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Monster Hunter Rise is easily the most accessible Monster Hunter game, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have its own fair share of guide worthy secrets. Like its predecessors there’s a lot more to the game than just wailing on Wyverns, with many features being easily missed unless you had knowledge of it beforehand.
Take Photos Of Everything
Just like Iceborne, Rise has a photo mode, letting you take photos of the various animals running around the maps. These even go so far as to tell you the names of the creatures while you take a photo of them, which is already a solid reason to photograph everything you see.
There’s more to it than that, though. For starters, there’s an NPC in town who frequently hands out assignments tied to taking photos, with the reward being more Great Wirebugs so you can make shortcuts. There are some special photo assignments too, such as the other NPC asking you to take a photo of a sleeping Arzuros or a farting Bombadgy.
Aside from that, taking photos is the only way to completely fill up your handbook for Endemic Life. While most Endemic life gets an entry if you interact with them, some endemic life, like the Monksnail, can’t be interacted with and taking a photo of it will lock it in as Seen.
You’ll also get awards, which are like mini-achievements you can pin to your Guild Card to flex on all your friends. You get these for doing basically everything in the game, so make sure to snap those photos.
Cohoot Nest
If you’ve ever played Dark Souls, you’d be familiar with the concept of the giant nest that gives you items, such as with Pickle Pee in Dark Souls 3. While you won’t have to give up any items, Monster Hunter Rise has a similar nest, hidden away in the Buddy Plaza.
This is the Cohoot nest, which is located behind the Grand Elder and can be climbed up. Every time you return from a hunt you’ll find new items randomly dropped there, which can be a huge boost to both your trading and your wallet. You can get items like Iron Eggs, which can be sold for a pretty penny, or even Lagniapples which will boost your trading cats.
The nest maxes out at 3 quests, so don’t forget to check in frequently to make sure you collect your items as efficiently as possible.
Trading With Rondine
The Argosy is a really important part of Monster Hunter Rise, but unfortunately locked away in the Buddy Plaza where it’s not always in your field of view. There are several important things you can do via the Argosy, which are important for you to keep your inventory well-stocked.
The first of these is the trading, where you can send off your extra buddies to duplicate items for you. More seasoned Monster Hunter veterans will know this is the best way to build up your Honey supplies, and how you get certain rare items which can only be obtained as extra rewards. Sadly, out of the box, the trading isn’t that great, since you can only have one item multiplied at any one time.
So instead, the game gives you Requests, letting you increase the number of submarines which means more items being multiplied. This is especially important early on in the game, since you’ll want to build up a good reserve of Honey so you can make Mega Potions to heal you up during the hunt. Some of the requests can be a little hard to get, but getting them can mean the difference between always having a cozy supply of Mega Potions versus constantly scraping by.
The second thing you can do at the Argosy is trade with the captain, Rondine, for rare materials. Early on this is a great way to access Pitfall Traps, which you’ll need if you’re planning to capture monsters like Khezu or Zinogre. You’ll also be able to get more rare materials, which can be sold for money (they’re purchased with points). You need to check back frequently for new deals, but this is definitely a way to support the hefty costs of upgrading armor later on in the game. Just remember to check out the Rare Finds tab, since that’s where these items will disappear and reappear.
Capturing Vs Killing
One very interesting thing that needs to be brought up is the dichotomy of Capturing vs outright killing a Monster. In Monster Hunter Rise, the game straight up tells you when a Monster is ready to be captured, allowing you to end the fight as soon as the blue marker appears under a Monster’s map icon. As a result, people online have been complaining that almost every hunt now ends in a capture, rather than a kill.
In previous games, this wasn’t too bad a problem to have since the way it used to be was that killing monsters let you roll the dice on body carves, while capturing gave you access to capture-only rewards. However, Monster Hunter Rise has added Carve-exclusive drops, meaning if you’re capturing every monster you hunt you’ll probably find yourself unable to get certain items.
The Hunter’s Notes are a great breakdown of this, telling you the percentage of every monster drop. While this doesn’t mean you should default to killing every monster, it’ll definitely save you some stress if you make sure you choose the hunting method that’ll get you the materials you want.
Play Ball!
One hidden feature in the game is the ability to throw objects. In Monster Hunter World, you could throw objects like flash pods via the game’s unique slinger mechanic. However, since that’s not available in Monster Hunter Rise, many fans without a guide have been lead to the assumption that we’re back to the old days of throwing things at our feet and praying for the best.
By holding down the ZL (Left trigger) on your controller, you can aim certain items ahead of throwing them. This is especially good for tranq bombs, since you’d otherwise need to get right into a monster’s face to tranquilize it.
The best part about this feature is that it even lets you throw objects behind you. There’s no real functionality to this, outside of the mad style points you’ll get from not technically looking at the results of chucking a flash bomb.
Plan Your Sets
While Monster Hunter Rise has a way more intuitive skill system than older games like Generations and 4 Ultimate, you’d still need a guide if you really want to optimize your builds. Thankfully, the community has always come up with Armor Set Builders, which let you select what skills you want while the site calculates which armor combinations will get you there.
It even goes so far as to let you input your charms, so you can make the perfect armor set without worrying about overloading any single skill.
It actually has its roots back in the earlier Monster Hunter games, when armor skills were activated by having 10 points in any one skill. Planning armor sets was very tedious back then, since you wanted each skill at 10 points to avoid wastage. Even since World and Rise simplified the system though, the community has used the set builders to make sure people can not only build the sets they want, but also check to see what other sets they can add to them.
It’s definitely a great time saver, seeing as you won’t run into the problem of having made new legs only to realize another armor set was a more optimal choice. That being said, it doesn’t remove the grind though, no website can.
Monster Hunter is well known for two things- iterating its systems every release as well as telling the players next to nothing every single time. Without a guide or a friend to tell you, a lot of the quirks of Monster Hunter Rise could easily have been missed.
Still, part of that is what makes Monster Hunter so fun as a series. Subreddits being ablaze with people trying to find the best combinations, secret features, the like, it all gives the game a much more cohesive sense of community, as everyone works together to make sure everyone’s hunting goes as smooth as possible.
