I don't actively discuss the story, but you will see some cutscenes and fights from outside of the demo. Nothing that should actually SPOIL you. Also please consider liking, commenting and subscribing!!
How the fuck is this game already dead an yet I'm still playing GU I started in Gen the games not dead yet m8 ya coming in a bit hot there at the start of this review~~
@@brotbrotsen1100 He was also left out of Generations. It's not so much the length of time he's been gone, but the inclusions of Jaggi and Jaggia in Generations and Rise that bothered me. Same goes for Jagras, Zamtrios, and Basarios. There's more, but you get the point
When I saw stories 2 come out, I was just so happy that the series was actually supported and not just abandoned. Seeing Ratha as an old Rathalos quite literally brought me to tears. While the gene aspect can be confusing, even daunting for new riders, it's fun once you learn the ropes. Overall very great game in my opinion.
It's funny how even the arguably simplest MH game in terms of mechanics still has a rather complex and complicated mechanic. It's not really required to use it at all to finish the game comfortably through so everyone can jump in without any worries.
@@brotbrotsen1100 I don't mind it being focused on Rathalos, because it gives them a monster to focus cutscenes around. But I do wish they'd let us name it something other than "Ratha"
Not sure if this feature came in a patch after-the-fact, but currently there is a system to instantly finish a fight to which you’re clearly overpowered. So, ‘avoiding’ fights is less incentivized; since you can finish them as soon as they begin, it’s easy to farm the respective parts.
@@bluegem8582 Quick Finish is also in the main game. I found out, before clocking it, that once I've battled a monster and added its entry to the Monsterpedia (segregating the run-off-the-mill from the Bosses that is), I could Quick Finish said monster upon the second encounter. (But that's mostly come around thanks to grinding for eggs and generally taking my sweet time before I could encounter Barrel Cats.)
It feels like this game had lots of passion go into it actually. Capcom put the time and care needed to make this game good and really wants it to succeed. I've been seeing pretty great reviews for this game too so I hope it sells well. If it does then I'm sure a MHS3 is more than confirmed. I think Capcom likes this spinoff as much as we do lol
I just completed the game. No spoilers but yeah I enjoyed it more than I thought. It gets slow during the middle and there’s always stuff that can be better but I found myself enjoying the characters, the charming style, and the relative challenge it provides. While some characters like Ena could use more back story and development, new and returning characters mesh well together. It’s my first delve into Monster Hunter ever and I really want to see more of what they got. It’s got it’s time to be silly and it’s time to be serious. I genuinely hope there are more games to come from the MH Stories Series
Memories of the first games eggs make me smile. My brother for my birthday made me a physical, printed book of the egg colors and shapes. He made it in Photo shop* and even made it proper with a back... Good times. Shame it's useless now XD
Zamtrios is the only Monstie with Swim that isn't a Power Type. Meaning it's legitimately Best-in-Slot if you want two of each attack type and also all exploration riding skills.
On 4:20 you talked about the game's battle length, this is actually a topic that usually puts me off when picking and motivating myself from finishing RPG titles, but one thing that I liked when playing the demo is to know that you can skip the battles by holding ZL + ZR on the Switch if you are high level enough. I think that this feature should make level & material grind less tedious in the long run. What has been your experience in this aspect?
I have never actually been able to use it because im always progressing so the monsters levels are pretty normal. Maybe when I go back to get old mats for 100% this will be a bigger factor
Besides, the whole game is about learning patterns and dealing extra damage by trying to predict what's going to happen. If you could control everything, it would be extremely easy, and it would lose all those awesome moments when you're on a roll.
Also do color changing of monsties according to their elemental tendency still in the game? In first one you can change monstie’s color if it have enough element attack stat of certain element.
@@SuperRADLemon Oh, I mean, I thought what it was a bug or kind of scraped feature in the demo because only Aptonoth could be different color and it appeared in that color only in world but not in menu.. However I still hope what it is possible in full game to change color of other monsters through gene manipulations.. It was such neat little detail imo..
@@erihseh4017 i mean why would they remove a feature? This isnt pokemon. Also in one of the gameplay trailers they had multi colored arzuros so it is in
I remember I spent most of the time changing a Monstie's element completely to see what part of their body changes in color. My fav was turning Ratha or any Rathalos to Dragon element and you get this Crimson red Rathalos which looked sick and the fact it is also shown in Cutscenes
However trouble is that in this game the changing element is based on which Element Value is the "main" element, so get another of the monstie's Element to pass it's main one and it changes. Trouble is as you level up it'll more then likely return to the main element (like for example Fire with Ratha/Rathalos) unless you really do go all in on the change.
