izigame.me

Let me be clear; Sunbreak is genuinely a good expansion as Iceborne was for World. However it's a purchase necessary to make the base game feel complete rather than expanding upon a game that can stand alone.
A lot of the fights actually take advantage of the wirebug in a directly not-gimmicky fashion. It truly feels like when fighting the Malzeno or Shagaru Magala that you should be using wirebugs for your evasion. Even monster like the Astalos and Seregios feel like good wirebug tutorials. That in itself is an issue though because this is the EXPANSION not the base game yet these are the first fights where wirebugs feel useful, necessary and organically work as a tutorial. Wirebugs were never necessary for a single base game fight outside of the extremely gimmicky use of them to fight the base games penultimate Elder Dragons. Adding to this is damage output for certain weapons that make them finally feel viable and not easily overlooked due to faster weapons just being better. Again though why in the expansion and NOT the base game?
Honestly let's talk about the games (SPOILER ALERT) penultimate Elder Dragon fight to wrap up the story; Gaismagorm. This fight could have been a great use of the wirebugs and genuinely fun like Malzeno or even Xeno'jiiva from World's base game story. Unfortunately they ended up missing the mark and showing exactly how much of a gimmick wirebugs are by making them completely unnecessary for the fight. At no point during the fight against Gaismagorm is the wirebug ever actually necessary or even that useful. Every attack this big lizard can throw ouut can be blocked, dodged through or ran away from with the most minimal of spatial awareness. It's merely a damage sponge where ballista drop in and are mildly useful for an unclear mini objective. To top it all off the objectively coolest thing that happens in this fight isn't even something the player has a choice to do. It's given to Fiorayne as a cutscene.
If that isn't emblematic of the experience Rise offers as a whole then I really don't know what is. Ultimately while as good Sunbreak is it's merely the baseline experience of what people expected from the base game. Sadly what Sunbreak does best is highlight the missteps and failings of Rise as a whole and showcases them in the flashiest way possible. It gives you a fight where the headline mechanic is unnecessary and takes the coolest possible moment away from the player. Sunbreak is a completely necessary purchase because only with it will you find any actual variety.