Earlier this morning, Capcom streamed the first presentation of the year that fits the “Nintendo Direct” description. It’s actually kind of weird that it wasn’t a proper Direct, considering it was for information on the Nintendo Switch exclusive title Monster Hunter Rise. But anyway, let’s talk about the presentation, what I liked, what I didn’t, and maybe some of the news itself.

Overall, the presentation was very good. It had a very fast pace as it bounced from trailers, to gameplay videos, to news items. The only onscreen personalities were Monster Hunter Producer Ryozo Tsujimoto and the game’s director, Yasunori Ichinose, although a member of the dev team’s voice was used to go over new gameplay concepts. It was a very simple, but effective way to share information.

On the negative side, their wasn’t really a whole lot of information to get excited about. A large amount of time was spent going over one of the game’s areas, which really just seemed like a typical snowy field. It still looks good, just not anything really new or interesting. They also showed off a new mechanic where you can ride and kind of control various Wyverns, the large dragon-like monsters. It does look fun, but compared to new features added in previous games, especially all the quality of life improvements that were introduced in Monster Hunter World, it was a little underwhelming.

Thankfully, the biggest piece of news was the one that we’ve been waiting to hear. A demo for the game will be out soon. There’s been a bit of confusion around when it’s coming, since the presentation itself said today, but the official Twitter account is saying tomorrow. I’m guessing it’s a time zone thing, but still it was disappointing to finish watching, go straight to the Nintendo eShop and not find the demo.

The demo itself seems to be the same kind of demo that usually comes out ahead of a new game in the series, at least since 4 Ultimate. The demo presents four different missions for you to check out, two are hunts and two are training to learn some of the new concepts. This is cool, for sure, but compared to the recent trend of demos that are just the beginning of a game that allows you to continue where you left off when the actual game comes out, it’s not as cool as it could have been. Still, as soon as I can check out the demo, I’ll post my thoughts on the blog.

And that was the first Direct of 2021! Not the most exciting, but not bad at all either. Here’s hoping for way more Directs in the near future, especially a proper, full sized Nintendo Direct.