Of the games my friend lent me during our last meetup, this was the most intriguing one. BACKGROUND:
At this point, I've gotten a good taste of mainline Monster Hunter games. The spinoffs, however, are far from my realm of knowledge, so I don't really know what I'm getting into with this game. I do know that it's a turn-based RPG, but nothing more than that. PLOT: In contrast to the mainline Monster Hunter games I've played, Stories emphasizes the narrative heavily. In this world, there exist skilled people called Riders who, instead of hunting monsters, learn to befriend them and use them as mounts to defend against threats. Your typical hunters still exist in this world, and the cultural clash between the two groups is explored multiple times throughout the story. Your character is the grandchild of Red, the legendary Rider of Mahana Village who traveled the world alongside Guardian Ratha, an equally legendary Rathalos. You yourself are still a rookie Rider, and you spend the first part of the game learning the ropes. The plot kicks off after strange lights cause monsters all over to go berserk, prompting investigations from both hunters and Riders. A fateful encounter with a mysterious Wyverian girl leads to an adventure across the world involving an egg she gives you. This egg is said to contain Razewing Ratha, a Rathalos with strange wings that is prophesized to bring ruin to the world, and you and your new friends must go from region to region in search of answers. Joining you on your quest is a weird-looking Felyne named Navirou, who I think is a prominent character in the first game. As your character is a silent protagonist, he does of a lot of talking on your behalf, which can be grating to me at times. Besides, your character emotes plenty anyway, so I'd have preferred if they could talk. As you explore the world and try to learn more about Razewing Ratha's prophecy, you'll come into conflict with hunters who are hellbent on capturing your new buddy, believing it to be the reason for all the chaos. You and your allies oppose these people, believing that the bond between Rider and Monstie (a tamed monster) is stronger than any prophecy. It's an interesting contrast of world views, but over time, it's made clear that both sides have the same goal: maintaining ecological balance. The fact that hunters hold some responsibility in the world of Monster Hunter in making sure nature's balance isn't upset is a theme that's only really implied in the main games, so it's cool to see that be a main focus of this title. You'll meet other characters on your journey who have different points of view on the overall situation, from highly skeptical hunters, Riders who are cynical towards humans, and more. Some characters get an arc where they change their tune, but for the most part, what you see is what you get. Nevertheless, the diversity of perspectives across the characters is nice to see, and many of them have notable personalities. The big reveal of the truth behind all the chaos is pretty predictable, though I liked the added wrinkle of people being assholes in this world. In mainline Monster Hunter, the conflict is exclusively towards monsters that pose a major threat, so it's interesting to see factions of people who are self-serving and don't care about the welfare of others. I can't say their motivations are compelling, though. I was concerned that this game would require a lot of prerequisite knowledge on the previous installment, but thankfully, they only reference the first Stories game in ways that you don't need to have played it. PRESENTATION: Whereas modern Monster Hunter goes for the realistic style for its visuals, Stories opts to go in the other direction with a pretty cel-shaded aesthetic and anime-esque characters. It's cool to see monsters in this different style, especially since their colors stand out more. The animations are pretty smooth, and the visual effects for the attacks are quite flashy. A lot of the more powerful attacks are quite over-the-top (like Dragon Ball levels of insane explosions), which I found hilarious. Though I found myself missing the monster themes as well as Proof of a Hero from the main games, the music here is still quite good. The main theme has an uplifting vibe to it, the battle themes are upbeat, and tracks that play in villages or while exploring are pretty chill. Most characters (including nameless NPCs) get some form of voice acting, and across the board, I'd say their voices are solid. Out of all of them, it felt like Navirou talked the most, which added to me eventually getting sick of the character. GAMEPLAY: Monster Hunter Stories 2 is, as mentioned, a turn-based RPG, which is a complete departure from the real-time action of mainline Monster Hunter. I'll get into what makes this different from other turn-based RPGs, but I'll also discuss how much of the mainline experience lives on despite the genre shift. Most battles in this game have you take on monsters alongside your Monstie buddy. For the most part, you and your Monstie act independently (with the latter acting on its own), but there are ways to coordinate actions. Combat in this game heavily features a rock-paper-scissors system based on the type of attacks monsters do. They can either do power attacks, technical attacks, or speed attacks, with power beating technical, technical beating