Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings Of Ruin PS4 Hands-On Preview. Following the success of its spin-off title Monster Hunter Stories, The Wings of Ruin made its debut on the Nintendo Switch, bringing with it plenty of additions and quality of life improvements over its predecessor cultivating in one of the more entertaining monster collecting games with a good and exciting story to boot. The game is now set to launch for the PS4, and we’ve got our mitts on Capcom’s latest effort for a taste of things to come.
Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings Of Ruin PS4 Hands-On Preview
An Interesting And Exciting Story
I got to play through about twenty hours of Wings of Ruin and was quite impressed. Not much has changed from the original Switch version, which is only a few years old compared to the original Stories title, which was released on the Nintendo DS.
The story this time follows another Rider living in a beach village on an island inhabited by Rathalos. The villagers themselves worship the Rathalos, but something has gone wrong.
While enjoying their day, the Rathalos inhabiting the island take to the skies and fly off the island. You take it upon yourself to complete your Rider training and discover what has happened to all the Rathalos and led them to leave the island.
Throughout your journey, you’ll encounter plenty of characters that will help you on your journey, but you also face off against a group of powerful hunters looking to hunt down the Rathalos. The story is solid, with some pleasant surprises in store for players and one I wanted to keep experiencing.
Fun Exploration And Monster Collecting
Much of Wings of Ruin remains unchanged regarding its gameplay loop. You’ll encounter plenty of monsters from the Monster Hunter universe, and can also acquire eggs that later allows the creatures to join your party when they hatch. This makes the Stories games so much fun, collecting monsters and having them fight by your side.
When exploring, you’ll find plenty of materials to collect from plants, bones, and metals to upgrade your gear and craft potions and traps. While exploring, you may encounter monster dens. These dens hold monster eggs you can collect and hatch to join your party.
The eggs have a different quality, represented by a shiny glow on the egg and your feline friend, who will indicate how smelly and heavy the egg is. Monsters with better stats are generally gained from eggs that have a strong smell and are heavier than others.
Having a variety of monsters, or Monsties as they are called, has plenty of benefits when exploring. Monsters have unique exploration abilities, like pointing out plant harvest locations, breaking boulders, swimming, or climbing vines, allowing you to reach new areas and hidden chests.
Unique Combat With Plenty Of Improvements From The Original
Combat is turn-based, and you have two other companions by your side this time. In the original Stories, you can only control your character; one Monstie helps you in battle. This time around, you get a party member with their own Monstie. Unfortunately, you can only control your character, as everyone else is automated. Thankfully, you can still order your Monstie to use a unique ability, but that’s the extent of your control.
Combat is set up in a rock-paper-scissors advantage system. Each monster and character belongs to the Power, Speed, or Technique group. You can select which type of attack you wish to pull off between the three, but your monsters are locked into one type of attack.
Sometimes, they will also switch their type, but it’s not often. This can lead to many situations that leave you vulnerable and cause unnecessary damage.
When selecting an attack, you can go head-to-head with your opponent. If your opponent is weak to your type of attack, you’ll win the attack and gain Kinship points. Kinship points are used to pull off special attacks for you and your Monstie. Once you have accumulated enough Kingship points, you can mount your Monstie.
New Weapon Weakness Systems Add To The Already Fun Combat
Riding your Monstie increases your attack, defense, and Health. However, it locks you out of being able to use special attacks and items. If you win your head-to-heads while riding, you’ll continue to raise your Kinship. The more Kinship you get, the more powerful your kinship attack will be, launching an animated superattack.
A great addition to Wings of Ruin is the weapon weakness system. You can change your weapon when in combat, and it’s beneficial to do so because outside of the type weakness, some monsters are also weak to certain types of weapons. Slashing, Blunt, or piercing.
This helps deal even more damage to enemies but also allows you to quickly destroy parts of some monsters and gain rare materials during combat.
The visuals are decent and remind me of the Breath of the Wild franchise, and the vast environments, packed with lush vegetation, are ripe for exploration. The Switch’s limitations are evident here, but it’s still a good-looking game overall. The voice work and soundtrack are also pretty solid, and the characters’ story progression and emotional beats are palpable.
Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin looks to be another stand-out hit for Capcom. Though it’s a spin-off of one of their most popular franchises, it’s easy to see why it works so well in this universe.
If you have ever wondered what it would feel like to have these monsters fight by your side, this is the perfect way to do it. I can’t wait to continue my journey in this world and see what else it offers.
Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin releases on PS4 and PS5 via backward compatibility on June 14, 2024.