Whether or not you already have your Monster Hunter guild card, Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin stands on its own as a great JRPG. It’s accessible enough for newcomers and younger players alike to enjoy, but with intricate mechanics to keep a more experienced audience engaged. It’s also a beautiful love-letter to the Monster Hunter series, and presents an imaginative world I can’t help but dream about just existing in, as dangerous as that would be.
Unlike Monster Hunter’s action-focused gameplay loop of hunting, crafting, and then hunting some more, Wings of Ruin plays like a tried-and-true JRPG. It can be played if you skip its predecessor, too: while there are some returning characters you befriend along the way, you don’t have to have played the first to understand the second. There are plenty of likable new characters thrown in as well, and its incredibly well-paced tutorials both teach well while letting you roam and do as you please early on. Wings of Ruin carries with it many great changes from the original, but some are, unfortunately, a bit of a letdown.
Like its predecessor, it swaps real-time combat for turn-based battles, deep customization systems, a copious amount of side tasks, and a heartfelt story. It translates the classic Monster Hunter formula well, except instead of being a Hunter you’re placed into the role of a Rider. Riders primarily befriend monsters (though they still make them into pants out of necessity, too), resulting in a party-building mechanic with somewhat similar to Pokemon, where each Monstie (monsters that are your besties, of course) has different stats, elemental strengths and weaknesses, and skills. This includes your Rider, too, who fights alongside your Monstie of choice and has armor and weapons to craft and equip. Each of the six weapon types have different mechanics, skills, and damage types, and you can equip three at a time. Being able to switch both weapons and Monsties out once a turn without losing an action makes switching between your three weapons and up to six Monsties a viable, necessary tactic and method to keep things from getting repetitive.
Rock Paper Scissors - Battle!
Turn-based combat is focused on a Rock-Paper-Scissors format with Power, Technical, and Speed type attacks, with each monster species (and Monstie) favoring one of these types. Wings of Ruin includes more intricate mechanics in a majority of battles than its predecessor, with monster parts to break and readable attack pattern changes rather than seemingly random ones.(You can read more about these changes in detail in here).
Wings of Ruin includes more intricate mechanics in a majority of battles than its predecessor
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Though the previous method to reading an opponent’s intent was a near-impossible task, now it requires you to simply pay attention. If a monster becomes enraged, takes flight, or otherwise changes its appearance -- like when a Zamtrios becomes iceclad -- odds are it’s going to change the type it attacks with, giving you a heads-up to potentially switch to a Monstie that prefers the advantageous type of Speed, Power, or Technical to attack with. It’s way more doable and deliberate than memorizing a dubious pattern with variables like in the first.
Overall, I appreciate the combat changes. They make battles engaging, thought-provoking, and more reminiscent of classic Monster Hunter -- attacking Duramboros’ legs specifically will eventually make it topple over, attacking Kulu-Ya-Ku’s rock with a blunt weapon will break it faster, or hitting it with a Flash Bomb will make it drop entirely. Early on, NPCs will hand out tips like these, but further into the campaign these more often become rewarding personal discoveries (or exercises of previous Monster Hunter knowledge).
There’s even more nuance to these battles, too, like the Kinship Gauge used to fuel skills and cool very anime “ultimate” Kinship Attacks, Head-to-Heads, your classic elemental strengths and weaknesses, quick-time events, and more. I wish I could turn off the QTEs so I could avoid button mashing, but that option isn’t available.
Eventually though, the length and tediousness of battles against your average overworld monsters began to wear on me -- even though you can triple the animation speed (thank goodness), and use a “Quick Finish” function when facing something significantly weaker than you. The latter was only useful when backtracking, but since the Kinship Attacks that require you to completely build up a skill gauge with other moves don’t actually do all that much more damage than regular attacks and exploiting an enemy’s elemental weakness doesn’t have that drastic of an effect, there’s not really a reliable way to end battles quickly against monsters on par with your own power. It makes sense in a Monster Hunter context for battles to be hard-fought, but for a turn-based JRPG, the idea is less fun in practice.
Eventually though, the length and tediousness of battles against your average overworld monsters began to wear on me
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Luckily, grinding specifically for experience generally wasn’t necessary because of a range of entertaining side tasks I’ll come to a little later, and the awesome new innate system that grants a huge EXP boosts for under-leveled Monsties. What a relief, since I loved experimenting with new Monsties on my team.
