Both things can be true: I spent my first three hours playing Monster Hunter Rise screaming, "I hate this game!" at my Nintendo Switch screen. Since then, I have logged more hours in Rise than in any other game this year, and I've successfully convinced several friends to pick the game up as well. For some further context, I'd never played a Monster Hunter game before. I knew that the title did most of the explaining as to what the franchise is about--you hunt big monsters--but that was about it. Rise's debut marks the sixth main Monster Hunter game (the games have been popular enough to spawn several spinoffs, as well as a recent blockbuster adaptation starring Milla Jovovich), but that success has been a mixed blessing, as the series has become notorious for having a steep learning curve.

It's not widely known that 2017′s "Monster Hunter World" became the best-selling game in publisher Capcom's history, no small feat with an oeuvre that includes the Resident Evil, Street Fighter and Mega Man brands. But that game came with a lot of aesthetic changes that enabled its success. It was the first game to release with high-budget graphics and effects, releasing on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One before a later PC release that pushed sales and broke Capcom records. And while the series always featured out-of-the-box, eclectic monster designs, the ones in "World" centered around dinosaurs, globally recognized but creatively a bit stale.

When it comes to the gameplay loop, there's little to differentiate it from "Monster Hunter World," and that's actually a remarkable thing. "World" was a massive upgrade for the once-niche series, streamlining its action while making it look prettier than ever. That "Rise" manages to match this almost one to one is in and of itself a remarkable feat. It's also not a knock that "Rise" takes after "World" so much. After all, the "Monster Hunter" series is one of those giant mega-franchises (over 64 million sold worldwide) that reiterates the formula with small updates because people already love the core loop.