Playing JRPGs was something I know I do a lot less of now as compared to my younger years, as responsibilities have eventually made it a lot less feasible for me to just no-life a game to completion like how I did when employment was an option. No, a lot of that time has gone to digging mobile games for gacha rocks and raising anime horsegirls, and yes, I’ll talk more about that soon. Well, that and Monster Hunter. While the latest installment has a rather mixed reception over time, I came to enjoy it for what it offered. Where I’ve spent hundreds of hours on it because the hunts themselves are pretty fun. So when I was told that we may be looking at a Monster Hunter RPG game to play, I was genuinely curious.
Monster Hunter Stories is the name of the game, where even though I’ve never really tried it, I’m going straight to the third game, Twisted Reflection. How would they translate the experience of doing hunts? How are the signature weapons and styles going to interact? There are all those questions, but this is also the third game. A bit of research shows that the first two titles were more or less a coming-of-age story for young adventurers. There’s also quite a bit of shift in the art style, suggesting that the game can be targeting a different audience. So how well that plays out is also anyone’s guess.
But finally, the question at the bottom of it all is if a spin-off RPG can stand on its own? If you’re targeting a different audience who may not be into the action genre, putting it into the hands of those who might be more amicable towards turn-based combat, what changes would you have to apply to make it a good game? Will those changes be alienating for the original fanbase?
Well, to be honest, this title gave me a bit of a hard time at the start. Which I think is typical for most RPGs having a rather rough onboarding process. But when you let it play out and give it an honest try at what it wants you to do, it does show a good time. Just, it does ask you to do things the way it wants you to. So let’s hop on our favorite Rathalos and see where the journey takes us. Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection, let’s take a closer look!
Production
This time around, Monster Hunter Stories has taken a more mature look when compared to the last installments, and that’s for both the characters’ ages as well as the visual style the game has taken on. More prominent features, more variety in looks, and more defined faces. You might think that this change in direction would be a consequence of people changing hands as to who is in charge of the development of this title, but the leadership behind the development team remains largely the same. The man who decides the vision for Monster Hunter Stories, Kenji Oguro, was the very man who’s been at the helm of this series since its first release back in 2016. So it’s more likely that what we see here is the series itself naturally maturing with its development team and likely its own audience.
While the level of fidelity isn’t quite up to par with its other contemporaries, Twisted Reflection was probably designed with its visuals the way it did because of its multi-platform approach. Though considering it’s on the Switch 2 rather than the Switch, I think they could’ve easily taken the graphical level a little higher. In my opinion, they went with this simpler visual style to make the leap not too great from its previous title. Still, they manage to make the characters look palatable; they animate and emote properly, and I hardly ran into any issues with frame rate or any of the sort on the PlayStation 5.
Now while the characters themselves do well, I kind of have to address the 30-foot Monstie in the room. (Yes, for some reason they’re called Monstie once they’re tamed. I humbly ask Capcom to reconsider this decision.) Model-wise, they look accurate and match the game’s visual aesthetics. And they do, in fact, have a bit of variety with the moves they’re able to do. But given that the combat format is something between Persona and Pokemon, there’s a limitation to how diverse these movesets can be, and you’ll find yourself looking at similar animations for breath attacks, tail swipes, and a few other moves. So the appeal of their presentation does get worn down if you find yourself consistently getting into battle with them. Even for the big unity attacks that every monster type uniquely uses, once you’ve seen them a few times it’s a bit difficult to feel pumped to watch them again. And it looks like Capcom was well aware of this issue as well, since they let you speed up and sometimes outright skip sequences in combat.
As for the maps or other destinations you go around, it’s probably the least impressive of the entire entourage. Trees, grass, terrain, and more are quite simplified as assets. But they do make it quite clear how you can interact with it. You can quickly see where there are gusts of wind you can ride, and it’s pretty easy to judge if you can reach higher or far-off ledges. It also carries this sort of simplicity for you to be able to quickly discern if there’s anything on the field that you’re supposed to pick up or find. So at the very least, it’s purposefully designed to be the last thing you really pay attention to.