This game filled the void in my heart that Sword/Shield left. I adored Stories 1 and my hopes were sky high here, this game actually met them with a fairly interesting story, a fun battle system, and a nice amount of replay value.
Thinking about Sword and Shield as in the weapon...hoo boy did they really take a lot from it, then what they did with Stories 1. Great Sword, and especially Hunting Horn became a lot more useful but the fact they took away S&S's Rising Slash, Octo Slash, Shield Bash, and more just feels a bit wrong. I do get it feels a lot like a "beginner's weapon" now with it just having Slash skills of the appropriate Element, Guard and Counter, and the Counter is basically the only major thing exclusive to it. Basically, I just feel they almost over simplified it to the point where it's just rather mediocre.
@@astralguardian5930 Honestly in Stories 1 I preferred the Hunting Horn, I liked how picking different attacks would bring different melodies, and I'm not fond of how they switched up HH's mechanics in 2.
@@chayimweinstock443 Though you gotta be honest, the specific attacks for different tunes just doesn't really fit an RPG game where you are incentivized to try and use the appropriate attack type to have the advantage. And the songs being tied to Kinship just makes it fit the battle system more.
Funny how I already started grinding for Monsties with their genes in different slots, but found out through your review that it's not even necessary 😂 Great and informative review!
im pretty freaking late to the party but the quick time events happen whenever the enemy monster/monstie gets below 50% hp. these will not happen if you are riding your own monstie tough as it is essentially a battle between your monstie and the enemy monster/monstie
Love this review and love this series and monster hunter as a whole~ I got this on switch becuase i like taking Turn RPGs on the go. Dont like booting up a whole consol or PC to play stuff like that as much. Plus it ran good enough for me at least on switch. But your right im sure its way better running on pc
I’m looking forward to the actual story for, well, Stories 2. Personally, I really enjoyed Stories 1 story. It was super cheese, and a bit cliche, but so long as you didn’t go in expecting some god tier writing you could still have a good time. Hopefully Stories 2 storyline is as good, if not better than Stories 1.
I’ve found it pretty interesting as it unfolds so far. Haven’t beaten the game yet, but it’s only getting better as it goes. It starts super boring IMO but I like it right now.
@@solomon9655 Yeah, I’ve beaten the game already. I’d say the story compares fairly well to the original. I do think the final few references to the first game are a bit overdone though… There’s a few other critiques I’ve got involving, Razewing Ratha, and how they pretty much removed the elemental system, but I don’t want to get into that right now.
I have one gripe with the game and it SORT OF has to do with the story, so proceed at your own discretion. For a game about the bonds between Riders and their Monsties, the monsters have the collective personality of a brick. Almost nothing in the game convinced me that the Monsties actually care about their Riders instead of just...tolerating them. Avinia kept talking how strong her bond with her Barioth is (up to a point where it almost became uncomfortable), but the thing, 99% of the time, just sits behind her with a blank expression. Alwin's Legiana is...well...it IS. That's pretty much it. It exists. Ratha isn't really any better except when he saved the MC a couple of times, so I guess it's brave? We could've used like, 2 cutscenes where Ratha and MC get into some silly hijinks or something. Instead I feel like the Kut-Ku's Kinship attack gives it more personality than any other monster. Kut-Ku and Pukei Pukei. And maybe Brachydios.
@@DarkButz That’s true. In the early game, and some segments they do have some personality, but that’s it really. I wonder if maybe they didn’t have the budget to fully animate the partner Monsties and as such they act like that. Or they didn’t know how to properly represent them in cutscenes.
Great video, you touched on a lot of topics! One correction, though, since you played on the IoS version: the QTE events in stories one were also button based on the 3ds! They all seem to have the same inputs even in Stories 2, from what I remember. Ride on !!
On top of all those battle mechanics you mentioned are also elemental weaknesses too lol there's so much and its a lot deeper than seems on surface. Love it. I agree the egg colors are soo improved thank God and the rite of channeling genes location haha
I have switch and pc but still getting on switch. Moving cross country from east to west coast and being able to play monster hunter during it greatly impacted my decision. However, if on a massive sale I can easily see myself buy it again.
