Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings Of Ruin PS4 Review. Monster Hunter Stories was a grand success for Capcom, taking the Monster Hunter formula and transitioning it into a fun and entertaining turn-based role-playing game. With Wings of Ruin, the developer has utilised what made Stories so good as a handheld game and expands on it by improving and adding everything missing from the first game to provide a much more complete package.
Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings Of Ruin PS4 Review
A Compelling And Exciting Tale
Wings of Ruin begins similarly to Stories. You take on a male or female protagonist living off a coastal village whose citizens worship the all-powerful Rathalos. But something has gone wrong, and all the Rathalos have mysteriously left the island, and it’s up to your Rider in training to find out why.
The story has a much bigger emphasis here, and you’ll encounter plenty of characters on your journey. Some will join you on your quest, while others will stand in your way. The more significant emphasis on story means you’ll get a lot more cutscenes and dialogue, all of which is welcome in the Monster Hunter universe, which has long been deprived of a full-fledged story to tell.
Wings of Ruin is also a massive game, and the story takes fifty or so hours to finish without completing any side content or exploring the world.
Monster Collecting At Its Finest
Wings of Ruin essentially maintains what made the first game engaging and expands on it. The biggest draw of the Stories series is the monster collecting. The world is full of monster dens to locate and eggs to collect. Monster dens are dungeons, and you find a monster nest at the end of the dungeon.
These dungeons significantly improve over the first game and feel more like actual areas to explore. Not all will be actual dungeons, as some dens are just linear areas to explore. They also feature plenty of monsters to fight and materials to acquire.
From this nest, you can collect a monster egg. This egg has a quality determined by your feline companion, who can sniff out good-quality eggs. Like the original game, the worse it smells, and the heavier it is, the better the monster. Wings of Ruin now adds a shiny effect to the egg, indicating that an egg is high-quality.
Later in the game, you can manipulate the Monstie’s genes to change their abilities and even make the ultimate Monstie, who can attack various elements. It’s a deep system that players can spend hours in, but it requires a lot of grinding for monster eggs to use duplicate monsters to fuse or take abilities from.
Much like in Stories, your monsters or Monsties are used to traverse the world’s vast landscapes and various environments. Depending on your Monstie, you can climb walls. Leap over large crevasses and even swim through water. The world features vast deserts and sprawling forests. There are a lot of varied locations and unique monsters to find in those locations.
Adding More Flair And Strategy To The Combat
Combat has also made some improvements with this sequel. Mostly, it plays the same role as it does in Stories. Enemy monsters and Monsties fall into the Power, Speed, and Technique categories. Your Monsties are locked into their type but can sometimes choose to switch their attack type.
It’s a shame that, with so many improvements in the sequel, controlling your party wasn’t one of them. This leads to many situations that leave you vulnerable and cause unnecessary damage.
When selecting an attack, you can go head-to-head with your opponent, who is attacking you in return. If you attack with a speed attack and your opponent is weak to a speed attack, you’ll win the attack and gain Kinship points.
For most of the game, you’ll be joined by guest characters who will help you out in battle. You’ll now have four party members between two humans and two Monsties, but once again, you only have control of your protagonist outside of giving specific commands to use special moves with Kinship points.
Weapon Types Play A Big Role In Wings Or Ruin
Enemies now bear a weakness to the type of weapon attack they receive, adding another layer to combat. Striking a monster enough times with a weapon weakness can break parts of their body. This applies to larger monsters but is an excellent way to gain rare monster materials. Monsters sometimes use objects to protect themselves, and using specific weapons helps break those objects.
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. Mounting increases your attack, defense, and health. However, it locks you out of being able to use special attacks and items.
Winning head-to-head encounters while riding increases your Kinship gauge. Even though you can use a Kinship attack, which is like an ultimate attack, whenever you want, you can instead raise your Kinship to three full gauges and pull off an even more powerful Kinship attack that features some excellent animations, some quite funny. Once the Kinship attack is removed, you’ll return to your normal state and unmount the Monstie.
Hunting And Gathering
Materials and gathering spots are scattered worldwide to craft new weapons and armor. Weapons play a much more significant role this time; monsters have weaknesses depending on your weapon. Weapons come in three attack styles. Piercing, Slashing, and Blunt.
Keeping at least one weapon of each type on hand is always a good idea. It is also handy because you can change your weapon during combat whenever you choose. Meanwhile, questing unfortunately follows the same recipe as Stories did. This means that you can acquire dozens of simple gathering and hunting quests that, once completed, you can grab the same quest again to complete as often as you want.
The game does feature other more notable side quests, but those eventually fall into the same pattern. One long-running quest asks that you find a specific monster and show it to the quest giver. None of the quests add much to the storytelling or world-building.
Visually, the game is on par with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. The art style is very similar, and the effects are sometimes striking. The world is pretty detailed, with plenty of vegetation, and is ripe for exploration. The voice work and soundtrack are great, too.
Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin is yet another solid offering from Capcom, which continues to release high-quality products throughout the year.
Wings of Ruin takes a different approach to the Monster Hunter formula, one that’s more suitable for all age groups, but those who enjoy the world of Monster Hunter and monster-collecting games will get the most enjoyment out of Wings of Ruin.
Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin releases on PS4 on June 14, 2024 and is playable on PS5 via backwards compatibility.
Review code kindly provided by PR