As for the audio dimension, the game does a fairly good job. The OSTs themselves serve their intended purpose well, as the main theme does inspire the spirit of adventure. I can very well picture the shonen anime title card coming up whenever they spin up that tune. They also play the matching theme for special monsters when you encounter them. While that is a nice touch, I’m not sure who to credit here; it seems like an obvious choice, and it’s not like the included music was created for the game; it was already there with no real reason to leave it out.
Voice acting, on the other hand, was phenomenal. And I enjoyed both Japanese and English voices, as each performance had a certain charm to it and simply left me curious how the other dubbing would have handled it. Some characters would have a shift in personality with these voices, and I do think that was the right call, as they still matched the depicted designs of each person they brought life to. The pacing of the voiced scenes was great as well, not having much of the awkward pauses within them that would throw me off so often.
Twisted Reflection is capable of making great-looking scenes when it calls for it, though; Unity Attacks, as I mentioned before, make your favorite units look cool. There are also story sequences that are well-executed and serve as memorable moments for your playthrough. I do wish they had fewer points where people are simply talking to each other while standing still, but hey, maybe I’m just spoiled from other games that never try to make a dull moment. RPGs are meant to have a lot of conversations, so having times where they simply talk to each other without anything else going on is inevitable.
In summary, I wouldn’t really call the audio-visual experience of Monster Hunter Stories 3 that impressive, but it does get the job done, and does set the expectation that it’s not really interested in being something it’s not. At the end of the day, this is an RPG that’s more about monster collecting, and the way it presents itself does not distract from that.
Mechanics
Monster Hunter is a series that comes from a combat system that progressively got faster and more interactive as it went from one title to another. Where weapons evolved from a crude clump of metal that deals a lot of damage, to a crude clump of metal that you can freely aim. Kidding aside, it wouldn’t be wise to make 14 different classes to represent each weapon type. So instead, they went with six. Organizing them under three types of damage, giving you two different approaches to deal the same type of damage. Cutting damage is done by the Great and Long Sword, piercing damage is handled by the Bow and Gunlance, and blunt damage is occupied by the Hammer and Hunting Horn.
Combine these weapon types along with the typical elemental and status affinity some may already be familiar with from Monster Hunter, and we have what I would call a mix of Persona and Pokémon. But instead of trying to get knockdowns, you’re all about busting monster parts to gain an advantage in battle. You also have stamina to rely on for your special moves instead of the typical mana or skill point system. Managing it is the key to being able to maintain a good position in any battle. Lacking stamina to do an action you want can ruin a setup, and it also delays your strategy by at least one turn, which is quite a problem considering how much can happen with one wrong move in this game.
That doesn’t mean there’s no room for error, though, as it carries over the classic rule of having 3 knockdowns before you’re out. If your partner AI loses all three knockdowns, they can come back, but if you do, you lose the battle entirely. But getting knocked down three times without having a way to deal with the enemy is a clear sign that you’re either doing something wrong or you’re just entirely unprepared, so you should reconsider what you’re doing or just come back when you’re stronger.
Though there is a way to get around monsters that can flatten you with one attack, and that’s taking advantage of the head-to-head system. Basically, it’s a Rock-Paper-Scissors system where each skill can have a subtype of Power, Speed, or Technique, where the latter beats the former. You can control your enemy’s offense by responding to them properly when they aim at you. Unfortunately, there’s no real way to know ahead of time what sort of attack they’re throwing at you except maybe subtle hints in their behavior. So ultimately, like in the main series, you’ll truly learn how to deal with them with time and experience.
Another clear carryover from the mainline games would be the meal buffing system. You choose what sort of meal you’d like to have, which corresponds to what sort of buff you’ll have for the next thirty minutes on the field. Making use of this makes whatever objective you have in mind much easier to do; it can make battles easier, or gather materials more efficiently, help you find eggs faster, and more. I typically had the bonus exp gain on, since I was always rotating one or two Monsties out of the party for whatever reason I had. Which I imagine made future encounters easier to keep up with.
