This review encompasses both Monster Hunter Rise and its expansion, Sunbreak, with a focus on the expansion, but I shall make comments on the base game as well.

Starting with the gameplay, like with every monster hunter, its fantastic. Not only has QoL stuff improved like instantly gathering and mining material and therefore eliminating a lot of the fat of the series, but the exploration and combat is so smooth. Mastering the movement is extremely easy and equally as satisfying, with the maps directly complimenting your movement options and making the world actually fun to explore. The combat is fast paced while also being extremely flashy and stylish with tons of combat customization in regards to wirebugs skills and skill swapping. A lot of the weapons feels actually balanced with multiple ways to play each weapon.

The new monsters in this game are excellent. Almudron and especially Magmadron being my favorite. Most use the wirebug mechanic extremely well, with Narwa being probably the best use of the mechanic, and because of that it is an extremely fun fight. The new subspecies introduced in sunbreak are basically in a 1:1 comparison a way better fight than the original ones, but the new monsters introduced in sunbreak are all very lame with the exception of Malzeno, which is still a very fun fight.

A crucial part about any Monster Hunter game is the end game, and with the current patch (TU1), I cant say I like it. For clarification, I thought the pre-endgame content is excellent for both base game and sunbreak, and definitely the best pacing in the series. The endgame content is bordering between "okay" and "not good". The endgame content are anamoly investigations. Anamolies are essentially hyper monsters from something like MHGU, but you need to focus on the glowing red parts, otherwise the monster does a big AOE Teostra-esque explosion which guarantees a stun and does huge damage. In addition, anamolies inflict bloodblight, which reduces your healing from potions but gives you lifesteal. Honestly, for reasons I shall explain later, this is a strict buff to the hunter. Regardless, despite me not liking the DPS checking mechanic, I have a lot of fun with anamolies. However, they don't give unique rewards. A list of monsters gives a certain rewards, with tiers ranging from easiest to hardest, giving more valuable rewards. However, within those lists of monsters, there was a clear easier one, so you'd farm that monster.

Now, what can you do with these materials? Pre-TU1, it was mainly to upgrade your weapons even further, which overall was a bad thing (more on that later). With TU1, you can use monster essence from anamoly investigations to add new skills, gain new defense, or even gain and upgrade your decoration slots. In addition, you can also upgrade your weapons with attack up, affinity up, element up and sharpness up. Both of these are also a bad thing.

Before giving my reasoning, I'd like to address something: This game is easy. Like unbelievably easy. Essentially, most monsters are not designed with the wirebug mechanic (despite my praises earlier) so it is extremely easy to abuse the mechanic without consciously abusing it. Not only that, but there's too much of a power creep. A great majority of weapon skills are simply too powerful, and literally every single weapon either has an instant dodge or a counter, devaluing the already small threat of a monster's attack. And not only that, but not only is it way too easy to get the overpowered skills, but you also have way too many skills. You will often have 2-3 pages, sometimes 4, full of skills and it contributes to the powercreep.

Now the reason why upgrading your weapons even further and upgrading your armor with new skills and such is a bad thing, is because it contributes to the already heavily powercreep. This game honestly feels like you are the monster, and the monster is the hunter. There are very few moments of threat present in this game. So I propose a question: are there any ultra hard quests that you'd benefit from upgrading your equipment beyond the limit?

no :)

I'll rapid-fire some points since I don't feel like going in-depth:

I personally prefer the cleaner style of this game compared to World, but I don't add or remove points based on graphics.

The transmog system in this game sucks. I love when my transmog is a subtle flex. If I make a transmog of a chestplate that requires a mantle and fused it into my current chestplate in MHGU, I am flexing because I had a rare drop and used it into cosmetic purposes. In MHW, you had quests like double furious Rajangs for buff body, and Arch Tempered Namielle for artian armor, both being difficult quests, which flexes my skill in the game. MHRise has nearly nothing like this, except for a few crowns.

Healing is probably the best its been in the series. Combining both MHW's healing system with classic MonHun healing. Overall consumables are way less tedious to use in this game.

Palamutes are fun and a great change, too bad cats are just way better.

Drip-feed content like the TU1 will always suck, but at least there are no time-limited quests (yet)

Apex monsters are very fun to fight. First introduced into the rampage mode in base game (awful by the way), then later introduced them as standalone fights, which are awesome, but here's the kicker: no new rewards, meaning no new unique armors or weapons, so there's little reason to fight them. BUT they're in Master Rank, so surely they give unique parts now right? Nope! But they at least give Master Rank parts right?

This game is still fun, don't get me wrong, but the flaws heavily outweigh what could be a frantic over-the-top monster hunter game similarly to MHGU due to the sheer powercreep and lack of difficulty. I may update this review as more updates come out, but I don't think my opinion will change.

I own the game both on PC and Switch if you were curious.