Releasing Pokemon into the wild is never fun. Even if you've become apathetic towards your little creatures, it's a pain to catalogue and release hundreds of Pokemon for the sole purpose of freeing up Box space. Modern games, like Pokemon Legends: Z-A, make this process quicker by letting you release multiple Pokemon, but there's no tangible gameplay benefit to sending your Pokemon back to where they came from. Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection, Capcom's monster-taming spin-off series, puts an exciting twist on this mundane aspect of the genre. It's called Habitat Restoration, and after playing 10 hours of Monster Hunter Stories 3, it might just be my favorite thing about it.
The Monster Hunter Stories subseries can be summed up as turn-based Monster Hunter. The crafting mechanics are streamlined, but the core Monster Hunter loop is largely intact: Kill monsters to craft equipment so you can hunt bigger monsters and craft better equipment. Where the Stories subseries sets itself apart from the mainline series, however, are the monster-taming mechanics. Iconic monsters from the franchise--or Monsties as they're called here--fight alongside you.
New Monsties can be acquired by raiding a monster den and digging up randomized eggs from a nest. Once you have a few eggs, you can return to camp, hatch them, and throw them in your party. However, like Pokemon, no two Monsties are the same. Even ones that share the same name might have different passive abilities and movesets thanks to their genes. Alongside Monster Hunter's classic hunt and craft gameplay loop, collecting better and better monsters is a core aspect of the game.
What’s unique to Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection is a new feature called Habitat Restoration. The gist is that, by releasing monsters back into the wild, the areas you explore will yield better monsters in the future. Each region has its own ecosystem with different obtainable Monsties; When you release Monsties native to that region, it will increase that Monsties rank, which improves your odds of finding more powerful versions with alternate colors, additional types, and rare genes. There's still an element of RNG when it comes to collecting eggs and hatching Monsties, but by investing resources and time into Habitat Restoration you can tilt the odds in your favor. Within a couple hours I had a full party of A- and S-rank Monsties trained up and ready to go.
Of course, you can't just start releasing Monsties right away. Each habitat is home to an invasive Feral Monster which has thrown off the ecosystem. In order to start Habitat Restoration, you need to track and kill the Feral Monster. These monsters are a bit tougher than the average monsters wandering the map, so taking them down requires careful targeting and smart Monstie management. Once you've driven them out of the area, you can start Habitat Restoration.
Another major benefit of Habitat Restoration are dual-element Monsties. These are Monsties born with an extra element that matches their habitat, giving them access to more starting genes and resistances. Theoretically, a water-type Monstie like a Royal Ludroth could hatch with fire typing as well, giving it access to even more attacks. In order to do this, you need to alter a region's ecosystem by releasing Monsties that aren't native to it. For example, say you want a Rathian with fire-thunder typing. By releasing a Rathian into a thunder habitat, Rathian eggs will start to spawn in that area and some might have that additional type. I haven't experimented much with dual-element Monsties, but it seems like it could offer another layer of strategy in combat and more flexibility in team-building. Of course, adapting an extra type also comes with some new weaknesses so some preplanning is a good idea.
There's also something wholesome about collecting and releasing Monsties to improve their ecosystem. Monster Hunter has always been a little goofy, but the idea of preserving these creatures--as ferocious as they can be--gives Monster Hunter Stories 3 a lighter tone. Monsties feel less like combat tools and more like living creatures that are part of an interdependent ecosystem. Whenever you release a batch of monsters, you're met with a melodramatic cutscene backed by some wind instruments as your Monsties head out into the sunset and your party waves them goodbye. It's cheesy, but it works. For a few seconds, I forget that these creatures normally try to kill me on sight.
As someone who's spent an embarrassing amount of time trying to catch and obtain perfect Pokemon, Monster Hunter Stories 3 offers an elegant solution to one of the genre's grindier aspects. In Pokemon, there are ways to find monsters with better stats such as breeding or clearing high-level Tera Raids, but the process always relies heavily on RNG and can be a time sink. Collecting high-rank Monsties still requires some effort, but once I maxed out an ecosystem, the rate at which I was finding rare and potent monster eggs noticeably increased. It's hard to say if and how this system develops over the course of the game, but, for now, Habitat Restoration appears to be an obvious highlight.
