No game world has quite the same effect on me as Capcom’s Monster Hunter. Sure, it’s a fairly dangerous sort of place, with ecosystems that are forever going wrong, expeditions that never return, and the sort of native fauna that may or may not choose to use you as a snack, but hey, we’re not hitting a home run in the real world either. Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection is the latest journey to this world, and the third in the turn-based RPG Monster Hunter Stories spin-off, and it’s doing what all good sequels do: going bigger.
Monster Hunter Stories 3 bears plenty of the hallmarks of its predecessors, from the turn-based combat through to the Monsties you and your companions ride on, but it’s offering a more mature story, a wider cast of monsters, and a bigger world for you to sink your teeth into.
One thing that’s clear from the start is that Stories 3 immediately puputstting up more of a fight than the previous Stories games. Whether you’re roaming the open zone areas, or hunting for monster eggs in monster nests, previous titles were pretty easy going in terms of combat, but Capcom have leaned into the more mature tone with a level of challenge that matches it.
If you hang out in monster nests for too long, a higher-powered variant turns up, and if you choose to fight it, you’re really going to have to grind out the win. I found myself against a particularly tough Gypceros after only thirty minutes or so with the game, while I was still grappling to remember just how Stories 3 combat worked. It nearly had me – death does, at least, only send you back to the closest settlement – but my team were victorious, and that brought the sense of elation that Monster Hunter should give you (and which Wilds somewhat fumbled at launch).
There’s a lot going on in Stories 3 combat. It’s built upon a returning structure, with the basis being a rock-paper-scissors-like system with Power, Speed and Technique attacks, with each being more powerful than one of the others. You’re rewarded for learning monsters’ attack types, and just like in the mainline series, these are changed up by the monster becoming enraged or, in some cases, infected, turning them into Feral variants that you have to approach in a completely different way.
That sense of challenge and a more mature outlook run through the opening hours of Stories 3. You’re a prince of the Azuria kingdom, and, in turn, the Captain of the Rangers, a group of monster riders who study the local ecosystem and hope to raise and protect monsters rather than hunt them.
The opening of the game sees you exploring the area, where you’re introduced to the appearance of egg quartz, a crystalline substance that traps monsters within it. In fact, monsters are in decline, and certain species are affected more than others, and that backdrop becomes crucial to your role within Monster Hunter Stories 3.
Collecting monsters – or Monsties, as they have it here – has always been a key part of the series, building a Pokemon-like party of six to enable you to jump, fly, swim and perform various other environmental actions, while also trying to create a well-balanced team that can face off against any potential foe. However, in Stories 3, you’re also tasked with revitalising the local ecology, hatching and releasing monsters back into the wild to restore the habitat and bring the world back into balance.
Endangered species are found in the vicinity of invasive species – particularly nasty, and downright brutal monster variants that you need to scare off – and then you can hatch and release them into areas that will benefit from their appearance. As you increase the population, the area will then produce rarer or stronger eggs for you to hatch, making it feel as though you really are at work improving and working with the environment.
It’s a natural direction for the Stories series to lean into. The monster-riding action has always sat at odds with the mainline series’ traditional hunting and slaying, and living and working alongside monsters fits really well into the Rangers’ outlook and organisation. I can see it becoming a real timesink for players, and one that can result in some seriously cool and unusual monster variants.
They do, of course, all look absolutely amazing. Stories 3 art style is a gorgeous, anime-infused cavalcade of colour, building on Stories 2’s excellent visuals, and then ramping everything up. Playing on Switch 2, the advantages of its extra power are clear to see, with much improved draw distances in the open field areas, and a more reliable level of performance, albeit one that occasionally needs to catch up with itself in more heavily populated, detailed areas.
Battles especially look truly stunning, and the added depth and challenge are made all the more enjoyable by the excellent animations and visual effects that accompany every move. The only mild negative is that they can be quite time-consuming, so once you’ve watched your Rathalos descend from the sky a bunch of times, you can speed combat up and whiz through less important encounters in seconds.
I have loved my early time with Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection. So far, it’s the most complete and grown-up, the Stories side of things has ever been, and it truly feels like the other side of the Monster Hunter coin – equally matched, and inextricably linked, despite all their differences.
Do you want to check out Monster Hunter Stories 3 for yourself? The full game launches on 13th March 2026 for Nintendo Switch 2, PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC, but a demo is available now across all platforms.
