Video Game / Monster Hunter: Rise

Rise to the challenge!

A huge pack of monsters in a giant stampede...they attacked the village in a frenzied rage. Nobody knows why this happens, but it came close to wiping out our village last time...

— Fugen

Monster Hunter: Rise is the second base entry in fifth generation of the Monster Hunter series. It was released worldwide on March 26, 2021 on the Nintendo Switch, with a PC port via Steam dropping on January 12, 2022.

Players assume the role of a Hunter from Kamura Village, a Far Eastern settlement that has been struggling to deal with the "Rampage", a sudden onslaught from large groups of monsters that occurs with frightening regularity. With the last Rampage nearly destroying Kamura fifty years ago, Hunters are tasked with investigating the cause behind this disaster, trying to prevent it from happening again, and should the need arise, fighting in the village's defense.

The "Rise" in the title refers to emphasis on verticality with the new Wirebug tool and expanded climbing abilities. The player also gets new companions with the addition of the Palamutes, large canines who focus on attacking alongside the hunter. It features compatibility with Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin.

Beyond the new features, this game aims to strike a balance between classic Monster Hunter and the more modernized Monster Hunter: World. Like World, maps are seamless with no loading screens, camps allow players to access their item boxes, eat meals, and change weapons in the middle of a quest, players may join a quest in progress or allow others to join theirs, and monsters may engage one another in turf wars. However, it also brings back a lot of staples of older Monster Hunter games, such as separate quest lines for solo play and multiplayer, local wireless multiplayer, maps that are designed more around combat with monsters than exploiting environmental features.

The game was accompanied by a trio of compatible amiibo: the companions Palico and Palamute, and the game's flagship monster Magnamalo.

A playable demo of the game was available from January 7 through February 1, 2021, featuring hunts against Great Izuchi and Mizutsune. A second demo was made available from March 11, 2021, until the game's launch, adding a hunt against Magnamalo. Post-launch, several content patchs were released as well, adding even more monsters/variety of hunt types for existing monsters, plus Layered Armor crafting and a new ending to the story.

On September 23rd, 2021, the Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak expansion update was announced, featuring a new, more Western setting, and a new flagship known as Malzeno, a vampire-like Elder Dragon. It was released on June 30, 2022 for both Switch and PC, making it the first Monster Hunter title to have a simultaneous release on both consoles and PC. Much like World's Iceborne expansion, Sunbreak has a post-launch lineup with numerous free updates from August 10, 2022 to June 8, 2023.

On December 1, 2022, it was announced that Rise was coming to PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S on January 20, 2023, with the Sunbreak expansion arriving later on April 28, 2023.

Trailers: Announcement Trailer, Monster Hunter Direct, Wyvern Riding Trailer, Rampage Trailer, Sunbreak Announcement Teaser.

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The game provides examples of:

