I figured this would be a better place to put my concluding thoughts about the only new JRPG I played last year, now that the official GotY nominations thread has moved on to the roleplaying categories:
Monster Hunter Stories 2
My biggest gaming let-down of 2022.
It's not the fault of story or characters. Those are no more insulting than I'm trained to enjoy and elevated by outstanding cutscene direction.
No, the problems all come down to gameplay.
The battle system is simple rock-paper-scissors with just enough avenues built in for iteration in order to keep predicting the next incoming attack interesting. But the game doesn't like to utilize them. Tells never get any harder to spot, damage migitation upon correct reads no less absolute, patterns only so much more complicated - the latter, I assume, in response to criticism the first Stories received for its monsters being too much work to figure out.
Instead fights brute-force difficulty by two means: A) giving monsters neutral attacks, B) granting monsters extra attacks per round. Both completely bypass the core rock-paper-scissor attack triangle. It's like the game gave up on balancing its combat, within its own established rules, before even trying.
It had no need to abandon faith. Engaging with the rock-paper-scissor element is fun. Reading a monster like a book conveys the fantasy of a master rider/hunter, and guessing wrong creates energizing "Oh shit!" moments. In contrast, uncounterable neutral attacks and monsters going ham with two, three attacks per round can only be dealt with in very limited ways, and it gets exhausting repeating those strategies for every big encounter.
Fundamentally, Monster Hunter Stories 2's combat shines in boss fights, and it sucks for trash mobs. Fights take time, even when you've learned a monster inside out and are mindlessly going through the motions. It's the worst kind of battle system to build a grindy end-game around, yet that's excactly what Monster Hunter Stories 2 does post-credits.
Customizing your monstie's gene boards means lots of unskippable fights. Then again, the appeal of building unique monsties is restricted to begin with due to a lack of variety in genes, stats, types and elements. A Power-type Fire-element monstie is the same as any other power/fire monstie, looks aside, except one species objectively invalidates the rest because it has superior stats on its side on top of the same type, element and access to all the the same genes. But if you do have your heart set on teaching, say, your favorite belly-sliding snow bunny a certain set of attacks and passive abilities, get ready for the longest egg gacha hunt of your life, as the one method the game offers of hunting specific species is no good.
In short, as I would sum up a review in a snarky headline, "This game is THE PITS!"
I started Dungeon Encounters and it seems cool, but I haven’t made it too far in myself. Hoping to get back to it.