speed, and speed beating power. Your character can freely choose at the start of a turn which one of the three they can use to try and counter the opponent, while the enemy often sticks to one type. An enemy monster can change their attack type when they become enraged or via some other status change, which works like mainline Monster Hunter games. I really liked this added wrinkle, as it encourages paying attention to monster behavior. Party members targeted by a monster with a single-target attack go to a head-to-head where the rock-paper-scissors action takes place. Winners get to deal the bulk of the damage, and ties result in both sides taking damage. If you and your Monstie go for the same attack type and end up with an advantage, you perform a Double Attack that not only does major damage, but also completely negates an enemy's turn. It's a simple system, but figuring out a monster's favored attack type and countering it for a whole battle feels satisfying. Successfully landing attacks charges up your Kinship gauge, with the rate going up when winning at head-to-heads or landing Double Attacks. Either you or your active Monstie can spend the gauge to cast skills with all sorts of effects or bonuses, or you can wait for it to become full so you can use the Ride command. Doing so heals a significant portion of your health and your Monstie's health, and while riding the Monstie, you can use a powerful Kinship attack that does insane damage. Depending on the monster, you can target monster parts, just like in the main games. Each monster part has a health bar, and if you get that bar to zero by attacking, you break the part. The benefits range from disabling certain attacks or skills to even forcing a knockdown state where every hit for one turn is a guaranteed critical hit. I thought it was really cool that they found a way to implement this system into the turn-based RPG combat, though I thought it was a missed opportunity to display part damage on the monster model. Monster Hunter is renowned for its weapon diversity, though you can only use six here: Sword & Shield, Great Sword, Hammer, Hunting Horn, Gunlance, and Bow. Each one has a gimmick based on how it works in the main series (e.g. Gunlance has shell ammo, Hunting Horn has melodies, etc.), exclusive skills, and most importantly, damage type (another thing carried over from the main series). That means Sword & Shield and Great Sword have severing damage, Hunting Horn and Hammer have blunt damage, and Bow and Gunlance have piercing damage. The damage type matters when targeting monster parts, as some types are more effective than others. Again, it's cool that they found a way to make this work in this battle system. Defeating monsters rewards you with drops just like mainline Monster Hunter, and as you may guess, you turn them over to the Forge to craft weapons and armor. You can craft all sorts of weapons with varying elemental damage, buffs like the ability to inflict status, and critical hit rate. Armor is much simpler, as you craft a full set off the bat instead of having to make individual pieces, and armor skills are active out of the box. You'll unfortunately have to grind a bit to craft and/or fully upgrade your gear, but if it's any consolation, there's a fast forward button that makes battles go quicker. You can also pick up talismans which give you an additional armor skill, but acquiring them is as random as it was in old school Monster Hunter (from mineral deposits). There are alternate ways to acquire these, thankfully, and for what it's worth, optimizing armor skills in general isn't a hard requirement for success. Although you can only have one Monstie fighting alongside you in a battle, you can travel with a maximum of six and switch once at the beginning of each turn. Monsties often act on their own, though you're able to order them to use special skills instead. It's quite limited, but it's enough to deal with issues like Monsties going for a disadvantageous attack type. How do you add more monsters to your party? By visiting monster dens and stealing eggs from the nest, of course! Scattered all over the overworld are regular monster dens, rare monster dens (which have a higher chance of yielding high-quality eggs), and Everdens (special dens with a large map and special collectibles called Bottle Caps), and you can find one nest at any of these locations. Alternatively, you can force monsters you fight in the wild to retreat by fulfilling certain conditions. Doing so spawns a special monster den nearby that rewards you with an egg of that monster. This is a more reliable way of getting a monster you want, as in the other dens, what you get is random (though you can tell what monster it is based on the eggshell pattern). There's an impressive roster of monsters available in this game, with representatives from across the generations as well as a healthy serving of variants and subspecies (including Deviants). Since I've played MHGU, I'm actually familiar with most of the monsters here, but there are still a number I've yet to encounter in a mainline game, like Qurupeco, Nergigante, and a whole bunch of subspecies (like Glacial Agnaktor). I'm quite happy at how signature moves and mannerisms of the monsters were adapted to this genre, because I'd often see animations that are one-to-one with what they do in the main games. Every