Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection Review
Monster-Sized Stories
Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection is the latest entry in Capcom’s spin-off series to its long-running Monster Hunter franchise. Beginning with a late 3DS game that seemed to be an afterthought outside of Japan, the Pokémon -like spin-off once seemed like it wouldn’t be much more than a curious one-shot. However, likely aided by the explosive popularity of Monster Hunter: World and Monster Hunter Rise , it saw a sequel and then a remaster of the original game that reached a much wider audience. This leads us to Twisted Reflection , which confidently refines the systems of the first two games and combines them with a more mature story to help the series find more of its own identity. With wonderful graphics to boot, Monster Hunter Stories finally finds a way to step out of the shadow of its parent series.
The story of Monster Hunter Stories 3 focuses on two neighboring kingdoms, Azuria and Vermeil, that are teetering on the edge of war. An environmental blight is wreaking havoc on both countries, with Vermeil currently facing more dire effects than the Azuria. The player stars as the prince or princess of Azuria, who must try to keep the two countries from war. The player character is also the leader of the nation's rangers, monster riders who help protect the environment of the kingdom. Unlike previous entries, the protagonist is fully voiced and a full participant in the story, joined by a colorful cast of supporting characters, including the princess of Vermeil, who joins the rangers of her own free will to assist in the peace effort.
[caption id="attachment_176327" align="aligncenter" width="640"] A colorful cast of characters keeps things entertaining.[/caption]
At the time of the game, Vermeil wishes to break a centuries-old covenant preventing the peoples of the two nations from crossing the mountains in order to seek answers for what is causing the plight. However, Azuria is insistent that they keep to the covenant, and the two nations fail to come to an accord. Thus, against the wishes of their own kingdom, the player and their companions venture off on their own to investigate the cause of the blight and what lies beyond their kingdom. The story, while never reaching the full height that the genre has to offer, has enough depth to entertain players while keeping the game moving and provides solid motivation beyond just finding and collecting new monsters. The cast of supporting party members is well written, and each has an interesting backstory that can be learned through side stories. The only real issue with the story is the lack of time developing Vermeil. Although its princess is one of the main party members and periodically discusses the state of the country, the nation is never shown. It makes it hard to get a sense for whether the seemingly nefarious leaders of the nation are acting out of malice or somewhat understandable desperation. "How we got there" quickly becomes the focus of the story rather than any deep look at the current state of these nations and what they're truly grappling with. These deeper types of themes aren't usually expected from a light-hearted Pokémon -esque, but the fact that the game presents these ideas and doesn't do enough with them is a bit frustrating.
Thankfully, the gameplay systems more than make up for a few misses in the story department. Unlike the main Monster Hunter series, the focus is on "riders", people who befriend and co-exist with the various monster creatures of the world. Players spend their time exploring various open regions while riding on their collection of monsters. Though not a full-on open world, each area is quite sizable with much to explore. Each region lets players use different abilities while exploring, such as flight, climbing, and digging. These are often required to advance to story-specific areas, or to find the many secrets and crafting resources scattered around the world. The turn-based battles are initiated during exploration, allowing players to use monster abilities to escape, chase down certain monsters, or even instantly defeat weaker foes.
Naturally, a major aspect of exploration revolves around collecting new monsters. Scattered throughout the world's various areas are randomly generated monster dens that players can enter. There, they can pick up eggs and book for the exit, where, by either avoiding any monsters present or successfully defeating them, they will escape with the acquired eggs. Defeated monsters in battle will sometimes retreat, spawning a special monster den with eggs for that particular species. Items called paint balls increase the chance of this occurrence, making it easy for players to hunt down specific beasts to add to their ranks. The game provides a number of reasons to catch many monsters beyond what the player will actually use. A habitat restoration feature lets players release monsters back into the environment and increase the rank of that species in the region, which serves two different functions. First, increasing the rank can be used to provide powerful bonuses to monsters of that species in the player's party. Secondly, increasing the ranks of multiple monsters in a region can result in different variants and even mutations appearing, which can come at a higher level. This is especially handy since most monsters start at level 1.
[caption id="attachment_181153" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Collecting monsters is highly addictive.[/caption]
Collecting extra monsters can also help power up the ones currently in use by the player. Every monster comes with a three-by-three grid of different skills, most with only a few included by default. These can be moved freely between monsters, even of different species, to give them new skills or passive abilities. This can be used to shore up a monster's weaknesses, add new types of attacks, or just replace old skills with more powerful versions. Lining up three of these nodes in a row with the same color or type provides additional bonuses as well. This makes collecting new types of creatures all the more addictive because not just is it fun to find new monsters, but even those that players not desire to use may provide new skills to pass on. The player character also has a bit of their own customization as well, though not nearly as in-depth. Players can equip and freely switch between three different weapons, allowing them access to an arsenal to deal with different strengths and weaknesses. Some armor and weapons even come with slots for adding additional skills or bonuses. Just like the main series, armor and weapons are built from materials collected from defeating monsters, allowing players to get gear similar to their favorites.