Tropes A-C

• Action Girl: The women of Kamura Village can lend their aid during Rampage quests by summoning them from the stronghold's installations. Hinoa and Minoto come into battle wielding a bow and lance, respectively, while Yomogi brandishes a heavy bowgun. Hinoa and Minoto are noted repeatedly to be as strong as Hunters, but decided to not seek the job due to certain personality quirks (Hinoa going through food rations too quickly and Minoto not likely to be outside more than she has to be).
  • Sunbreak introduces the Royal Knights which include a couple of examples of the trope who can accompany the player on follower quests.
• Actionized Sequel: Much like World before it, Rise bumps up the action by simply showing where monsters are on the map once it's been fully charted. The player also no longer needs to track down markings to research monsters. Once the player has caught a monster's attention for the first time, their listing in the manual is unlocked. Gathering materials is even faster than before, as anything besides carving from downed monsters will award everything at once instead of having to continue to harvest until the gathering point is exhausted. Mounting monsters now allows the player to puppeteer them rather than just getting a few easy hits in, and is less focused on aerial attacks. This is especially helpful for doing lots of damage relatively quickly. Lastly, the player can expand their maximum health, stamina, defense, and attack by finding Spiribirds throughout the area in addition to food and armor abilities. This can get the player's stats up to the game's cap fairly easily with just a little exploration.
• Advertised Extra: Subverted with Magnamalo. Like most previous mascots, it is featured heavily in pre-release promotions. Unlike previous mascots, Magnamalo is defeated during your first combat encounter and is no longer treated as a concern afterwards even as the story progresses... up until the final battle with Narwa the Allmother, where Magnamalo (or much more rarely Kushala or Teostra) will pull a Big Damn Heroes to assist you. Then much later in Sunbreak, after defeating the Final Boss, you get to face Scorned Magnamalo, the one seemingly responsible for Kamura's Rampage 50 years ago.
• And Now for Someone Completely Different: Subverted. Most large monsters have an introductory cutscene accompanied by a poem from the perspective of an observer. However, the Twin Serpents' poems are from their perspective. In fact, it's heavily implied that the poem is their actual thoughts channeled through Hinoa and Minoto. A similar case happens with the Chaotic Gore Magala in Sunbreak to emphasize how much agony it's in.
• Anti-Armor: Waterblight on monsters softens up their defenses, with the effect being greater on harder parts.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • The game features gyroscopic camera as an option. While this is a neat feature for melee weapons, ranged weapon users can use this to gain motion control aiming a la Splatoon, giving them far greater control and precision than the simple joystick control used by previous games.
  • Large monsters are outright displayed on the minimap without Paintballs or Scoutflies. Their identities are still obscured before encountering them for the first time, encouraging some level of exploration rather than just gunning for the monster.
  • The default control scheme for the Hunting Horn no longer requires you to Perform after stocking notes, as simply playing a valid note combination at all will automatically activate the effects. You can later unlock the "original" version of Hunting Horn as a Switch Skill, but this style has also been trimmed down to just requiring one note per Melody to activate.
  • The weapon inventory now has a submenu for each weapon type, removing a great deal of clutter. Additionally, weapon forging and upgrading have been condensed to the same menu.
    • The armor inventory is organized into sets, similarly cutting down on clutter. This also makes upgrading armor a lot easier, as well as letting the player know which pieces they are missing in case they want a complete set of everything.
  • The player has much more control over their food buffs. Health and stamina are a guaranteed increase, and the three bonus buffs are chosen individually, with the exact chance to activate shown on-screen. Players can even save sets to have quick access when going on a hunt.
  • New types of food are mainly unlocked by cooking enough types of Motley Mixes at the Canteen for the Chefs to come up with new recipes, rather than tedious item delivery quests. The few that require a quest to unlock at all tend to be of the "retrieve the items Yomogi dropped on the way back to the village" variety. The ones that require an item delivery are side quests that can be completed at the player's leisure - such as during Expedition Quests with no time limit or failure state.
  • The monster log in the hunters notes now includes monster hitzones and status effect potency, details that once required searching a fan wiki. You still need to encounter and beat a monster to know the info, but it makes everything so much more streamlined.
  • Extreme climates no longer affect the player (i.e. hot areas no longer sap your health and cold areas no longer make your stamina gauge shrink faster). This also means Hot and Cold Drinks as well as Heat Guard and Coldproof no longer exist, because they're not needed anymore. Stepping too close to lava will still damage you however.
  • The Kinsects for the Insect Glaive have been heavily streamlined. Instead of having complex charts, buffs, and stat progression to worry about, you now just buy them as you progress through the game. They now also come in different flavors to complement different playstyles; Speed types charge up automatically, Assist types bolster your attack strength by attacking with you, and Dust types can leave dust behind when attacking a marked monster, which can explode, poison, paralyze, or heal allies.
  • The player can explore and find Spiribirds throughout the maps in order to boost their stats for the duration of the hunt. With a good food buff and a little prep-work, health and stamina can be boosted to the game's cap relatively easily while also bumping up attack and defense to make quicker work of your quarry. The Arena, Rampage strongholds, and certain story-important areas instead give you a single rainbow-flashing Spiribird that gives you the highest possible Spiribird buffs, in order to make up for the lack of any other non-Wirebug Endemic Life on these maps.
  • This game once again separates Village and Hub Quests as in pre-World games, but for the first time Key Quests are explicitly marked in your Quest Lists, and you no longer need to clear all of them to progress; the game will tell you how many Key Quests need to be cleared to unlock the Urgent Quest.
    • Rise also introduces Special License Quests that are unlocked after making enough progress in Village Quests without increasing your Hunter Rank in Hub Quests. Special License Quests are unique, one-time Village Quests that automatically increase your Hunter Rank when cleared, mitigating the long-standing problem of having to slog through the lower-tiered Hub Quests after already making your way to High Rank Village Quests. This is even helpful just for players who have trouble playing online, as it avoids some fights that are a pain to solo.
  • Fishing doesn't require you to equip your fishing rod through the menu, instead opting you to press A near a suitable fishing spot. The camera pans out to an overhead view of the fishing area with the option to move the camera, making the act of aiming the fishing line and catching your desired fish much easier. The amount and variety of fish has also increased so that you only really need one fishing spot and you can find all the types of fish in that area. Great Whetfish, in particular, have their spawnrate increased dramatically when compared to World^* Outside of events, firmly removing them from being Too Awesome to Use. Lastly, fish respawn, and fairly quickly, after each catch so you don't have to run around to find another fishing spot once you've exhausted the fish from that one.
  • No more Alpha and Beta armor sets; there's just one per monster/rank as in pre-World games, meaning the player can spend less time grinding to fill out their armory. The closest thing to be included are a very small handful of armor variants, like Utsushi (Visible) and Utsushi (Hidden) which have different skill sets and are only visually different because of the head piece^* The Visible version has a chainmail gaiter, while the Hidden version has a Zinogre-themed mask.
  • Wyvern Riding is guaranteed to get up to three shiny drops per session. If a player goes all the way with it, they can rapidly accumulate monster parts. In Subreak, a Golden Great Wirebug is guaranteed to increase the amount of drops from Wyvern Riding, further adding to the rapid accumulation.
  • You can now select optional objectives that get you Armor Spheres, Kamura Points, and other items. While these are functionally very similar to the Investigation given by the Provisions Manager and her team in World, the process has been streamlined by having them selected from the Quest Maidens rather than having to go to a separate NPC. They also tend to be more general, like "gather plants" or "slay small monsters" of any kind rather than finding specific items or monsters out in the field.
  • The map has loads of ways to clear distance quickly, such as unlocking sub-camps and using Great Wirebugs, and Buddy Recon in Sunbreak. This is not only to cut down on travel time, but also allow players using Palicoes to keep up with those using Palamutes.
    • Speaking of, Palamutes can be mounted to quickly run around the map without depleting stamina. Besides their normal speed being almost as fast as the hunter's run, they have their own running speed in addition to a sprint charge^note Pressing LZ causes them to hunch down and then bolt forward for a very good distance. They can run up normal climbing surfaces, and the player can leap off by dismounting during a run to start wall running for as far as their stamina can carry them. Like with the Tailraiders in Iceborne, you can sharpen your weapon and use consumables while riding a Palamute while still being able to walk. Lastly, Palamutes with high level and good equipment can match the player's damage output and can manage their own health and status ailments fairly well.
  • Previous games would drop the player off in random areas starting in High Rank, as well as delay the shipment of Supply Chest items. In this game, neither is the case anymore; players always start at the Main Camp and supply items are immediately available, just like in Low Rank. That said, players are also always carted back to the main camp, likely due to it being the only one with access to a Supply Chest. However, this is minor when combined with the quicker traversal methods previously mentioned.
  • Capturing monsters is also much easier; there are a couple indicators when one is weak enough to capture in the form of a blue icon appearing under its picture in the upper right corner and the monster's icon flashing blue on the minimap. If that isn't enough, both your hunter and Palico (if you have it with you) will comment on the monster being in a catchable state. On top of that, Master Rank in Sunbreak does away with capture quests entirely, with capture objectives now being demoted to sidequests that can be done as part of an expedition or another quest.
  • Item deliveries are now treated as Side Quests that the player can complete whenever they have the opportunity, rather than having a specific quest to do so. This means things like Eggs, Fossils, and Crystals no longer have to be gathered and carried back within a set time limit. Inexplicable terrain changes to make delivering multiple items more difficult also no longer appear. Inventory and Account Item quests no longer require them to be carried back to camp either, instead only needing to be gathered.
  • Due to Toads now being classified as Hunting Helpers, they can no longer be accidentally hit or damaged and can be picked up and deployed at will. This makes them much more useful and benevolent compared to their World counterparts, where any attack that so much as even grazes a Toad will have it spew gas and indiscriminately afflict Hunter and monster alike if they weren't careful.
  • While World greatly expanded the amount of hunting prep players could do at camp, the notable exception was swapping out decorations, which could only be done in town. This time around, that restriction is no more, allowing for last-minute or mid-hunt tweaks to builds.
  • Sunbreak now shows full Great Wirebug trajectories on the map, rather than just the direction.
  • In vanilla Rise, you can attack a mount-ready monster to mount it as an alternative method to pressing A with your weapon sheathed, however this can cause problems if you intend to continue attacking the monster rather than mount it and you're not using a long-range weapon. Sunbreak has an optional setting to only trigger a mount if you press A with your weapon sheathed.
  • Sunbreak adds an additional inventory for your Palamute if you take one with you on a hunt, where you can put excess items if they fill up your main and field pouches, or if you collect items that exceed the cap (e.g. if you already have 10 Nulberries, you can still pick up another one and your Palamute will store it).
  • Sunbreak lets you lock Talismans so that you don't use them up by mistake when selling Talismans or using them for melds. When picking up newly-melded Talismans, the "Sell All" button does just that, except for Talismans you lock beforehand, which will instead be sent to your inventory.
  • In Sunbreak's Title Update 3, a new type of melding is introduced after beating Chaotic Gore Magala, called "Aurora". With it, you can guarantee that one skill from a chosen list - including Attack Boost, Critical Eye, Critical Boost, Agitator, etc - will be on all Talismans that you make through said melding process. As such, it becomes much easier to get a decent Talisman if you've had no luck beforehand, and the RNG involved in making a perfect Talisman is lessened considerably (though still present).
    • Title Update 5 would also go on to introduce a new melding that uses Afflicted materials, allowing for near-perfect Talismans - many levels in two skills plus Decoration slots - with even greater ease. Though you can't target specific skills this time (except through the accompanying 'recycle' meld), the difference in Talisman power will quickly overcome any decent Talisman from before.
  • Title Update 4 changed Investigation Requests so that any Investigations over a certain level threshold will earn you credit towards Investigation Coins, meaning multiplayer hunters no longer stall out on their pay while helping others with their target monsters. Targets instead now earn you two stamps at once, and they also ensured that getting the bonus stamp while you're already sitting on 9 out of 10 collected will give you extra credit towards the next line.
• Ascended Meme:
  • Bazelgeuse's introductory cutscene gives it the title of "Party Crasher", referencing how it's notorious for, well, crashing parties; in this case, yours. The description for its quest also sounds like someone previously traumatized by the beast, much like most World players were.
  • Another shout out to World, when using their own portable version of the Dragonator, your Palicoe will demand to know "Where's my Kittenator?!?"
  • SungWon Cho, known online as ProZD, played one of the DLC hunter voices added in October of 2021. One of his voice lines upon completing a hunt is is "I think that monster got the point."^note Referencing this old skit about canned voice lines, naturally.
• Artificial Brilliance: Sunbreak introduced the Follower quests where an AI hunter(s) consisting of the Royal Knights or the Kumura Defenders will join you on solo hunts where they perform just as well if not better than player controlled hunters. They will use their weapon and silkbinds as efficiently as possible, place traps and luring the monster into them, healing themselves or others when needed, Using hunting helpers to assist you or deter the monster and even Wyvern Ride when given the opportunity. Even if they lose all their health, it doesn’t count towards a cart and you can walk up to them and get them back up at full health.
• Assist Character: One of the installations that can be set during Rampage quests are other characters being summoned to fight alongside you.
• As You Know: Near the start of the game the arena master lampshades that the hunter character should already be familiar with how the training ground works since they've lived in Kamura their whole lives and have trained for years there to become a hunter. He proceeds to give the tutorial anyway since, hey, everybody needs a refresher sometimes.
