Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection | PC Review

I have been a Monster Hunter fan since I bought the original on release. There was something about the game’s comedic charm mixed with the almost unforgiving gameplay that just hit home for me. A little over two decades later and the franchise has evolved and spread to capture the hearts of even more players. With new monsters, weapons, concepts, and a variety of ways to hunt, Monster Hunter continues to challenge hunters. Now, Capcom brings us the third entry of the Monster Hunter Stories series, Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection. 

The kingdoms of Azuria and Vermeil are on the brink of war when a new, ongoing disaster threatens the homes and lives of the people of Vermeil. You play as a custom character, who is the prince of Azuria and a Ranger. As a Ranger, you are a Rider with a sworn duty to protect and help revitalize the ecosystem. When attempts for peace fail, as the only Rathalos Rider, you and your fellow Rangers are called into battle. As events unfold, you find out that you know very little of the events and people around you, so you and the Rangers set off into unknown parts of the world looking for answers.

Let’s Ride!

Gameplay in Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection is fairly straightforward. You have a main story mission and roam around an open-world completing objectives, gathering items, doing side quests, and raising monsters. As you progress in the world, the value of collecting items and raising monsters becomes apparent and this is where it shifts. While you can buy items to help on your quest, finding and combining the items you need in the field could be the difference between victory and defeat. Shops might not have the items you are looking for, so you will have to forage for ingredients to make those items and bringing the right items for things like healing or antipoison are easier to find in the wild.

Combat starts getting a little bit technical. During combat it will be you, your monster, another ranger, and their monster versus one to three opponents. Also during combat you can give your character orders but not the other Ranger or their monster, and if you don’t give your own monster an order they will act on their own. This is tricky because some attacks allow you to choose what part of the monster to attack for specific bonuses, such as using a blunt weapon for a hard shell or a sharp weapon for softer parts. Additionally, some monsters known as feral monsters have special body parts that will cause a counterattack if struck during certain times. Not being able to, or not taking the chance to, aim may cause your team to attack these parts and cause unnecessary damage. 

Some attacks from enemy monsters cause a “head-to-head” where you basically play rock, paper, scissors but instead you have power, technical, and speed attacks. Power beats technical, technical beats speed, and speed beats power. Winning a Head-to-head will cancel the loser’s attack and deal more damage than normal.

The monsters themselves have Elemental strengths and weaknesses that also need attention. As you progress and the monsters get harder, using every advantage you can get will be key for victory.  This includes making sure your weapon and armor are also being upgraded since they give you power and toughness but also bring their own elemental strengths and weaknesses.

Be Free!

Continuing with monsters, raising them for battle is also important. Once you beat a feral monster in an area it unlocks that area for habitat restoration. By finding, hatching, and releasing preexisting or new monsters into an area you strengthen the monsters born from that area. Different areas give special effects once certain levels of restoration have been met. This could be as simple as a health boost or as complex as adding new elements to monsters.

Alongside this are genes. Every monster in Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection has an amount of genes already placed inside a 3×3 grid. By using the “rite of channeling” genes can be moved from monster to monster and can be anything from specialized attacks to buffing certain attack types or even becoming more resistant to elemental types. Placing genes in rows activates a “bingo bonus”, the bonus depends on the type of genes used and the monster it’s on. 

Habitat restoration directly affects the strength of genes found on new born monsters. Putting both into practice will ensure your monsters are up to any challenge you come across and allow you to restore even stronger monsters later.

It’s a Game…

I get it. I know but it can still bother me when games don’t follow existing lore. And honestly, the players wouldn’t probably have noticed, but this is my thing. During the mission to unlock habitat restoration you get a certain monster, and they tell you that by releasing it into the wild it will allow the monster to reproduce and more of that monster will be seen and more eggs can be found. All well and good, but the monster you find is only ever female and they have established the male counterpart is extinct. They could’ve used any other monster and it would’ve been fine but no. Also, I found a Gravios egg and hatched a baby Gravios but a juvenile Gravios is called a Barasios. That one is a little nit-picky but like I said, it’s my thing. Rant over.

I have about 30ish hours in the game and feel like im just really getting into the story. I have hit a few walls where I feel the need to go back and grind for levels or new monsters. Usually my problem with games like this is that at some point you can’t change monsters or team members because going to low level guys will just ruin your game or actually getting those characters leveled is a grind itself. With Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection, however, going back and finding new monsters or breeding new ones of monsters you already have is part of the fun. There should be a slight revolving door of monsters in your party to hatch, level, and release to keep both the habitat restoration growing and your party as strong as it can be.

Honestly, these games aren’t my cup of tea and I’m kind of a purist when it comes to Monster Hunter; I haven’t even really stuck with the last few major releases. I didn’t come into this with high hopes, but as I get into it I find myself drawn more and more into the game. And not just because it’s a Monster Hunter, but because I’m shocked by how well they have translated so much of the other games into this genre. The animations they use and even the attack types feel spot on when it comes to countering attacks. It is a great way to see and experience the world of Monster Hunter without the difficulty of some of the other titles. As badly as I wanted to get back to my other games when I started this, I believe I might actually spend a little too much time playing this!

To hear me talk more about Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection, be sure to listen to the March 10th episode of The Gaming Outsider Podcast.

This review is based on a PC copy of Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection provided by fortyseven communications for coverage purposes. It is also available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch 2.