The Monster Hunter series of games, as is often the case with Friv2Online games, has become a real cultural phenomenon in its homeland, but in the Western markets, including the Russian, in the bulk of its remained misunderstood. This is partly due to the platforms on which most of the franchise's games were released. But the current times are more conducive to cultural exchange than ever before, and Monster Hunter Rise has a huge potential to gain popularity among our gamers.

Capcom clearly has a well-thought-out plan to expand its audience, and it can't help but feel good about it. Monster Hunter World, which was released on "big" consoles and PC, was a real triumph despite the slight discontent of the "true fans" of the series, and the Iceborne add-on strengthened this success.
The new Rise continues this strategy, and to conquer our gamers the friv game has at least three trump cards. Firstly, it's the Switch's significantly higher popularity compared to Nintendo's previous consoles. Second is the excellent localization (so excellent that I'm writing about it right here). Finally, it is scheduled for release on PC in 2022, which will please the hardcore "pecaboys", of which there are so many in the former Soviet Union.
The first thing that is required from the player in Rise is to create your own character. And not one, but three at once - in Kamura each hunter can take two companions, a fighting and riding dog Palamut (in the world of the game animals are more correctly called Dogs, with two k's, and Palamut is something like a profession) and a kitty (Kotta) Paliko. And tell me, how can you not fall in love with a game where you can choose the timbre of your kitty's purr? And then there's Uhut, a cute owl that you can feed and pet.
There is practically no plot in the traditional sense of it in the friv game. Our hero is a young monster hunter from the village of Kamura, where this craft is traditional. This village is located somewhere in the mountains and is clearly inspired by medieval Japan - nature, architecture, character names and even the cuisine clearly point to the Land of the Rising Sun.
At the very beginning, the elder Fugen, who looks like an aged Wolverine, tells us that his native village is threatened by a terrible calamity called Riot - a rampant attack of a huge mass of monsters. Who better than us to stop it? That's basically all we learn about the plot - further knowledge of the world is revealed as we complete the quests.
A short walk through the village, with a backdrop of beautiful views and blooming sakura trees, introduces us to the most important places and characters. In your room you can change equipment sets and furnishings, in the quest hall you can go on quests for several hunters, in Hamon's blacksmith shop you can improve weapons and armor, merchant Kagero sells various necessary goods, trainer Iori trains companions, and cook Yomogi prepares dango - a hit of local cuisine that increases characteristics before a task.
And that's just a few of them - a full description of the entire village would take two such articles, besides, there's a separate pleasure in getting to know it. And thanks to the fast travel system and the detailed tutorial, which can always be refreshed in your memory through the menu, you will definitely not get lost.
After the tour we go to our first tasks. They are given out by two sisters, cute girls of the Viverian race - a kind of "Japanese elves", almost indistinguishable from humans, except for the pointy ears, compared to the usual elves, slightly more spread apart.
All quests fall into two categories, village quests and hall quests. Hall quests from the youngest of the sisters, Minoto, are meant to be cooperative. This is a separate and very important facet of gameplay, but the friv game's servers were closed, so I wasn't able to evaluate them. The village's quests are issued by an older sister named Hinoa - they are the ones that advance the story and reveal new content.
Each task has a difficulty level in the form of a certain number of stars. To access a new level, you don't have to complete all quests - only a certain number of key quests marked with a special symbol will be enough. However, I would recommend that you first fully understand the simpler quests, and then move on to the more difficult ones - it will be easier that way.
In addition to the main quests, you can take side quests from Hinoa herself or other villagers (you can always see on the map who wants to talk to us). As a rule, they are limited to the extraction of a given number of certain resources, although sometimes, for example, you need to photograph a monster.
After confirming the receipt of a task, we can go to the location of its fulfillment with a click of a button. When we visit it for the first time, we will be shown a cut-scene about this place. But first there is an opportunity to run around the village, prepare equipment, buy supplies and, of course, eat dango.
Each location, traditionally for the Monster Hunter series, is a full-fledged ecosystem, living by its own laws. Monsters can be aggressive and indifferent to the player, hunt each other and behave differently depending on the time of day. What's particularly pleasing about Rise is that the game's locations are cohesive and seamless, just like in World.
The goal of a quest can be relatively harmless resource gathering, killing a set number of small monsters, or hunting a large monster. Large and small monsters in the game differ fundamentally. It is in hunting "big friv game" that the whole essence of Monster Hunter is revealed.