• Award-Bait Song: Sunbreak gets the fittingly named "Sunbreak" by Sarag Alainn, which plays over the credits.
• Bayonet Ya: One of the Insect Glaives players can craft resembles a rifle with a bayonet. Being an Insect Glaive, its ranged abilities are limited to firing marking pellets for the kinsect, with the bayonet doing almost all of the damage.
• The Beastmaster: In this game, hunters utilize more pets and animal companions than ever before. They have both a Palico and a Palamute to help them in battle (and have the option to acquire many more over time), a Cahoot to track down monsters, and two wirebugs to navigate the tricky terrain and expand their attack options. They can also attract endemic life to them to give them some much-needed stat boosts during a hunt, and catch and deploy others to gain an even greater edge in combat. Finally, all hunters have the ability to outright ride a monster for a short while and use it beat up other monsters! On top of all that, Insect Glaive users have their insect pals to lend them assistance as usual.
• Beware My Stinger Tail:
  • The Great Izuchi, along with its Izuchi minions, have sickle-like blades on the ends of their tails.
  • Rathian, par for the course, brings her traditional tail flips that inflict Poison on hunters. Severing it neuters one of her best offensive tools, greatly reducing its range, damage, and toxic potency.
  • Rise's flagship monster, Magnamalo, frequently uses its tail as a weapon. It can slam it on the ground, whip it around, thrust it like a spear, or launch orbs and even laser waves of Hellfire from its tip.
  • Astalos has a particularly tough pincer tail that it uses for standard slapping fare, until it achieves its supercharged state, at which point it'll begin firing arcs of lightning at hunters, as well as grounding the tail into the earth to create large explosions of electricity.
  • Sunbreak's flagship, Malzeno, follows in Magnamalo's footsteps by having a prehensile tail tipped with three claws, ideal for swiping, stabbing and grabbing its foes, nearly always inflicting them with Bloodblight in the process.
• Big Creepy-Crawlies: Rakna-Kadaki is a massive fire-breathing Temnoceran. Its underlings, the Rachnoids, count too, since they're Temnocerans about the size of a small Neopteron like a Bnahabra or an Altaroth, which are pretty big to begin with for bugs.
• Big Eater: Hinoa thinks with her stomach almost as much as The Handler, specifically being worried that the Rampage that occurs every 50 years will mean no more Bunny Dango to eat. This is also her worry when Yomogi has the Hunter track down and take out a rogue Izuchi. There's also the Tetranadon, which attempt to eat whatever it sets its sights on, including any dirt and rocks it gets in its mouth.
• Big Damn Heroes: One of either Kushala Daora, Teostra or Magnamalo, of all things, shows up for one in the fight with Narwa the Allmother. Sunbreak also adds Malzeno and Scorned Magnamalo.
• Book Ends: Rise ends with Magnamalo showing up to assist the player briefly during the final battle with Allmother Narwa. At the end of Sunbreak the original Fanged Wyvern, Zinogre, shows up to do likewise against another storm-based serpentine Elder Dragon, its longstanding arch-nemesis Amatsu.
• Boss-Arena Idiocy: The Coral Palace, the battle arena for the Final Boss, has several Installments in it for no particular reason. The monster is able to summon these Installments by using its magnetism powers, which you can proceed to use against it to deal massive damage and stop some of its most powerful attacks. There's also a Splitting Wyvernshot and a Dragonator in the same arena that you can use to cripple it. Subverted in the fight against Narwa the Allmother, as she takes a page from Ahtal-Ka's book, pulls multiple Dragonators from the ground via electromagnetism and uses them against you.
• Bottomless Magazines: Any turret-type structures you set up in a Rampage Quest have partially limited ammunition. They will eventually run out after firing enough shots, but they reload automatically and can be reloaded an indefinite amount of times. Ballistas and Cannons also do not require manual reloading like they do in other Monster Hunter games, so feel free to go wild with them.
• Breaking Old Trends:
  • Rise is the first portable accompaniment to a mainline title to also be considered a mainline title; previous "second games" (including Freedom, Freedom Unite, Portable 3rd, and Generations) were considered offshoots (but not spinoffs) of their respective numbered entries.
  • Usually, mook monsters with a King Mook variant, if they appeared, wouldn't appear without their alpha. This game brings back the Jaggi, Jagras, Zamite, Uroktor and Bullfango, but the Great Jaggi, Great Jagras, Zamtrios, Agnaktor and Bulldrome are left out. This is also the first time Basarios appears without Gravios; normally they appear together since the latter is the adult version of the former. Though it's downplayed on the part of the Jaggis and Bullfango as they had previous appearances without their Alphas and the Great Jaggi was all but explicitly confirmed by developers to be Put on a Bus for the time being since Generations.
  • Prior games didn't display the characters' names anywhere, except for the hunters. This game names every single NPC in Kamura Village. Except the housekeeper.
  • Rather than having diverse cultural influences like prior games, Kamura Village is very definitely based on the Wutai aesthetic. Returning armor sets from prior games keep their various influences, but the village and Hub areas are full of straw mats, cherry blossoms, and Japanese street vendors and food. While Yukumo Village had hot springs and clothing similar inspired by Japanese traditional garb, Kamura is in full sakura festival mode with Edo-inspired architecture, ninja-themed hunters, and actual Japanese festival clothing.
  • In older games, whenever you took a quest that had an Elder Dragon as the target, it would be the only monster in the quest. World flirted with the idea of having other monsters on the same map as Elder Dragons, but it was only ever in certain event quests and, in the case of Iceborne, the Guiding Lands, and only ever one other monster at a time. Now the restriction has been done away with entirely, with two other monsters showing up alongside the elder same as any other quest, likely so the player can still make use of the Wyvern Riding mechanic against them.
  • Rise does not feature Aptonoth, a herbivore species that has appeared in every other mainline game, meaning it now falls behind Kelbi, Rathian, and Rathalos when it comes to which monsters have appeared in the most individual games.
  • The 3.0 update marks the first time that a subspecies or variant of an existing monster exists in a game with its vanilla counterpart absent; specifically, you encounter a Crimson Glow Valstrax, but the standard Valstrax is nowhere to be found. Technically speaking, Freedom had the Scarred Yian Garuga appear before regular Yian Garuga due to retcons in Monster Hunter: World making the regular and scarred Garugas separate monsters rather than flip-flopping on it but even then it wasn't the intent at first as Garuga was a brand-new monster at the time.
  • Deviljho, one of the most iconic "invader" monsters in the series, is finally absent after having appeared in nine consecutive non-spinoff games^note tri where it debuted, Portable 3rd, 3 Ultimate, 4, 4 Ultimate, Generations, Generations Ultimate, World, World: Iceborne (five if not counting G/Master Rank expansions), which is more than half of the mainline series games prior to Rise. Granted, World also originally launched without Jho, but at least in that game it was later added back in a post-launch update; Rise did not bring back 'Jho either at launch or in post-launch updates, and it remains gone in Sunbreak as of the final Title Update. The most mention the death pickle gets is a one-off pun by Utsushi where he calls himself "one handsome Deviljho".
  • Rise and Sunbreak as a whole, will be the first mainline Monster Hunter game that doesn't include one of the "Black Dragons" as one of the final hunts of the game.
  • Rise is the first game in the series where the Poogie is absent.
  • The traditional, in-engine, monster introductory cutscenes - where the player has to enter the monster-in-question's lair or hunting grounds before it introduces itself to the player (and/or any other monsters currently hanging out in the area) - have been done away with in lieu of a short pre-rendered intro-cutscene played at the beginning of each monster's relevant quest, accompanied by a short poem about the monster.
  • Normally, there are four humans max in a single hunt, but Sunbreak marks the first time in the mainline games that five humans can partake in a standard hunt, albeit with one of them being an AI-controlled "Follower" NPC and the rest being player-controlled Hunters.^note The spinoff Monster Hunter Frontier does feature raids of between 32 and 100 players against Laviente, but it's only against that monster. World features 16-player Siege Quests, but only against Kulve Taroth. Multiplayer quests that have Followers in Sunbreak are often up against more conventional non-Elder-Dragon monsters.
  • In past games, you can only have Companions come with you in 1- and 2-player hunts. Here, you can always bring one Companion, even in 3- and 4-player hunts.
• Brutal Bonus Level:
  • As is traditional for the series, many Event Quests qualify for this as optional hunts against monsters with increased health and damage. Among other things, High Rank Events include a standalone fight with Wind Serpent Ibushi that's much more difficult than his Rampage iteration, a similar fight with Thunder Serpent Narwa with damage on par with her Allmother form, and the "Apex Emergency" series of quests that have you fighting Apex monsters with even higher parameters than their non-Event 7-star variations; seriously, the Emergency version of even just Apex Arzuros inflicts one-hit carts to those with Master Rank armor!
  • Master Rank introduces the entire endgame of Anomaly Quests and Investigations, which involve fighting increasingly powerful variants of nearly every monster in the game. While they start off only a little more gimmicky than average, spending enough hours raising your research level allows much of the roster to escalate to obscene values. Also of note is that many of the later-tier monsters can only be found randomly through Investigations at first, with their fixed Quests unlocking well after you've leveled your research past where they start appearing; in these cases, the Quest versions tend to have higher numbers, or even moveset adjustments for the Risen Elder Dragons.
  • Title Update 5 capstones the Anomaly endgame by introducing Special Investigations, which are special copies of any Investigations you manage to clear at the Level Cap of 300. These are effectively the EX Quests of this game, and they give every monster adjustments to their attacks' patterns and attributes, along with their top-tier stats.
• The Bus Came Back: Wroggi, Baggi, and their Great variants return after being absent from all of the fourth generation, World, and World: Iceborne.
• Call-Back: In Sunbreak, Seregios's introductory cutscene features it chasing and beating down a Rathian, much like how it chased off a Rathian that the player ends up failing to capture in Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate. Likewise, it has a turf war with Gore Magala, referencing the Seregios that continues to spread the Frenzy virus after slaying Shagaru Magala.
• Camera Abuse: Lagombi's introductory cutscene ends with it hurling a giant ball of snow at the camera, sending it spinning through the air before landing on its side.
• Canine Companion: Palamutes are large hounds that can not only join in fights against monsters, but also act as mounts to allow Hunters to traverse the world with speed.
• Cliffhanger: The base game ends with the Hunter successfully driving away Narwa, seemingly ending the Rampage for good. However, during the celebration party, the Hunter stumbles upon Hinoa and Minoto resonating with the Elder Dragons once again, their words foreboding even greater threats to come. Furthermore, Narwa seemed to have survived the encounter with the Hunter, with Fugen predicting the Dragons' eventual return.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience:
  • Mounting damage has a blue glow around its number compared to the normal white and orange damage numbers.
  • The monster functioning as the "leader" of a Rampage is called an Apex (not to be confused with the Frenzy Virus survivors from 4 Ultimate) and has a luminescent red and black color scheme.
  • Monsters in a Rampage have colored icons denoting their behavior: Gate Crashers that focus on breaking through barriers are marked with blue, Stalkers that go after Hunters are marked with red, and Targetters that use long-ranged attacks to weaken fortifications are marked with green.
  • Spiribirds are colored for the stats they buff: green for health, yellow for stamina, red for attack power, and orange for defense. Rainbow-colored spiribirds, which only appear in a small handful of quests, max out all stats.
  • The gray sections of the map indicate areas where Large Monsters cannot be fought.
• The Computer Is a Lying Bastard: One of the Rampage subquests you may get is "Use a Dragonator or Splitting Wyvernshot." However the game does not tell you that you have to repel enemies with them; if you miss or even just hit a monster without eliminating it, it doesn't count.
• Conservation of Ninjutsu: As per usual for the series, multi-target hunts give each target monster less health in order to keep the quest to a reasonable length. However, this is taken a step further in Rampage quests, where you have to fend off monsters that each are a Large Monster on their own; monsters each have much less HP than their traditional counterparts (largely because everything but the Apex turns tail when the defences pummel them). If not for this, Rampage quests would be impossible even with a full party.
• Continuity Nod:
  • If you eat dango at camp and activate all possible Dango Skills, the Hunter will do the classic "flex" pose when consuming items from the pre-World games.
  • There is a giant skull with a house on top of it in the middle of the Frozen Islands map. World players will recognize it as Zorah Magdaros whose skull also appeared in the Guiding Lands.
• Contrasting Sequel Setting:
  • Whereas past Monster Hunter games, including the immediate predecessor Monster Hunter World, feature mainly civilizations inspired by the West, Rise's hub town of Kamura has clear feudal Japanese inspirations, including the architectural designs, ninja-style Hunter techniques and garb, the use of dango as the Hunters' Power-Up Food, all the native characters having Japanese names, and monsters being based on Youkai.
  • And then Sunbreak goes back to having Western inspirations, with several characters having "Sir" and "Dame" titles, a medieval-style castle as the center of operations, and monsters inspired by Western folklore. It still features dango as pre-hunt food, however.
• Convection Shmonvection: Played with. You can't stand too close to lava without getting burned by it. "Too close" in this case being less than a foot away from actually touching it. However, you can walk through a geologically active area with little to no effect most of the time. For all intents and purposes, it just seems like a case of Hitbox Dissonance.
• Cooldown: Hunters have a finite number of Wirebugs and every time one is used, a cooldown timer begins and the Wirebug that was used up can be used again once the timer fills up.
• Cooldown Manipulation:
  • Iceblight has been reworked to instead slow down your Wirebug cooldown rate.
  • In Rampage hunts, you can accelerate the cooldown of the Dragonator or Splitting Wyvernshot by pumping coal into the Power Kiln.
• Crossover: As usual, the game has several event quests that allow players to get themed items.
  • On July 30, 2021, the game launched a collaboration event quest with Ōkami, with the reward for players being a Palamute layered armor set themed after Amaterasu.
  • The third CAPCOM collaboration was for Street Fighter V, featuring a layered armor that turns the players into Akuma right down to the voice and has a special victory animation. When using the Sword and Shield moveset it will turn the weapon invisible and make it look like they're punching monsters with their bare hands. And if that wasn't enough, the animations for Silkbind Attacks and throwing kunai are changed to Akuma's special moves!
  • The fourth CAPCOM collaboration was for Ghosts 'n Goblins, featuring an Arthur layered armor. Using it turns the kunai into mini lances and gives a special victory animation.
• Cutlass Between the Teeth: Palamutes hold their weapon in their mouth when attacking.