So in essence, you beat up monsters by taking advantage of the affinity system, where effective play lets you do free beatdowns, and doing that enough times will eventually let you access their respective liars that let you grab eggs for free, allowing you to have a monster of that type under your control. It really feels like a Persona battle system that has quite a bit of Pokémon inspiration thrown in for the meta-progression. Not that Monster Hunter Stories is unoriginal, as how you fight every monster and how you use weapons in the game is a great translation from its action game counterparts. But it does tell you what sort of audience they had in mind.
Content
If you look at Monster Hunter Stories and arrive at the idea that this will be at some level a monster collecting game like Digimon or Pokemon, well, you’re halfway there. You’ll be taking on a huge variety of monsters, and that means having to switch up your monster arsenal once in a while to keep up with what you’re dealing with. You’ll eventually want to have a few friends within your party that can cover as many bases as possible, and if you’re a fan of the Monster Hunter series, you’ll be wondering how you can access the more obscure and powerful versions of these monsters. Habitat Restoration is the system you’ll be using if you’re looking to achieve any of these goals.
It’s a simple game loop where you fight monsters to find their respective nests, hatch the eggs you get from them, and return them to the habitat to improve the health of that monster’s population. By getting their population’s health to S, you unlock a secret ability within that breed of monster; you also raise the base level they arrive at when they hatch. Making updating your roster much easier, in more ways than one. On top of that, there are actually a bunch of free slots for Monsters to occupy each habitat, which can be occupied by Monsters not initially native to the area. Do things right, and you might be able to achieve a mutation; in my case, I was only able to find Coral Rathian, and I wasn’t too interested in finding more as my current roster was already handling everything the game was throwing at me handily. I had to change maybe 2 or 3 Monsties when I got introduced to a new habitat, which wasn’t really a big issue in the first place.
Typically, rotating Monsties in and out of your party means some will inevitably get left behind. But that’s not quite the case for this iteration of Monster Hunter Stories. First, you can send them out on excursions to habitats where they can update their stats, ideally to gain new egg abilities that could only be accessed when the habitat conditions are better. Second, catching up on levels is actually quite easy for the most part. Experience is given to the entire party even if they don’t participate in battle, so letting new Monsties be on the bench for a handful of battles will put them within the range of being useful for your future bouts quite easily. Third, there’s a way for you to let your current line-up have the abilities you need, which is called the Rite of Passage.
Rather than ‘passage’ being used here as a means of traversal, it’s instead a method of inheritance. Monsties you control will have 9 ability slots, where any of those abilities can be transferred between Monsties. This is basically how you can customize your build for each of your Monsties, where you can aim to gain ‘bingos’ which give you additional stat bonuses by lining up abilities across the grid with the same color. Or give abilities that help make it more versatile against any type of opponent. I typically just gave them one or two abilities to deal with elemental affinity issues, like giving fire-type Monsties a water attack so they can fight other Fire types easily.
But what of your protagonist? Does he develop well like his partnered Monsters? Well, not really. Your human counterpart is already plenty versatile with the ability to carry three weapons into battle, allowing you to be effective in any situation. However, the economy for updating his armor and weapons to be able to keep up with his beastly friends is another story. Much of the materials needed to upgrade to better gear are locked behind other monsters you encounter and take down as you progress through the main story. So I spent a lot of time playing the game feeling underpowered until I could craft endgame equipment. I spent quite a bit of time looking for what I needed, ending up with a lot of materials that were for crafting consumables instead. I have to say that finding and upgrading gear was probably my least favorite activity, as figuring out the loot economy didn’t feel fun. I have a hard time taking down this monster; maybe I need better gear. Guess what you have to do to get this monster’s gear? Yes, farm that very monster that’s giving you trouble. Not exactly the ideal grind experience.