monster has a favored attack type they often go for in battle, and depending on the monster, they can have one of the five elements as their damage type. They also have what are called Gene Slots, where Genes that either grant buffs or allow the monster to use specific skills in battle. These are often random when you get eggs, but a mechanic called Rite of Channeling allows you to transfer genes from one monster to another to give them new skills or buffs. There's also a whole "bingo" mechanic that grants damage bonuses when you line up genes of the same color or the same symbol on the grid, which was a tad too much for me. You can also spend a turn to use items like potions and such. Most of the stuff I used involved healing or curing status ailments, but you can use Monster Hunter staples like Sonic Bombs or Flash Bombs to counter specific behaviors. In addition, you can even use traps to give yourself an opening, as well as Barrel Bombs or Throwing Knives to deal bonus damage. I really liked how the counterplay of mainline Monster Hunter was preserved through these items in some form, and I felt a similar amount of satisfaction in using these items here that I do on normal hunts. Failure isn't as punishing here, as if either you or your Monstie hits zero HP, you lose a heart. You have three hearts at a given time, and if you strike out, you're thrown back to the last place you saved at. When this happens, it's quite inconvenient, but thanks to fast travel points and various ways to restore hearts, it's not too much trouble. That said, challenging fights that feature multi-target attacks where both you and your Monstie eat shit can lead to a fair share of frustration. I don't know what triggers them, but there are occasionally quick-time events involving monsters clashing. You do bonus damage when you succeed. Exploration isn't fully open world, as each region of the world is separate (but those regions are still quite vast). Here, you can find monsters roaming around (and fights can initiate when you run into them), gathering nodes where you can get materials for crafting or selling, and even treasure chests with goodies. On occasion, you'll encounter seemingly impassable areas like cliffs with vines, bodies of water, a rock barrier, and more. In these spots, some monsters can help you, as they might have field skills (equivalent to HMs in Pokémon) that can unlock the path forward. Thankfully, these field skills aren't required to get through the main campaign, as the areas locked behind these barriers are for optional bonuses. Throughout the campaign, the game will have you be accompanied by a character based on the current story chapter. These AI-controlled characters fight alongside you in battle, and while they don't tip the scales heavily in your favor, they can provide meaningful support and take aggro. Your companion is fixed until the end of each specific story chapter, but at the end, you can freely choose your favorite companion to join you for your post-game adventures. Other things you can do include taking on subquests acquired from the various towns for rewards like materials, items, and crafting recipes, using Prayer Pots for buffs that last for a specific period of time, sending reserve Monsties on expeditions for bonus materials, and encountering Royal Monsters for a chance to tame monsters way above your level. When you beat the campaign, there's a whole set of new subquests you can take on to fight Deviants, plus an exclusive area with high-rank monsters, whose drops allow you to craft endgame gear. There's a multiplayer aspect to this game that I never got to try, with a co-op mode that replaces the AI companion with a real-life player, as well as the ability to take on others in PvP combat. Rider versus Rider combat works slightly differently, as Riders can't target one another, and victory is decided by the first player to force three strikes. You at least get a taste of this style of combat in the main story as you fight rogue Riders at certain points. VERDICT: I thought the way Monster Hunter Stories 2 adapted elements I recognized from the main series to a turn-based format was really clever, from emphasizing part damage, monster behavior changing mid-battle, and even specific counterplay like the use of certain items. I also quite enjoyed the game's sizable monster roster, and for how basic the story is, I liked exploring the culture clash between hunters and Riders, as well as the added emphasis on maintaining nature's balance. I don't find the grind to optimize gear and power up Monsties as fun here, however, though that may just be because I prefer to challenge myself with games like these to beat the game while doing as little grinding as possible. I still think starting with the mainline games is the best course of action if you want to experience Monster Hunter for the first time, so I'd wait until you've tried at least one of those games before you try this one. I think one would be able to more appreciate this alternate take on the series when there's that perspective of having experienced the traditional gameplay. This game is available on Steam: Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin on Steam (steampowered.com) - end -
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June 2024
Derryck
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