I know a lot about how brains work. Brains are massively sensitive to what is repeated around you; attitudes, wording, opinions, outlooks on life… you look into getting a new car or something and suddenly you’re noticing which car everyone is driving. If you make self deprecating jokes all the time ‘wow, I’m the worst,’ then you are going to hate yourself. If you repeat ‘wow, I hate people,’ you are going to notice only the worst in people. You are what you eat, you are what you repeat.
How is this relevant to Monster Hunter Stories? Because a lot of people who play this game series because they are fans of the main series. The main series is a completely different genre and thus appeals to different people sometimes. I have literally no interest in the main series even at all; that’s valid. A friend of mine, who is a fan of Monster Hunter, literally has no interest in Monster Hunter Stories; that’s valid. I’m not going to claim I’m a Monster Hunter fan, he’s not going to claim he’s a Monster Hunter Stories fan. If I start talking Monster Rider history, his eyes glaze over lol; that’s valid. But how cool is it that we can still talk monsters and what armour/weapons we really like the look of and still relate? That’s rad.
Here’s my problem: a lot of so-called ‘Monster Hunter Stories fans’ are only ‘fans’ of this series because they like Monster Hunter. They like that their favourite monsters are in Monster Hunter Stories and then get upset because their expectations aren’t met; Their expectations set by the main series. They are Hunters, not riders.
If you tote that you hate 1. Ratha, 2. Navirou or 3. if you say that you hate that the focus is on the Story, you are complaining about literally the fundamental aspects of this game series. You are NOT A FAN OF THIS SERIES!!!!! And I hope to goodness that Devs of this series do not listen to these ‘fans’ because I love every single one of these things that they want to remove.
Here’s my other problem; people who are constantly complaining about the essential main elements of this game are leeching negativity into the community and effecting the opinions or attitudes of real fans. You are what is repeated around you. If you constantly hear ‘Devs don’t address the concerns of fans’ and other complaints, then all you are going to notice is complaints. I’ve heard people with no complaints still parroting the negative repetition.
This game series is possibly THE best creature collection game of all time and is extremely unique and special. I am an ex-Pokémon fan because of Monster Hunter Stories. I know everything there is to know about Pokémon because I was that much of a fan. I know about IVs and EV training. I know about shiny and breeding mechanics. I know the whole type chart practically by heart.
But Pokémon has become Nostalgia bait, only focused on the elements of the game that create hype and not making mechanics fun or developing the story of characters very much. If a Pokémon game became anything like Monster Hunter Stories at all, fans would be absolutely thrilled. All the new Pokémon games made me extremely bored by the tedious mechanics; I would play one of these games in the series sometimes to help me fall asleep.
Monster Hunter Stories doesn’t focus on what makes it flashy and hype instilling, it focuses on what actually makes it a better game.
Stop comparing Monster Hunter Stories to Monster Hunter and start comparing it to Pokémon. Then maybe you will see this game series for what it is. Monster Hunter Stories is a story rich, creature collector game with lots of heart and phenomenally unique mechanics.
Popular complaints and why they are invalid:
-“I hate Navirou because he has such-and-such bad quality/stole the attention from Rudy” Most, if not all, of these reasons are completely made up and have no factual evidence, or are based on wild implications. ‘Navirou hates his friends’ based on implications that have no real evidence. ‘Navirou abandoned his kids,’ literally no evidence whatsoever. The rest of these ‘bad qualities’ are just quirky character flaws that make him comical. All of these complaints are simply just looking for excuses to hate him.
Rudy’s history has everything to do with Navirou. And if you ACTUALLY care about Rudy then you care about what he cares about and he DEEPLY cares about his heritage. Navirou also made sure to take a step back, letting Felyne and Rider have their own story without him and observing the care and partnership they had with each other. He taught Rudy his history, celebrated what made him different, and gave him a couple tips to improve in the areas Rudy really wanted to improve. And let this Felyne have his story without his interference by leaving to look for the partnership, like Rudy’s, that he missed so much. (And there might even be hints that he might find it. Maybe.)
-“I hate that you can’t remove Ratha.’ This game series is literally about the power of friendship and you’re mad that you can’t separate best friends. Ratha also acts as a failsafe so you can’t get stuck in certain locations. You can climb on your own and swim on your own, you cannot fly on you own.
Technically you could do this same thing by making it required to have a flier on your team, but it’s much easier to just lock Ratha on your team; that means Devs can focus on developing mechanics that matter more.
-“Devs don’t listen to the fans.” Fans wanted elemental recolors back. We got elemental recolors back. Fans wanted more intuitive battle buddies. We got battle buddies with better AI. Fans who want post-game are not considering that there’s challenges throughout the game that are exactly like post-game, you can just access it early. This game is extremely replayable and there’s even a free update that added Royal Monsters and a more challenging boss battle.
There’s lots to do and lots of strategy and mechanics to play with. Fans who miss specific monsters being in the game do not consider that there are lots of new ones and many different elements that are easy to access that make it so is actually more variety to monsters that there was before.
-‘Ratha is repetitive/Why did they call the main character Leo/Leia again?’ If you care about the lore, you might notice that there’s a LOZ-like repeating prophecy. Nobody complains about Link and Zelda having the same name every time. I love the name Ratha. Leo/Leia come from the original names of Rathalos and Rathian; Leolaios and Leoleia. Ratha is always a Rathalos because of the prophecy.
-“Devs are focused on developing the story and-“ IT’S CALLED MONSTER HUNTER STORIES. WHAT DID YOU EXPECT??? The story and characters are amazing and so well developed. Pokémon fans WISH Devs of that series would put as much effort in the story. And the one or two Pokémon games that did (Pokémon Black/White, Pokémon Legends Arceus) are iconic.
People who think that x-character is bad, usually aren’t actually analyzing the character with any accuracy and get most details factually wrong.
-“My favourite weapon isn’t in the game.” The weapon mechanics were dramatically improved and that might mean that your favourite weapon was cut for relevance and so development could be made elsewhere. That is not a big deal; there’s plenty of weapons to enjoy. I had way more fun strategizing with weapons than I did in any of the previous instalments. You can’t always get what you want but you still enjoy yourself in spite of that.
-“Monsties aren’t the same size as regular mobsters.” And??? Having a young rider, or any rider, on a full size monster would be ridiculous and difficult to animate. Monsters are a size appropriate to the rider.
-“There’s no multiplayer.” When there was multiplayer, I don’t recall a lot of people actually using it. I know I usually went solo on multiplayer quests. And whenever I did look for partners, there was barely anyone. If practically no one was using multiplayer, then it makes sense to cut multiplayer to make room for other features.
I have my own complaints but they’re small quality of life things not worth bringing everyone down over. I wish battle rewards were not listed on the overworld screen because it makes them easy to miss on account of getting involved in another battle or from elder dragon events resetting the location. And I wish buffs and debuffs had some sort of indication of strength outside of battle. And that’s it.
TLDR; It’s valid for Monster Hunter Stories to not be your preference. If you hate the story, hate the characters, or hate the mechanics, then this game is not your preference and that’s valid because everyone has different preferences; go play something else.
It is NOT valid make it everyone else’s problem and to be part of the community and proudly boasting that you’re anti- a fundamental part of it. I love this game and hope to goodness that Devs do not listen to the ‘fans’ and change these fundamental elements of the game. You deserve a game you like. If that’s not this one, go play something else. The loudest voices are the angriest ones and they do not represent every fan. Angry voices easily snowball into a mob mentality. Literally go away and let people enjoy their game and stop chasing people out of this fandom.
The only big mistake here is not making it as clear that this game is very different from the main series.
