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TLDR: Sunbreak continues to build upon the good foundation set by base Rise. It doesn’t try to introduce crazy new mechanics and focuses on expanding its strengths.

Genre/Similar Games: Third-person action combat (Dark Souls, prior MH games)

PROS:

✅Tons of new content with master level monsters
✅Builds really start to open up with new skills and decorations
✅Some new switch skills really make weapons a blast to play

CONS:

➖Anomaly grinding can be a slog

Content (Game world/Narrative/Lore) –

In Sunbreak, you’ll get 3 new large zones, a new hub, and a few arenas alongside a new story that takes you through the master rank monsters.
Largely, its almost the same as base Rise, but more of everything.
Quick blurb here in the content area for the recent negative recommendations others are doing –
1. My save game was not compromised in over 100hrs of playtime. Not saying this never happens, but in my case I was fine.
2. Of my 107hrs played at the time of this review, about 80 of those hours were with mods installed. I have not had any issues or difficulties using mods from the perspective of Capcom. My mods are non-intrusive to anyone else and only affect my gameplay.

Gameplay (Controls/Mechanics/Loop/Difficulty/Bugs) –

Sunbreak expands on base Rise in very positive ways. More armor sets which means more skills, more silkbinds, more decorations. Sunbreak is great here.
Base Rise got a 10 from me, I gave it a 9 here – the anomaly hunts can seem like an artificial difficulty that can be classified as “Bullet-spongy” enemies. There’s an entire new rank to grind aside from master and in my opinion, it’s not really worth it.
Still, loads of fun coming up with builds to play.

Graphics (Quality/Art style/Animations/UI/Performance) –

Bumping this up from a 5 because I have had no performance issues since base. Smooth as butter, but still held back by the Switch.
I play a pretty stable 140fps on my desktop:
i9-13900KF | RTX 4090 | 64GB RAM | 1440p @ 240hz | installed on SSD

Audio (Sound Effects/Music/Voice Acting/Ambient) –

Aside from some new mostly forgettable music, I did not notice any improvements from base Rise.

Replay Factor (Side quests/NG+/Player Choice) –

I’m bumping this up from a 6 to an 8 in Sunbreak from base Rise. My reasoning is that it seems like almost every weapon now benefits from elemental builds. This means the need to grind out multiple sets to be as effective as you can.
While I completely understand the burnout related to how some ridiculous grinds can get, the option is at least there and optimal, if you so choose.

Final Verdict –

More of the same from Rise, with some new skills, monsters, and a whole bunch to grind. Sunbreak is a great addition to Rise and I love how it complements the game with new things that are already present, like switch skills, instead of trying to completely reinvent the formula, like Iceborne’s clutch claw.

Recommend?


Yes

If you are a fan of Rise at all, then getting Sunbreak is a no-brainer.
You can find my curator page here: https://steamcommunity.com/groups/Synik_GR