Monster Hunter Stories is a spin-off series of an incredibly renowned franchise loved by millions, featuring a turn based battle system and a gorgeous art style with amazing character and level design. Can this JRPG inspired sequel live up to the name?

Developer: Capcom

Publisher: Capcom

Released: 09 July 2021

RRP: £49.99

"A new adventure awaits you in this second installment of the turn-based RPG series set in the world of Monster Hunter! Become a Rider and form bonds with friendly monsters known as Monsties to fight alongside them as you take part in an epic story."

Turn based battles done right, it follows the fairly simplistic: Rock Paper Scissors system we’re all accustomed to while adding its own flair to keep things interesting and feeling fresh. The battles last a lot longer than you might expect but that really helps it to feel a kin to the true Monster Hunter experience. Breaking parts off the monster to weaken it and knock it over is very enjoyable, going head to head and coming out on top never gets old and the further you progress the longer and harder the battles become so you always feel engaged. I was incredibly surprised at the amount of battle/kinship skill animations there are, each feeling equally unique and personal. While there are no notable difficulty spikes I really appreciated the lack of grinding needed to play and progress, it left the story feeling well delivered and evenly paced.

It wouldn’t be much of a Monster Hunter game if there wasn’t an abundance of weapons and armour sets to forge, with such a large variety to choose from it's hard not to be impressed by the amount of love and care that has gone into designing each set to fit the cartoon aesthetic. If that wasn’t good enough you can even forge layered armour sets so you can don your favourite set at all times without any sacrifices.

A large appeal of this game comes from collecting every Monstie available, with plenty of variety you can spend many hours collecting the rarest eggs possible. Finding materials out in the field is a brilliant way to keep the environments you visit feeling meaningful, making you actually explore them rather than just running straight through them ignoring your surroundings. Riding your Monstie is a great way to traverse the environments, each offering varying riding skills available to reach new areas on the map or even turn invisible, so be sure to consider which Monsties you take with you. While the areas might not be as large or as open in comparison to other games there’s still plenty to explore with treasure chests around almost every corner.

The online aspect to the game is very impressive, I’ve waited my whole life for an online co-op turn based JRPG, while it might be somewhat limited with what you can do it’s still a very enjoyable experience and I’m sure that you’ll find me collecting eggs and fighting with or even against my friends for many nights to come. The brief time that I spent testing the online features I didn’t have any issues with lag or dropped connections considering how notoriously bad the Switch is for online play I was pleasantly surprised.

Monster Hunter games don’t usually focus too heavily on story so it’s really refreshing being able to delve into such a well written and memorable story, there is some minor character development but nothing too impressive. However, the voice acting is superb, the performance given from each actor really helps to reinforce the characters charming personalities helping them grow on you throughout your journey. Not to mention the brilliant soundtrack, my only real complaint is the lack of music in some areas. Especially inside dens, all you’re left hearing is the sound effects of wind and footsteps leaving everything to feel just a bit empty and unfinished. The music that is there is actually fairly memorable especially in the more emotionally intense scenes.

The performance is this games biggest downfall which is a shame, there’s an amazing game being held back by limited hardware. The frame rate isn’t capped at 30fps so it constantly fluctuates from 60 to well below 30 which just feels really jarring. It’s still very playable and you can still have a good time but I personally felt like it affected my experience with the game as a whole.

Conclusion

Although it might not be a masterpiece it’s still an incredible experience, with so much love and care spread throughout the entire game I wouldn’t let the performance detract from your experience. Whether you’re a fan of Monster Hunter or not I’d fully suggest picking up this game, who knows maybe this is a great entry point into the well established and respected franchise.