The Monster Hunter series from Capcom has been successful for years. The announcement of Monster Hunter Worldwhich is due to be released in 2025, has given fans great anticipation. The spin-off of the series, called Monster Hunter Stories, is less exciting. It was originally released for the 3DSnow it is also celebrating on the other platforms debutWe took a closer look at the Switch version in this test.
The Phantom Menace
The childish story is about riders rather than hunters. Instead of hunting and killing monsters, the approach is more reminiscent of Pokémon.
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Our silent protagonist, whose appearance we can choose ourselves, grew up in a village of riders. The monsters that live there are called Monsties, which is a combination of the words monster and beast – sounds cheesy, and it is.
Source: PCGames
When a black curse begins to affect the land, our journey into the wide world begins to stop the threat. This takes us through grasslands, ice deserts, jungles and other biomes. Nevertheless, the areas all seem very poorly designed. At least there are beautiful, pre-rendered sequences to see now and again.
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However, there are also monster hunters in the world. The riders live apart from the hunters. When we meet real guilds with our monsties, we are initially very surprised, but this quickly subsides. The game could definitely have made more of this clash of cultures.
Source: PCGames
New console, same crap
Originally published Monster Hunter Stories (buy now 45,08 € / 26,99 € ) in 2016 for the 3DS. From June 14th, the monstrous journey also began on the Nintendo Switch.
The port to Switch and other consoles has changed the game slightly. We now experience Monster Hunter Stories with a higher resolution than on the 3DS. It doesn't look particularly pretty, though. The graphics are on the level of a mobile game, which is because that's exactly what it is: the game has been available to download on Android and IOS since 2018.
Source: PCGames
For the port to Switch, the textures were not revised and the graphics were not scaled up significantly. The world map in thumbnail view can be found in the top right corner of the screen instead of on the touchscreen. The user interface for battles, on the other hand, is located on the left edge of the screen so as not to disrupt the action too much.