There is no underplaying the golden age Capcom is in as a company right now. Considering all the well deserved fanfare they are currently getting with the critical and commercial success of Resident Evil Requiem, the positive momentum of next month’s Pragmata and the salivating return of Onimusha later this year, one would think they’re in good enough shape for the rest of 2026. And then you realize, they also had a hidden gem dropping to the side with Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection.
The third entry in the turn based, story focused monster nurturing/collecting spinoff to their popular Monster Hunter series, Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflections proves the seriousness Capcom is taking with all their properties with this glowed up third entry of a sub-series that started life as a Nintendo 3DS side project back in 2017 (later ported to Switch and PlayStation 4). The scale may have been paired back compared to the mothership main games, but Stories got the thing right the main games don’t: storytelling.
The first two games worked effectively well as Pokemon-like versions of the franchise with great stories to boot. With this third entry, everything that worked well remains, but now with a new level of scale and beauty. Does the glow up make Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection a worthy contender in the ever growing crowd of monster-nurturing turn-based RPG’s?
Skyscale Encroachment
Designed as a spiritual sequel to the first two entries, Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection is set hundreds of years ahead from the first two games, providing an easy jumping on point if you want to start here (the first two games were slightly more connected to one another, though they were also fairly standalone).
In Twisted Reflection, two centuries after a civil war shattered the kingdoms of Azuria and Vermeil, both nations are now on the brink of collapse with a mysterious disaster known as the “Crystal Encroachment” spreading across the land, turning ecosystems into graveyards and pushing the kingdoms toward an icy extinction. During this ecological disaster, a single egg is discovered where two Skyscale Rathalos are born, creatures believed extinct and tied to the ancient war that nearly destroyed both kingdoms. You play as the male or female heir to the kingdom of Azuria and captain of the Rangers, a Rider who’s tasked with protecting the monster ecosystems and uncovering why these twin Rathalos have returned and what it portends to the rest of the world.
Whereas the stories in the first two games were more kid friendly takes on riders forming bonds with the monsters they’re nurturing, Twisted Reflection manages to center the stories around the why those monster bonds are important in the face of a grander extinction event, layered on top of the slight political intrigue of the history of these two separate kingdoms, your Rider’s relationship with the princess of the opposing kingdom, and the mystery of the Rathalos giving this the kind of epic story scale you normally see in a JRPG. Your protagonist being a grown up compared to the kids in the first two games opened the storytelling opportunities of this game a lot compared to what was there before, and while the story itself does get caught in some usual “saving the world” cliches and some middle game pacing zags, it remained intriguing throughout, with a great mix of touching moments and epic crescendos that led to a satisfying conclusion.
Rock, Paper, Scissors
For the uninitiated, Monster Hunter Stories trades away the series’ usual methodical action combat, and translates a lot of those ideas into a turn-based combat that keeps the methodical identity of the franchise while adding turn-based strategy to the proceedings. At its core, Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection runs on a turn-based system that looks simple on the surface, but slowly reveals its layers the longer you sit with it.
The backbone is the familiar rock/paper/scissors triangle: Power, Speed, and Technical. Each attack type counters another, and success comes from reading enemy behavior rather than reacting blindly. When you correctly predict an opponent’s move, you trigger “Head-to-Head” clash mini duels that reward you with extra damage and momentum. But what elevates it is how everything feeds into everything else. Winning these battles builds your Kinship gauge, which eventually lets you mount your Monstie (your monster companions) and unleash cool looking cinematic, high-damage abilities that can interrupt enemy turns entirely.
Fights become more tactical once larger monsters enter the picture. Instead of attacking a single health bar, you’re targeting individual body parts, each with its own effect. Break the right part, and you can weaken attacks, cancel abilities, or create openings for massive damage. On top of that, enemies have a “Wyvernsoul gauge” that when you deplete it, it staggers or exposes them which can turn the tide of a battle on a clutch. And this is before you face the real threats in the form of the mutated or “Feral” monsters, which tests your skills to the limit where its encounters demand different strategies, builds and sometimes even different Monsties altogether. They’re less about brute force and more about understanding the system well enough to bend it. Understanding that “on-the-fly” experimentation makes the combat sing, and not engaging with it results in plenty of frustrating battle slogs of perpetual trial and error.
Outside of combat, Twisted Reflection settles into a nice rhythm of semi-open world exploration, egg collecting and hatching the different monsters that become your Monstie companions, some deep customization with the “Gene” system that allows you to more personally tailor each Monstie to your liking besides their normal traits (a system that reminds me a lot of the customization in last year’s Digimon Stories: Time Stranger), resource gathering and light crafting elements that more clearly connects this subseries to the mainline Monster Hunter games, and more. This is all in addition to the array of side quests to tackle in the game’s lengthy 70+ hour journey.
TWISTED BEAUTY
Continuing to use Capcom’s proprietary “RE Engine”, Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection presents an interesting use case for the engine as it mixes a semi open world structure with a completely cel-shaded aesthetic, and the results are nothing short of excellent. This is one of the most beautiful games made in this art-style, popping with so much color, grandeur, and personality, all while performing well in open environments. Compared to when the engine was used in 2024’s controversial Dragon’s Dogma 2 and last year’s Monster Hunter Wilds which were dogged by some ugly aesthetics and dodgy performance, Twisted Reflection may have cracked the code on how the engine can be used in this case, where the art style can provide the great visuals with more easily hidden compromises.
I had the chance to play the game on PC using an NVIDIA 3060ti alongside the PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 5 Pro. I was pleasantly surprised at how it ran on my PC as I was able to run the game using DLAA at High with nary any compromises to get it to remain at a stable 60fps. And the game had the advantage of having higher quality grass assets on PC that were absent on the PS5 and PS5 Pro versions I played.
The PS5 version felt stable enough on the game’s performance mode, even though the softness of the image quality did hurt the visual splendor of the cel-shaded artstyle, and its more jittery on the game’s Balanced and Graphics mode where it ran at an unlocked framerate. The PS5 Pro version didn’t seem like it uses PSSR, but instead uses the better hardware overhead where running the Graphics Mode delivered a perfect 60fps that makes the artstyle shine. It’s to the point that running the game on Pro in the Balanced and Performance mode seemed unnecessary.
Saying Capcom delivered another great game in their current golden era is the equivalent of saying water is wet and the sky is blue. But that doesn’t take away from the fact the developer is firing on all cylinders where even their pseudo spinoffs are now delivering such high quality that stands toe to toe with some of the best turn-based RPGs of the modern era. With a resonant story, incredible visuals, deeply satisfying combat and monster nurturing systems, Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twister Reflections delivers the goods, and it’s a must for everyone yearning to scratch that monster collecting itch.
Thank you to our PR partners and Capcom for providing review access to Monster Hunter Stories 3. You can find Seasoned Gaming’s review policy here.