If small monsters are trivial "mobs" that fall down with a couple of blows, then the big one is not easy to take. You will need to optimally select equipment (partly you will have to make it yourself - there is crafting in the game), master weapons, use baits and traps, don't forget to heal and in general use all the variety of mechanics that the developers have invented for us.
Perhaps, just in the huge variety of mechanics and lies the secret of the popularity of the series. "Monhan" is not about plot, it's about hunting. Yes, it's a grind, and killing one big monster, in principle, is necessary only to get access to new materials for equipment, with which it will be easier to kill (or catch alive to get more resources) another big monster - and so almost to infinity, because even with formal "passing" of the game the player has access to a whole sea of endgame content. But how great all this is realized!
There are 14 (fourteen!) weapons in the friv game, each with unique techniques, tactics and even interface, including the iconic for the series Insect Glaive and Speargun, clearly inspired by the ganblades from the eighth "final". Anyone will be able to customize their play style to suit their preferences. Even a great tutorial couldn't cover the whole arsenal, so you'll have to read about the use of weapons yourself and practice a lot in order to understand all the subtleties of hunting.
In addition to weapons we have at our disposal traps, baits, various local animals with special properties and a special feature of Rise - Prutozhuky. These incredibly useful insects allow the hunter to jump like Spider-Man, run on walls, perform special attacks and even saddle large monsters. Monster riding is another special mechanic with a wide variety of uses, from launching your victim into a wall to fighting one monster on top of another.
Despite the fact that the game is listed as a "role-playing action game", there is no pumping as such. Everything is once again tied to hunting - after killing another big monster, the weapon development tree is updated and the list of armor available for production, and the hunter gets the opportunity to make new equipment from the materials obtained from the dead monster, increasing its characteristics.
It sounds complicated - and to be frank, it really is. But the game, as mentioned above, creates all the conditions for thoughtful exploration. The tutorial is very good, but you should read it carefully. In addition to learning should not neglect available from the menu "Hunting records", where you can refresh your memory of information about monsters and weapon techniques. And this I have not yet written about various auxiliary chips like exploration and fishing, but for a full disclosure of all the nuances will need not a review, but a guide. And probably more than one.
The technical realization of the friv game deserves special praise. The game is made on Capcom RE Engine, which was used in Resident Evil 7 and Devil May Cry - and in the first minutes of the game you just can't believe that little Switch can do such a thing.
The graphics are gorgeous and look decent even against the nextgen backdrop, with slightly blurry textures only visible if you look very closely, and all of this without endlessly long loading times or noticeable frame rate drops, both in dock (756p, 1080p interface) and portable (540p, 720p interface). The game produces 30 frames per second, but ironcladly stable.
To match the graphics and soundtrack - traditionally a strong point of Japanese games, but here they have outdone themselves. It's a crime to play without sound, the melodies immerse you in the world of the friv game and make you forget, and the background song of Kamura (sung by Hinoa in the game's start menu) makes you want to put it on repeat.
Once again I would like to mention localization - only the text is in Russian and there are some minor translation flaws, but it was done with heart. It even managed to convey humor and translate poems and songs in the cut-scenes quite well.
The only technical drawback of the friv game I would call the controls. It's not even quite a flaw in the traditional sense of the word - just due to the huge number of mechanics and variety of weapons the control turned out to be quite complicated, and the interface - somewhat overloaded. You feel like you're in the cockpit of a fighter plane, but for fans of the series it's more like "not a bug, but a feature". Anyway, it's worth telling about it.
Monster Hunter Rise tried to incorporate the best of the series - both the basics from the Nintendo classics and new ideas from World. And it succeeded - Rise is a worthy successor to the franchise and will surely appeal to longtime fans and newcomers alike. The variety and complexity of mechanics and controls are overwhelming at first, but if their mastering drags on, it brings a separate pleasure. Although it is, of course, a matter of taste.
And if we talk about Monster Hunter Rise in the context of Switch, then the platform, in my opinion, got another system-seller, which is especially nice in the current shortage of new friv games on the background of the pandemic and competitors who have moved to the non-extgenic. Basically, it's not unusual for Monster Hunter on Nintendo consoles, but whatever, Switch got a great exclusive, albeit a temporary one. Although the latter is also somewhat of a plus - PC gamers should definitely get involved with the series once again and expand their gaming horizons.