Tropes D-L

• Damage Discrimination: Monsters currently being ridden by a Hunter will not damage other Hunters with its attacks. Conversely, any damage that Hunters inflict to a monster currently being ridden will be reduced to Scratch Damage.
• Damn You, Muscle Memory!:
  • It's very tempting to capture every monster you come across since it ends fights quicker and you still get plenty of rewards, but unlike World, which merged slay and capture drop tables, Rise once again splits the slay and capture tables for each monster like in pre-World games, meaning that some drops won't appear depending on how the monster is hunted. This can pose a problem in online lobbies since it's very common for a party's first reaction upon seeing the fatigue icon to throw a trap and ready their Tranq Bombs.
  • By default, Silkbind skills are activated by pressing ZL in conjunction with X or A, if you are using a Blademaster weapon. However, for Gunner weapons, it's R with X or A (due to ZL activating aiming mode). In a similar vein, switching between Switch Skill sets is done with ZL+X+A if your weapon is sheathed or a Blademaster weapon, and you have to use R+X+A if you have a Gunner weapon out.
  • In World, changing items and ammunition in the item bar was done using the direction pad. In Rise, this has been changed back to the series's traditional control scheme of holding the left shoulder and using the face buttons. This is largely due to the addition of the action bar, which is switched and activated using the direction pad. This can, however, be reversed in the settings if you prefer.
• Death Is a Slap on the Wrist:
  • As in past games with "Expedition"-type modes, carting in an Expedition carries no penalties. That said, if you were hunting a monster in the process, depending on how long it's been in the area it might flee the map before you can get back to it, but beyond that, there is no fail state in Expeditions.
  • Downplayed in Rampage quests. You have unlimited faints like in Expeditions, however one of the fixed subquests (as opposed to subquests that are randomly picked from a pool of them) is to clear the quest with less than three faints, so fainting three or more times can impact your final grade and rewards. Fainting also means one less Hunter on the field for the next 30 or so seconds, which gives the monsters less resistance against destroying the final gate (especially if you are the only player in the party).
• Decapitated Army: Defeating the leader monster of a Rampage hunt immediately causes all of their underlings to turn tail, ending the quest in victory.
• Decomposite Character: Due to the introduction of the Palamutes, Palicoes now take a bigger support focus while Palamutes focus on offense. That said, Palicoes can be set to the Attacker support type. The support type of a Palico merely changes the frequency of certain support actions, however, rather than making them only perform the one chosen exclusively.
• Demonic Vampires: In the expansion Sunbreak, the vampiric Elder Dragon Malzeno draws its power from the Qurio, red leech-like creatures which suck blood from other Large Monsters and in turn feed the Elder Dragon (an example of symbiosis) in exchange for protection. Later in the game, the Guild finds out Malzeno wasn't the original master of the Qurio. ?ts real source is a massive, devilish Elder Dragon known as Gaismagorm (promptly named "the Archdemon of the Abyss"). In a nice twist to a Deal with the Devil, Gaismagorm picked up the short stick after being defeated by Malzeno and robbed of its power source. It's only after Malzeno's death that Gaismagorm can call back the Qurio and regain its original strength.
• Demoted to Extra: The Hunter's Guild. In past games, they had such a significant presence; even in games where your Hub City is a remote village like Moga or Yukumo, they would always send out a representative to serve as your Quest Giver, the local Gathering Hall is explicitly a Guild facility with more of their staff present, and in some quests, most notably Urgent Quests, the hunt is done in cooperation with the Guild. Here, the only mentions of the Guild are at the start of the game when you become a registered Hunter and a few offhand references in quest descriptions and cutscenes (where Hojo explains he's in regular contact with them), and with the exception of Rondine the foreign trader and her assistants, most NPCs are citizens of Kamura.
• Design-It-Yourself Equipment: Rampage weapons are unique among other weapons in that their capabilities can be customized, including their elemental damage, shelling types for Gunlances, ammo compatibility for bowguns, and more. Their overall capabilities may not be on par with the strongest weapons in the game, but they make up for this deficit with their versatility. They're also the only weapons that can be customized visually; you can either recolor their default appearance, or make them look like any other weapon from the same weapon class.
• Disc-One Final Boss:
  • The flagship monster, Magnamalo, is played up as the cause of the Rampage, and you ultimately find it and hunt it at the end of 4★ Village Quests. Successfully hunting it cues the credits, marking the end of the initial overarching story. The plot continues after completing the Apex Arzuros Rampage in the Hub questline and unlocking High Rank, which is when Ibushi is first spotted. Weirdly enough, this is possibly the earliest in which credits roll in a Monster Hunter game; it's possible to reach this point in a few hours if you book it, and this is also possibly the first time that credits roll before you even finish Low Rank.
  • Later on in High Rank, you fight Wind Serpent Ibushi, the actual cause of the Rampage, and everyone believes that repelling it will stop the Rampage for good. Too bad it doesn't, which leads to another problem in trying to figure out why it appeared when it did.
  • This happens again in Sunbreak, with Malzeno being hyped up to be the Big Bad of the game, as it's prominently featured in promotional materials. But after defeating it, everyone is left with a variety of questions regarding it and the Qurio, and so the main Master Rank campaign continues on.
• Discard and Draw:
  • Switch Skills allow you to change one specific special ability in each weapon's moveset to gain another. While this provides another layer of gameplay style customization, some of the abilities featured are inspired by moves that appeared in earlier games, but are now mutually exclusive to other abilities where they weren't before. This is downplayed in Sunbreak, where Switch Skill Swap allows the player to switch between two sets of Switch Skills during battle.
  • Charge Blade's Condensed Spinning Slash is essentially the Power Axe from Iceborne combined with the Ripper Shield from Generations. However, Condensed Spinning Slash is significantly toned down from Power Axe, as it replaces the Condensed Element Slash, requires the same lengthy startup as the Condensed Element Slash, goes away instantly upon leaving Axe Mode, and its multi-hit properties now produce an insane amount of hitlag that leaves you wide open. In exchange, Condensed Spinning Slash doesn't require your shield to be powered up to execute, and Axe Mode attacks regenerate Phial Energy on hit, allowing you to stay in Axe Mode essentially indefinitely as long as you don't need to heal or run.
  • The Felyne Series Dual Blades have the exclusive Ramp-Up Skill "Hellion Mode", which turns all of your hits in Demon Mode into Criticals but doubles the speed at which the Sharpness gauge decreases.
  • Sunbreak introduces Rampage Decorations, which can only be used by Rarity 8 and above weapons. These Decorations allow you to outfit a weapon with any kind of Rampage Skill as long as the Decoration fits in the slot, including ones that were exclusive to certain weapon trees.
• Dishing Out Dirt:
  • Tetranadon swallows gravel in order to use as a weapon. When doing so, it has a Balloon Belly. It will also sometimes dig up a giant boulder to hurl at the hunter.
  • Almudron uses acidic secretions to create pillars of mud. Standing in its mud causes damage over time and slows all movement. It can also load up its tail to make a massive muddy club that increases the amount of damage it deals, in addition to just being able to throw mud at the hunter.
• Dogs Are Dumb: Relatively, anyway. While certainly smarter than real world canines with their tool use and operating things like submarine doors, Palamutes are nonetheless incapable of speech and implied to not be much more sophisticated than other animals. Palicoes, their felyne counterparts, on the other hand are as sapient as ever in Rise.
• Dragon Rider: After a monster receives enough mounting damage from aerial attacks, Silkbind attacks, or from other monsters, you can temporarily use the Wirebugs to do a technique called Wyvern Riding.
• Draw Aggro: Using a stinkmink will coat the player in its pheromones, making monsters more likely to follow them: very useful in luring monsters together and instigating a turf war.
• The Dreaded: Apex monsters are collectively feared by the people of Kamura for leading monster rampages, in addition to being much more powerful than their vanilla counterparts. Furthermore, every non-Rampage Apex monster quest is a 7-star postgame quest, and nearly every such quest's description makes it a point that these monsters are extremely dangerous.
• Drop-In-Drop-Out Multiplayer: The Cohoots can be used like the SOS Flares from Monster Hunter: World, letting other people join an already started quest at the host's discretion. Players can also set their Hub quests to accept joining players from the beginning.
• Drought Level of Doom: The penultimate Urgent Quest of MR5 in Sunbreak has no Endemic Life other than Great Wirebugs, leaving you with no on-map buffs or ways to impede the sole monster on the map, a Lunagaron afflicted with Qurio. There are also no other living large monsters for Wyvern Riding, meaning it's just you and the Lunagaron.
• Dualvertisement: Multiple events have been added since launch that add content based on other games, including:
  • Street Fighter V: Akuma layered armor
  • Mega Man 11: Rush layered armor for Palamutes
  • Ghosts 'n Goblins: Arthur layered armor
  • Sonic the Hedgehog: Sonic-themed layered armor, along with Sonic layered armor for Palacos and Tails layered armor for Palamutes
• Dub Name Change: The only villagers with different names from the Japanese version are the two drumming Felynes in the Gathering Hub, from Doko and Don to Badum and Tish, to maintain their punny drumming onomatopoeia theming.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Voice packs of Selva and Paz, characters who appear in Sunbreak, can be purchased and used in the base version of Rise.
• Easter Egg: In the player's house, walking past the Housekeeper and up to the hanging scroll displays a prompt to talk to "Fukashigi the Informant". Interacting with it causes the wall panel to flip over and reveal a Felyne, who will tell you a piece of gossip about the residents of Kamura Village. They get new dialogue for every Village Urgent Quest completed.
• Elite Mooks: Apex monsters in Rampage quests are far more dangerous versions of regular monsters, with abilities unique to them:
  • Apex Arzuros can leap high into the air, crashing down with a thunderous attack that can wipe out installations.
  • Apex Mizutsune's bubbles are highly volatile and explosive, and some are filled with hellfire.
  • Apex Rathian can fire off its tail spines, leaving them embedded in the ground to continuously spew poisonous gas.
  • Apex Rathalos's fire attacks are even deadlier, including a Breath Weapon version of a Fantastic Nuke.
  • Apex Zinogre can unleash truly massive lightning strikes that target the metal of hunting installations during Rampage quests.
• Enemy Mine:
  • The Final Boss fight as of 3.0 features Magnamalo, previously presented as the main threat of Kamura, having a go against said boss, Narwa the Allmother. In subsequent iterations of the fight, either Kushala Daora or Teostra, themselves Elder Dragons who are postgame monsters in many games including Rise, may instead intervene in the fight. In Sunbreak, Malzeno may lend its assistance instead.
  • In Sunbreak, when fighting Amatsu, an Apex Zinogre will come out from behind the palace to attack Amatsu. Much like with the Elder Dragons who go up against Narwa the Allmother, it will then get hit and become mountable. If not hunting Amatsu as part of the story quest, Crimson Glow Valstrax will instead show up to give Amatsu a dose of its "Around The World" attack, before becoming mountable.
• Evolving Title Screen: The scrolling artwork on the load screen for the base game has new monsters added to it as the main story progresses. Magnamalo is added to it after it is fought and defeated for the first time, as are Ibushi and Narwa. The one for Sunbreak follows this trend as well, capping off with Gaismagorm on one end of the artwork and the aftermath of its battle with Malzeno on the other.
• Excuse Plot: Downplayed. The main story of Rise and Sunbreak has considerable detail up to the final boss, but partly goes away during the postgame Anomaly Research quests. All of them have the same title and (general) descriptions, which is that you're hunting them so that Bahari can do research and you can get special materials. You do get some Urgent Quests to hunt Master Rank versions of the base game's Elder Dragons and Scorned Magnamalo, but for the same general reason as above. Even the Risen Elder Dragons are introduced with about as much fanfare, basically saying "this monster overcame the affliction, hunt it For Science!"
• Experience Penalty: If you complete an Anomaly quest that allows more faints or is significantly lower than your Research Level, your Research Point multiplier will be reduced. The penalty can be negated if the quest has other modifiers to make it more difficult, and enough of them to bring the multiplier back up to 100% or more.
• Explosive Propulsion: The Gunlance Switch Skill "Blast Dash" allows the user to rocket forward by using the Gunlance as a rocket, making it a useful tool for bolstering the Gunlance's otherwise subpar mobility.
• Foreshadowing:
  • In a subtle bit of environmental design, a strange skeleton with a jaw like a moray eel can be found deep in the Lava Caves. This is very similar to the jaws of Ibushi and Narwa, a pair of Elder Dragons causing the Rampage. The game's icon also looks similar to the profiles of both monsters.
  • At the beginning of the game, during the cutscene after you finish creating your character, your hunter will look into the distance for a few seconds, and the camera will then zoom in to show something flying in the clouds, which is almost immediately followed by Fugen getting a message about the Rampage starting up. That something is Wind Serpent Ibushi, and it's responsible for the Rampage alongside its mate, Thunder Serpent Narwa.
