REVIEW : Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin (PC)
It’s a travesty that there are so few Pokémon-style games available on PC. Outside of the Early Access RPG Temtem, Pokémon ROM hacks, and whatever the hell this is, there aren’t many great RPGs involving combating monster teams. There wasn’t, at least not until last week, when Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin was released.
Monster Hunter Stories 2 is more than simply a good Pokémon clone; it completely replaces it. Monster Hunter Stories 2 is the Pokémon game I’ve been waiting for, with a gorgeous open world to explore, a fully voiced acted (and very adorable) storey to follow, and battle and catching mechanisms that are far more thrilling than anything Game Freak has done in years.
As someone who has been playing Pokémon since Red and Blue in 1998, the game’s progressive stagnation and reliance on the same core concepts is a touch tiring. Pokémon’s gimmicky new evolutions and experimental open-world zones can’t fully hide the fact that it’s tethered to 20-year-old notions. Almost every game follows the same pattern of walking back and forth in tall grass, fighting any wild Pokémon that appears, and finally striking it with a Pokeball to catch it. Repeat while crossing linear corridors fighting trainers or defeating a Gym Leader to advance to the next zone. It’s not that this formula is bad; it’s simply that it’s grown so boring.
However, Monster Hunter Stories 2 preserves the Pokémon-like charm and the joy of gathering and battling creatures without slipping into the same dull routine. The whole game plays out like a great “what if” scenario, combining Monster Hunter with turn-based JRPGs to produce something unique and thrilling.
Monster Hunter Stories 2 mirrors the hunting systems seen in the main series, rather than just catching monsters when their HP is low enough, immediately adding them to my party, or transporting them into storage.
In MH Stories 2, you don’t capture monsters but rather raid their nests for eggs to bring home and hatch. Monster dens are strewn randomly around the open-world zones and vary in rarity. Still, if I’m looking for a specific sort of monster, it’s often quicker to engage one in battle, mark it with a special item, and then—if I’m lucky—it’ll flee, and I can chase it back to its lair. There, I’ll be able to select through its eggs in the hopes of finding a rare one with boosted stats or special powers. But if I stay too long, I risk attracting the wrath of mama Monster (that’s what they’re called, ugh) and being attacked.
I enjoy how much more involved this procedure is, even if it occasionally diverts my attention away from what I should be doing in the main quest. It makes acquiring new monsters feel incredibly purposeful. I have to spend time and effort searching down the monsters I want rather than just filling up on Pokeballs and tossing them at everything that moves. And there’s always the possibility of obtaining a rare egg with boosted stats to motivate me to collect multiples of the same monster kind from fusing them to create one all-powerful beast.
Battles appear to be another way Monster Hunter Stories 2 innovates in areas where Pokémon has struggled. For example, in the recent Sword and Shield games, there’s a new ability that can cause Pokémon to spontaneously evolve into extraordinary Dynamax forms, tenfold expanding their size and supercharging their powers. It looks amazing, but in actuality, it contributes nothing to fight strategy because enemies may Dynamax their Pokémon in reaction, instantly levelling the playing field. Pokémon games have struggled to constantly add new features to their fundamental turn-based combat throughout the last few generations.
Monster Hunter Stories 2, on the other hand, offers one of the best turn-based battle systems I’ve seen in a long time. The battle system appears easy at first but gradually becomes intricate. You constantly fight with one of your monsters and a “battle buddy”—a non-player character with their monster companion. You can select from a set of skills and attacks that follow a simple rock-paper-scissors formula each turn. For example, power defeats Technical, who defeats Pedal, who defeats Power. When an adversary and a member of my party attack each other, they engage in a head-to-head battle in which the sort of attack determines who wins and deals the most damage. To win, I must know monster attack patterns as well as the attack type they prefer.
Winning head-to-head battles also fills a special gauge, which I can use to cast talents for myself or my monster, but when it’s full, I can also ride my monster and unleash even more powerful assaults. And I haven’t even mentioned how each weapon I wield has its own set of strengths, weaknesses, and damage types (aside from the rock-paper-scissors attack types) or how you may strike specific portions of a monster to stun it and win extra rewards.
Monster Hunter Stories 2’s combat seems strategic and varied when the prologue removes the training wheels. There are numerous decisions to be made regarding weapon types, attack types, which monster I have fought beside me, and how to best coordinate assaults with my combat buddy. It’s also really great that I get to witness these conflicts personally. It’s like Ash Ketchum choking a Jigglypuff as Pikachu drops kicks it in the groin.
The presentation of these battles is also really entertaining. When riding a monster in combat, each has a unique Kinship Ability that deals huge damage and creates a distinctive cutscene. My Pukei-Pukei creates a big poison rain cloud with its tail, which it charmingly shields me from with its tongue, while my Bulldrome charges the adversary and impales it on its massive tusks. These custom cutscenes emphasize the distinct personalities of Monster Hunter’s beasties. If my fight partner and I utilize our Kinship Abilities simultaneously, those cutscenes will be spliced together into a new one as we launch a simultaneous assault. It’s fantastic. Part of what drew me to Pokémon as a kid was its idealized sense of adventure, as well as the novelty of befriending so many unusual and strange monsters. However, the series’ reliance on the same fundamental framework has drained some of the passion I felt for that series over time.
REVIEW : Neptunia ReVerse (PS5)
