Monster Hunter Storieswas first revealed back in 2015 to surprised fans of the long-beloved Monster Hunter franchise. This series turned the franchise on its head by breaking away from action hunting combat in favor of turn-based mechanics and a larger focus on story. The first title went on to see a decent amount of success, and we were later graced with an utterly fantastic sequel that improved on nearly every single element. Unfortunately for fans in the west, the first entry that was released on both 3DS and mobile platforms never received all of its content that Japan got, and many assumed it may be stuck that way forever.
Due to all the stars aligning, Capcom revealed that they were seeing fit to release the first entry in a remastered experience with all the content that fans originally missed out on and some other brand-new inclusions as well. Today we want to look at the remastered original and its sequel which are releasing next month for multiple platforms for players to get their hands on.
The original Monster Hunter Stories is where it all started. This series does not follow hunters from the main series, but instead a culture of riders who befriend monsters and fight alongside them instead of exclusively hunting in the wild. Players take control of their own customized rider who, along with their childhood friends Cheval and Lilia, are out looking for eggs in the woods near their village. After coming across an egg, they half-jokingly decide to see if they can hatch it even without a kinship stone that is traditionally required to pull off such a feat. As if a miracle, the egg hatches and the baby Rathalos that appears takes a quick liking to the player. They take the young Rathalos back, but after tragedy strikes the village, he’s hurt and lost while trying to defend it from a deadly Nargacuga.
It’s over a year later when the young child who befriended Rathalos is able to become a true rider, and alongside their new Felyne friend Navirou, sets out on an adventure to find out what is causing a mysterious blight that’s destroying the land and harming monsters. What’s even better for fans is now the first Monster Hunter Stories includes brand-new language options. The original only had the characters speaking in the monster hunter language, but now players can freely pick between Japanese or English audio in addition to the original if they so desire.
Monster Hunter Stories has Crafted a Simple but Engaging Battle System
One of the most-compelling elements of Monster Hunter Stories as a series is that the rider isn’t always the star of the show. In truth, when it comes to combat, they’re second to their accompanying Monstie, who is almost always dishing out the heavy damage to foes. In the first title, there are a grand total of four available weapons to choose between, including Great Sword, Sword and Shield, Hammer and Hunting Horn. What a player chooses in this title makes no difference besides the available skills they can pull off. Combat for the rider consists of two main options: normal attacks and skills. Stories functions on an attack triangle wherein they best assess their opponent and what style of attack they’re going to use. This can be power, speed or technical. Power defeats tech, tech defeats speed and speed defeats power. During actual combat, players can see if they’re being targeted by a monster and must then decide which style of attack they think they’re using and try to counter it in a head to head.
Successfully countering an attack will increase the kinship gauge, which allows stronger skills to be used, and filling up the kinship gauge entirely allows the rider to mount their monstie in battle and work as one to take down the monster until they’ve either failed two head-to-head encounters or used their kinship skill. The main appeal of combat is learning about the enemy, seeing if they have any patterns, and figuring out when best to be on the aggressive or take a break and heal. Fortunately, being knocked out doesn’t mean an instant failure, as rider and monstie share three hearts which tick down every time their health has been completely depleted. Losing all three means the fight is lost and they’ll have to take it on again to see if they can do better the second time around.
Outside of combat, riders will find themselves exploring rich lands filled with caves, dens and slews of items scattered everywhere. Picking up items is always important as they allow stronger items and gear to be crafted, while exploring caves and dens is where the main gameplay loop comes together. In order to get more monsties, players must venture into dens and find a nest at the end. Depending on where they are, they will find a multitude of eggs of various patterns that contain one of the hundred or so monsties available to befriend. Eggs vary in weight and smell which is noted by the rider’s ally, Navirou. Weight and smell play into the monster’s inherent skills and slots available, meaning that smelly heavy eggs will be more versatile than many others, but even a normal egg can be made strong through various means. Successfully bringing an egg back will allow it to be hatched and added to the party if the player’s kinship level is high enough. Variety is the name of the game and every monstie has various field skills and natures in combat to keep in mind when selecting a party.
