I really wanna get into the Charge Blade; I took it for a spin in the training area last night and while it is a bit complex, I feel like I could get into it. I've watched some weapons guides on it but have yet to try it on an actual monster.

Also gave the Gunlance a try and since I've been a regular lance main with Tri it was pretty easy to get into and felt great. 

That wall running thing bothered me in the demo. I kept thinking you could only run up a short distance before you'd jump off, so I was always very cautious to quickly wirebug again. I'm not sure if it was a change after the demo or I just skimmed over the tooltip before, but I was glad when first playing the full game and reading you could hold R to keep running.

Charge Blade is the weapon I've used most in World. It's a bit daunting at first, but once you learn the basics of it's moveset (basic combo into charge phials into elemental discharge+transform slash into basic combo into charge phials+sword charge etc.), it quickly becomes familiar.

I haven't played enough to know the full meta or anything, but compared to the other weapons I tried Charge Blade always felt borderline OP. It has great versatility with it's moveset, it's not quick but not too slow and the damage output once you have sword and shield elementally charged into a full axe combo is ridiculous.

So far with Rise I'm trying out the new version of Hunting Horn. Of all the weapons, this is the only one they seemed to have given a full overhaul. Instead of just being a big, slow, weighty horn, it's more like a break-dancing guitar axe now. You're also not required to perform a page of sheet music to activate it's abilities anymore.

Is anybody else getting disconnected from multiplayer often? My internet is like 60 MBPS, but I keep getting dropped today. Weird.

Alrighty, I've now slain all the 3 star monsters and about to take on the first Rampage quest tonight.

Tried the charge blade against Kulu Ya Ku and oh man, I definitely have a new shared main! This thing is a freaking beast once I got the hang out of it. Sword and Shield is my primary but I'm also using the lance, gunlance, dual blades, and as I said the charge blade.

And holy freaking cow, Sandy Plains man, wow! Not only is the best looking map so far but they did such a perfect job of adapting the general theme and some of the landmarks of its original MH Tri incarnation into a huge, seamless, and multilayered environment. 

Glad that charge blade clicked for you.

I didn't realize that Sandy planes and flooded forest were based on tri but went there to just check and  now I'm hit with another wave of nostalgia.

One of my friends who just started working had said that he didn't plan to buy a switch and monster hunter rise to save for moving away from home. Yesterday he sent me an image of the monster hunter switch bundle.

Well so far the only aspect of the game I discovered that I do not enjoy are the rampage quests.

To me they are not fun because they lack the freedom of the rest of the game.

Cleared the first rampage, (I liked it, not as much as the main hunts but it was still fun) and killed Bishaten, which is easily my favourite new monster so far, a wonderful design and very fun to fight.

I just spent half an hour just roaming the Sandy Plains to gather Machalite Ore and Fire Herbs, and there was this moment where I saw Rathian and Kulu Ya Ku fighting way off in the distance as the sun set, and it just beautifully illustrated how special a game this is.

Man those stupid relic artefacts will make me waste hours in roaming mode >.

Yeah, it bothers me how few I found so far and I probably have to go into expeditions to systematically search for them. That I found so few so far indicates, that I didn't found all that the maps have to offer yet.

BTW, in the flooded forest

I can't reach it with wirebugs, anyone found a way in?

Yep. You need to get on your dog, jump with your dog facing the wall, jump off your dog, wall run until your do the wall flip, then wirebug three times in a row to reach it. I managed to do it on my 3rd try.