Since Monster Hunter first released back in 2004, there have been a few spin-offs from it, including card games, a Pokémon Go style game, and even a village simulator game made by FromSoftware. The most successful spin-off has to be Monster Hunter Stories which started on the Nintendo 3DS, got an anime series, toys and much more. Now the third game in that series is almost here and thanks to Capcom, we got to put a lot of time into the game. Is it worth long-time fans climb on board for another ride?

I won’t dive into the story too much here, just to keep things from being spoiled, but the basic setup is that you are the heir to the throne of Azuria and you are also the Captain of the Rangers. Your character can be male or female, so you are either a Prince or Princess and people will address you as such. The Rangers are a group of riders who all have specialties and work together in order to ensure the survival of the various monsters of the world, or Monsties as they call them. If the game was just about rehabilitating the world for Monsties to live in, that might be enough, but the world is threatened by a mysterious wave of Crystal Encroachment that is sweeping across it, encasing some Monsties in it and infecting others. It is that last part that is the problem, because the infected Monsties tend to go feral and invade the territory of other Monsties and drive them out.

While all of that is happening, there is a war brewing between the Azurians and their neighbours, the people of Vermeil. Geographically, the Vermeilians sit on a peninsular, which leaves them very little land to move to, in order to avoid the Crystal Encroachment from destroying them. Eventually the Prince, Rangers and more head out to the Northern Meridian and toward the Sacrosanctum, a place not known to anyone from Azuria, as it is forbidden ground. There is a lot more going on story-wise, with Kings and Queens, generals and battles and more, all of that is in the first few hours. The only thing I did not like about the story from the few hours I played was that there is very little in terms of choice. Your character is Royalty and the Captain of the Rangers and you don’t get to make choices, you just do and it feels like it is a bit of a missed chance. There are not even times when speaking with people where you can decide to be nice or nasty, you are just along for the ride. That might change in the full game, but for now it is something I am keenly aware of. A plus to your character is they do actually speak, which is a big step up from the past games, where your character never spoke.

So, story aside what is the gameplay like, because Monster Hunter at its core has a very cyclical gameplay loop. This plays a lot like the past games, so if you were not a fan of the previous titles, you are not going to be all that happy here. At the games core there are two parts, exploration and discovery and then battles, we will talk about the first part now. The exploration and discovery is where you can have a lot of fun, as you use your various Monsties in order to explore the world. This means you can use your Rathalos to bust down cracked walls, or use your Tobi-Kadachi to run up walls to take the high ground. As you do explore you will discover materials to collect, chests dotted about the place and Poogies to return home. You will also encounter a lot of Monster dens, where you can take an egg or two from and hopefully get out before the parental monster returns. There are also folks around the world who need assistance, sometimes it is just a matter of confirming a rumour, other times it requires fighting a set number of foes, and good news is you can have multiple quests going at once.

This brings us to the combat, which you are either going to love or hate. The core of it is a rock-paper-scissors system, where speed beats power, but power beats technical and finally technical beats speed. Each monster has a type, so if you are battling against a speed type, you will want to use a Monstie that uses technical attacks. The problem with this system is that some monsters can use multiple attack types, you can as well eventually, but you won’t discover what an enemy is going to do until after your attack has been chosen. There are times when things play out as you expect, a monster will do a lot of speed-based attacks, but then randomly they might do a different type and you lose your advantage. You can also do attacks that are elemental in nature, which are different to the three other types and don’t care if the enemy is doing one, but some monsters will have resistances to some elements and weaknesses to other.

That is the monsters, because you as the play can also do these sorts of attacks, along with using the various weapons that you can create. Some weapons are great at bashing damage, like using a great sword on the body of a monster, but some like the bow are better at piercing damage to the wings of one. No matter how many battles I played, there is never a single win every time solution, because even if the monster you are fighting is the same one you have fought a few times, it will behave differently and that will cause you to adjust your plans. This does not take into consideration the monsters that are feral because of the Crystal Encroachment, or the ones that have forced out other monsters and invaded their den. Thankfully, the game does allow you to bash into monsters to take them out, so if you are at a level higher than the monster, you can avoid the fight. If they do sneak up on you, if you are a higher level, the game will present you with an auto-win option, which is very welcome.

Now I could keep talking about the weapon and armour crafting systems, and the upgrades of each, but anyone who is a Monster Hunter player will understand those mechanics. The game also has a system where you can take skills from one monster and give them to another, which can let your normally speed type Monstie have a technical attack. That last part was only done once in my time with the game and was the tutorial part, so I don’t have much to say on it right now.

If this was a review, I could wax poetic about how gorgeous the game looks, because it does look amazing, but this is a preview, so I won’t. It does however look amazing. Also, the same thing can be said about the games audio work, there is more I will say once I have beaten the game, so that will come in the full review.

When I went into the preview, I figured I would have a nice time, while the first two games did not set the gaming world on fire, they were somewhat enjoyable. Now having spent about 8 hours running around the world, I am way more on board with this threequel. The main character actually speaking is a big reason why, but just the sheer number of improvements to the base gameplay and world exploration help as well. Will I feel as excited once the credits roll? Who knows, but I know that I am more than happy to find out.

The game is set to release on March 13 for Nintendo Switch 2, PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. If you are looking to pick the game up for yourself, then check out our Bargain Guide, so you only pay what you need to.

Preview coverage was made possible by Capcom.