Topic: Monster Hunter Rise

Expand

I’ve written a beginner’s guide for anyone new to Monster Hunter or looking to learn. This is the crucial information needed to properly enjoy the game, and seeing as the demo does not explain all of this adequately I took it upon myself to write a quick start guide of sorts to help those who need it.

MONSTER HUNTER RISE BEGINNER’S GUIDE

Menu Settings

GAME SETTINGS
Target Arrow: HIDE
Player Silhouette: TYPE 1

CONTROLS
Button Hold: SHORT
Sheath: MANUAL
Dash: L3 or R

CAMERA
Speed: SLOW
Cam Distance: 40

GYROSCOPE
Gyro Functionality: ON
Right Analog Up/Down: ON
Normal Gyro (Camera): OFF

Advice

#1 Run by holding R or clicking Left Analog (provided settings match the above recommendations). Cannot run with weapon drawn.

#2 Always grab supplies from the blue item box at the start of a quest. You can enter the tent to restock supplies from your personal stash if you run out mid-hunt.

#3 Holding L allows you access to two menus- the radial menu and the item bar. For the radial menu, use the right analog to point at the shortcut item you want to use. Shortcut items can be changed in the menu via + for Menu, then Radial Menu Settings, then Quests, then Shortcut 1, then use right analog to point at the item to swap out, then select Item Pouch, and find the item to swap it with. For the item bar, simply use Y/A to pan left/right through the list to find the item you wish to use. Press Y while your weapon is sheathed to use a selected item.

NOTE: For Radial Menu, I recommend swapping the upper right EZ Ration to Well Done Steak (for stamina replenishment), swapping the right Throwing Kunai to Nulberry (for curing status blights) swapping the lower right map for Antidote (to cure poison), and swapping the lower left Mega Potion for the Mega Potion in the Item Pouch (the default one doesn’t work).

#4 Try out all the weapons and see which one you like most. MH is a game that’s all about mastering a single weapon, not bouncing back and forth (unless you’re more experienced and have already mastered those weapons). So you should find a weapon you like and then practice, practice, practice. Learn the combos. Take a quest and sit by camp practicing combos. In the + menu, find Hunter’s Notes to see some basic moves and combos for the weapon. Watch a Gaijin Hunter tutorial on YouTube for your weapon (MH World tutorials should be fine, unless it’s Hunting Horn which has been revamped, but MH Rise weapon impressions videos are also available and provide most of the moves). I recommend Long Sword, Hunting Horn or Dual Blades for new players. Sword and Shield is often recommended but, personally I don’t find it very satisfying to use. Perhaps you might though.

#5 Explore and gather herbs, bugs, seeds, mushrooms, etc. Crafting plays a huge role in the full game, but in the demo, auto crafting will at least craft some things for you if you gather the right materials. Green Herbs make potions, and Honey with Potions make Mega Potions. Flashbugs make flash bombs, etc.

#6 Gather as many spirit birds as possible. Green extend your health bar permanently for that quest, yellow extends stamina, red extends attack and orange extends defense. In the full game you would normally eat a pre-hunt meal that would extend your Health and Stamina but spirit birds also do this, and should not be ignored. Learn a quick 3 minute path that gets a lot of bang for buck with spirit birds and get used to running that path at the start of every quest to boost your health and stamina before finding the monster.

#7 The wirebug is crucial. Commit it to muscle memory. With weapon sheathed, hold ZL to use the wirebug. ZL + X = 45 degree angle upwards. ZL + A = straight shot across. ZL + ZR = wherever your reticle is pointing, which is easy to fine tune your aim if you have Gyro enabled with the recommended settings above. In combat, with your weapon drawn, you have two separate wirebug attacks, one with ZL + X and one with ZL + A. Learn what they are for your weapon and how you can use them to close distance with a monster or go right into a combo, etc.

#8 Use the Wirefall technique. When hit by the monster and you go flying, immediately use ZL + B + (direction you point with left analog) to spring back to your feet with the wirebug. Since monster Hunter is based on animation commitments, getting knocked down can put you at a serious disadvantage due to the time it takes to recover and get back on your feet. Drill this move into your mind. Etch it in your memory. ZL + B when hit to do a wirefall recovery. Best new move in the game.