Raising Unique Monsties is a Big Part of Both Stories Titles
In a lot of monster taming titles there’s some sort of breeding element wherein combining or breeding two monsters leads to something else. That’s not something that exists in Monster Hunter Stories, but they do have a mechanic that allows for fun and creative unique creatures through helping one another. In Stories this is done through the Rite of Channeling, wherein one monstie can transfer a skill of theirs to another. In the first title, this can lead to wildly changed monsties whose entire appearance will be altered depending on various elemental skills. It can also help mitigate weaknesses a monstie may have through defensive skills. The sequel builds upon this ability to gift skills, but doesn’t make any appearance changes and generally favors staying with the same elemental type of skills.
Although the sequel may have done away with one cool element on channeling skills, where it shines is improving nearly every other facet of the series and making it a shining example of a sequel done right. It reaches for a grander story, improved combat, more weapons and even adds multiplayer co-op quests. One of the most important changes is in combat, which helped solidify it as one of the most brilliantly crafted turn-based titles to date. The original played around with riders having a good idea of what attacks their opponent might use, but it was never a guarantee based on a monster’s behaviors. This meant a normally speed attacking monster might whip out tech attacks without much warning and left players open to losing a fight to sudden unexpected changes. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing as it keeps everything feeling a bit more random, butMonster Hunter Stories 2truly feels like it captured how to make combat have a great flow while still finding a good level of challenge.
InStories 2, monsters all have pre-set attacks based on their behavior. A normal power monster may switch to speed attacks when enraged, but won’t use those same attacks during their normal behavior. It gives players a reason to memorize the monsters they encounter instead of just hoping for the best. It encourages them to make note of what causes this change. Are they readying up for a big attack and need to use a certain skill to counter it? There’s a counter to nearly everything, but learning is the fun part in this wonderful sequel. Monsters still offer a good amount of challenge, especially later on, but it no longer feels like a crap-shoot to guess what a monster is going to do and helps the player better utilize their skills.
Players can even take their Monsties online to battle against others
In both Stories titles there’s online battling players can take part in if they so choose. The first entry offers just a competitive mode and the sequel adds a cooperative challenge. In Stories 1 there are one-on-one battles where players go head-to-head with other riders in order to come out on top as the better fighter. The sequel changes this and adds the ability to go into battle with another friend, leaning into the campaign that typically has riders fighting alongside another ally throughout most of the story. Two riders can also go online together and explore caves to take on dangerous foes or even collect rare monstie eggs together. It’s a delight getting to play with other people and take on fun challenges along the way. It’s worth noting as well that there is a way to do these online quests completely solo for those that don’t want to party up with friends or strangers, but it may end up a teensy bit more difficult depending on the capabilities of the AI companion they’re stuck with.
It’s beyond wonderful that we’re getting the originalMonster Hunter Storiesmade available on modern systems. Although we firmly believe that the sequel is a near-perfect improvement on the original, it’s a wonderful, charming little adventure that offers the beginning for many returning characters and is a delight to experience. It’s also worth noting that the Nintendo Switch version does have amiibo support. Although the original six amiibo for this title were never officially released in North America, imported copies will work and unlock some cool goodies for those that have them. They’re not at all something players can’t get in regular gameplay, however, so there’s no need to worry about missing out on other systems or those who didn’t manage to snag the amiibo.
We’ve seen a lot of turn-based RPGs move into the action genre, but it’s not all that often we see the reverse done as well as it has been with Monster Hunter Stories. It takes the strategic element of the main series and squishes it down into a colorful, turn-based adventure that’s not easy to forget without how fantastic it is. We’re thrilled that the original title will be made readily available next month and fans on PlayStation will get to experience both it and the sequel at launch for both. We’re only a few weeks away from release as Monster Hunter Stories launches on Switch, PlayStation and Steam on June 14. Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin also launches on PlayStation the same day. There is a physical edition exclusively for Switch which contains both the first and second titles and is available through various online retailers for those who want to ensure they can add it to their physical lineup!
Original Monster Hunter Stories Title Seeing Re-Release this Summer
During Nintendo’s Partner Showcase, we finally got the announcement that Monster Hunter Stories is coming back.