Damn, Rad with the early copy of stories 2 👀. Excellent review as well btw, i really enjoyed my time with Stories 1 on my phone, so it’s nice to know that Stories 2 is an overall improvement on the formula with more QoL changes. Can’t wait for July 9th!
You have absolutely no idea how happy I was when I heard you say that the genes were no longer restricted to the same slot but can now be placed anywhere.
In regards to the fights you don't wanna put too much work into Once you're strong enough you do get the quick finish option for fights that are truly foregone conclusions. You can usually quick finish a yian kutku once you're a good way through the demo
Some monsties in the demo get a gene called head to head which seems like they trigger head to heads more often than monsters without the gene. Looking forward to seeing how it works (as I only got the monster with this gene before i finshed the demo so will have to look tomorrow)
after more hours into the game, it's somehow easily mistaken for Vicious and instead, increases kinship, not damage. Doesn't "head to head more often".
Time to send this to everyone I’ve been trying to convince to play Stories 2! And to convince myself I can wait to get my PC to play instead of buying the switch version,for real tho, this review is excellent!
I personally like the concept of built in abilities instead of hms from Pokémon. It basically allows you to have an hm slave but still be able to battle
The 3ds version of Stories one didn't have touch screen mini games. It's pretty much the same as this game as a quick time event to spam buttons. You still spam A when two monsters charge each other, and monsters who shoot element beams at each other still require you to move the joystick around, but with the camera controls for some reason? Not sure about the flying mini game since I haven't triggered it yet in the demo?
For the battle system: There is also a quick-finish option after your level is a certain amount above the level of wild monsters (I believe it's the level or maybe a combination of level and story progress). Also also there are elements for weapons, armor, monster attack, and defense. Depending on the element of the enemy they will take more or less damage. This isn't too important at the beginning of the game, especially because you don't have that many options to choose your weapons/armor. As someone who didn't play MHS1 I didn't know the characters so I liked every new fighting buddy :D
Monster Hunter Stories 2 will be my first game in this series. Just picked it up for only 20 bucks on the eShop. Soon as I'm done with Chained Echoes I'll be diving into this game head first.
Some helpful tips I stumbled on: It wasn't mentioned when he talked about the defensive ability of riding, but it it's actually 4 fold since it also completely heals all current and incoming status ailments, not just health. Also, riders always get full health when they ride but monsties heal based on how high the riders health was when they begin to ride retreat rates don't technically increase because you break parts, its actually because monsters have missions attributed to them that you can see in the monsTERpedia (not monstIEpedia) i.e. kill gammoth with glav kinship will increase retreat rate, but no amount of part breaks will. You can actually change the elemental attack of monsties, but its a waste of time so don't bother, just bulk up their primary element atk/def. They do look cool tho
A good way to judge a monsters abillity is to think about how they act in other games. Tigrex for example is all about dominating their enimes with speed and pure strength, while strategy takes the backseat. Soo it is most likely going to use speed and strength, so you can go for a speed attack in your first turn to either draw or win and figure out what they are going for. Or barroth loves to charge at you and use cover itself in mud and use said mud to attack you. So it is a fast and strategic monster, speed and tech. So it isn't really random, but can be mostly be figured out quite easily when you think about it and while it doesn't work every time it works a lot of times.
and slightly spoilery thing in which type of attacks tigrex will do, you can probably figure out by how relentless they get once you enrage them in mainline games, that theyll probably shift to trying all it can to pummel you once you make it enrage in the battle, which further reinforces that
This is one of the games I am looking forward to the most this year because it looks very interesting. I love the idea of getting monsters to fight. Additionally, I feel like if capcom expands wyvern riding further and instead of riding the monster we kinda play them, somewhat similar to mystery dungeon, maybe it's just me but i'd be interested in a game like that.
Fun fact: I played this game without any knowledge of the first game and it was still a wonderful experience. I have a close friend who adores monster hunter so he inspired me to try the trial version of the game - and I loved that so much I bought the full game. I haven’t finished it yet, but it’s still a fabulous game!
@@2175Nono I finished it while ago and holy smokes, I think it could be up there as one of my favourite games of all time. It was a wonderful experience, I can’t recommend it enough. I loved all of the characters in this game even with no prior knowledge of the first game, the cutscenes almost brought tears to my eyes, I felt so invested in the story and the world being built! It’s a fantastic game, I really had such a fun time. I’d love to play it all the way through again in future.
