Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin is a turn-based RPG developed and published by Capcom. The combat system, exploration, and monster collecting are all fun, but the game suffers due to not giving the player enough control during battle.
While the mainline Monster Hunter games focus on Hunters who fight monsters, the protagonist of Monster Hunter Stories 2 is a Rider, who raises a monster from birth and fights alongside them in battle. The protagonist of Monster Hunter Stories 2 is the grandson of a famous Rider, named Red, who once rode a mighty Rathalos into battle. Red’s Rathalos entrusted an egg to a mysterious girl, who brings it to the protagonist. A flightless Rathalos hatches from the egg, and soon, people from all around the world start to seek it out. It’s up to the Rider to uncover the mystery of the flightless Rathalos, as it could be a prophesized creature of destruction who will bring ruin to the world with a flap of its wings.
Monster Hunter Stories 2 uses a turn-based combat system. The games use a rock-paper-scissors-style mechanic, with Speed defeating Power, Power defeating Technical, and Technical defeating Speed. The Rider has access to different weapon types from Monster Hunter, each of which has different abilities that can be used. The player is joined by NPC Battle Buddies throughout the game, some of which have their own Monsties (the collectible monsters) that can fight in battle. If two characters use an opposing attack type, then they perform a powerful double attack against the enemy. Performing actions fills up the Kinship meter, which acts like mana, and can be used to perform special attacks. Once the meter is full, the Rider can mount their Monstie for a free heal and a powerful attack.
The Rider in Monster Hunter Stories 2 can collect a squad of monsters by stealing eggs from dens that randomly appear on the world map. Each monster has a 3 x 3 grid of gene nodes that possess special abilities and stat boosts, and it’s possible to pass a gene from one Monstie to another, at the cost of the original leaving. This allows the player to customize the abilities of monsters. There are Monsties that possess overworld abilities, such as climbing vines and swimming through water, which creates a situation similar to the HM mules in Pokémon, where the player’s team throughout the game will be decided more by their uses for traversing the environment, rather than their abilities in battle.
Needing Monsties to explore the land and find treasure never becomes dull, however, as Monster Hunter Stories 2 has a gorgeous overworld, with beautiful character sprites that match the tone of the game. Like the original Monster Hunter Stories, the iconic monsters are cute while maintaining their imposing nature. Running around and completing sidequests with the Monsties is fun, even if the main story is nothing particularly engaging. The main draw of the game is exploring its overworld, finding items, and slaying monsters for their hide, in true Monster Hunter fashion.
The NPCs in Monster Hunter Stories 2 are fine, with the notable exception of Navirou, who is a Felyne that accompanies the Rider throughout the game. Navirou joins Teddie from Persona 4 and Fi from Skyward Sword as a divisive mascot within their respective titles, as his annoying voice and endless cat puns serve as constant nails on the chalkboard throughout cutscenes. The fact that the main character is mute and Navirou does a lot of talking for them only makes this situation worse.
The main issue with Monster Hunter Stories 2‘s battle system is that the player only has direct control over the Rider. The player can issue commands to the Monstie in order to make it use special abilities, but the Monsties only have a limited number of actions they can perform. The player is joined by NPC Battle Buddies throughout most of the game and will have no control over their actions. This can lead to situations where the player is only contributing a small amount to each battle, while the computer plays by itself. If the Rider is incapacitated by a sleep or paralysis effect, then that is actually what happens for several rounds.
As the game goes on, it feels like the player has less and less control over the battle, as most of the actions are being performed by other characters. The fact that enemy monsters hit like a truck also means the player is often forced into a support role and has to burn their actions using healing items to keep the party alive. This turns what should be an exciting monster battling RPG into item spamming, while the NPCs do all of the exciting combat.
Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin’s exploration, monster breeding, and item crafting are all top-notch. If Monster Hunter Stories 2 allowed the player full control over the party and made it more about customizing a team, then the overall experience would make it an excellent entry in the franchise. Even without, it’s a very good turn-based monster collector with broad appeal that’s worth a look for fans of the genre.
Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin will be released for Nintendo Switch and PC on July 9, 2021. Screen Rant was provided with a digital copy of the Nintendo Switch version of the game for the purposes of this review.
