Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin

The Monster Hunter series isn’t the most welcoming of franchises, focused as it usually is on complex battles against enormous enemies, but that’s not true of the Stories spin-offs. These are, in fact, far more Pokémon-influenced adventures, where battles against the beasties take place in turn-based combat, rather than the main series’ far more demanding real-time fighting.

As well as battling monsters, you gather their eggs in order to hatch and befriend their offspring, adding them to your team for future fights. All the while, you’re gathering loot from felled enemies, alongside bits and bobs found in the wild, all used to craft new equipment. But, unlike the main series, you don’t need a degree in Monster Hunter Studies to be able to fathom any of the menus involved.

This is on Switch, while the original Monster Hunter Stories was on DS. Fortunately, there’s no need to have played the original to follow what’s happening—here you play as a descendant of the first game’s main character, and it’s many years later—so don’t worry about needing to find a DS charger in the attic.

The much-missed Mike Fahey absolutely loved Wings of Ruin, despite never having managed to click with the mainline Monster Hunter games, and we think you might too.

Available on: Switch