Monster Hunter Stories and knowing what your game is for

 I’ve really enjoyed he Monster Hunter Stories games. I saw a review of Monster Hunter Stories 3 whose blurb said something like, “The Monster Hunter Stories series finally blossoms into a full fledged RPG” and you know, I didn’t read it (because I knew I was going to buy it already) but I actually call bullshit on that anyways, because even the first one had a lot of depth to it, and the second one even moreso. I just stated the third one and so far, it mostly seems like an incremental improvement on what came before - which is great, as I’d rate the first one as an A- and the second one an A+ so incremental improvement is absolutely fine for a series that’s been nailing it. I’m not really sure what part exactly they are thinking is so improved in this third one over previous entries - so far the biggest change seems to be the introduction of Habitat Restoration, which allows you to customize the environment by introducing endangered species (or just foreign species) into other environments, which both powers up the environment and existing species as well as makes new ones available and can have other interesting effects.

One area though which has not really been improving, to my mind, is the story. The first game had a fairly minimal, largely silly story, which was perfect for it - unlike other RPGs which usually have deep stories, monster collection games often do not, and I think for good reason - they tend to be mechanically involved, which can make story feel like a distraction from the gameplay in a bad way. I of course would not begrudge a Monster Collection game from having a good story, but I’m actually not sure if I can even think of an example - maybe SMT4 or SMT Apocalypse? The SMT games are different in many ways from traditional monster collector games, but I’d say they still qualify - unlike the Persona games, which have monster collection as a combat mechanic but have so watered it down I don’t think I’d personally place them in that genre at all - and SMT3 and 5, while their stories are in some ways good, are not good in the way traditional RPG stories are, instead staying out of the way in much the same way most monster collection stories do, despite being well written and deep. Only 4 (and its spinoff Apocalypse) feels like a traditional RPG story AND is well written.

The second game has more story, and a largely more serious story, and a mildly better written one. I’d honestly rate it as a largely neutral change. The extra story and seriousness of the story honestly detract a bit from the feel of the game, but it being better written and still humorous at times help balance it and keep it doing its job, which is to supplement but not distract from the quality gameplay.

This third game, though, feels much more plot heavy so far, and while the characters have some humor to them, the story itself feels quite heavy so far, while not feeling notably better written than previous entries. I'm not far enough in to come to any conclusions, but to me, it feels like a step down. If the story isn’t good, then having more of it isn’t better, its worse, and if a story isn’t very good, it being more serious isn’t better, it is worse. MHS3 seemingly does both at once. It would actually be a better game with less story that was sillier, in my opinion, as it would let you focus on what everyone is actually here for, the awesome monsters.

This is the sane trap the Pokemon games fell in starting with Gen 3. The stories got more and more serious and more and more prominent, taking up more of your time and ultimately feeling like a slog. I don’t give a shit about the story in Pokemon, I just want to go on my Pokemon journey. Scarlet and Violet course corrected on this fairly well, in my opinion, refocusing the plot on your own personal journey and making it nonlinear and at least -feel- optional. Its one of the reasons its my favorite Pokemon game, easily, despite its poor performance at launch. But other game series should take not, too - more story is not always better. You need to be aware of the strengths of your game and why people are playing it. Despite the name, I don’t think anyone is playing Monster Hunter Stories for the story. Its for the monsters. Keep it light and focused on that - unless you have some really important, deep story you want to tell and know you can pull it off, like SMT4. But you probably don’t, so reign it in.