It's Games Galore Out There, But Don't Ignore Monster Hunter Stories 3
It's Games Galore Out There, But Don't Ignore Monster Hunter Stories 3
The third entry in Capcom's Monster Hunter Stories spin-off RPG series is the best by far.
Monster Hunter Stories, the turn-based RPG spin-off of Capcom's monstrously popular Monster Hunter series, definitely felt like a "secondary" franchise when it arrived on the Nintendo 3DS in 2016. Its cute, chibi-style graphics and gentle storyline were a sharp contrast to the mainline Monster Hunter series' gory fights against enormous elder dragons that threaten to swallow the world. But, like the sleek and noble Tobi-Kadachi, it has a strong bite that belays its small build.
Capcom knows it, too. Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection shipped for the Switch 2, PlayStation 5, Xbox X|S, and PC earlier this year and earned almost universally positive reviews. It's one of the most intense glow-ups a game franchise has ever undergone: the graphics for Twisted Reflection are still more colorful and less violent than those of the mainline Monster Hunter titles, but gone are the chibi characters and doe-eyed renditions of fearsome monsters like Rathalos and Tigrex. Everybody is a fully developed character now, and they fit right in with Monster Hunter's wild surroundings.
In fact, Twisted Reflections' "built in" cities, history, bestiary, and geography (courtesy of 20+ years of recorded Monster Hunter lore) is the RPG's biggest strength. It's cliché to say a world feels lived in, but Twisted Reflections never needs to convince you that you and your band of "Rangers" are doing their best in a hostile world. And if the rampaging monsters don't erase them, the political drama crackling in the kingdom's air might get the job done instead. Twisted Reflections features considerably more story than a mainline Monster Hunter game, all on top of a creative monster-driven battle system that establishes Monster Hunter Stories as a top-tier RPG franchise that deserves acknowledgement.
No Monster Hunter knowledge? No problem! Twisted Reflections tells its story so well, and integrates itself into Monster Hunter's world so smoothly, that you really do feel like you're observing the events of a rough-and-tumble world from a more peaceful perspective. You, as the troubled prince of a troubled kingdom, lead your Ranger friends and their "Monsties" [zero points, Capcom—do better] to help whoever needs help in the kingdom. You respond to calls about monsters that are unusually violent, attacks from invasive monsters, sightings of mysteriously hulked-out monsters, and other oddities. You kidnap monsters' eggs(!) and hatch them into powerful offspring whose genes can literally be manipulated before you ride them into battle. There is little of the basic Monster Hunter gameplay loop in Twisted Reflections (not that Twisted Reflections doesn't have its own highly satisfying loop), and that helps set the Stories sub-series apart, too.
And with the new DLC that's just come out, now's a great time to get in on Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflections and the rest of the Monster Hunter Stories series. It’s a particularly great game option for people who love Pokémon, but need something meatier than a Pikachu's "Tackle." Try taking control of a Silverwind Nargacuga sometime. It's perfectly safe, as long as you don't look at it, make loud noises near it, sniff near it, scratch yourself near it, play music near it, fart near it, etc.