Monster Hunter Rise guide: Canteen and Dango, explained

Eating is one of the most important parts of Monster Hunter Rise — just like in life. Rise changes the canteen from a giant feast into a smaller scale Dango dumplings shop. But this new Dango is just as impactful as previous meals, and it actually makes getting the perks you want easier.

In this Monster Hunter Rise guide, we’ll explain how the canteen works and offer some early Dango worth checking out.

Eat before every hunt

No matter how difficult your hunt, always spend cash — or points — to eat a quick meal. You can get some awesome perks from Dango, and we’ll get to that next, but what you’re really looking for is the health and stamina boost.

If you don’t eat a meal before you hunt, you’ll start the mission with very low stamina and HP. You’ll die quickly, and you won’t be able to run very far at all. For the cost, it’s always worth it to eat for the stat buffs alone. Thankfully, the game shows you a little Dango icon next to your ready bar before you go on a quest. So get in the habit of making sure you’ve eaten before you leave.

Use Dango for perks, and complete missions for new Dango flavors

Unlike previous Monster Hunter games where you really had to combine ingredients to create your meal, Monster Hunter Rise’s Dango system is simple. You pick three Dango that you want — each correlating to a perk like reduced damage or extra carves from a monster — and you put them together. The game tells you how likely you are to activate those perks, you eat your meal, and it tells you which perks got applied.

You’ll start out with some great Dango, but you’ll also unlock more as you progress. Usually you’ll get some new Dango when you level up your Hunting Rank either via the Village or Hub quests — Yomogi, the chef, will let you know when she has something new in stock.

But Yomogi will occasionally send you on quests for her. This usually involves hunting a specific monster or monsters. Complete these quests — both Hub and Village — and you’ll unlock some extra Dango flavors with new perks.

Best defensive Dango early on

Image: Capcom via Polygon

Dango can really help you out in Monster Hunter Rise, and some perks even get you bonus loot during your hunts. But if you’re new to Monster Hunter, or you’re fighting a monster you’ve never seen before, focus on protective Dango over anything else — it’s more important to complete your hunt than get a bonus item.

From the start, you’ll have three helpful defensive Dango:

1. Dango Defender — sometimes decreases the damage you take
2. Dango Feet — helps prevent getting knocked down by monsters
3. Dango Medic — increases health recovery from items

None of these Dango are particularly exciting, but they’ll help you survive your hunts. And outside of Dango Feet, they all have high activation chances, which means you should have Dango Defender and Dango Medic active in 80% of your hunts.

We recommend you save these three Dango in one of your “the usual” loadout spots, as it’ll make reordering it easy.

Use Dango Tickets to guarantee perks on difficult hunts

By completing various missions or reaching milestones in Monster Hunter Rise, Yomogi and others will give you Dango Tickets. These are rare, but they make it more likely for you to get perks when you eat Dango.

Because of how rare they are, save these Dango Tickets until you’re going on a tough hunt. Fighting a monster that’s given you trouble in previous games? Dango Ticket the order we gave you above. Failed a hunt a few times? Use that Dango Ticket to guarantee some perks.