  • In Sunbreak after finishing the first Lunagaron hunt, Malzeno appears and threatens our hunters. Twice over the course of this scene, the Qurio fly past Malzeno of their own accord and gives him pause, then the Elder Dragon growls and follows them - after they feast upon the corpse of the dead Lunagaron, Malzeno promptly leaves with them. As revealed later, Malzeno isn't the true host of the Qurio; he's simply trying to keep them under some semblance of control and minimize their damage, rather than let them return to their real master, Gaismagorm.
• Food Porn: This game will likely make you hungry for dango, what with often you'll be seeing it prepared, cooked, decorated, and served to perfection.
• Funny Background Event:
  • If you idle around in the Gathering Hub, you may see Minoto pull out a piece of paper and paint on it, only to grumble in frustration as she crumples it up. Then she coughs as if to say "excuse me," and regains her composure as if nothing happened.
  • Start a new trade and then go to the Gathering Hub patio by the water. You'll see your Buddies pop their heads out of their submarines, as they sail by, either to wave at you or to go into their stun animations.
  • In Sunbreak players will occasionally spot Luchika trying to eat dango discretely up on some scaffolding and apparently really enjoying it. If the player approaches her, she'll quickly eat the entire stick and act as if nothing happened.
• Game-Breaking Bug:
  • The release version of the game launched with a rare "cursed charm table" bug that causes all Talismans gained from the Wisp of Mystery Melding to loop the same 20 or so Talismans infinitely, limiting the Talismans affected players can get without Rebirth Melding.
  • The game has a habit of crashing upon defeating Ibushi or Narwa if using an Insect Glaive with a Powder-type Kinsect.
• Gameplay Ally Immortality: Downplayed. Followers in Sunbreak can get knocked out if they lose all their health, however this does not count against the faint limit and they don't get sent back to camp. They will recover health slowly on the spot, but you can bring them back much faster if you interact with them.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: You can make your character elderly through the character creator, but the game's story makes it clear the Hunter character is supposed to be fairly young. Notably the high rank hunter Ayame, who still looks fairly young herself, will after meeting her note that the player character wouldn't remember her due to how long ago she left the village. Elder Fugen will also treat them as much younger than him.
• Gender-Concealing Writing: Your Hunter is never referred to with gendered pronouns and where the "Male" and "Female" options would traditionally be, they are instead called "Type 01" and "Type 02" body types.
• Gentle Giant: The Monksnail of the Frost Islands is an iceberg-sized snail that can somehow roar, and has a shell with bioluminescent spots that make it look like a shadowy face with creepy glowing eyes. But while it's said to be feared by sailors, it harmlessly slithers along in the background, and will even respond with a friendly roar if the player waves at it!
• Gothic Horror: Compared to Rise's base game monsters taking their inspiration from the eastern Youkai, Sunbreak instead draws on classic western monsters, with Malzeno, Lunagaron and Garangolm being based on vampires, werewolves and Frankenstein's Monster, respectively.
• Grappling-Hook Pistol: The Wirebugs allow Hunters to zip through the air by throwing one out and pulling themselves along the bugs' Ironsilk strands.
• Grievous Harm with a Body: Mounted monsters can be launched, damaging them and leaving them pinned down briefly by your Wirebugs. Any other monsters in their trajectory will also take massive damage and enter a mountable state, thus allowing you to "switch rides" or let another Hunter take the reins and beat up the monster.
• Growling Gut:
  • If you don't keep your hunter fed and allow their stamina bar to shrink to the smallest size possible, their stomach will constantly growl when they're standing still.
  • Hinoa the Quest Maiden will also claim that her tummy's rumbling before you hunt Magnamalo, and urges the hunter to hurry back so they can feast on bunny dango together.
• Guest-Star Party Member: Sunbreak has single player quests called Follower Quests that allow the player to bring story characters called Followers to aid them during the hunt. In addition to attacking, they can also use healing items, set traps, and use Wyvern Riding. Title Update 3 of Sunbreak allows Followers to accompany the player in most Hub quests as well, with the catch that having Followers accompany you disables multiplayer.
• Guide Dang It!:
  • There are a select few walls in the game that can be destroyed, but the game never prompts you to do so at any point and expects you to figure out to use a Barrel Bomb on them.
  • Relic Records can be a chore to hunt, because they're small objects spread across the game's gigantic maps, and you're given no hints or indication as to where they could be.
  • There are five specimens of Rare Endemic Life that you can take pictures of to log them into your Hunter's Notes. However many of them not only are in out-of-the-way or nondescript locations and can only be found during either the daytime or nighttime (but not both), but they may randomly choose not to appear.
  • Severing type Kinsects have one advantage over blunt type Kinsects that the game doesn't mention: if the Insect Glaive has an element, the Kinsect will also attack with the same element.
  • While the Hunter's Notes do show the values of each monster's hitzones, nearly all of them only show them in their normal state. This is important because some hitzones will change depending on what state the monster is in, such as being enraged or getting a body part broken.
  • There are several aspects of Rampage quests that the game doesn't mention:
    • Installations can effectively be repaired by removing them and then replacing them, which is much faster than waiting for it to return if a monster destroys it.
    • Each Warrior of Kamura can only be summoned once, but what isn't mentioned is, with the exception of Elder Fugen, they can only be used in the wave they become available, meaning if you go through the whole wave without using them, they disappear from the next wave.
• Gulliver Tie-Down: Successfully executing a wall slam on a mounted monster will produce Ironsilk strands that temporarily bind the monster to the ground, restricting their mobility.
• Hailfire Peaks:
  • The Lava Caverns mixes Lethal Lava Land with a Down the Drain of sorts, being a craggy, broiling volcano with a partially submerged, cooler cave system underneath.
  • The Citadel in Sunbreak features the ruins of an old castle, forests, frozen icescapes, and foggy swamplands in the same area.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: After World broke the trend of having monsters immediately turn hostile upon sighting you, with some monsters being perfectly content to pass you by, Rise returns to this behavior; even the previously "docile" monsters such as Kulu-ya-Ku or Tobi-Kadachi will immediately start gunning for you.
• Hard Mode Filler: After defeating the Final Boss of Sunbreak's Master Rank campaign, you gain access to Anomaly Quests, which has you fight the same familiar monsters all over again but with the added twist of the monsters being infected and empowered by the Qurio.
• Hard Mode Perks: Anomaly Investigation quests that have modifiers to make them more difficult (such as a shorter time limit or fewer carts) will increase the multiplier to your Anomaly Research points. Conversely, modifiers that make the quest easier (such as more carts) will reduce the multiplier.
• Harder Than Hard:
  • Rampage quests can be rated between 2 and 7 stars... as well as 7 red stars to indicate even harder Rampage quests. These quests include the Apex versions of Diablos and Rathalos, and are the only way to get level 8 Defender Tickets.
  • The Anomaly quests are effectively a harder form of the experts-only Master Rank, featuring many of the same familiar monsters but infested and empowered by the Qurio, giving them higher parameters across the board. They also can't be captured; every quest with this type of monster is a "Slay" quest, with only non-Apex side monsters in Investigation quests being marked as "Hunt".
• Hellfire: Magnamalo's violet flames are called "Hellfire." Its fire attacks set off powerful explosions and can inflict "Hellfireblight", which functions similar to Blastblight with the added danger of detonating early if you are knocked down while afflicted. Hellfireblight can be cured, however, by Wiredashing, which leaves the hellfire behind on the ground as a potential hazard against monsters. By equipping the Magnamalo armor, the Hunter also gains access to the unique Hellfire Cloak Skill, which, in addition to boosting resistance to Hellfireblight, allows the Hunter to give themselves Hellfireblight whenever a monster Turns Red, buffing the Hunter's Attack while they're doused in it.
• Hitbox Dissonance: In a series notorious for terrible hitboxes, Rise does a damn good job at averting it. Most attack hitboxes match up with the actual attack animations for the monsters without overcompensating too much; for example, it's entirely possible to stand under a tail swipe without getting hit as long as the actual tail doesn't hit you. Hipchecks are still a problem, but much less so than before. However, there are some exceptions:
  • Jyuratodus gains a new hipcheck, which can smack you even while you're on the other side like the Plesioth of yore.
  • Mizutsune's body slam has a rather iffy hitbox where even touching the tip of its tail will inflict full damage.
  • The Dragonators come in groups of three spikes, however the hitbox for each set is a rectangle that encompasses the whole set, so even monsters between the spikes will take damage. The Dragonator used during the first Thunder Serpent Narwa fight has a hitbox that extends beyond the tips of the spikes.
• Hitodama Light:
  • With their soft glow, plump proportions, and long plumes that extend up from their head, Spiribirds look very much like hitodama, particularly from a distance.
  • A "ghost light" will float near your hunter under low-light conditions, such as inside caves or at night.
• Hold the Line: In Rampage quests, hunters are tasked with fending off a Rampage, using weapon installations and Wyvern Riding to keep the monsters out of Kamura.
• Hub City: Kamura Village is the base of operations for Hunters, featuring a blacksmith, a canteen, vendors, and various other services. In addition, unlike previous games that had separate hub areas for multiplayer, players can gather anywhere in Kamura.
• Hub Under Attack: This is a core element of Rampage quests; monsters attempt to raid Kamura Village en masse and are corralled into fortified valleys where you must ward off the invading horde and prevent them from breaching the final gate to the village.
• Infinity -1 Sword: Just like in Iceborne for World, Sunbreak gives your character a free set of Defender and Black Belt armor and weapons that are designed to carry you through most of the base game, but quickly become obsolete once you reach the Sunbreak content.
• Interface Spoiler: Yeah, you're unlikely to be fooled into thinking the game is actually over after you beat Magnamalo, even though the credits start rolling. Not after seeing how many weapon upgrade paths there are at that point in the game that you can't even access. Or how the missions are still labeled as "Low Rank," which even series newcomers will realize implies there are higher ranks.
• It Can Think:
  • Several of the youkai-like monsters introduced in this game use disturbingly human-like fighting techniques. Tetranadon attacks very much like a sumo wrestler, Bishaten tries to keep its distance against Blademaster hunters and has its own version of a dodge roll, Rakna-Kadaki can throw its children at the hunter and then coordinate attacks, and Goss Harag uses its frosty breath to cover its arms in an ice that form into blades, and fights more like a hunter than even Glavenus before it^note Glavenus is often compared to fighting a Great Sword Hunter, while Goss Harag can vary between Great Sword, Dual Blades, and Sword and Shield depending on how it uses its ice.
  • Elder Dragons in general are considered to be of much closer intelligence to humans than most monsters. But on the extreme end... Hinoa is able to resonate with Ibushi and speak its thoughts, while Minoto channels Narwa.
• It Only Works Once:
  • You can summon Assist Characters in Rampage Quests that have absolutely devastating effects, such as Fugen unleashing a slash that has the power to One-Hit Kill almost every monster on the map. However, each NPC can only be called once, meaning you will have to time their arrival to have the greatest amount of impact.
  • Likewise, Counter Gongs can only be activated once before despawning. Unlike normal Installments, Counter Gongs can't be re-summoned and there are only up to two of them on the map at once.
  • The quest against Thunder Serpent Narwa has a Splitting Wyvernshot and Dragonator unlocked when you reduce the monster's HP past certain thresholds. However, unlike their Rampage counterparts, which can be reused after a cooldown, these installments can each only be used once per quest.
• "Just Frame" Bonus:
  • While Wyvern Riding, if you evade an enemy monster's attack at the right moment, you'll parry it, inflicting damage.
  • In Sunbreak, the new armor skill Redirection allows you to mitigate damage from an enemy attack by performing a Switch Skill Swap with perfect timing, which will also cause you to do a dodge roll; additionally, if you have a Wirebug on cooldown, its recharge gauge will gain a significant boost. Raising the skill to level 2 makes you nullify the damage entirely.
• Kaizo Trap: Wirefalling with ZL+B was one of the best ways to get to safety after a knockdown in base Rise. Come Sunbreak, many monsters now have follow-up attacks meant to punish players who Wirefall too much. Some of these, such as Crimson Glow Valstrax's follow-up beam will almost guarantee a cart.
• Knockback Evasion: Being sent flying by a monster will usually allow you to use the Wirefall technique, allowing you to avoid falling on your behind by grappling to safety. This also sheathes your weapon in the process, so you can pop a Potion as soon as you touch ground. However, certain attacks including those that can stun the player will temporarily disable their wire bugs.
• Life Drain: One of the armor skills in Sunbreak is Blood Rite, which restores your HP whenever you hit a monster part that's been broken.
• Limit Break: While Wyvern Riding, filling up a special meter by landing attacks and dodging will allow Hunters to perform a Mounted Punisher, granting the player a few seconds to deal a massive amount of Mounting damage to other monsters before dismounting.