I only failed against a story scenario twice in the 70ish-hour campaign (which could have been a lot shorter if I didn’t tinker so much, more on that later), as it normally would require my own carelessness to lose. To counter the first, I simply upgraded the armor and weapons I had neglected. The grind for materials is also much more streamlined than in classic Monster Hunter; you don’t need specific materials, just a handful from a certain monster or two you want to forge equipment out of.
When nearing the end of the campaign, I found myself and my Monsties getting one-shot by a story boss. It took many hours to finetune my team, catch new Monsties up to speed with the rest, and craft equipment specifically for that fight. I indirectly gained a few levels in the process, and the new set-up then carried me to the credits, which I was thankful for.
Storied Exploration
While ‘Stories’ is right there in the title, the one told here isn’t actually Wings of Ruin’s main draw. The cutscenes are often thrilling visual spectacles, and there were plenty of surprising moments that made me gasp or even get a tad emotional – but this is primarily a lighthearted story that isn’t anything groundbreaking, complete with a mascot-worthy mouth-piece for your silent protagonist named named Navirou who speaks heavily in cat puns. The writing can be funny, and I laughed quite a bit, but there were only so many times I could hear “pawsitively clawdatious!” before I wanted to pawsitively claw Navirou’s tongue out of his meowth. Sorry.
The plot itself is actually pretty standard fare for Monster Hunter.
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The plot itself is actually pretty standard fare for Monster Hunter: something is making monsters run amok, forcing Hunters and Riders to face them. Odds are it’s being caused by some bigger, unknown threat, and it's up to you to figure out what’s going on and to stop it. But while that’s not exactly breaking the mold, there are some exciting subplots that keep things moving at a decent pace, like your newly hatched Rathalos’ prophesied “Wings of Ruin” rumored to be connected to the disasters, your renowned grandpa’s past, and lots of interesting characters to meet and team up with in battle.
All throughout, the musical score acted as a brilliant companion, and I could not stop commenting on how great the music was within cutscenes and beyond. There is no repetitive battle music in Wings of Ruin, either, as this changes often depending on a variety of factors, making it so nothing ever got old.
The story held on just enough for me to stay invested, but the actual gameplay gripped tight and never let go. I wish I had an endless amount of time with Wings of Ruin because it’s filled to the brim with fun activities to distract you from the main path, and I wanted to do everything it threw at me. I really cannot praise enough how much stuff there is to do in Wings of Ruin, and how enticingly fun it all is.
There are tons of Subquests to take on outside of the core campaign missions. Some take the form of especially challenging monsters to track down and defeat out in the field, while others task you with collecting ingredients, a specific monster, armor, or weaponry.
Beyond the specific Subquests, from the Quest Board alone you can also choose to take on Trial Quests, compete in a Tournament Mode, and even do rewarding Multiplayer quests – the latter of which can be completed with a real-life buddy, although you’ll be paired with a fairly competent NPC if you want to try them alone. My favorite of the new Multiplayer quests were the Exploration quests, which let me pick up multiple random eggs (containing Monsties) at once. Though I was never able to actually try any of these with an actual person, I’m looking forward to riding with a friend in the future.
I really cannot praise enough how much stuff there is to do and how enticingly fun it all is.
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While I easily spent hours doing tasks at the Quest Board, the world outside it is, obviously, pretty vast as well. When you’re not in a town, you’ll be riding around one of Wings of Ruin’s six main hubs (among dozens more side areas) on your Monsties, gathering materials, fighting monsters, and exploring dens in search of eggs to hatch into more possible party members. The scenery is beautifully colorful, and just exploring on the back of my favorite monsters is a treat. Seeing new areas, like the bustling city of Loloska, or perpetual blooming cherry blossom grove of Pomore Garden, and new monsters always put a smile on my face.
Incidentally, beyond the credits there’s even more to do, including some truly exciting post-game content.
There are also terrain obstacles while you’re out and about, like breakable rocks or climbable vines blocking certain paths, which only monsters with specific field abilities can traverse. That put pressure on me to choose my team based not only on battle strategy, but field usefulness, too, as each Monstie in your party of six only has one or two field abilities. There are many useful field abilities that make exploration easier and restricted areas accessible, like Diablos’ Roar or Yian Kut-Ku’s rock breaker. But there are equally as many Monsties with less useful ones (some of which I can’t say for fear of spoilers), forcing me to leave some otherwise interesting Monsties on the bench in favor of Monsties more useful in the field. I opted for the opposite near the end of the campaign, where I ignored off-limits areas in favor of a more battle-ready team, and overall had become tired of actively exploring every nook and cranny for items that usually weren’t all that impactful anyway.
