For most individuals, gaming time comes at a premium. Despite doing this for a living, my actual time to play games could be very limited, so I actually have to be hyper-selective with the titles that I play. Despite being a giant Monster Hunter head, the Monster Hunter Stories series has never made the cut.
Its art style never really resonated with me, while its trailers all the time didn’t capture my attention. Coupled with my lack of information as to how the Monster Hunter Series, a series about bashing giant monsters again and again after which carving them apart for his or her materials, might be adapted right into a lighthearted JRPG, meant I’ve long steered clear.
After 45 minutes with Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection at Tokyo Game Show, there’s a probability that I might have been flawed.
An Opportunity To Dive Deeper Into Monster Hunter Lore
After playing Monster Hunter Stories 3, it’s clear the core of the series is ecology, and not only beating up aggressive monsters. It’s about forging a world where humans (or other humanlike races, corresponding to Wyvernians and Lynians) can co-exist, ensuring a fragile ecosystem stays balanced. The Stories series looks like a greater vessel for progressing this narrative, a realization that got here to me inside under an hour of playing the sport.
The mainline Monster Hunter games tell a superbly proficient story, however it’s all just very rigid. You exit, hunt a monster, come back to camp, get the following story beat, rinse, repeat. I immediately saw how the liberty that an RPG gives you helps to maneuver things along at a greater, more engaging pace. Every thing felt somewhat less hurried.
Twisted Reflection is the most recent game to handle an environmental catastrophe within the Monster Hunter world, with the Crystal Encroachment wreaking havoc on the land. It sees monsters covered in Blightstone, akin to the frenzy virus, which alters the creature’s biology and makes it more aggressive. This, combined with the ominous birth of dual Rathalos, is what drives the protagonist forward.
Twisted Reflection’s combat mechanics were, unfortunately, the weakest part for me.
While I got to have interaction somewhat with the story, much of my time with the sport was spent in battles, tinkering with Twisted Reflection’s combat mechanics, and this was, unfortunately, the weakest part for me.
Relatively than a typical JRPG fare, where you’ll be able to select from a spread of moves to wreck your opponent, Twisted Reflection relies on a rock, paper, scissors mechanic. In case you win, you damage your enemy; for those who lose, you are taking damage; and for those who draw, nothing happens. This works well in SRPGs like Fire Emblem, but in a JRPG like this, it diminishes the impact.
I would like to dive into the minutiae of my monsters, equip them with the most effective moves for battles, and really get into the nitty-gritty of all of it. This method doesn’t let you try this. In fact, Monster Hunter’s traditional elemental damage is there, however it’s still entirely reliant on you winning your rock, paper, scissors match-up.
The sport tries to deepen things by adding in Double Attacks and a Synchro Rush, which will be used once a monster is staggered, however the shallow nature of its standard battle mechanics makes these far less engaging.
Monster Hunter Stories Is Growing Up
One in all my biggest hang-ups stopping me from playing the Monster Hunter Stories games was just how childish they looked. In my mind, no less than visually, it was baby’s first MonHun, however it seems to have grown up lots in Twisted Reflection.
The Monster Hunter Stories team recently touched on how they planned to make the sport appeal to an older audience in an interview with Japanese outlet Game Spark, and that’s something I could feel here.
Comparing the protagonist of Stories 3 to its predecessors alone is enough evidence of this, with chibi, child-like characters replaced with more JRPG-esque ones, however the themes, and even the name, Twisted Reflection, exude somewhat more maturity, even when it’s not as cool because the Japanese title, The Fated Twin Dragons.
Note: It’s only a shame the battle system doesn’t match as much as the opposite, more engaging elements.
Monster Hunter Stories 3, or the opposite two games for that matter, are never going to scratch the itch that the mainline Monster Hunter Games do, but I now understand how they, very like humans and monsters, can co-exist alongside one another.
They provide the prospect to dive deeper into the fascinating lore of the series, without being so overtly aggressive, and if time permits, and I can shrug off the niggling doubts I actually have about its battles, I’d just check this one out when it launches next yr.