Monster Hunter Rise (Switch)

In theory a game that combines the real-time combat and open world of an Adventure game with the stat-building and leveling-up of an RPG should be wildly appealing. Especially when it also removes the RPG genre's text-heavy cutscenes and narrative. Monster Hunter Rise does, indeed, deliver on those positive elements. Unfortunately, despite the new and widely-praised options for quicker traversal of the environment, combat is a cumbersome chore.
Something as basic as positioning your character for continuous properly directed forward attacks is painful. For standard enemies this means your AI-controlled “pals” will frequently finish off the encounter while you’re character is still completing its heavy-attack animation where the monster used to be several seconds ago. Dodging seems to be overly generous for avoiding damage, as well. When facing boss monsters, this meant I found myself wailing on the light-attack button repeatedly and dodging anywhere (the direction didn’t seem to be important at all) to avoid damage when an attack was incoming. It also seems to be ridiculously easy to take a break during combat in order to heal, as your pals keep the attention of beasts while you run away—in addition to beasts frequently retreating all on their own.
For the players that stick it out beyond the early learning-curve I’m sure there are probably thousands of nuances to combat that evolve as you progress, but the game doesn’t seem particularly interested in presenting them to the player initially. Most of the early in-quest text tutorials (and there are a lot) seem to focus on item collection, presenting possible uses for items in scenarios that you won’t have a use for until a later quest.
All of the elements for a smash hit are certainly present in Monster Hunter Rise, but players are going to have to dig and invest a lot of time to find them. Games are supposed to be fun, though, and I definitely didn’t have enough of that in my initial play-sessions to warrant the additional time investment to find it.

Score: 7/10