@@Captain_Bottles Glad you liked it! I actually just finished the game a few days ago as well and was just curious what others thought of it. The ending and the credits scenes did make me cry and I've just been binging other people's playthroughs while also playing some endgame stuff myself. One of my friends was hesitant on getting the game because they heard that the story was cliched but I still managed to convince them to get a copy. Sure it is cliche and there are a few plotholes but I honestly couldn't care less because the emotions it brought me were so powerful and it ticks every box for me as a rollercoaster ride of a story. I'll never forget the scene where Ratha flies to save us and how excited I was about being able to fly. After I finish getting some endgame stuff done I plan on playing the first game as well just to see the backstories of all the returning characters. And then hopefully replay stories 2 again in the future! This was such a great game I loved it so much.
@@2175Nono Know that I am late to the Monster Hunter Stories 2 party, but finally picked it up, hopefully it’s a great game like you guys said it was! 👌
I heard there are many problems with monsties retaining element and color changes in this one for some reason as well as severe frame rate issues on switch. Is this true? (made before watching video XD)
Realy nice review. I myself cant wait to play this game in 2 days. But i got another question for you RAD. Could you maybe tell me how you emulated the first game cause i never played it and would want to play it.
one misconseption i've noticed a lot, the quick time events weren't touch based but rather more or less the same in stories 1, but only on the 3ds, they were changed for mobile
I’ll be honest I beat the game forgetting that I could command the monsties to do different attacks. I legit got mad at the final cutscene. The game crashed 10 seconds away from saving and I had to redo the final boss all over again.
Ok I have a question, do you need to unlock the moves for a monster before you transfer them over to another or can you just transfer them over when you first hatch them?
Yes, they must be unlocked first, but they are only level locked from what I've seen, and as you raise your parties level, new monsties get huge exp bonuses.
Excellent review! Quick question, does your player character speak at all in the game? I know a lot of RPGs generally don’t have them speak to make it easier to role play, but I actually love to hear the main character speak. Not a deal breaker because I am grabbing this game day one but just curious.
@@SuperRADLemon thanks for responding! Again great review and I love your channel, I recently discovered it after watching the episode of Third fleet podcast with you on it.
I just noticed that when you used ground flare in the video and I wonder why is it called ground flare since Ratha can fly usually but I just noticed that THIS Ratha CANT fly and I love it
What make this game even better is there no LS or light bow to make your partner flinch. But for real I am glad you got the chance to experience this game compare to the first game. You miss another of the charm and se game play elements in your review of the first game.
tbh bowguns would be kinda cool in Stories, LBG could be more elementally focused, as well as being able to apply status effects (yes, even stun) with ease and the HBG would be the powerhouse that deals lots of raw damage and can block incoming attacks with a bit of Kinship points and Longsword would be cool to have as a countering weapon, make it so that you attacks do next to no damage (like SnS levels of damage per hit) but if you use the special counter that is strong against the enemies attack type, like Foresight Slash P (Power), for example, you gain a spirit level, you'd have 3 levels to gain, and certain moves would use up levels and Kinship points to trigger like the Helmsplitter, and those spirit levels will add more damage to your normal Power, Technical and Speed attacks, reducing the need to use up your Kinship gauge in the long run and even though you never mentioned it, Insect Glaive would be cool too, perhaps winning head-to-heads will let you gain 1 of 3 kinsect buffs, first you'd get Defence (Orange), then Speed (White) and Attack (Red) and after 5 turns after you get all 3 you're buffs run out and you need to collect them again, and it'd be cool if you gained more kinsect buffs if you use kinsect attacks with some Kinship points, like Kinship Attack P (Power) for example could also increase the amount of Kinship points you gain during the Head-to-Head I know what you were meaning but I figured that I'd point out how cool they would be
Think my favourite thing about 2 over 1 by far is your monsties are actually sorta big now. It was ridiculously off putting to me when Ratha in 1 was barely slightly bigger than me lol. 51 hours in and I love this game and its improvements over 1.
Are you able to tell us if the framerate issues from the demo has been fixed in thr full game? It would really help in deciding if I should get it on PC or switch.