Tropes M-R

• Maneki Neko: The Fortune Owl is based on one. It has cat-like ears and claws on its wings that resemble a raised cat's paw, it has the same colors as a typical maneki neko, and getting one of its feathers will double the reward money received at the end of a quest.
• Master of None: The gimmick behind the Ibushi and Narwa armor sets. In addition to each bestowing a unique Skill that bolsters the user's resistance to Dragon and Thunder respectively, they also come jam-packed with an absurd number of Lv. 1 Skills, far more than any other armor set. All gear pieces completely lack Decoration slots, meaning that most of the granted skills require heavy use of weapon Deco slots and Talismans to be of any use. However, the Master Rank versions of those armors have a single Decoration slot each, and a unique ability (which post-3.0, the High Rank versions also gain if upgraded to level 9), which at max level boosts the levels of every skill on your build by +2 (up to max), along with boosts to thunder and dragon elemental damage. With the right weapon and Tailsmans, this can more than make up for the lack of Decoration slots, though said Master Rank versions also can't gain skills from the endgame augmenting system.
• Mêlée à Trois: Magnamalo has a Turf War with most Flying Wyverns where it boosts into the air and wrestles with the opposing monster in flight as it tries to escape its hold. Unlike most Turf Wars, it is not safe to just stand back and watch, as at the end of the Turf War, Magnamalo will Recoil Boost toward the ground and target any Hunter in the immediate vicinity while doing so, attempting to crush the Hunter and inflict massive damage under the two monsters' combined weight.
• Mercy Kill: Hunts involving Qurio-afflicted monsters can be seen as this, as you're sparing them the pain of being constantly drained of life until they're sucked dry.
• Missing Secret: The Hunter's Notes on Large Monsters that displays the monster's hitzones has a box that says Normal but doesn't do anything. This suggests it was intended to be used to toggle between the different states a monster can enter that would alter its hitzones, like whether Barroth is covered in mud or not.
• Mr. Exposition: Fukashigi the Informant, a Felyne living behind the scroll in the player's room. Approaching the scroll and interacting with it will have him appear via a secret wall panel, and he will divulge various gossip about the townsfolk in Kamura.
• Money Multiplier:
  • Some dango effects boost your rewards, such as Dango Money Maker (more zenny), Dango Calculator (more Kamura points), and Dango Carver (chance for more rewards).
  • The Felicrow and Fortune Owl are two rare types of endemic life found in all five maps. They're hard to spot and they don't initially show up on the map, but if you can find them and take a twig from their beaks, you'll get more rewards or Zenny, respectively, at the end of the quest.
• More Dakka: In addition to Wyvernheart ammo for Heavy Bowguns, one of the installations you can place in Rampage quests if a "Machine Cannon" that unleashes a storm of bullets. Yomogi also operates one of these when summoned.
• Morton's Fork: Monster-on-monster combat will almost always be a net gain for hunters. Either your quest target will be rendered mountable (allowing you to crash it into a wall) or the other monster will be rendered mountable (allowing you to crash it into your target).
• My Friends... and Zoidberg: Despite all other NPCs being given names, for some reason the housekeeper Felyne doesn't have one.
• My Rules Are Not Your Rules: You can use Wyvern Riding to inflict Fireblight, Waterblight, Iceblight, and Thunderblight on other monsters. However, if you mount a monster that uses Dragon-element attacks on you (Kushala Daora and Crimson Glow Valstrax, in particular), they will not inflict Dragonblight to other monsters.
• Naked People Are Funny: The fishmonger of Kamura Village is a Palico who doesn't wear any clothes since he claims it makes his job easier. A lot of his dialogue consists of him talking about his nudity in amusing ways while encouraging the hunter to run around naked as well.
• Nameless Narrative: For the first time in the mainline games, averted. Every NPC has their own name. Except your housekeeper Felyne.
• Near Victory Fanfare:
  • When Ibushi is nearly defeated, a new arrangement of "Proof of a Hero", the closest thing to the series's main theme, will start to play. It shows up again for the last part of the fight against Narwa the Allmother, though it's less this trope and more of a proper "third phase of the final boss" theme.
  • When the final boss of Sunbreak, Gaismagorm, reaches its final phase, another new arrangement of Proof of a Hero will play to signal that victory is close.
• Nerf:
  • Zigzagged with the new Mounting system. While it's still possible to mount a monster multiple times during a hunt it takes a LOT of mounting damage or Silkbind moves to do so. However, Wyvern Riding is incredibly powerful, allowing the player an even more expedient way of dealing damage to monsters. Among the Endemic Life, there is also the Puppet Spider which can be used to make a downed monster Mountable regardless of how much mounting damage it would normally take to get to that point.
  • Played straight with the revamped Hunting Horn, which had its motion values slashed dramatically to compensate for the fact it can now hit multiple times in one attack string, making it more like a blunt/impact version of the Dual Blades. This is partially balanced by no longer needing to use the Perform skill after making a string of notes, activating immediately at the end of a combo instead.
  • Compared to World, the Set Bonus available from gear in 1.0 is barely noticeable; unlike before, where it would increase the cap for a given skill or activate a unique effect, it just gives you a small boost to Attack, Defense or elemental resistance. This has the side-effect of letting you mix and match armor skills and Decorations to your liking, instead of having to be confined to a set of armor. Updates 2.0 and 3.0 changes this with several noticeably useful sets provided by the various Elder Dragons added to the game, in particular the Valstrax and upgraded Narwa and Ibushi sets.
  • Hunter movesets as a whole have had a slight power reduction. While Wirebugs offer even more options than the Clutch Claw, they're on a cooldown system. And hunters no longer have access to a weapon's entire bag of tricks all at once, having to fine-tune their movesets with Switch Skills.
  • This game reverts the method of obtaining Decorations back to the easier pre-World method, i.e. you craft Decorations with materials instead of finding them in the wild. However, since — like in World — having even a single Decoration for a particular skill will activate the skill, some Decorations and skills have been nerfed to keep the player from just easily forming powerful builds:
    • Critical Draw has been toned down compared to previous games. The upside is that it now applies in duration form as opposed to only applying to the draw attack; the downside is that it now caps at +40% Affinity instead of giving +100%.
    • Level 1 decoration slots have become less valuable in general, as just about every key skill that used to be a level 1 jewel has been bumped up to level 2 or 3. While this does make room for more quality-of-life skills in builds, it also makes it harder to fit in the important ones.
    • In exchange for becoming available as a decoration, Critical Element now requires three ranks to max out, and the damage bonus caps out at 15% compared to the minimum of 25% it had in World.
    • Like Critical Element, Master's Touch also had to sacrifice some power to become a decoration, now only triggering on at most 80% of critical hits.
• Never My Fault: The quest giver for the double Great Baggi mission in High Rank is a hunter who complains about not expecting there to be a second monster to hunt and passing off the mission to whoever's interested. He acknowledges that the quest information blatantly said there were two, but he refuses to take responsibility for not reading it and blames it on the original quest giver by claiming that no one reads the quest information anyway.
• New Powers as the Plot Demands: It's established all the way from version 1.0.0 of the base game that you cannot mount Apex monsters; they will go into their prone animation with the sparks that indicate a monster about to be available for mounting but then snap out of it. In Sunbreak Title Update 5, an Apex Zinogre shows up during an Urgent Quest against Amatsu and ends up becoming mountable, contrary to this previously-established rule, although it takes a second Hunter, namely Utsushi, for the mount to work.
• Night Parade of One Hundred Demons: A central event in the story is a reoccurring catastrophe known as the "Rampage", where all the local monsters inexplicably go crazy and begin destroying everything in sight in a stampeding mob (later revealed to be caused by the mating cycle of two Elder Dragons, Ibushi and Narwa). Many of the new monsters also take heavy inspiration from Youkai and the specific setting is strongly Wutai based. The description on the Japanese website makes the comparison even more obvious by calling it "The Night March of One Hundred Wyverns", and Narwa the Allmother's Japanese name translates to "Origin of a Hundred Dragons".
• Nintendo Hard: As is normal for a Monster Hunter game. That said, the general consensus is that it is slightly easier to get into compare to past games, including World.
• No Ending: On launch, High Rank's storyline ended with the Hunter taking down Narwa. However, she and Ibushi are still alive which leaves the Rampage an unresolved issue. In fact, this didn't advance your Hunter Rank, unlike what normally happens when you beat the High Rank Final Boss. Upon the release of 3.0, however, the story is given a proper resolution, where Narwa the Allmother dies for good and the Rampages die down with her.
• No Name Given: Notably averted unlike most previous Monster Hunter games, as every single NPC is referred to with proper names instead of just being called a title and having their names be All There in the Manual, even including the generic playable Hunters in the Demo. The one exception is the housekeeper.
• Non-Indicative Name:
  • The new Wyvern Riding mechanic can be performed on almost all Large Monsters (exceptions are Narwa, Ibushi, Gaismagorm, and Apex monsters), and not just wyverns.
  • The Switch Axe's Invincible Gambit move does not actually grant invulnerability. Instead, it's more like the Rocksteady Mantle from World, making the user Immune to Flinching without blocking damage.
• No Ontological Inertia:
  • Once the lead monster of a Rampage quest is brought down, the quest immediately ends in victory. All other monsters on the field turn tail and run.
  • Defied when it comes to the Rampage itself at the end of the game's story. Slaying Ibushi and Narwa is noted to cause the rest of the monsters to begin calming, but it doesn't happen all at once and there are some hordes that still need repelling, so your character can still take on Rampage quests.
  • Defied once again after defeating Gaismagorm. The Qurio remain a threat and, with their host gone, are now looking for a new one, resulting in the appearance of the Afflicted Monsters.
• No-Sell:
  • Apex Monsters are immune to traps, and therefore cannot be captured. They are also immune to Wyvern Riding; while you can trigger the teal sparks that indicate that you've done enough special damage to make a monster mountable, they will not actually enter the mountable state. An exception is Zinogre in the Urgent Quest against Amatsu, but even then it takes two hard hits for the monster to enter the riding state, and two Wyvern Riders just to control it afterward.
  • Qurio-afflicted monsters in Sunbreak are similarly capture-proof, and therefore quests to hunt them are also designated as "slay" quests. Unlike Apexes, you can immobilize them with traps and you can make them mountable, it's just Tranq Bombs and Shots that don't work on them.
• Nostalgia Level: The Flooded Forest and Sandy Plains from Monster Hunter 3 (Tri) return, revamped to be more vertical and diverse in terrain. Sunbreak brings back the Jungle from Monster Hunter 2 (dos) and the Forlorn Arena from Monster Hunter Freedom Unite.
• Odd Name Out: In the localized versions, Badum and Tish, the two drummer Felynes in the Gathering Hub, are the only two Kamura villagers not to have a name that uses sounds native to Japanese. There's also Rondine, as "di" is also a sound exclusive to loanwords, but she's justified in that she comes from a foreign land, although that doesn't explain why her Felyne assistants have Japanese names.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: After Fiorayne and the Fierce repel Primordial Malzeno, the Qurio swarm around it trying to claim it as their new host. Not wasting a moment, the two Hunters jump into the fray and exterminate the Qurio, saving the once-sworn blood enemy of the Kingdom. The fight itself is never seen, however.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: For the local peoples this is why the Rampage is such a big deal. It's noted that monsters of different species normally don't associate with each other except to compete over territory or to prey on each other, so them banding together in a huge horde is something even the unusually tough people of the Monster Hunter world have a tough time dealing with. They can handle living near a lot of dangerous monsters relatively safely most of the time (with many Hunt quests being for rather mundane or even silly reasons rather than imminent danger), but monsters uniting in a large violent force requires all their firepower in their fortified villages simply to keep at bay.
• Out of Focus: There are no Rampage Quests introduced in Sunbreak. Justified, since the Rampage was caused by Ibushi and Narwa, who you've already defeated. In fact, when you get a quest to kill Narwa the Allmother again at Master Rank 30, it's explicitly stated you're doing it to stop a new Rampage before it can start.
• Piranha Problem: This game introduces Giganhas, the Monster Hunter universe's equivalent to piranhas, and they live in the rainforest-esque Flooded Forest. Unlike most examples of this trope however, they're completely harmless... unless you drop raw meat near them, then they'll aggressively swarm and devour it and can hurt you if you're too close. However, they're more of a threat to enemies than they are to you, and if you lure a monster to a bunch of schooling Giganhas, they'll wear away at the monster's health with a bunch of weak attacks while likely stunlocking them until they disperse.
• Planet Heck: The final hunt added in version 3.0 takes place in the Infernal Springs, a special arena modeled after a hellish valley with a red-hued waterfall (likely caused by the reddish ore all over the area) as its centerpiece giving the impression of a river of blood.
• Power-Up:
  • Various species of endemic lifeform known as Spiribirds carry pollen that they will give to a hunter's Petalace charm when approached to boost health, stamina, attack, or defense for the duration of a hunt.
  • The Lampsquids in the Frost Islands can temporarily boost your stats if you touch them. Red ones increase affinity, green ones heal you, yellow ones increase your resistance to tremors, and gold ones max out all three at once.
  • Brewhares enhance the potency of most healing and stamina-restoring items while they're in the Helper Cage. Key word being "while", as they'll slip out once you use enough items. A really unlucky player can lose the Brewhare after using just one item.
• Power Up Mount: Dealing enough Mounting damage to a monster (either via aerial attacks, Silkbind moves, or being attacked by another monster) or using certain endemic wildlife will topple it and prompt the player to attack it (while unsheathed) or press A (while sheathed) to activate Wyvern Riding. This allows the Hunter to bind the monster with Ironsilk as makeshift reins; they can then control the monster and use its own attacks against other monsters, or launch it into a wall to deal massive damage and stun it.
• Pre-Ending Credits:
  • The game rolls the credits after you successfully hunt a Magnamalo (the game's flagship monster) for the first time; gameplay-wise, this marks the barrier between Low and High Rank Hunts.
  • The credits roll again after the first fight against Thunder Serpent Narwa, which serves as the wall between the first half of high rank and the second, though it's Justified, as Rise had a Troubled Production and the True Final Boss of High Rank, Narwa the All-Mother, wasn't complete in time for the game's 1.0 release.
• Pre-Final Boss:
  • In the final High Rank urgent quest, you first fight Wind Serpent Ibushi. Once you're about to slay it, the monster goes toward Thunder Serpent Narwa, which proceeds to absorb his lifeforce and become Narwa the Allmother. The hunter then has to defeat her in battle to truly end the quest.
  • In Sunbreak's Master Rank, an Urgent Quest to hunt a Qurio-afflicted Lunagaron precedes the Final Boss fight against Gaismagorm. The former is mainly to get players a preview of the postgame, which mainly consists of hunting Afflicted monsters.
• Production Throwback: Being directed by Yasunori Ichinose, the game draws inspirations from his previously-directed games (the Freedom/Portable tetralogy, Generations, and Generations Ultimate):
  • The Hub City, Kamura Village, once again draws inspiration from Japanese architecture, although the inspiration is much heavier this time.
  • Arzuros is one of the first monsters you hunt in this game, just like in Portable 3rd which it debuted in. The other two Ursid Fanged Beasts, Lagombi and Volvidon, also return, and Goss Harag gives the classification its first new monster since that generation.
  • The Apex monsters are more or less the Deviant Monsters from Generations (and by extension Generations Ultimate). For example, Apex Arzuros is the first Apex encountered in the same way Redhelm Arzuros is the first Deviant unlocked in Generations (Ultimate), Apex Rathian can leave poisonous spines on the ground like Dreadqueen Rathian, and Apex Rathalos can shoot fireballs that then create massive explosions like Dreadking Rathalos. Like Generations, Rise launched without traditional subspecies, though this changed later in Sunbreak with the introduction of new subspecies.
  • Mizutsune and Valstrax, monsters introduced in Generations (the former as one of the "Fated Four" in the original version, and the latter as the flagship of Generations Ultimate), are the only fourth-generation large monsters in the game as of version 3.0.
  • The first pack of songs from previous games released consists of the the Yukumo Village themes from Portable 3rd. The 3.0 update introduces a pack that features the main hub themes of Kokoto (Freedom), Pokke (Freedom 2 and Unite), Bherna (Generations), and the Soaratorium (Generations Ultimate).
  • Many of the Switch Skills are inspired by or straight up transplants of Hunter Arts and Hunter Styles from Generations and Generations Ultimate.
  • The two new Elder Dragons in this game are large flying serpents just like Amatsu from Portable 3rd.
  • The Amatsu battle in Sunbreak is capstoned with surprise assistance from an Apex Zinogre, alluding to the relationship between the two creatures in Portable 3rd.
• Punny Name:
  • The Hunting Guide on the game's website depicts drawings of generic male and female Hunter characters named Lance Gunn and Ran Page, respectively. Lance Gunn is a spoonerism of “Gunlance,” and Ran Page is derived from “Rampage,” as in the event that threatens to decimate Kamura Village. On top of that, the Palamute is named Pup R. ("pupper") and the Palico is named Kit T. ("kitty").
  • Two drummer Felynes in the Hunters' Hub are named Badum and Tish.
• Quad Damage: The Counter Gong in Rampage quests causes Hunters' weapons to deal much more damage, allowing them to match and even exceed the Installations' damage output. Normally it lasts 60 seconds, but towards the end of each Horde, an automatic Counter Gong will be deplayed that will last until the Horde timer runs out.
• Randomly Generated Quests: Anomaly Investigation quests that you receive after each Investigation quest have semi-randomized levels, monsters (one Afflicted monster and up to two extra monsters that can be normal or Apex), choice of map, number of faints allowed, time limits, and number of players allowed.
• Ranged Emergency Weapon: While throwing knives/kunai have been a long-standing element of the series, this game gives you an infinite supply of plain throwing kunai. It does Scratch Damage, but can be good for getting monsters' attention, safely detonating Barrel Bombs, and clearing out Sending Sprigs. They can also be converted into finite status-inflciting kunai with the right materials. It's also actually the best weapon for getting drops from Rock, Boulder, and Scale Lizards, capable of hitting them multiple times for more drops, whereas simply pressing 'A' on them to kick them only drops one item.
• Red Alert: One of the chat auto-shout categories in Sunbreak is "When a monster becomes delirious" (due to the Qurio driving it mad), allowing players to warn others, especially those who are far away from the monster and may not hear the distinct sound of an enraged Afflicted monster, that the monster is now in a state where it will create a powerful explosion if its rage state isn't suppressed in time.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: Apex monsters bear this color scheme.
• Red Baron: The English version of the boss cutscene introduction replaces their original species-centric title with a more stylized title (i.e. Somnacanth's title goes from 'Mermaid Wyvern' to 'Soporific Siren', Aknosom goes from 'Parasol Bird' to 'Feathered Frenzy').
• Remixed Level: The Sandy Plains and Flooded Forest from tri- return, but heavily revamped to make use of the seamless map engine and the enhanced vertical movement. The Flooded Forest in particular also has the previously-underwater areas be land areas with ankle-deep water, much like its Portable 3rd incarnation. In Sunbreak, the Old Jungle from Monster Hunter 2 (dos) gets a similar treatment, but also adds areas over the caves with no monster encounters and full of Spiribirds and Endemic Life, as well as an underground arena at the northernmost area of the map. The Forlorn Arena from Freedom Unite makes a return as well, but the layout is completely different, being smaller and having a different shape; only the visual style and background music remain.
• Ring Menu: The player can create and save several of these and use four separate ring menus at any one time, each for the village and Quests, allowing one to quickly access potions, whetstones and so forth with the right control stick on the Switch.
• Rule of Cute:
  • Players can pet their Palamute and Palico companions. This offers no advantages or bonuses, other than seeing the Hunter and their buddies being cute.
  • Players can also pet their Cohoot, which similarly does nothing except make the owl make an adorable face.
  • Regularly feeding the Cohoot causes it to greet the player when returning from offline/village quests, similar to the Poogie from World, further playing this trope straight. The Cohoot's purely cosmetic outfits also can be seen as an example.
• Running Gag:
  • Many quest descriptions entail the client having something horrible happen to their pants, such as a Great Izuchi stealing one villager's pants, a Rathian setting a villager's pants on fire, and an Almudron flooding a farmer's property with mud, including his pants.
  • There's a series of quests by a "Hapless Trader", who keeps getting thrashed by monsters and their trading carts destroyed as a result.

