World so far. I tend to agree as I haven’t broken a sweat with any of the big mons and it seems to be taking less time than it did for the same level of quests in MHW. I never carted in the first three star levels in MHW, but killing some of the monsters took more than half an hour. In MHR, the only reason they take that long is because of the goddamn maps. I’m still getting fucked up on the verticality, especially in the forest region. I just discovered/remembered that the map shows the different levels of the biomes, which should be helpful, but somehow isn’t really.

Continue Reading

Be very very quiet; I’m hunting mons

Posted on by • 0 Comments

Amusing note: I called this the same thing I called my last Monster Hunter post. I thought to myself as I was typing the title, “Hm, I’ve probably used something similar before, or even the same.” I went to the last post so I could reread what I had written. Lo and behold, there was the exact same title.

I’ve put in several more hours into Monster Hunter Rise (Capcom), which is how I play games. I pick one big one at a time and then get well and truly stuck in. There are things I like. better about MHR than MHW and things I like about the same. There are very few things I like less, but that’s because the games are pretty similar. It’s hard not to compare the two as they are the only Mon Hun games I’ve played (well, I tired an earlier iteration on the 3DS for a few hours and hated it, but I don’t really count that. I put well over 300 hours into MHW and really enjoyed it until the Tempered Elder Dragons. That’s when it zoomed out of my capability zone and while I was able to kill the Tempered Eldered Dragons, I didn’t have any fun doing it and it didn’t feel like skill at all. I had a Switch-Axe that was made from Nergigante material. It greatly negated other Elder Dragons’ ultimates. Until I got to Tempered Elder Dragons and then it didn’t. At that point, I was no longer adept at dodging the ultimates and I didn’t want to relearn how to do it.

That and Iceborne killed all interest I had in that game and it made me wary in picking up MHR. Really, it was Ian’s positive response to the game that pushed me to giving it a try. As is my wont, I jumped in with both feet once I bought it. I am a weirdo in that I do all the gathering quests first and then the slaying small monsters quests before doing the hunt the big monster quests. I don’t know how I got in that habit, but it’s stuck from MHW.

One thing frustrating about the Mon Hun games is that they throw so much at you in the beginning without differentiate between what’s important and what isn’t. For example, it’s nice that you can talk to so many villagers, but  I would like to know which are important and which aren’t. It’s not hard to figure out, but it is a bit frustrating. Knowing how to use the camera? It that really necessary? Knowing how to use the wirebugs? Very important! The candy girl is cute and all, but she’s not giving me anything that helps with my questing. The blacksmith who smiths armor/weapons for my pals? VERY important! Also, the scrap system for said armor/weapons, also important. Fish merchant who doesn’t sell me anything? Not so important.


Continue Reading

I’m on the hunt I’m after mons

Posted on by • 0 Comments

For the past week or so, I was pondering God of War (Santa Monica Studio) versus Monster Hunter Rise (Capcom). They are both ‘old’ games that just got PC ports, which is why I’m interested. Even though I have a PS4, I am not going to buy any game for that console if I can avoid it. In addition, I don’t care if I play a game when it first comes out so it wasn’t that I HAD to buy one of the games right at this moment. However, I’m going to be playing Elden Ring (FromSoft) from the moment it comes out (hopefully, February 25th) to the end of time.

I want a game to tide me over until that date, not that I can’t play Dark Souls III until then. I’m currently in NG+4 on the Road to Sacri–wait. No. I beat the Crystal Sage, I think. Maybe? Anyway, I’m around there. No, I think I still have to fight the CS in this cycle. And I’m still dipping in Cozy Grove every day as well as Dorfromantik. But I hunger for a new game because I’ve been playing those three games for the past several months. Cozy Grove, it’s been nine months. Dorfromantik has been at least four. As for Dark Souls III, well, I’ve been playing that game since 2016.

It’s a bit strange to me that I was considering a new game that I would only play for a month-and-a-half. I mean, I could play it past then, but let’s be real. Once Elden Ring drops, that’s all I’m going to be playing for the foreseeable future. I might still check in on Cozy Grove, but I don’t like to play two action adventure games at the same time–in part because the buttons are never the same. Any time I go back to Dark Souls, I come perilously close to hitting an NPC. One time, I had a controller that eventually broke the B button. I broke it. Not on purpose, but because I use it so much. B is run/roll/dodge/quickstep in Souls games and I’m pressing in almost constantly as I play the games.

I asked my brother what I could do and he said I could map roll to another button. I laughed because that’s unthinkable. Soulslikes are always trying to differentiate themselves and one way is by having different buttons. Which, fine. Go for it. But do not touch the B button–just don’t. I found out many years after I started playing Souls games that their button scheme is considered weird and bad, but it’s all I know so it’s default for me. Anyway, one soulslike I actually liked was Salt and Sanctuary by Ska Studios, which was a cartoon-y soulslike. It was an homage–veering dangerously close to copying. It’s clear that they love Souls games and wanted to do something that was very similar–in 2D. Anyway, they put roll on…either RT or LT. And it wasn’t rebindable. I watched a few people play it and every single one mentioned that particular tidbit. By the time I got around to buying it, it was rebindable, thankfully.


Continue Reading