From what I can gather from other reviews, it sounds like the switch version still has the variable framerate as seen in the demo. They may add an option to change that in the future, but overall PC would be the best bet for performance and frames. I've already got my Steam copy preordered =)
I'm assuming you got all your gameplay footage for this review with the pc version? I'm probably gonna end up double dipping due to having friends on both platforms but the occasional fps dips on the Switch demo has me questioning which platform i should start on first.
Super late to the party. I have an odd question. Does a rhythm and decision focused monster based action combat monster hunter game, including breeding, taming, hunting and customization sound good?? Maybe a system based around using items like on the palamutes in rise? God I would love that. Stables in a hubspace. Potentially upgradable homestead. Monster breeding. Min maxing base traits. Lineage mutations. Heavy, light, special and dodge. Maybe even flight? And then the armor, Man. Action based monster hunter pokemon rpg. This needs to be a thing.
I've actively tried to get into MH in general with 4 and World but I never end up able to care. Since I'm branching out in monster catching games since Pokemon shit the bed SO hard, and this is an amazing game. I found a MH game I like yaaaay
That’s awesome! Yeah, I just noticed the music in that part and looked through my Spotify for 30 minutes trying to remember what it was. Gonna have to go through the video again and listen for the other songs
I can't tell you how many times I have been duped by the color and pattern of eggs in MH Stories 1. So I'm glad there were changes made to eggs and even the Rite of Channeling. It just seemed a bit ridiculous to emphasize a core feature such as gene manipulation by limiting the actual mobility of gene placement.
I love this game, I really do…..but MAN the length that some of the endgame monster fights can take you to beat quickly starts to make them become an absolute slog to get through, or just the HR monsters in general, it made me realize why I see so many people online using a nargacuga to actively avoid fighting as many monsters as possible in the dens because of how long the general monsters strolling around in the den can take to beat, add that on top of the end monster fight at the end of the den that can take even longer to defeat and it just gets nauseating.
One thing I’ll say about the combat, is I find it weird how the greatsword and hammer were given more mechanical depth, while the hunting horn was reduced to basically what the hammer was in the previous game, only now with added skills you can spend kinship to use. It just doesn’t really feel like the monster hunter hunting horn anymore, the core mechanics of the weapon from the mainline games are reduced to basic skills. I guess I’m mostly unhappy about it because in preparation for stories 2 I replayed the first game and got really into the hunting horn on that play through, so it sucks to see it changed.
Meanwhile S&S lost almost every skill it had in Stories 1 and got "generic" Slash skills that are just cheap and sorta exist as a small boost that corresponds to your weapon's element. Though the Counter is definitely interesting that's the only major unique feature it has.
I'm gunna be honest, this is my second favorite game in the mh series. My number 1 is generations ultimate. That's quite the jump from the first game where I'd put the first game second to last, only liked that one more than freedom unite.
I LOVED Freedom Unite but I also played it back when it was new. I'm aware that it's all nostalgia, and it's likely almost entirely unplayable now with how clunky and weird it was. Good times, won't ever re-play it though or else I'll ruin my memories of it, I'm sure xD
@@valhalla_1129 I wouldn't say completely, it's mostly just the camera and gathering spots that throws me off. Then again I did start with 3U so I do have a bit of experience with the classic games.
@@Vulcanfaux I only played Tri at a friend's place, never had it myself. Really enjoyed the underwater combat though, I remember beating that anglerfish guy for my friend, was pretty cool.
This is my first monster hunter game so the filler in between the actual plot didn’t feel like it was dragging on as much what i did note was that the game assumes you played the first one or have some context for the characters backstory that, to someone who’s never played before, leaves a ton of plot holes and unanswered questions Navirou specifically with the whole memory loss and being experimented on. That was probably my only big gripe. On a separate note, the fact Capcom is breathing fresh air back into older things gives me SOME hope for a megaman battle network game(but not much)
"what i did note was that the game assumes you played the first one or have some context for the characters backstory" It is called Monster Hunter Stories 2 for a reason.
I don’t know why everyone reviewing this game keeps saying you nullify damage if you win a head to head. You don’t. You take a extremely reduced amount of damage but it’s not nullified. It’s only when doing special attacks do you take zero damage.
Just want to say if you switch your monstie there is a chance to change you buddies attack Edit: and I dont know why people call the better egg glow blue or rainbow it's surely platinum which is a slightly blue sliver colour
I think it's a bit to random to pull it off this time. And if damage to party members count then i even say it's impossible since they are a bit dumb sometimes lol.
