It’s not for everyone to hunt. Because Monster Hunter’s universe is ripe for a Pokémon-style game due to its abundance of monsters, the Stories spin-offs seem like an effort to provide a more approachable option, from adorable anime-style character designs to the series’ central premise. The concept that monsters might be allies rather than enemies is presented in Monster Hunter Stories.
You can tell from the off that Monster Hunter Stories 2 doesn’t deviate too much from its predecessor: you create your own character, who starts riding lessons after experiencing unusual events in their community. Once again, your navigator, Navirou, the cat from the previous game, shows up, and you set out to discover what it means to be a rider—a friend to monsters rather than their killer.
You won’t miss much in the way of context if you haven’t played the previous game, even if there are allusions and recurrent characters. Monster Hunter Stories 2 has a striking resemblance to the first Stories game overall. Like in the first Monster Hunter games, your silent hero is intended to be your avatar. That’s sufficient in a game series where the whole point is defeating monsters for fun, but like its predecessor, Monster Hunter Stories 2 takes a very long time to provide any kind of motivation for your actions or the necessity of you being the protagonist at all; it lacks Pokémon’s handy justification that both defeating monsters and collecting them is the ultimate goal and the path to mastery, if you so choose.
The main plot revolves on your rider and a frightening Rathalos, but in reality, it’s basically a series of missions that need to be completed by traveling to a certain location and giving a monster a massive blow to the skull. Everyone feels very bad about killing the monster since it’s a JRPG, but you still do it and end up with a brand-new hammer.
Despite this, Monster Hunter Stories 2 nonetheless creates the same type of rhythm as the Monster Hunter series as a whole provides. As soon as you encounter a free-roaming creature while exploring one of the many biomes in the game, turn-based battle begins. The “battle buddy” you fight with in this game is often a friend that is local to the biome you’re in and is merely kind enough to assist you in battle; Monster Hunter Stories 2 doesn’t really care why or how you defeat your opponent.
You have three attack options while fighting: power, speed, and technical. When an enemy monster signals that it is about to attack, you need to counter with the appropriate rock, paper, scissors move to deflect the blow and do damage at the same time. Every monster, including your own monster, which the localization refers to as “Monstie” to differentiate the two, has an element and a main attack type that you must predict the first time you see them in order to properly counter.
The first time you encounter a new monster, it’s a lot of fun to figure out their attack patterns, particularly because each fight has many stages when patterns might alter. Furthermore, the weapon you choose might have an impact on monsters in general as well as on specific bodily sections. The main idea behind the system is that once a monster is understood, it can no longer surprise you since the system is rigid. It would be preferable if combat didn’t often drag on for so long since biomes don’t have many different types of enemies, which means you’ll be performing the same things a lot. Battles may be sped up and ultimately even resolved instantly, but doing so seems like an acknowledgment of their excessive length and lack of diversity.
However, combat seem fantastic, much like the rest of the game. With their fast lines, amazing attack effects, and very entertaining special attacks known as Kinship Skills between Monsties and riders, they really come to life. This is one way the game makes use of its greatest asset—the monsters—and it’s very outrageous, entertaining, and brilliantly animated!
If there’s one thing that fans of Monster Hunter can agree upon, it’s that monsters are awesome. Gathering monsters and battling them to see what they can do is an immensely enjoyable experience. I can’t stress how adorably animated they are overall; each Monstie has a unique gait when you ride them in an open field, and crossing the planes with them while all you can hear is your Monstie stomping and the crunch of the grass beneath your feet has a meditative quality.
You will want to invest a good deal of time in gathering and caring for Monsties since they are quite entertaining. Either you may aid a monster escape after a fight, which will lead you to its den, or you can enter the monster dens that are scattered across the environment to gather eggs.
I apologize to the imaginary monster moms, but I truly like snatching eggs. I just can’t get enough of it, whether it’s discovering one with a new design, informing you that there will be a monster inside that you haven’t yet acquired, or the adorable hatching animation. If you really want to get into it, you may spend a lot of time utilizing unique objects and singing duplicate Monsties to transfer their genes somewhere else in order to fine-tune their DNA. Of course, you’re really sorry about that. That type of work isn’t necessary for regular fights, but it is for multiplayer battles and the challenging optional subquest bouts. Furthermore, and this is also a terrible thing to say about monsters who are depicted as either buddies or something you must murder if you have no other option, there’s the excitement of discovering what tools a smithy can produce for you with the new monster parts you’ve obtained.
Strangely enough, I think that Monster Hunter tales 2’s greatest qualities are those that are most similar to the main games. That being said, I didn’t mind that there weren’t as many tales as there were in the game. I believe Capcom is aware of this since the content that will be released in the upcoming months for this game consists of more Monster Hunter Rise monsters to battle and team up with, not anything related to the actual plot. As such, the monster hunt is undoubtedly going to be the primary draw for this game as well.
While some may not find the tale very interesting, others who like the original Monster Hunter gameplay may find what they’re searching for here—I know I did. Even when things were difficult, I wanted to keep playing MHS 2 to meet new Monsties and see old and new friends since it’s a caring and friendly game with charming character design, captivating voice acting, and some breathtaking scenery.