With Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection, Capcom continues the JRPG spinoff series of its mayor Monster Hunter franchise. While the main series is focused on exciting action combat and grind, Monster Hunter Stories takes another approach: turn based combat, monster breeding and development and a heavy focus on narrative. The third entry Twisted Reflection releases on March 13th 2026 on Nintendo Switch 2, Playstation 5, Xbox Series and PC and shows Capcom’s commitment to the Stories spinoff games. Not only is Twisted Reflection the largest entry in the series yet, but it takes a big step forward in terms of presentation and a more adult story.
The previous game Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin was released in 2021 and fans loved it for its charming storytelling and smooth gameplay. With Twisted Reflection, Capcom now tries to develop the franchise further and appeal to a whole new audience. With a bigger world, more complex combat and systems and a more mature story full of interesting characters and political intrigue.
The story of Monster Hunter Stories 3 plays in a world full of political tension between the two kingdoms of Azuria and Vermeil. Because of limited resources and a mysterious phenomenon called the Crystal Encroachment, both are the brink of war. Monsters get more aggressive and dangerous every day and their habitats smaller.
As the player you take on the role of the prince or princess of Azuria, an experienced rider and captain of the Rangers. What makes you unique is, that you are the only Rathalos rider. Back in the past, your mother queen Amara discovered two crystal encroached eggs, which turned out to be two Rathalos twins, cursed with a special alignment. However, one immediately bonded with the protagonist. The other was supposed to be sacrificed, but queen Amara rescued it last second and was seen again.
As the captain of the Rangers, it is your duty now to protect humans and monsters alike and research the egg quartz.
Soon into the game, things get heated and the kingdom of Vermeil asks for a round table, because it gets worse every day in the kingdom. The queens sister Eleanor offers herself up as a hostage to attempt to ease the tension between both kingdoms and becomes close to the Rangers, as she also cares for the monsters and people. It doesn’t take long for the protagonist and Eleanor to bond over their shared interests and both want to discover the origin of the Crystal Encroachement.
After they push back a heavy attack from Vermeil forces and a mysterious note, they make their way past the mountains to challenge an old Wyverian who guards the gate at the Meridian, the door to the outside world. And so together they start their adventure to discover what lies beyond and to find a cure for both of their kingdoms.
Comparing the game to it’s predecessors, it feels like a mor mature game from the get-go. While the first two games felt more like a classic Coming-of-Age story, Twisted Reflection takes influences from more complex and adult stories. The political twists and turns, the various factions and their interests that come together and depart again. It’s excited to see what comes next and who might betray who.
With the Rangers at its core, the story has a great group of friends and allies. All of them have their owen background and opinion about things and cutscenes are well presented. Early on in the game, the protagonist takes their first apprentice and goes through the rite of channelling with them, to make them a full Ranger. It’s a blast from the past, as you experienced that in the first two games, but now from a different perspective. And all Rangers have their own unique side quests lines, where you get to know them better and unlock new weapons, abilities and other things for them.
A central part of the Monster Hunter Stories games is the collection and development of the Monsties. As usual players can find monster eggs in caves to breed and train them. There are multiple rarities of eggs, which influence stats and abilities. Which sounds a bit like Pokemongets extended with the gene and skill system however to give it its own identity. Each monster comes with its own element, elemental strength and weaknesses and a 3×3 grid that is connected randomly. The rarer the monster, the better the grid. However, you can switch genes between monster and carry over abilities and active and passive skills. If they match, you get additional boosts as well. If you spend some time with the system, you can min/max incredible monsters for every situation. And if you have played the endgame in one of the other Stories games before, you know it is worth it to engage with these systems, because just as before, Twisted Reflection awaits you with special monsters and extra hard bosses on the overworld and in the endgame again, which require a developed team that is covering strengths and weaknesses, combined with the right hunter equipment and weapons.
Exploring the overworld is also tied more to the monsters now, as they have different abilities that can be used in the overworld. Some monsters can swim, some can fly and glide and others are good at climbing or destroying walls. There is quite a lot to explore, and the rewards range from different gemstones to hidden item sets.
Core of the game is of course the combat. The familiar system of rock-paper-scissor returns yet again, but not as methodical as before. There are 3 attack types, power, speed and technical, which match each other, but from my impression, Monsters are using a more diverse attack pattern this time around. From a lot of special attacks to unique feral monster abilities, it is less and less guaranteed that a monster will just plainly use one of the attack types nonstop. So, you really must pay attention to Monster behaviour in combat and adjust to it with your own monsters and weapons. A new mechanic is the Wyvernsoul Gauge, which represents a monster’s stamina. Reducing it to zero causes a stagger and lets the player use the new Synchro Rush ability.
A new type of monster introduced in Twisted Reflection are the so-called feral monsters, which are extra hard and aggressive and have special crystalized body parts which results into new moves and abilities by the monsters. Finding out what they will do when you attack the crystalized parts is dangerous and can result in a quick death, if you are unprepared. However as said before with a good mix of monster and armor sets, which can be adjusted with new gems with new skills and abilities, the player can adjust to every situation and should. Overall, the combat feels a lot more dynamic and fun with the new features and doesn’t get stale.
One standout point for me was the visuals. Even back on the 3DS Monster Hunter Stories 1 was a good-looking game and you could tell the assets were high quality. Especially when it was ported to other systems, it still could hold up quite well. Same goes for Wings of Ruin, which looked beautiful with its anime style graphics. But Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection steps up the game. While the series remains true to its colourful anime-style visuals, the fidelity increased by a lot. The characters look detailed and expressive, and the environments and monsters just look gorgeous and full of detail. While I love the look of the Monster Hunter main games, I would love to see one of them with the Stories 3 art-style now.
Especially Monster and attack animations look incredible and full of life, and the numerous special attacks simply look spectacular and remind me a lot of Final Fantasy summons. Playing the game on the PS5 Pro, the game never drops its framerate and while Quality mode is an option and looks stunning, I played most of the game in Balanced mode, which doesn’t look much different.
The different areas and their variety do a lot for the long-time motivation of the game. Next to the main story and its mysteries, the numerous side stories, Ranger quests, optional boss fights and collectables keep you going. Discovering new and rare monsters thanks to the new habitat restoration feature and the different team composition increase the replayability a lot. And a lot of Monsters also means a lot of armor and weapon sets which can be upgraded up to three times to increase their stats and unlock gem slots, to adjust the gameplay even more to your liking.
We would like to thank CD Media Greece for providing us with a copy of the game for review purposes.
Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflections (PlayStation 5)
Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection is a big step forward for the series. You can tell at every point that Capcom committed more budget and time into the game to open it up for a broader audience than before. The game expands on the known charm and features of the Monster Hunter Stories games, introduces more gameplay mechanics, a bigger world, an improved combat system and a vastly more ambitious story with an interesting and fun cast. While still remaining newcomer friendly, there is a lot for the experienced JRPG player with lots of optional and hard fights to have. Director Kenji Oguro and his team delivered Capcom’s best JPRG in decades and hopefully that means we will see more of them in the future!