Unlike its parent series, combat in Monster Hunter Stories is completely turn-based. The first two games focused heavily on a rock-paper-scissors system of speed-technical-power attacks. Anticipating what type of attack an enemy was about to use was extremely important, but the system made the combat feel a bit monotonous. Thankfully, though that system is still here, it is a much smaller focus of combat than it was before. Previously, using skills required pulling from the kinship gauge, a pool of points that, when filled, allowed players to ride on their monsters and use super attacks. Twisted Reflection separates this and adds a stamina system for using skills. Stamina is restored a bit each turn, meaning special abilities can be used almost every turn, keeping combat dynamic and engaging. This is further enhanced by the new weapon system for human characters. Weapons now behave more like their counterparts in the action series. This includes everything from a melody system for hunting horns, to different stances for long swords, and even ammo and heat management for gunlances. There's a lot to keep track of, and players and enemies alike have access to more attacks that don't fit into the rock-paper-scissors system, making it much harder to counter attacks, and players will have to carefully watch monster behavior to anticipate what they may do next. Combat finally feels like a true turn-based interpretation of the main series's action.
Thankfully, there are a number of systems in combat to reduce the tedium that could have come with this wealth of new systems. Like Monster Hunter Stories 3 , the player's current ally and their monster act on their own. Though this can lead to occasional frustrations, mostly allies are quite helpful. Aside from certain side missions or other story events, the player is free to pick which party member will join them in battle, and this can be changed at any time outside of battle. Since each of them has their own element strengths and weaknesses, picking the right companion for tough bosses becomes extremely important. The players currently active monster will also, by default act on their own, but the player can pick their skill to use along with their own each round, as well as freely switch between a party of six different monsters between rounds.
[caption id="attachment_181164" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Exploring on the back of your favorite monster is a blast.[/caption]
Combat uses a heart system, with three hearts for each pair of rider and monster. Should a character lose all their HP, they are restored to full health but lose a heart. If the player's ally loses all their hearts, they will be out of combat for a few turns while the player losing all theirs means game over. There's no real penalty for death, as story battles can be retried, and other battles just kick players back to their last checkpoint, or in the case of a monster lair, kick them out without any eggs. Health and hearts are restored fully after any combat encounters, which greatly reduces tedium, but in return monsters hit much harder and can be much harder to kill, especially later in the game. The game manages to avoid having too much combat, and running away and avoiding monsters is easy if needed. The combat is largely a joy to engage with, especially with the wealth of customization available to the player.
Graphics and music are both standouts for Monster Hunter Stories 3 . While the previous game did not feel far removed from the series 3DS origins, Twisted Reflection feels like it uses the full power of Capcom's RE Engine. Environments are bright and colorful and feel alive, often with insects and other creatures moving around the environment. Battles are full of exciting attack animations, especially kinship attacks where riders and their monsters combine for a super attack. Monster designs also look very nice with a wide variety of animations. There is a bit of a lack of variety as far as the monsters in the game go, but what is there looks good. Sound design is also excellent, with attacks and actions while exploring sounding great and making good use of control vibration as well. The score sounds similar to other titles in the greater Monster Hunter franchise, with no dull tracks to be found. Some of the boss themes are very catchy and help create a sense of excitement for these encounters. Voice acting is very well done, with not a single bad performance to be found.
[caption id="attachment_176331" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Exploring in Monster Hunter Stories 3 is a feast for the eyes.[/caption]
Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection doesn't aim to completely reinvent what's been established in the previous two entries in the series. Instead, it smartly tweaks and iterates on what worked and what didn't work to create a much more refined and enjoyable monster-catching experience. The story touches on more serious subjects, and keeps things moving along well, even if it lacks the depth it could have. Combat is plenty of fun, with individual battles having more impact and much of the tedium of the previous series entries cleaned up, but exploring and collecting monsters is a blast, and having available non-battle activities for monsters makes it all the more exciting to go out and find new ones. Fans of collecting monsters and min/maxing their team will have almost an endless supply of tweaking to play around with. Any fan of Monster Hunter or Pokémon- like games should not pass on this one.
Disclosure: This review is based on a free copy of the game provided by the publisher.
The post Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection Review appeared first on RPGamer .
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