Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection Review - Flying To New Heights
As the Monster Hunter Stories sub-franchise continues to expand, so too does the scope of the playing experience. Beginning with the 2016 release of Monster Hunter Stories, Capcom has toiled away to create an accessible, yet constantly engaging JRPG franchise that can stand up to others in the market. While the first title showed great promise, it quickly got repetitive. The 2021 sequel, Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings Of Ruin, introduced the ‘buddies’ mechanic, adding depth to combat, but it is with the 2026 release of Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection, where we’ve seen the sub-IP become more than just a Monster Hunter spin-off, but an IP that successfully owns its own corner of the JRPG realm, and puts the shivers through some of the established IP that have so happily existed in the space without any serious competition. Make no elder dragon bones about it, Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection is a serious JRPG, the best in the franchise, and one of the best JRPGs on the market at present.
As conflict overwhelms the kingdoms of Azuria and Vermeil, an environmental threat known as the Crystal Encroachment looms, ready to overwhelm both at any moment. The threat of the Crystal Encroachment has lingered for decades and yet, little is known of its origins or how to stop it. Mystery also surrounds the Meridian, the mountainous borders to the land which separate both kingdoms from the unknown (and believed to be abandoned) lands on the other side. As a child of royalty, the player character, and their partnering Rathalos (its existence being a mystery itself as Rathalos were thought to be extinct), you will take to the skies in the hopes of ending the conflict, crossing the Meridian, and putting an end to the Crystal Encroachment. Along the way, you will meet dozens of integral party members, or figures who play a significant part in your journey, while the intentions of representatives from both your homeland in Azuria, as well as the competing Vermeil, come into question, as decisions made stemming from the war have enormous ramifications for your own endeavours. Where, much like core Monster Hunter games, previous Stories entries haven’t featured a story that has evolved much beyond “this monster is causing issues, go stop it”, Stories 3 features the finest narrative in the broader Monster Hunter IP to date, with an engaging core narrative, well-written characters, and performances to match.
While the primary plot is fascinating, the gameplay loop of Monster Hunter Stories 3 will see the players engage with some of dozens of different side-quests, and these don’t hit the mark in the same way. There’s a clear tiered weighting to the different quests available. The main missions feature stunning cutscenes, superb writing, and voice-acting. There are also several core party members who have their own side-quest chains, which don’t quite feature the same invested in production value, but are still interesting arcs, and finally there are side-quests you find in the world, which often devolve to little more than “go slay 3 of this” and “go collect 10 of that”. There can be plenty of challenge found in these, but many are about as deep as a puddle, and will be tempting to breeze through just to get the XP.
Where Monster Hunter Stories 3’s game playing experience shines brightest, though, is in its combat and its open-world design. Twisted Reflection continues to embrace the rock-paper-scissors-inspired combat design, with power-speed-technical attacks substituted in. Your accompanying monsties are underpinned with abilities of one of these types, but as the game progresses, and your party levels up, opportunities to add abilities of different types will emerge. This pairs with the game’s Rite Of Channelling feature, which allows for DNA splicing, swapping skills from one monstie with another to diversify your skillset. This, combined with the franchise staple of egg collecting and hatching, as well as the new Habitat Restoration feature, are the elements that help the gameplay of Twisted Reflection sing. As you hatch monsties from eggs, you can bring them into your party as always, but you can also release them back into the ecosystem to proliferate. As you do so, the environment around you will morph as greater numbers of monsters populate the area. To each region of the game’s four zones, there are five native monsters, but if you choose to release (for example) a Rathian in a new environment, then just like pests of the real world, they’ll start to repopulate and carve out their own space as well. As you then level up the zone, any future eggs of that monsties type that you acquire have a higher chance of being rarer, meaning they’ll start at a higher level, and have a heightened chance of possessing a stronger skillset from the outset. From camp, you can also send your monsties out on Excursions, quick exercises that see the monster return with improvements to some stats, dependent upon which region you send them to, and how leveled up via Habitat Restoration it is. It’s not a particularly robust mechanic, but it provides some pretty handy boons for your party.
The scope and size of the narrative, the world, and the gameplay systems have all exploded with Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection, and as a piece of audio/visual art, the game goes just as hard. Capcom is making an enormous statement to Nintendo, The Pokemon Company, and Game Freak about how a monster-catching/collecting game can look in 2026, because Twisted Reflection looks gorgeous. There’s an anime lens across the Stories games, but then Twisted Reflection also gives off some Breath Of The Wild or Tears Of The Kingdom vibes as well. Through bold colours, and impressive animations, the world stuns, and in cutscenes, you’ll find yourself needing to pick up your jaw from the floor as streaks of vibrant colour explode in front of you, as flames crash against ice, and more. Iconic themes from the core Monster Hunter IP underpin the action as well, and hints of Monster Hunter, both old and new, crash through your speakers.
Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection is the pinnacle of the Stories IP so far. In every facet of its design, it raises the bar well above anything its predecessors had accomplished, and delivers a solid punch in the face to its competitors, as Capcom takes another enormous stride forward in reclaiming space in the RPG world. There are serious themes and a dark narrative at play, but with plenty of reasons to smile as well, Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection is not to be missed.
Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection was reviewed on PS5 with a code kindly provided by 5 Star Games on behalf of Capcom.
