Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak, who are the Three Lords?

Monster Hunter Rise

If you've read our Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak review, then you know that the bestiary isn't one of the biggest - although it will be expanded in the coming months by the free updates already announced - but Capcom has cured the monsters even better than usual. both new subspecies and new creatures. In particular, since the first trailers there has been a lot of talk about the Three Lords, that is, the three completely new monsters that are endangering the outpost of Elgado and that we will be called to defeat.

Led by Malzeno, the monster cover of the expansion, the Three Lords immediately caught our attention because their designs are nothing short of folkloric. While the monsters in the base game were inspired by Japanese or Asian mythology, in this case the Japanese developer looked to the West.

Let's find out together the Three Lords of Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak in the next few lines.

Lunagaron

Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak, the Lunagaron can get on its hind legs The Lunagaron he is perhaps the least inspired monster of the Three Lords, but only in appearance. Its appearance recalls the fanged beasts introduced with Monster Hunter World, namely the Oodogaron and the Tobi-Kadachi: it is an agile four-legged predator that has an internal organ capable of freezing the air around it, transforming it into a armor of ice as sharp as another monster of previous generations, the Zamtrios.

However, the Lunagaron has what we could define a real final form: it normally walks on all fours, but it can stand on its hind legs, with its back arched, and attack hunters with its front legs and their sharp claws. If the name and its lupine appearance only suggested it, its final form confirms the source of inspiration: the werewolf.

According to legends, werewolves, or werewolves, are human beings condemned by a curse to turn into wolves during the full moon or of their own free will. In reality, there is a subtle difference between werewolf and werewolf. The werewolf, generally, can transform at will and without losing his human conscience, while becoming more ferocious and aggressive; the werewolf, on the other hand, can also be a real animal, albeit gigantic and ravenous, or a cursed human being who has no control over metamorphosis.

The origins of this legend could refer to clinical lycanthropy, a very rare mental illness that causes people in specific conditions to become particularly violent or ferocious, for example during full moon nights. It is possible that, in ancient times, people afflicted with this pathology were considered possessed or cursed, and in fact in its incarnations the werewolf is often associated with witchcraft.

Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak, the Lunagaron is inspired by the werewolf The figure of the werewolf, which obviously is closely linked to the wolf, an animal that centers various beliefs and that for a long time, especially in the Middle Ages, was considered a diabolical manifestation, can be glimpsed in the most varied cultures. Over the centuries the wolf has been re-evaluated and has taken on the most disparate meanings in the human imagination, from shamanic guide to ancestor of man's best friend, but the werewolf has carved out a place for himself in mythology and has inspired literature and fiction of all types. Just think that the oldest poem in which the curse of the werewolf appears dates back to the twelfth century, while the first themed film, a silent short film from 1913, was even lost forever in a fire.

Garangolm

Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak, the Garangolm attacks with two elements at the same time The Garangolm is a very special monster, because it is not inspired by a specific myth ... but by multiple ones. It is a fanged beast that lurks in the swamps around Elgado, and which apparently resembles the Rajang, sharing the same 3D skeleton: it looks like a hunched gorilla, but it is covered in scales on which moss grows.

The Garangolm has in fact the power to convert the lymph produced by its glands into water or fire through a biochemical process reminiscent of another monster unpublished in the West: the Eruzerion of Monster Hunter Frontier Z. In addition, this monster has a forked tail similar to that of the Bishaten, but its square head immediately recalls the more traditional image we have of the iconic Frankenstein monster. And being a collage creature, so to speak, the Garangolm is probably inspired by two other folkloric monsters: the Jewish golem and the black lagoon monster.

Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak, the gills of the Garangolm make us think to the monster of the black lagoon Everyone knows Frankenstein's monster, although many simply call it Frankenstein, mistakenly because Victor Frankenstein is just the scientist who built it, putting together the pieces of various corpses in an experiment with which he gave it life. The idea came to Mary Shelley, a young British writer who published the novel Frankenstein or the modern Prometheus in 1818, aged only nineteen. Again, there is plenty of choice in terms of popular culture. Mary Shelley's work has inspired a countless number of productions, probably the most famous being the 1994 film of the same name directed by Kenneth Branagh - who also plays Victor - starring Robert De Niro as the monster.

Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak, Garangolm and Lunagaron in a territorial dispute As we said, however, the Garangolm is reminiscent of two other folkloric monsters. The golem is a creature from Jewish mythology mentioned in the Kabbalah. According to legend, scholars were able to build a very strong clay giant without intellectual faculties that obeyed any order. The name indicates a shapeless mass that for the Jews would have been Adam before God granted him the soul.

There are several legends about the figure of the golem, which is attributable to other folklore figures, including the zombie, but the myth began to spread rather late, and to be precise starting from the eighteenth century. This did not stop him from influencing popular culture, so much so that this creature often appears in many video games, as a common enemy or as a boss.

Monstre Huntrer Rise: Sunbreak, the Garangolm is inspired by the monster of Frankenstein Finally, in the gills that the Garangolm sports on the sides of the head, we cannot help but see those of the black lagoon monster, a creature commonly called Gill-man, which dates back to a 1954 black and white film, The monster. of the black lagoon, in fact, or Creature from the Black Lagoon if you are looking for the title in English. Considering the environment in which the Garangolm moves, its aquatic powers and the strong connection it has with nature, it is very likely that Capcom shuffled the cards to make his Frankenstein monster a well-rounded creature combo.

Staying on the subject of video games, or almost, the monster of the black lagoon inspired Guillermo del Toro to shoot the award-winning The Shape of Water, a horror story that took home four Oscars.

Malzeno

Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak, the Malzeno is inspired by the myth of vampires The leader of the Three Lords is also the cover monster of Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak and to draw him Capcom has inspired by what is probably the most famous mythological monster of all: Count Dracula. Apart from the fact that it seems useless to list the myriads of video games that have to do with Dracula - like all Castlevanias - it must be said that the artists of Capcom have made a distinction, in this sense. The Malzeno is clearly a vampire, because the powers of this elder dragon allow it to absorb the life energy of its prey: in appearance, the Malzeno resembles elder dragons such as the Velkhana or the Kushala Daora, but its animations convey a sense. of royalty, menace and power that immediately suggests a far more dangerous creature.

The Malzeno controls a swarm of symbiotic insects called Qurio, which it can hurl at its victims to drain their lives by inflicting a condition called Blood Malus: Hunters afflicted by the Blood Malus gradually lose life energy, but can restore it by attacking the dragon. However, if the Malzeno absorbs too much energy, it transforms into an enhanced version that moves so fast that it seems to teleport, and deals much more damage overall.

Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak, the armor of the Malzeno remembers the iconic Count Dracula Today we imagine vampires as pale romantic anti-heroes because popular culture has almost always been giving them to us since more or less since the early nineteenth century, but in reality the history of these "monsters" is so ancient and complicated that none he still managed to trace the origin of the name, perhaps the result of multiple linguistic and cultural contaminations in Eastern Europe that merged into the Serbian vampir and, by word of mouth, into the more Western forms vampyre, vampir, vampire and so on.

Although the myth of the vampire is rooted in the tragic and bloody medieval history, that of the metamorphic bloodsucking monster is a recurrence in even more ancient eras, when the word did not yet exist but its characteristics were attributed to demons or ghosts . Virtually every culture, from the Persian to the Greek, passing through the Babylonians or the Arabs, has its own version of the vampire.

Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak, the Malzeno can absorb the vital energy of its victims The most popular legend, in our part, is certainly that of Count Dracula, who in reality was not a vampire at all: Vlad III, prince of Wallachia, second son of Vlad Dracul, was known as Vlad the Impaler because he had this nice habit of ' impale his enemies and prisoners. Not for that he was a monster; indeed, he was considered one of the greatest rulers of his time, as well as a national hero in Romania.

It was Bram Stoker, in his 1897 epistolary tale Dracula - from which Francis' famous 1992 film was made Ford Coppola - to establish the archetype of the modern vampire, forcing a connection with Romanian superstitions and giving the character of Count Dracula not only charm and sophistication, but also very specific powers, such as the ability to transform his victims into vampires or to disappear and reappear in the blink of an eye. Just like our Sunbreak Malzeno.

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