User blog comment:BannedLagiacrus/Monster Appreciation Week: Rathalos (5th Gen)/@comment-15446856-20180516200423

Rathalos is a monster I always like, despite some of its more annoying features. A red wyvern with royal inspired patterns on its body and wings, a spiked mallet tail with a scorpion stinger resemblant end, as well as the usage of fire and the air.

World's revamp was honestly needed, as Generations showed that the old formula had started to really show its age and limitations. Although I am mainly neutral on the prior gen Rathalos, one thing I agree on that sucked hard was its hack talon attack. That attack in my opinion was the most robotic in the whole game, not only did that attack have missile heat seeking tech levels of homing, meaning you had no chance of evading it by running, it wasted time by having it fly upwards for 5 second before it did it. Even worse, after it did clawing, it would magically and extremely robotically be dragged backwards to its starting point, with it flying normally during this to boot. Also just like every other monster in the old games the charge attack was cheap and instant. Everything else would be okay unless it decided to spam its worst moves over and over again. Generations helped make it worse with the bullshit decision to make monsters invulnerable while changing areas and had them do it more often.

In World, all of that changed. Instant charges and the robot claws have been nixed for a brand new fighting style never seen before. Most of Rathaloses attacks now have clear tells, removing the cheapness element that plagued it in previous titles. Along with that, it gains a wider movepool to flesh out its previously basic one. It is now able to swipe its tail midair, use a strong fireball similarly to the Silver Rathalos in 3rd and 4th Gen, a new pin attack that is nowhere near as annoying as the old one was, a poisoning stomp that can be done on ground and in air and a talon strike while flying beside you. This and its much higher resistance to being knocked down from the sky via damage, makes Rathalos feel powerful again, something that had been trashed in 4th Gen thanks to both the Seregios and the Astalos, with Valor Style also making it a mockery. And it shows that regained power well by defeating the Anjanath, who in that point in the game had been presented as a powerhouse. However, the talon attacks still remain the biggest problem. Instead of taking long to execute, the main form of the attack comes racing at you with almost no time to react. And I mean, races at you. You've always gotta be ready if the Los turns sharply midair, as you've only got half a second to evade as it whooshes in with a savage strike that will leave you poisoned. And if things go badly, the attack also has a high Stun rate, so you're basically fucked if you have low health.

The equipment is as useful as ever, with its skills to help you get through the rest of Low Rank and into High Rank.

When that the bad things don't happen, the Rathalos is an upgrade from its old self in every way!