As befits a series that occupies the exact middle ground between Monster Hunter and Pokemon, Capcom’s spin-off continues to evolve in Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection. Where the first game was fairly kiddified once the opening was out of the way, and the second game upped the ante with teenaged protagonists, the third game feels a little more mature right off the bat thanks to an almost adult main character. Of course, it still refers to any domesticated monster as a “Monstie” but you can’t have everything.
It’s quite frankly a wonder that these games work as well as they do, transposing every essential ingredient of the main franchise into exploration-based RPGs with turn-based combat and a gotta-catch-em-all loop that doesn’t really get old. Twisted Reflection brings in a huge roster of monsters, including several that were only introduced in Monster Hunter Wilds.
In this iteration you play as the young Prince or Princess of Azuria, a nation on the brink of war with neighbouring Vermeil. Thanks to the usual convoluted Monster Hunter shenanigans, you end up in possession of your very own Rathalos, whose powerful twin is lost out in the world and may be the key to the bizarre corruption gripping the nation’s monsters. Teaming up with a group of veteran Rangers and the Princess of Vermeil, Eleanor, you set off on a quest to track down the source of the corruption. So far, so par for the course, but there’s comfort in familiarity.
Having played 5 or 6 hours of the early game I appreciate just how quickly Twisted Reflection gets going. It takes no time to get you out in the world on the back of your Rathalos, using hot air vents to get some height and soar across the land. Of the fourteen standard MonHun weapons, six are available here: Greatsword, Longsword, Hammer, Bow, Gunlance, and Hunting Horn.
You’d think dropping the franchise’s signature combat into a turn-based framework would chafe some, but anyone who has played the Stories games will tell you it absolutely works. While you’ll almost always have another Ranger and their monstie with you, you only directly control your own character. Each turn you can opt to use an item, a special move, or launch a base attack. Moves follow a rock, paper, scissors style formula, with Power, Technical, and Speed attacks all being stronger against the next. When an enemy initiates a head-to-head, you’ll need to select the appropriate attack type to win and avoid taking a heap of damage.
Do well enough in a fight and you’ll be able to mount your Monstie for a Kinship Skill, which is an incredibly anime-like, super satisfying special move that does insane damage. Reduce a monster’s stamina and it will be easy to stagger them, following up with a Sync attack that goes all out visually and violently. You’ll need to win fights to collect monster parts and materials to craft new weapons and armour. Now and then you’ll fight special monsters, either “exotic” or invasive monsters, or you’ll need to fight one affected by the corruption. These Monsters often have more varied or stronger attacks, and you’ll need to target specific areas to bring them down before they can unleash deadly attacks on you.
Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection wastes no time before it starts throwing side quests and secrets at you; anything to get you out exploring its beautiful world. While you explore and harvest materials like ore, bugs, herbs and honey, you’ll come across Monster Dens. Unlike in Monster Hunter Stories 2, the Dens are often small enclosed areas with a few pick-ups and a large monster nest full of eggs. Snag an egg and make it out without disturbing mummy, and you can hatch the egg in your stables and add the Monstie to your collection. There are deep cave systems in the world to explore, filled with materials, treasures, large and small monsters, and nests, but most Dens are very small and quite easy to get in and out of. Seeing Monsters out in the world will often trigger a fight if you get too close, but you can roar or launch a melee attack to scare monsters off or outright kill the small things like Bhanabra.
There’s more Story going on here, too. While the barebones framework of the story is fairly standard (as I said, it’s basically the same driving plot as every Monster Hunter game), there’s a lot of character work happening. Your Ranger friends all have their own backstories, and by performing their related side stories you’ll steadily uncover their histories and form strong bonds with them. Kora is my favourite so far, mainly because she’s incredible with a Gunlance, but also because what little she’s told me of herself so far is pretty interesting.
Hatching Monsties is the meat and potatoes, though, as they can come in multiple variations of each and there are tons of them to collect, some with starkly better stats than others. You can equip eight of them at a time and switch them on a radial menu, ensuring you always have the right Monstie for the job, whether that’s climbing walls or swimming. Having barely scratched the surface I can’t say yet how deep or varied Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection will be, but right now it has all the things I love about the greater franchise distilled into one gorgeous, sprawling adventure and I can’t wait to play more.
Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection is coming to PC, Xbox, PS5 and Switch 2 on March 13th.