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The Monster Hunter Stories subseries can be summed up as turn-based Monster Hunter. The crafting mechanics are streamlined, but the core Monster Hunter loop is largely intact: Kill monsters to craft equipment so you can hunt bigger monsters and craft better equipment. Where the Stories subseries sets itself apart from the mainline series, however, are the monster-taming mechanics. Iconic monsters from the franchise--or Monsties as they're called here--fight alongside you.
New Monsties can be acquired by raiding a monster den and digging up randomized eggs from a nest. Once you have a few eggs, you can return to camp, hatch them, and throw them in your party. However, like Pokemon, no two Monsties are the same. Even ones that share the same name might have different passive abilities and movesets thanks to their genes. Alongside Monster Hunter's classic hunt and craft gameplay loop, collecting better and better monsters is a core aspect of the game.
What’s unique to Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection is a new feature called Habitat Restoration. The gist is that, by releasing monsters back into the wild, the areas you explore will yield better monsters in the future. Each region has its own ecosystem with different obtainable Monsties; When you release Monsties native to that region, it will increase that Monsties rank, which improves your odds of finding more powerful versions with alternate colors, additional types, and rare genes. There's still an element of RNG when it comes to collecting eggs and hatching Monsties, but by investing resources and time into Habitat Restoration you can tilt the odds in your favor. Within a couple hours I had a full party of A- and S-rank Monsties trained up and ready to go.
Of course, you can't just start releasing Monsties right away. Each habitat is home to an invasive Feral Monster which has thrown off the ecosystem. In order to start Habitat Restoration, you need to track and kill the Feral Monster. These monsters are a bit tougher than the average monsters wandering the map, so taking them down requires careful targeting and smart Monstie management. Once you've driven them out of the area, you can start Habitat Restoration.
Another major benefit of Habitat Restoration are dual-element Monsties. These are Monsties born with an extra element that matches their habitat, giving them access to more starting genes and resistances. Theoretically, a water-type Monstie like a Royal Ludroth could hatch with fire typing as well, giving it access to even more attacks. In order to do this, you need to alter a region's ecosystem by releasing Monsties that aren't native to it. For example, say you want a Rathian with fire-thunder typing. By releasing a Rathian into a thunder habitat, Rathian eggs will start to spawn in that area and some might have that additional type. I haven't experimented much with dual-element Monsties, but it seems like it could offer another layer of strategy in combat and more flexibility in team-building. Of course, adapting an extra type also comes with some new weaknesses so some preplanning is a good idea.
There's also something wholesome about collecting and releasing Monsties to improve their ecosystem. Monster Hunter has always been a little goofy, but the idea of preserving these creatures--as ferocious as they can be--gives Monster Hunter Stories 3 a lighter tone. Monsties feel less like combat tools and more like living creatures that are part of an interdependent ecosystem. Whenever you release a batch of monsters, you're met with a melodramatic cutscene backed by some wind instruments as your Monsties head out into the sunset and your party waves them goodbye. It's cheesy, but it works. For a few seconds, I forget that these creatures normally try to kill me on sight.
As someone who's spent an embarrassing amount of time trying to catch and obtain perfect Pokemon, Monster Hunter Stories 3 offers an elegant solution to one of the genre's grindier aspects. In Pokemon, there are ways to find monsters with better stats such as breeding or clearing high-level Tera Raids, but the process always relies heavily on RNG and can be a time sink. Collecting high-rank Monsties still requires some effort, but once I maxed out an ecosystem, the rate at which I was finding rare and potent monster eggs noticeably increased. It's hard to say if and how this system develops over the course of the game, but, for now, Habitat Restoration appears to be an obvious highlight.
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