Tropes S-Z

• Samurai Cowboy: The Wroggi armor set resembles cowboy garb, which the player can use in conjunction with any weapons, including katana-esque Long Swords.
• Scare Chord: When approaching a Qurio-afflicted monster, an ominous chord of "Psycho" Strings plays.
• Scenery Gorn: The locale for the Final Boss of the Hub quest line is the ruins of a beautiful ancient palace. The one for the Master Rank quest line has a near-bottomless hole filled with the ruins of past kingdoms.
• Schmuck Bait: At launch, the game lacked any of the usual "Invasion" monsters such as Deviljho or Bazelgeuse, likely due to how the new Wyvern Riding mechanic would likely turn them into much more of a help then a hinderance. However, certain High Rank quests still have a chance of an unstable environment, and triggering it will result in one of the three monsters spawned on the map being replaced with a Rajang in an out of the way section of the map, who sleeps the entirety of the quest. Players who think they can either take said Rajang out or use it as a quick mount are in for a surprise though, as waking said Rajang up will cause it to immediately Turn Red and thrash whoever interrupted its nap. ^note However, hitting it with a potent enough Silkbind move - such as the Great Sword's Rage Slash or the Hammer's Impact Crater - will cause it to immediately enter a mountable state.
• Set Bonus:
  • Equipping multiple armor pieces from the same set grants a small stat boost.
  • The Ibushi and Narwa weapons have special Ramp-Up Skills that grant an Elemental damage and Attack bonus respectively when more pieces of their corresponding armor sets are equipped.
• Shoryuken: The Shoryugeki from Generations Ultimate is back in an enhanced form called the "Metsu Shoryugeki"^Translation "Destructive Rising Dragon Strike", unlockable as a Switch Skill for the Sword and Shield. The functionality is similar to its GU counterpart, but this time the Hunter uses a Wirebug to ascend into the air, and it comes with a guard point baked in that triggers an even stronger Counter-Attack if it successfully blocks an attack.
• Shout-Out:
  • The grainy texture, foreboding music, and overall sinister feel of the monster introduction cutscenes appear to be based on the works of Akira Kurosawa. In particular, the framing and music are very similar to how he introduced the villains of his movies.
  • One of the mid-combat messages your Palico can say is "Stay on target. I repeat, stay on target, meow..."
  • The final boss arena, the Coral Palace, an ocean-side Japanese castle where godlike dragons reside, seems to be one more nod to Japanese Mythology, specifically Ryuuguu-jou, the Undersea Dragon Palace.
  • One quest is called "Monsters in Ink".
  • Rakna-Kadaki's Charge Blade set gives you a Keyblade.
  • One of the 4* hub quests is given by "Up-and-coming Wrestler," and the flavor text reads, "Oh~yeah! You're going nowhere. I've got you for fifty minutes," which is a reference to Bonesaw, played by Macho Man Randy Savage, from the first Sam Raimi Spider-Man movie.
  • One of the 6* hub quests is called "Closer Than it Appears," and the flavor text talks about the quest-giver hearing a stomping noise then being chased by an Anjanath. This is a reference to the "must go faster" scene from the first Jurassic Park, where Malcolm feels the impact tremors from the T-Rex, then as they flee in the Jeep, there is a close-up of the T-Rex in the side mirror which says "OBJECTS IN MIRROR ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR."
  • A quest in Sunbreak asking players to hunt Lunagaron, Garangolm and Malzeno is called "Monster Mash."
• Snakes Are Sinister: Inverted with the Antidobra, a cobra-like specimen of Endemic Life. When planted, it will release a mist that renders Hunters temporarily immune to poison.
• Socialization Bonus:
  • Rampages are heavily weighted towards multiplayer; the large number of monsters spawning at once means that having fewer players to deal with them increases the amount of work needed to slow down the onslaught, and Villager Installments are far less effective than anything a player can do. While Village Rampages are balanced around single-player and are thus less prone to failing, Hub Rampages are an entirely different story, with many a player feeling the wrath of Apex Arzuros upon attempting to enter High Rank.
  • In Sunbreak, regarding Anomaly Investigation quests:
    • If you join and complete a quest posted by another player, the game has a chance to give you a copy of that same quest. If you joined via Join Request, you will also gain a boost to your Research Point multiplier.
    • You can actually engage in quests that are higher than your Research Level, if you enter a hub and join another player's quest, as long as you meet the minimum Research Level requirement. Doing so awards a bonus to the amount of Research Points that you get. It is not possible to take on quests higher than your level otherwise since the game only adds quests equal to or less than your level to your list (therefore you cannot initiate higher-level quests, let alone solo them) and Join Request limits the highest level you can search for to your Research Level.
• Sorting Algorithm of Threatening Geography: The regions in the game are unlocked in approximate order of their danger levels, including:
  • Shrine Ruins, a Green Hill Zone with some Ruins for Ruins' Sake
  • Flooded Forest, a watery jungle with a massive ziggurat
  • Frozen Islands, an icy wasteland with beached ships
  • Sandy Plains, an arid and mountainous desert
  • Lava Caverns, a rocky hellscape at the base of an active volcano
  • Coral Palace, the arena for the Final Boss Narwa: a desolate fortress ruin
  • Citadel, introduced in Sunbreak: a diverse biome featuring the ruins of a castle surrounded by lush forests, snowy mountains, and dank swamps
• Source Music: Badum and Tish provide the percussion backing to the default Gathering Hub theme. Switching the music out has them take a break from drumming since they aren't needed.
• Special Attack: The new Silkbind moves, which utilize Wirebugs to increase the Hunter's lethality. Many are very similar to the Hunting Arts from Generations, if not outright reworkings of them. They all have one that is permanently assigned while the second can be switched.:
  • Great Swords have "Power Sheathe", a quick forward dash that sheathes the sword and buffs attack power for a period of time; "Hunting Edge", an earthbound aerial attack that can be comboed into charged slashes; and "Adamant Charged Slash" where the Hunter dashes forward with super armor.
  • Long Swords have "Serene Pose", a counterattack; "Soaring Kick", wherein the Hunter leaps off of a monster before plunging their blade into it; and "Silkbind Sakura Slash" that increases the Spirit Gauge.
  • Swords and Shields have "Falling Shadow", a leaping slash that can be comboed; "Windmill", a radial attack that grants a moment of invincibility; and "Metsu Shoryugeki" which is a massive uppercut using the shield.
  • Dual Blades have "Shrouded Vault", a forward charging counterattack; "Piercing Bind", which tosses a timed-explosive kunai into the monster that can be powered up with follow-up attacks; and "Tower Vault" which is an evasive maneuver that sends the Hunter into the air.
  • Lances have "Twin Vine", which connects the Hunter to a monster with Ironsilk that allows for a follow-up attack; "Anchor Rage", a counterattack that buffs attack power; and "Spiral Thrust" where the Hunter parries an attack and counters while repositioning.
  • Gunlances have "Guard Edge", a defensive ability that can quickly resharpen the weapon; "Hail Cutter", a combo attack that can quickly cool the weapon down; and "Ground Splitter" which buffs the Wyrmstake Shot and Wyvern's Fire.
  • Hammers have "Impact Crater", a multi-hitting Meteor Move; "Silkbind Spinning Bludgeon", a forward-charging spin attack; and "Dash Breaker" which is a rushing attack that negates any damage taken while advancing.
  • Hunting Horns have "Slide Beat", a forward-charging spin attack that grants super armor; "Earthshaker", which uses Ironsilk to deliver debilitating vibrations directly into a monster's body; and "Bead of Resonance", which places a Wirebug cocoon in the ground that replicates the Horn's melody effects and lets off sonic attacks.
  • Switch Axes have "Switch Charger", an evasive dash that replenishes a large portion of the switch gauge while preventing it from depleting for a short time; "Invincible Gambit", a forward-leaping spin attack with super armor; and "Soaring Wyvern Blade", an aerial attack that ends with a massive explosion.
  • Charge Blades have "Morphing Advance", a forward-charging attack that grants super armor; and "Counter Peak Performance", a counterattack that instantly recharges the weapon's phials; and "Axe Hopper", which switches to Axe mode for an aerial attack.
  • Insect Glaives have "Silkbound Vault", a leaping attack that can be comboed; "Recall Kinsect", which produces healing extracts while instantly topping off the Kinsect's stamina; and "Diving Wyvern" which is an aerial attack that using the Wirebug to pull the Hunter toward the enemy.
  • Light Bowguns have "Silkbound Glide", a forward-sliding rapid-fire barrage; "Fanning Vault", a high-flying leap that can be followed up into an attack or an opportunity to quickly reload; and "Fanning Maneuver" which is a strafing attack that buffs power.
  • Heavy Bowguns have "Free Silkbound Glide", a quick evasive maneuver; "Counter Shot", a powerful counterattack; and "Counter Charger" that absorbs damage from an enemy attack in order to speed up the cooldown on charged shots.
  • Bows have "Herculean Draw", a forward-sliding power shot; "Focus Shot", an evasive attack that can regenerate stamina; and "Aerial Aim" where the player fires whiles in midair.
• Stance System: Sunbreak has Switch Skill Swap, which allows the player to switch between two sets of Switch Skills during battle.
• Stop Hitting Yourself: While Wyvern Riding, Hunters can send monsters careening into walls for big damage. With proper technique, they can force monsters to crash into walls multiple times before dismounting.
• Story Breadcrumbs: Hidden across the world are Old Messages, scrolls attached to ancient swords that can be found tucked away in remote and hard-to-reach corners of the maps. Messages each contain a poem that when read as a set tell a story relevant to the location and its history, and also award a hefty 1000 Kamura Points when collected. There are 10 Messages for each locale in the game, as well as an additional set of 10 Messages detailing the history of the Rampage.
• Strange Minds Think Alike: When Minoto gives you the Hub's HR 2 Urgent Quest to fight a monster "that looks like Master Hojo," he wonders if it's the lithe and elegant Mizutsune. It's not, it's the rotund and slightly officious Tetranadon. After finishing it, some of the possible chitchat you can have with Hinoa has her ask if it really did look like him, specifically asking if it was "slimy or scaly." When your hunter responds with a yes to both, the first monster she thinks of is Mizutsune.
• Stylistic Suck: The drawings accompanying the online Hunting Guide were made by Minoto. Her art skills are, to put it generously, still developing.
• Suddenly Speaking: After years of being Heroic Mimes, the announcement trailer shows the hunters actually talking during gameplay. However, there is an option to turn off the voice clips in favor of the classic Voice Grunting.
• Summon Bigger Fish: While fighting a monster, it's a valid tactic to lure a potentially bigger one to it (often with the help of a stinkmink) and have them fight each other. Not only will they do damage to one another, but this will give you the chance to ride one of them and use it to beat the other monster into submission!
• Superboss:
  • The Apex monsters can be hunted in standard (i.e. non-Rampage) quests in the 7* quest list. They are much harder there since they now only target Hunters instead of dividing their attention towards fortress gates, and they can only be slain, as traps don't work on them. Certain event quests titled "Apex Emergencies" allow you to fight even stronger versions of the Apex monsters, capable of giving even endgame High Rank players a run for their money.
  • Hazard Quests, introduced in Sunbreak, are a special tier of quest which generally only provide cosmetic or mundane rewards, if any extra ones at all. They involve fights against souped-up monsters with significantly higher stats and an altered moveset designed to be much more challenging, potentially tripping up even players used to the regular versions.^note The monsters with a Hazard quest are Lucent Nargacuga, Flaming Espinas, Violet Mizutsune, (Furious) Rajang, Zinogre, Garangolm, Lunagaron, Velkhana, Amatsu, and Primordial Malzeno. If you raise your Anomaly Research level high enough, you can also unlock quests against similarly powered-up versions of the Risen Elder Dragons, denoted by golden flames surrounding their icon.
  • Sunbreak's Title Update 5 introduces "Special Investigations", attainable only by clearing a level 300 Anomaly Investigation for each associated afflicted monster. Like the EX Deviants from Generations Ultimate, these fights are intentionally overtuned with inflated stats, bigger hitboxes, and slightly altered moves, with only a Bragging Rights Reward for when you win.
• Support Party Member:
  • Compared to the offense-oriented Palamutes, Palico abilities tend to be more about utility and support. Even Fighter and Bombardier skills tend to emphasize flinching, blights, Draw Aggro, or other secondary effect, and only reduces the frequency of using healing items.
