It’s Monster Hunter mania at this year’s Tokyo Game Show, with Capcom giving over a huge amount of floorspace to every version of Monster Hunter currently out there, from the mainline Wilds and crossover events in Final Fantasy XIV, through to the upcoming mobile title Monster Hunter Outlanders. The next big release for the franchise, though, is Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection.
The third entry in the turn-based RPG spin-off turns monsters, or Monsties, into rideable pals, fusing Pokémon-style collecting with a slower-paced take on Monster Hunter’s inimitable style and genre-defining combat. It’s a spin-off that’s earned plenty of accolades, and with Stories 3 it looks as though Capcom have created the best entry yet.
So much of the game’s appeal stems from its visuals. The anime-inspired art direction is effortlessly appealing, and here it feels closer than ever to Nintendo’s Breath of the Wild. That’s no bad thing, and when it’s combined with the unique armour designs and iconic creatures of the Monster Hunter universe, you’ve got one of the best-looking anime-style games in recent memory.
As a JRPG, there’s a far greater focus on storytelling than you’ll find in the mainline series, and that means more conversation, more world-building, and more characterisation. Luckily for us, we got to experience a good portion of the game during our hands-on at TGS. You’re Captain Leo, a prince of the kingdom who’s sworn to lead a group known as the Raiders. Alongside Simon, rookie Thea and Felyne pal Rudy, you set out to find the truth in a foreboding prophecy, in a world where various species are going extinct, and the kingdom is on the brink of war.
We got to play the demo build on Switch 2 in handheld mode, and I was initially concerned whether Capcom had been able to iron out the performance issues that plagued Monster Hunter Stories 2 on the original Switch. Thankfully, it seems that frame rate issues have been hunted into extinction, though I think it’s running at a more modest 30fps rather than the PS5’s 60fps. Still, for a turn-based game, that makes very little difference, and the exploration felt smooth and issue-free. Oddly, the only place where I thought I caught a couple of stutters was during cutscenes, but with these outside gameplay, and kinks should be ironed out before launch in March next year.
Three games in, the fundamental combat system remains in place, with you and your Monstie fighting alongside a companion and their creature. There’s three different types of basic attack, with Power, Technical and Speed attacks each holding sway over one other. If you end up in a head-to-head and you’ve picked the more powerful attack, then you’ll cause extra damage, and avoid taking any yourself, though if you get it wrong, you’ll be punished accordingly. It promotes learning each monster’s attacks and weaknesses, and it’s a clever way to bring across a facet of the mainline games.
It doesn’t stop there. As you fight, you build up Kinship with your Monstie. You do that just by fighting alongside each other, but you can amp it up with Double Attacks, where you and your monster have chosen the same type of attack. Once you’ve charged your Kinship, you can leap onto your monster pal and then unleash a Kinship attack that’s both graphically rewarding and massively damaging. Fundamentally, that’s the core loop of battle.
The demo featured a small selection of easily recognisable monsters, starting with the fodder of Velociprey, before increasing the difficulty with the Velocidrome and a Paolumu. Through the demo you saw the importance of focusing on attack types, and working with your Monstie in order to dish out the most damage.
The close of the demo showcased the final form of that, with you facing off against a Feral Chatacabra. Feral creatures have been afflicted by some kind of growth – haven’t they always? – and you have to think through which part of the animal to attack, and when.
Choosing the wrong time and the wrong part results in a vicious counterattack, so you have to bide your time before trying to remove the growth from its back. In the meantime, it covers its forearms in a different substance, and if you then aim for those limbs, you can topple it over, giving you and your teammate the chance to unleash a Synchro Rush, once again hammering it and its health bar.
Whether the additions to the turn-based combat make all that much difference remains to be seen, and in some ways, it’s just kicking the can a little further down the road. I do hope that the overall difficulty is a little higher than the previous games, or that there’s the option to make it more challenging from the off, so that veterans and turn-based fans can really get the most out of it. That said, it does exactly what you want, which is give you more Monster Hunter Stories.
Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection is the obvious next step for the series. That’s taking the graphics and the turn-based action up a notch, while expanding the world of Monster Hunter into newfound territory. The previous two games have given fans a totally different take on the mythology and magic of the series’ iconic creatures, and on early impressions alone, Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection looks as though it’s going to carry on that tradition.