Though there is a fantastic fast-travel system, some areas are a far ride from warp spots, and schlepping back to those areas for a potential rare item just didn’t appeal to me enough to go through the effort considering all the other things I wanted to do. This fast-travel system has been upgraded from the original Stories by removing the need for an item to warp to one of dozens of Catavan Stands throughout the world, and you can warp to any Catavan Stand from anywhere -- which also gratefully pop up automatically as a quick link when looking at a monster’s location in the Field Guide, too.
Constant, Delightful Distractions
While exploring these open areas and completing quests, there is a near-neverending stream of distracting shiny objects in the form of new monsters, crafting materials, rare and challenging Royal Monsters, treasure chests, Monster Dens, and the ever enticing golden Rare Monster Dens. The procedurally generated dens where you find new monster eggs are the most important of the lot because they drive my favorite part of Monster Hunter Stories: hatching and customizing my Monsties, of which there are more than 80. However, Speed-type Monsties are essentially non-existent besides Velocidrome until you approach the end of the second area, which took me almost around 15 hours to reach. This is remedied with more variety, complete with a few fan favorites, right after that--but I also learned a few of my personal favorites are disappointingly unridable, like the adorably large Duramboros.
There’s much more to a Monstie than just its species and preferred attack type: each one has nine gene slots, which can be filled upon hatching with either passive abilities like elemental defense boosts or active abilities like a Khezu’s Thunder Breath. Each species can hatch with only certain genes, but some genes are incredibly rare and powerful. Because any gene from any Monstie can be transferred over to any slot on another, there’s tons of freedom in how you can build and tweak your team, and duplicate Monsties aren’t so disappointing since they could have a cool gene! So if you want, you could make a Nargacuga with Thunder-element boost and Zinogre’s powerful Thunderfist, or a Barioth with a huge critical hit rate and the ability to heal when landing a crit.
The pattern, smell, and weight of the egg gives you a bit of intel on what kind of Monstie is inside, how many and how good their genes could be, and generally just how happy you should be with your pull. Anyone familiar with gacha mechanics will know the drill here, but without the microtransactions and artificial scarcity to drag it down, this system feels genuinely rewarding.
Anyone familiar with gacha mechanics will know the drill here, but without the microtransactions and artificial scarcity to drag it down, this system feels genuinely rewarding.
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No matter the quest, the monster collection and customization mechanic had me searching for rare eggs and happily spending hours tweaking my team. It’s a fantastic system, but it also has one oversight I have a huge gripe with: you can’t see an individual Monstie’s full stats like you could in the first Monster Hunter Stories. You can only see an individual Monstie's best and worst elemental stats -- which I assume is tied to the overall simplification of elemental stats in Wings of Ruin. Even if that is the case, it’s still baffling for a JRPG, especially when Monsties can be born with stat variations and genes that make it no longer match the stats represented in Wings of Ruin’s version of the Pokedex.
You can change a Monstie’s elemental attack and defense type if you increase that stat enough, and like in the original Stories, a change to the attack will change the Monstie’s color (though in Wings of Ruin this change only appears in the overworld). However, I’m confounded by this, too. I can reliably change most Level 1 Monsties’ attack element easily, but never for a higher level Monstie. For example, Yian Kut-Ku’s base fire attack stat is rated a five out of ten, and its thunder element a four. After giving it both Extra Large and Large Thunder attack genes, plus a 150% increase bonus, it still reverted back to a fire type after reaching only level 15. I wish I could see its hidden stats to see if that’s the reason, and if this system can even be strategically useful--even if it wasn’t, maybe I’d just want to rock a Red Khezu with icy blue lips! But right now, I haven’t figured out how to get a high-level monster to change attack elements, though I've started chipping away at the postgame which has yet to reveal anything.
It’s not like Wings of Ruin is that hard, and its combat is more dependent on decisions made in battle than a Monstie’s minutely different elemental stats, but it’s still disheartening for people like me, who enjoy toiling away in menus to piece together that perfect strategy. My real worry is that this might not be the case when facing other genetically modified beasts in PvP, which I wasn’t able to try ahead of launch -- without the kind of stat micromanagement that powers Pokémon’s PvP, for example, I do wonder how much myself and others will be drawn to play it here.
