Monster Hunter Stories Preview: An Overlooked Gem Revived
Capcom’s significant growth in recent years can be attributed to several factors, one of which is undeniably Monster Hunter. What used to be a relatively niche action franchise has become a worldwide phenomenon, recently reaching a staggering 100 million sold units.
Alas, I’ve never been able to get into these games, but the spinoff series Monster Hunter Stories has compelled me from afar for several years. These self-contained, more character and story-driven experiences are certainly distinct. So, with the arrival of the original 3DS game onto modern platforms, I figured now’s as good a time as any to give it a shot.
Fully Featured Voice Acting
Aside from the enhanced resolution, the most significant addition to this Monster Hunter Stories re-release is the voice acting in English and Japanese. After watching several original 3DS scenes, which, like other Monster Hunter titles, had voices speaking what was basically gibberish, the implementation of these dubs’ became immensely more impactful. Note that I’ve been playing with the English dub.
Right from the outset, each main character is bursting with personality, and the main story scenes boast substantially more presence and memorability. The most standout performance so far probably goes to the first village’s elder, Chief Omna, who speaks in incessant rhymes across every line.
His deliveries are terrific, both in enunciation and pacing. Another notable performance goes to Navirou, your upbeat companion, whose voiced lines are overly enthusiastic yet never grating. The frequency of these instances has also surprised me since it appears like every main story beat is fully voice-acted.
The main story scenes boast substantially more presence and memorability.
Standing Bright for the Modern Age
As for the presentation, this remastered job of Monster Hunter Stories has done a remarkable job. The jump from 3DS to modern platforms does not come across as abundantly jarring since the improvements to the resolution, models, and environments look reasonable for what would be a recent smaller-scale title.
The only facet that stands out somewhat negatively and highlights the title’s age is the characters’ mouth movements. Of course, expecting lip-syncing is out of the question, but the way in which the mouths are transparently 2D images can look pretty out of place when in conjunction with actual voice-acting.
It’s also worth noting that this re-release of Monster Hunter Stories features new language support, namely for Traditional and Simplified Chinese, Korean, Russian, Brazilian Portuguese, Polish, and Arabic. So, the title is now more accessible to several crowds in more ways than one.
This enhanced port of Monster Hunter Stories is a refreshing, low-stakes, turn-based RPG I’m eager to spend more time on ahead of the more large-scale releases arriving later this year. The gameplay systems, which I’ll dive into during the review, are intuitive and addictive, with the presentation impressively feeling at home on a console.
Regardless of whether you played the sequel or are a fan of the mainline Monster Hunter entries, this resurgence of Monster Hunter Stories is worth keeping an eye out for when it’s released on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and PC via Steam on June 14, 2024.
Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin will also arrive on PlayStation 4 on the same date.
