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MONSTER HUNTER STORIES
review | 3DS
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Publisher: Nintendo.
Developer: Capcom; Marvelous. Released: September 2017 (Europe). Genre: JRPG. Posted 5th February 2026. By Shane Battams © 2026 |
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With players fascinated by Monster Hunter’s worlds and the monsters inhabiting them, a spin-off that trades action for turn-based role-playing isn’t the craziest idea. Finding a home on the 3DS, Stories swaps Hunters for Riders, and taming creatures rather than slaying them. Like most good spin-offs, it retains a lot of the charm and qualities showcased by the mainline instalments, while offering a novel spin on the formula. Inventive combat, fun monster raising and colourful presentation ensure it’s great fun for series aficionados and newcomers alike.
Monster Hunter Stories focuses on a trio of youngsters looking to find a monster egg. Along with your customisable protagonist, Cheval and Lillia manage to hatch a Rathalos, which immediately attaches to your hero. Unfortunately, the happiness is short-lived as a monster corrupted by the Black Blight attacks the village, leaving Cheval’s mother dead. As time passes, the three diverge on different paths, with your character becoming a fully-fledged rider. With the Black Blight spreading across the land, you begin the search to find the cause of this sickness while also taming more monsters along the way. It’s pretty light going for a JRPG, with a few characters lacking the necessary depth to linger long in the memory. However, Cheval and Lillia, with their polar-opposite personalities, prove likeable. Navirou the Felyne steals the show, however, delivering cat puns and cheering on your hero with a level of glee that proves infectious.
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Monster Hunter Stories proffers a likeable story and plenty of staying power. It's a great choice for 3DS owners.
On surface inspection, Stories bears a lot of similarities with Nintendo’s competing monster raising series: Pokémon. Instead of slaying the monsters you encounter, your hero’s Kinship stone allows them to tame beasts. Rather than capturing them in the wild, you must venture into Beast Dens and capture eggs at a nest. There’s a great tension to this, as sometimes nests can be unoccupied or housing monsters guarding the eggs. Sometimes, dwelling too long and collecting items can cause a creature to appear. There are even rare moments when they’re found sleeping, but can be awoken. The list of monsters tallies over 100, including creatures across multiple generations of Monster Hunter, and around two-thirds can be caught and raised. Growing them is not too dissimilar to raising Pocket Monsters, as battling earns XP and enables them to learn new moves. However, the Gene system offers randomised perks between monsters, and the Rite of Channelling allows you to move genes across, which proves useful for avoiding crowds of duplicate monsters. It’s a novel take on the franchise, with enough quirks to stand out.
Despite taking the role of a Rider, combat is still a huge component of Stories. It seems like a standard take on turn-based fights, but Marvelous would implement some novel ideas to spice up the action. Using a rock-paper-scissors style system, attacks fall into one of three categories: Power, Speed and Technical. Power is thwarted by Speed, Technical counters Speed, and Power trumps Tech. This turns battles into a tactical affair, as you must study which attacks opponents use and counter them. You can also use other moves, learned through XP and books. There’s a lot of cool combos to uncover, too. Using the same counterattack as your monster can turn it into a tag-team move, clashes between monsters require frantic button mashing, but reward damage, and your kinship stone allows you to ride your creature and deploy an ultra-powerful attack. Battles are highly enjoyable as a result of all these elements, but those not as keen can also speed up the process if they desire with a 3x speed option.
Despite taking the role of a Rider, combat is still a huge component of Stories. It seems like a standard take on turn-based fights, but Marvelous would implement some novel ideas to spice up the action. Using a rock-paper-scissors style system, attacks fall into one of three categories: Power, Speed and Technical. Power is thwarted by Speed, Technical counters Speed, and Power trumps Tech. This turns battles into a tactical affair, as you must study which attacks opponents use and counter them. You can also use other moves, learned through XP and books. There’s a lot of cool combos to uncover, too. Using the same counterattack as your monster can turn it into a tag-team move, clashes between monsters require frantic button mashing, but reward damage, and your kinship stone allows you to ride your creature and deploy an ultra-powerful attack. Battles are highly enjoyable as a result of all these elements, but those not as keen can also speed up the process if they desire with a 3x speed option.
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Those fearing this Monster Hunter spin-off would be shorter than the main games needn’t worry. The main quest takes a good forty hours to polish off. Dozens of side quests offer both fetch and hunting quests, gifting a great way to level up if you feel underpowered. Armour and weapons can be crafted using materials gained from monsters, with a huge list of Forge Quests to partake in. Once you finish the story, a bounty of postgame content becomes available, including high-level quests, two challenge dungeons to tackle and better gear to craft from tougher fights. This could easily double your gameplay time, and also doesn’t factor in battling with humans, either CPU or against other players, allowing you see whose rider and monster is best. There’s just so much content here, you might find MHS occupying the cartridge slot for a long time.
It's also a rather colourful affair, boasting a bright visual style and excellent sound. Characters are cartoonish and charmingly animated, monsters look excellent, capturing their main series sources, and spacious areas to explore look very good. A few technical mishaps can detract, such as pop-in and slowdown in busy open-world parts, but it’s not too bad. The audio is strong too, with high-quality music including some epic boss themes, cheerful exploration tracks and plenty of jingles and odes to the mainline games. The voicework utilises the same fictional language from previous games, and it’s quite plentiful for a handheld. The presentation is great, on the whole.
It's also a rather colourful affair, boasting a bright visual style and excellent sound. Characters are cartoonish and charmingly animated, monsters look excellent, capturing their main series sources, and spacious areas to explore look very good. A few technical mishaps can detract, such as pop-in and slowdown in busy open-world parts, but it’s not too bad. The audio is strong too, with high-quality music including some epic boss themes, cheerful exploration tracks and plenty of jingles and odes to the mainline games. The voicework utilises the same fictional language from previous games, and it’s quite plentiful for a handheld. The presentation is great, on the whole.
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Monster Hunter Stories is a spin-off done right. It takes elements from its mainline series and forms a distinctive product away from those while offering enough links, Easter eggs and style to prove worthwhile to fans. The spin on Pokémon-esque monster collecting is great fun, the turn-based combat offers novel ideas, and the presentation is strong. Those who do get stuck in can look forward to dozens of hours of play. Fans of the series should be more than pleased, and those who don’t know a Hunter from a Rider can still find a ton to enjoy here. Even on a handheld with steep competition in this genre, it proves genuinely great fun.
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VERDICT
"With novel turn-based combat, a great spin on monster collecting and dozens of hours of play, Monster Hunter Stories is a spin-off done right, and can be enjoyed by fans and newcomers." OVERALL: 8/10 |
OTHER JAPANESE ROLE-PLAYING GAMES REVIEWED
Eternal Sonata (2007, Xbox 360)
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Tales of Xillia (2013, PlayStation 3)
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