  • The Cohoot doesn't participate in battle at all, but nonetheless offers an essential service — as your eye in the sky, they let you follow large monsters on the map without needed to track or mark them first.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute:
  • In addition to the Silkbind moves, there are also Switch skills which can be used to alter a player's moveset to their choosing such as giving the Sword and Shield an alternate combo ender or allowing the Hunting Horn to emulate its classic play style more. Some of the moves are inspired by, or even straight up lifted from, the Hunter Arts and Styles from Generations and Generations Ultimate.
  • The Apex Monsters of this game are very similar to the Deviant Monsters from Generations and Generations Ultimate. For example, Apex Rathian drops poisonous spikes on the ground just like Dreadqueen Rathian while Apex Mizutsune can release fiery bubbles just like Soulseer Mizutsune. All Apexes currently in the game, or announced to be included, all stem from monsters who had Deviants as well.
  • Afflicted Monsters in Sunbreak can be this to Hyper Monsters from Generations and Generations Ultimate with the player having to attack certain parts of the monster just like with the latter, though in this case, it stops them from doing their Qurio-powered nova attack. Their ability to inflict an ailment specific to themselves and Malzeno, as well as the toll the Qurio has on them, makes them reminiscent of the Frenzy Virus from 4 and 4 Ultimate.
• Sword and Fist: Invoked with the Ninja Sword, a Sword & Shield that uses a prayer bead bracelet as the "shield", turning its Shield Bash attacks into bare-handed punches.
• Theme Music Power-Up: In Rampage quests, a unique theme plays when a Counter Gong is used.
• Timed Mission: In addition to normal hunts being timed as usual, each wave in a Rampage has a specific time limit attached to it. Unlike a regular hunt, running out the timer counts the wave as cleared as long as the final gate is still standing by the end of it, making it an alternate win condition if the monsters are too strong to defeat.
• Tiger Versus Dragon: There's a notable contrast between the flagship monsters for Rise and Sunbreak. The tiger-like Magnamalo gives off the air of a fearsome wild animal, while the draconic Malzeno comes off as a more sophisticated and intelligent creature. Magnamalo is highly aggressive and direct in its method, while Malzeno fights more tactically, using its grace to deceive its opponents and commanding the Qurio as if they were its own personal army. Naturally, when the two fight in a turf war, it ends in a stalemate with neither monster coming out on top of the other. According to Capcom, this contrast was very intentional.
  "Magnamalo is wild and brutish, whereas Malzeno is shrewd and elegant. Magnamalo represents strength, Malzeno represents intelligence."
• Too Long; Didn't Dub:
  • The chant being sung while food is being prepared for the hunter is always in Monster Hunter Language regardless of language setting. Probably because it's dango (a notable symbol of Japanese culture) being served, and the jingle is already cute and childish enough that translating it might have been hard to stomach.
  • Played straight for most European languages, even those who received dubs in World: Only English, Japanese and Monster Hunter Language voice tracks are available. Otherwise, it's averted, despite the heavy Japanese theming everything else is translated.
• Tower Defense: The main gimmick of Rise is the brand-new Rampage Quests, where you defend Kamura against an onslaught of frenzied monsters. You accomplish this by taking control of a Stronghold, with various positions where you can use cards to summon emplacements for you to use against monsters and fend off waves of monsters to prevent them from breaking down the gates in the area. Monsters also come in different behaviors, such as ranged monsters, monsters that target Hunters, and monsters that target gates. Successfully fending off monsters, clearing sub-missions, and inflicting Blights and statuses on monsters rewards EXP that levels up your Stronghold, granting access to better cards and upgrades to your structures.
• Tragic Monster: After learning what's truly behind the Rampage, Fugen considers the legions of monsters locked in their destructive panic to just be more victims of Ibushi and Narwa's influence.
  • There are also monsters afflicted with the Qurio's Frenzy-like virus in Sunbreak, as they have no control over their actions and are forced to keep attacking until they either die a slow and painful death or are given a swift and (relatively) painless one in a hunt.
• Training Stage: Kamura Village has a training area where players can work on their Wirebug skills, practice with their ranged weapons at a shooting range, and spar against an automaton monster.
• Training the Peaceful Villagers: This was deliberately invoked by village leaders in the wake of the last Rampage where Kamura was mostly destroyed after the available Hunters were unable to hold the line against the hordes. Many of the people born after have trained their whole lives to defend against the next Rampage by fighting alongside Hunters, even if they have no intention of ever becoming actual monster hunters themselves. High Rank Hunter Ayame will note how surprised (and pleased) she is to see how the majority of Kamura villagers from young teenagers on up are adept fighters and wielders of Hunter-grade weapons.
• Video Game Caring Potential:
  • If you command your Palicoes and Palamutes to stop, and you are not in a combat situation, approaching one of them will allow you to perform bonding actions like petting, playing with them with a teaser toy, or high-fiving them. Sunbreak additionallly adds a "Throw Ball" command for playing fetch (provided there is enough space behind your Buddy for it), and the Dango Connector food skill grants temporary buffs to yourself and your buddy when you use the High Five or Shake command.
  • When outdoors in either village, you can call your Cohoot to come to you and either pet or feed it.
• Wall Run: By Wiredashing into a wall, Hunters can start running along or up the wall. Palamutes can also run up climbable walls much faster than the hunter can, and without depleting stamina.
• Warp Whistle: Like in World, you can discover suitable locations in hunting locales for sub-camps. After completing a sub-camp unlock sidequest, the sub-camp becomes available for use, and you can fast-travel there any time you're not in combat. Using a Farcaster (the only way to safely warp out while in combat) or fainting (if you haven't used up the faint limit yet) will still send you back to the main camp, however. Sunbreak introduces Recon Points, where you can dispatch a Buddy to one of two mutually-exclusive unlockable points on each map to act as a fast-travel point, however you can only use the Recon Point once per quest and it costs 100 Kamura Points for each use.
• Wave-Motion Gun:
  • Wyvernfire Cannons, when set to Beam mode, fire huge lasers at any monster within range that inflicts Fireblight on contact.
  • Some monsters' breath attacks have this visual effect, such as Rajang's lightning breath, Goss Harag's ice breath, and Basarios's fire breath.
• Weapon of X-Slaying: Rampage Weapons are a special branch of weapon available to each weapon type. They are made by gathering materials dropped off Apex Monsters found in High Rank Rampage Quests, and while they otherwise have fairly average stats compared to normal weapons, their defining trait is the massive number of Ramp-Up Skills available to them and their ability to hold more Ramp-Up Skills than usual, making them incredibly effective in Rampage Quests.
• Weaponized Offspring: The Rakna-Kadaki can throw its young at the hunter, which can then follow their mother's commands to strategize against the hunter.
• Wham Line: As referenced below, when Ibushi enters the story, something weird happens: Hinoa resonates with it, her eyes briefly turning blue. And she is able to speak its thoughts.
  Hinoa: "Where is my queen? Where is my queen?"
• Wham Shot:
  • After the quest that kicks off High Rank, the cast have managed to beat back the Rampage, only for an unknown flying monster to descend from the mountainside; Ibushi, the Wind Serpent.
    Minoto: What's that!?
  • Sunbreak has a chilling, non-cutscene example in the penultimate Urgent Quest before Gaismagorm. The quest is, strangely, to hunt a Lunagaron, a monster that'd already been the target of a previous Urgent Quest. Then you get to the Citadel and find that not only is the area being swarmed by Qurio, the map is littered with monster corpses, and even the endemic life (other than any Great Wirebugs you've already planted) are nowhere to be found.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Followers in Sunbreak will get annoyed and call you out if you hit them with your weapon. They won't take damage or flinch though.
• The Worf Effect: In the introductory trailers for the monsters in Rise and Sunbreak, if a monster who isn't the featured monster appears, they're likely to get beaten down by the one being introduced. Some of them are especially notable, such as a Rathalos getting sucked like a slurpee by Malzeno and a Zinogre on the losing end of a Single-Stroke Battle with Scorned Magnamalo. Downplayed with the introductions of Gold Rathian and Silver Rathalos, who are Elder Dragon level threats who go claw-to-claw with monsters at/around that same threat level, specifically a Kushala Daora and a Bazelgeuse, respectively.
• Wutai: Kamura Village has a very distinct medieval Japanese aesthetic to it, from the architecture of the buildings to the Japanese naming conventions, as well as the default armor for Hunters resembling Ninja gear, and many of the newly-introduced monsters drawing inspiration from youkai. This is in contrast to prior entries of the series, where even Japanese-themed designs tended to be mixed with other visual influences.
• You Can't Thwart Stage One:
  • No matter what you do, you'll never be able to avoid having the Apex/Wind Serpent Ibushi destroy the first major gate in a Rampage. The best you can do is to inflict as much damage as possible before it moves onto the second and final area.
  • In the final boss fight, you can't kill Ibushi before Narwa can devour him to take his power.
• Youkai: In the Monster Hunter Direct, several of the new monsters take after traditional Japanese art and creatures with several being Mix-and-Match Creatures. The Rampage on the Japanese website is called "The Night March of One Hundred Wyverns", a reference to the Hyakki Yagyo ("Night Parade of One Hundred Demons") where many yokai and oni would riot.
  • Kamaitachi: Great Izuchi, weasel-like Bird Wyverns that commonly hunt in groups of three and have scythe-like talons. The Kamaitachi also travel in groups of three, though typically only one of them puts its scythes to good use.
  • Karakasa: Aknosom, a Bird Wyvern that, according to the website, stands on one leg and has the appearance of a "monstrous parasol" with an eye-like crest on its head. The Karakasa is typically depicted as having the body of an umbrella, one leg, and one eye.
  • Kappa: Tetranadon, a beaked frog-like Amphibian that lives near rivers and uses ponderous, heavy-hitting attacks, much like a sumo wrestler. The Kappa is a river spirit that also likes sumo wrestling.
  • Our Mermaids Are Different: Somnacanth, a fish-like Leviathan with large fins that resemble the hair of a mermaid, and, according to the website, is often active during clear nights, causing many to mistake it for a mermaid. The Ningyo, the Japanese equivalent of mermaids, are much less attractive than their Western counterparts, being grotesque fish-like creatures with human faces.
  • Tengu: Bishaten, a monkey-like Fanged Beast that boasts a hooked, bird-like beak and likes to play tricks on other living beings. The Tengu are long-nosed mountain spirits that were traditionally depicted as tricksters.
  • Oni: Goss Harag, a demonesque bear-like Fanged Beast that inhales the cold air of its snowy habitat before breathing it on its own body, forming blades of ice on its arms. The Namahage, a kind of snow Oni, descend from the mountains every New Year to terrorize villages, brandishing knives to intimidate the residents. This is even emphasized with its armor set looking like an Oni, and the Great Sword of it looking like a massive carving knife.
  • Tsuchigumo and Jorogumo: Rakna-Kadaki, a long-necked Temnoceran native to the Volcano that's shrouded in webbing and throws its offspring, called Rachnoids, as weapons in battle. The Jorogumo is a monstrous spider that lives in holes and can shroud its true appearance to seduce people who get too close before eventually eating them.
  • Muck Monster: Almudron, a draconic Leviathan with a tail dripping with yellow acid dissolves the ground under it into mush, allowing it to weaponize the mud at will. The Dorotabo is a mud spirit that awakens whenever the rice fields he had in life fail, and will not let up until the current owners change their ways or run away, often times attempting to drown any passers-by in the mud.
  • Umibouzu: The Monksnail, while not actually a monster, is obviously based on this. It's a gigantic snail creature that lives around the Frozen Islands, and only appears at night. It's mostly harmless, but its sheer size, tendancy to only show up from afar when it's dark, and bioluminescent spots that look like Glowing Eyes of Doom have terrified sailors for generations.
  • Yatagarasu: The Felicicrow has a tail that it uses like a third leg, referencing the Yatagarasu having three legs.
• Zerg Rush: The Rampage is a massive stampede of various monsters. While each monster is a formidable opponent by itself, the Rampage combines their strength with sheer numbers.

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