Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin Catch-All

Monster Hunter Stories 2 is a JRPG version of Monster Hunter, releasing on both the PC and the Switch.

There is a four hour trial version which allows you to carry over your progress to the full game. The demo sold me on the game, so if you are interested, I encourage you to try it.

Already preordered... I spent 12 hours with the demo :O

Maxed my levels, gear, finished all the challenges, etc. I feel like they addressed my issues with the first game.

Are you playing on Switch or PC?

I'm on the Switch. That's a lot of time with the demo :). I finished the story part of it tonight, just in time for the full release.

I really liked how much there was to fiddle with in the demo. The story is linear, but there is a lot of room to explore.

How are you all finding the performance on the Switch? I haven't had time to check out the demo myself yet, but I've seen quite a few complaints about frame rate drops in reviews.

It sounds like the combat is really engaging this time around, which was my main complaint with the short time I put into the first game. I'll probably pick it up after they've released a few updates.

It doesn’t perform great but it’s nothing jarring, to me. It is a little disappointing that Stories 1 on my iPhone SE runs better, though.

I will add that I did not see any performance improvement between the demo and the full game.

Also I find it’s a lot less noticeable when playing handheld, rather than docked.

Got it. Will start it after I finish the first game for the JRPG club.

Got the Switch demo but need to play

I’m in the beginning of the third area, I gather there are five before you hit credits.

I’m loving it so far. It’s got a nice mix of modern JRPG quality of life improvements, but without the feature bloat that I often feel ruins games. There’s a compelling gameplay loop that doesn’t collapse under its own weight.

One complaint I have though, is some monsters are enemy-only, but the game doesn’t communicate it. For example (monster names only):

Spoiler:

Tetsucabra is not a monster you can tame. The only way to find out is to blow paintballs and find that they’re ineffective. But that doesn’t apply to every monster. Some you can run into early, and they aren’t tame-able, but they will be later.

It would be nice if the game let you know what is and isn’t a monstie.

I made it through the first tutorial quest in the demo last night. It's fun so far. I like the fact that targeting monster parts in combat is a thing.

The game is beautiful. It was definitely a bit choppy playing docked, but I haven't found it to be too distracting yet. I will likely look up PC footage to see how it compares before taking the plunge.

In the Monsterpedia (from "Field Guides" in the menu), you can see information about defeated monsters, including whether they are hatchable as monsties.

I’m close to moving to the third area. What a chill game.

I like watching the fights, but when I am going through some areas again, it is nice to have the speed up option. Unlike other games in which the battles just play in fast forward, this game actually skips certain animations to make the fight go faster. It’s a smoother approach, and I don’t remember seeing that done in another game.

Picked this up on PC and I am hooked. I have always loved the concept behind the monter hunter series but I am horrible at the twitch based combat/gameplay. Being able to have turn based combat with a large number of tactical decisions has hit the sweet spot. I am in the third area currently and still have so much to learn.

Really liking this game. Had basically never heard about it before it released (Stories that is, not Monster Hunter in general). It hits all the right OCD spots... And a fairly interesting combat system where you always have to react to what enemies or team members are doing.
Finished the story yesterday, and doing endgame stuff now.

As mentioned above, some of the QoL stuff is great. Brilliant speed settings, and being able to outright oneshot lower lvl fights.

The only thing that bugs me is I can’t help but shake the feeling that my choices in team and gear composition don’t really matter. As long as you have one of each type of monster, and one of each type of weapon, it all shakes out about the same as long as you play the rock paper scissor as correctly as possible. Ranmar from the demo still was getting play in the second to last area.

I’m in the last chapter and plan to play some in the end game, we’ll see if that allays my feelings. Otherwise the game is a solid 8, nothing to scoff at, but not something I’m screaming from the rooftop to people about.

It seems like you can use whatever monsters you want, although there are some differences in their power. But the skills/passives you put on the monsters can matter a lot later on. Although it wont matter much against most of the story enemies.

Ok I played a lot more of the demo today. It's good. I don't know if I should keep playing or wait for the game. Probably wait, even though save carries over. I'm going to still wait for a bit of a sale so probably forget what I'm doing by the time I get around to it.

I bought a horn, forged some new armor, and upgraded the starting weapons once. Got through 4 or 5 story quests and just filled out my party with 5 monsters, although 2 are duplicate types.

Already feeling option paralysis like what to do with monster parts in crafting or upgrading, and which monsters to keep in party and let go. Not sure what all the monster growth chart is and what skills might be good down the road. Can feel this game stressing me a bit. But mostly the rest has been fun.

Finally rolled credits last night. I kinda wonder if I’m the only one here who will or has? Because the game is too long and the story ain’t great. It’s driven by the monster and avatar building and even that sheen started to wear thin after 40 hours, and I still played at least 20 more. The very end has some nice spectacle at least.

We’ll see if I feel compelled to do any of the end game stuff.

I rolled credits quite a while ago and have continued to play. There is a bunch of high rank content that is a fun challenge and a "hidden" boss. I guess I have a low threshold for story as I felt the game had a great story that kept it's hooks in me and loved the length. I am well over 100 hours in at this point.

I admit I stopped playing when I went out of town a few weeks ago, and I haven't yet returned. I feel it's a game I can come back to later and pick it up again relatively quickly.

I've had trouble figuring out how I might want to post about this game, because it has proven to be nearly everything I had hoped for from a sequel to the first game, which I absokutely loved.

It really is "More Monster Hunter Stories", with a little more and nothing less, and I freaking love it. The few rough edges I felt the first game had, have all been sanded down. Even the story is a distinct improvement over the first game, if only by virtue of feeling more genuinely emotional at times and leaning more into the characters themselves.

I absolutely love MHS2.