#9 Use the camera lock-on. If you click the right analog, it toggles the lock-on icon in the top right between different monsters. ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS lock-on to the monster before you start fighting them. Once locked onto a specific monster, tap L at any time to swing the camera directly at them. This is also something you need to etch into your memory. You should constantly be tapping L to adjust the camera as needed during a fight. Not to say you shouldn’t use the right analog stick for the camera at all, but it shouldn’t be your main method of retargeting your camera at the monster. That’s what lock-on is for. DON’T NEGLECT LOCK-ON!

#10 Keep an eye on your health, stamina and sharpness meter. The health bar is the top green bar, the stamina bar is the yellow bar underneath, and the sharpness bar is the knife icon with colors underneath that. Always try to keep your sharpness in the green. Not only do you do less damage at lower levels of sharpness but you can actually bounce off of the monster when you attack. Not good. It locks you into a bounce animation that can get you killed. To sharpen, use a whetstone. You can easily access your whetstone with the radial menu (Hold L, point analog straight up at the yellow whetstone icon and release). You can also sharpen while riding your palamute, which is a good technique to use if you need to sharpen in the middle of combat. As for health, use potions, mega potions or max potions. For stamina, your max amount slowly decreases over time. Any red portion of the stamina bar is lost max stamina, and can be replenished by useing a ration given by the blue item box, or a well done steak (which will also be in your radial menu now if you followed this guide). Always upkeep your stamina. It’s sucks having half a stamina bar.

#11 Don’t leave your weapon drawn in between attacks. Don’t do it! When your weapon is drawn your mobility sucks. It absolutely destroys your movement speed. This is a game where you are supposed to sheath your weapon (tap Y while weapon is drawn) in between bursts of attacks. General cadence of battle should be: wait for opening —> draw attack and follow up with a short combo —> once you see a tell that the monster is about to attack, dodge roll out of the way —> sheath weapon —> run around and reposition —> rinse and repeat. It should be a constant back and forth between attack, then sheath, attack, then sheath.

#12 Experiment with your items. While you should generally keep mega potions selected on your item bar for quick and easy use with Y when in a jam, don’t be afraid to pan through the items and try some of them out. You can lay traps, set bombs (small ones can be thrown, large ones must be detonated with attack), throw elemental beetles you gather, etc. Don’t neglect the tools in your kit!

#13 If a monster is getting low on health, two things will happen. They will start limping if they leave the area, and a small blue icon will appear under their lock-on icon in the top right corner. That lets you know they can be captured (unfortunately you cannot capture in the demo because the game does not give you tranquilizer bombs) and are near death. If the monster retreats to its nest and goes to sleep, the first hit to wake it up does double damage. Try to set larger barrel bombs by its head, then attack his head to wake it up, making sure you hit the bomb first so that the explosion does the first damage and gets doubled. You can also use ZL + X to wiredash into the air at a 45 degree angle, and dunk a large bomb downward onto the monster. If you set two bombs near their head, then bomb dunk them from the sky with the third, not only does it do major damage, it does it with crazy style.

#14 Mounting and riding monsters. Most aerial attacks and wirebug attacks deal mount damage. If you deal enough you can mount the monster and head ram them into walls to do big damage, or use them to attack other monsters. Be sure to do the tutorial quest teaching this mechanic.

#15 Hunt online with others and learn through observation. There’s no substitute for watching a veteran Hunter with your own two eyes.

FINAL NOTE: The full game is SO much more than what the demo offers. Gathering and insanely deep and rewarding crafting mechanics are used to gather your own materials and prepare for hunts, armor and weapon crafting from materials carved from monsters are the gameplay hook- you don’t increase in “level”, you simply craft more powerful weapons and higher defense armor or craft upgrades for your current set. The skill system is robust, and each armor piece offers different skills, you can slot gems in with skill points from any one of hundreds of amazing skills, like evasion (increased i-frames when dodge rolling) to earplugs (monster roars dont stun lock you in an animation). There are Palicos and palamutes you craft armor for and customize, you do things around the village, there’s a training area, you send Palicos out to gather materials for you automatically in little mini games, etc. But the combat is the star of the show, and once you learn the mechanics properly, it’s so utterly addicting because you could fight the exact same monster in the exact same quest 30 times in a row and it would never play out the exact same way twice. And every different weapon makes it feel like an entirely new game. There is so much depth and nuance to each and every weapon. It could take 100 hrs mastering just one weapon. Many people have a habit of learning one new weapon for every new MH game that releases.