Genre: Third-Person Action
Developer: Capcom
Publisher: Capcom

Monster Hunter Rise's title screen opens with a beautiful woman singing a haunting tune to a cherry blossom-filled backdrop, and immediately the thought occurs: "this is a Switch game?" Unfortunately, the muddy gameplay proper can't live up to that bar, with the solid art direction in the various forest, desert, and snow regions being largely wasted on the Switch's ancient hardware. Enemies and objects in the distance animate at half framerate, lending a sort of choppy sensation to proceedings.

Rise's theme song, a somber and reflective female Japanese solo job, is certainly interesting, and those motifs weave their way through many of the game's tunes. The battle songs in this entry however bring in too many annoying Hollywood tropes, like the ever-present "moaning woman" cliche just to name one. And during actions like carving, the player character frequently shouts out inane remarks like "daddy needs a new pair of boots".

All of the core gameplay for which the series is known is here: tons of monsters to hunt, areas to explore, and equipment to craft. New in this edition is the ability to slingshot into the air, with levels having incredible levels of explorable verticality. There is also a pet dog to ride, which drastically speeds up traversal. Unfortunately, the overall movement and corresponding animation just feels "off" somehow, making the moment-to-moment gameplay feel unsatisfying.

Monster Hunter Rise moves along at a fairly consistent thirty frames per second, but it never feels that way between the choppy keyframe transitions, janky pet mounting which sometimes doesn't register, and other visual oddities. On a mechanical level this is the best game in the series to date, incorporating the best aspects of "World" and marrying them to the more traditional titles-- but it's probably best to wait for the announced Windows port, as the Switch hardware is really holding the game back.