Speaking of grind, I have to say it’s actually required to do that in Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection. Monster levels are statically decided in the game, so if you try to zoom past the story, you might find yourself getting wiped by a Diablos charge or something a little too easily. Meaning there is an ideal way to play this game, and that’s doing a minimum number of side quests. While we know that most side quests are either slaying monsters or finding items, this title has managed to make at least 5 side quests per chapter that offer enough variety to keep things interesting. And those would be the Companion Side Stories.
I kind of have to emphasize how important they are for keeping the game experience from being too monotone. These involve the 5 other companions you have along with you for the entirety of the playthrough. Not only do each of them offer different types of quests, but they also offer new tools for you to use, alternate weapons for each companion, upgraded skills, and finally an alternate Monstie that offers a different set of skills. Each of these quests also gives a decent amount of screen time for your protagonist’s friends. Which honestly made the game a lot more enjoyable while the main story itself was taking its time to pick up the pace. They also lead you to places that naturally make you explore the map, where you may find more secrets hidden in the open world, or you just naturally end up getting the much-needed EXP points to keep up with the game’s demand. I did all of their companion quests as well as challenge most of the optional bosses in each map, and I ended up still struggling against the final boss. So again, side-content is pretty integral to making your Monster Hunter Stories 3 experience feel consistent, interesting, and rewarding. There’s just so much lateral growth that you have to explore in this title, or you might feel short-changed by the experience. Going through similar battles with monsters is just not that interesting when going through menus; you have to find your fun elsewhere.
Features
The first thing I’d like to thank Capcom for is the fact that they recognized that repetitive combat can be exhausting to deal with, so they left you with the option of having battles go at double the pace to make them shorter, or just skip them entirely if the level difference is too high. This was pretty handy when I was backtracking through areas for whatever reason; it also convinced me that they valued my time and let me do away with battles that already have an obvious foregone conclusion. Nothing about grinding feels better than being able to skip menial tasks and just get straight to the rewards for it.
You can also go ahead and watch the cutscene viewer from the save points if you think you want to view them again, or just in the other language. That is exactly what I did when I discovered this feature.
Apart from that, Capcom gives you the option of having some great customization options not only for your own character but for your companions as well, though there’s definitely going to be paid DLC among these. So only take them if you really like them. They do offer some free ones, and even give you post-game monster bosses to take on if you so dare. These are Level 90+ bad boys, and well, I finished the game at around Level 70. You want to be at least at the same level if you want to be able to survive the bigger hits.
Conclusion
I’ve just gone through the systems and intricacies of Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection. To be honest, I can tell you more, especially about the more inspired content they featured through my playthrough. But I think it’s best to leave some of this to your discovery of the world they built. Like a maturing young adult, it attempts to take things further, to make a bigger adventure that involves many characters while not straying too far away from the core appeal of the series. It trips up here and there, making some quests harder to understand than others, making the pacing require some patience to really get into, but I think it ultimately achieves the goals it strives for.
I was initially ready to write my thoughts on this title by the time my file was clocked at 12 hours of gameplay. Then I went: “Why not a little more?” thinking there might be more interesting things on the horizon. By the time I checked the file again, I was more than 30 hours in, so I decided to push it to the credits since I was already that deep. Monster Hunter Stories 3 tries to do some diametrically opposing things, having a main line story that has a sense of urgency laid against the concept of breeding monsters and taking your time to restore a habitat as well as helping the residents and your companions with their own problems. And if you’re willing to be patient with it, and you try to play along with what it asks you to do, the game kind of grows on you. You get rewarded with stronger companions, a few neat secrets, and a hang of how to do things. Honestly, for a person who has trouble making time for many things in his life, I find this to be a tall ask. And as I played through the game, I can see that the developers understood that. That’s why I felt like it was okay to put in the extra hours I did, because I never felt like they were actively trying to waste my time.
While the story was somewhat generic, the characters that you meet and interact with for the ride really did well to keep the playthrough fun. I don’t think I’ll be coming back for post-game activities, but I think the experience was worth the time.
Monster Hunter Stories is a worthwhile ride if you’re looking for a shonen kind of adventure, scoring a 4 / 5.
Available on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC, and Nintendo Switch 2.