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Alongside heroic questing and tear-evoking character arcs, an integral a part of any RPG expertise is the grinding. From prancing round fields seeking herbs to trawling caves for high-level beasties, this inevitable observe makes up a large chunk of any save file.
Evaluate information
Platform reviewed: PC
Accessible on: PS5, Xbox Sequence X|S, Nintendo Swap 2, PC
Launch date: March 13, 2026
Monster Hunter Tales 3: Twisted Reflection, the most recent addition to Capcom’s beloved creature-catching dynasty, doesn’t shrink back from this actuality, offering moreish mechanical loops and loads of aspect tales as you discover its wonderful fantasy journey.
Set within the pastoral kingdom of Azuria, you play because the prince or, in my case, the princess of the land, who, on high of their royal duties, acts because the chief of the Rangers, a bunch of eco-conscious warriors who preserve the land.
In the future, throughout a routine realm-protecting enterprise, a bunch of troops from the less-than-thriving neighbouring kingdom of Vermeil is noticed, resulting in a tense standoff between the 2 nations. What ensues is a fancy action-packed role-playing sport (RPG) that leads the regal inheritor to the throne down a pithy rabbit gap, opening up questions on their previous as they enterprise past the perimeters of their house seeking solutions.
Another troubling wrinkle right here is that on high of the bureaucratic chaos, rogue monsters have gotten contaminated with an odd crystal illness that turns them into raging, psychopathic beasts – very unlucky timing. Over the runtime, these twin investigations begin to intertwine, with Twisted Reflection culminating in an emotional finale I completely loved working in direction of.
A heavy serving to of exposition and a number of time-consuming tutorials imply this expedition begins off gradual, and seasoned Monster Hunter Stories gamers will probably must button mash by a lot of this to get to the juicy turn-based meat. Nonetheless, if you happen to’re new to the IP or this turn-based iteration, you’ll be nicely taken care of right here.
The Wild Hunt
In contrast to the mainline Monster Hunter series, Tales switches up fight, cleverly adapting the high-octane expertise into a way more pleasant turn-based one.
You’ll nonetheless want to focus on particular physique elements of monsters, and use the precise weapon to interrupt foot bones, puncture inflatable necks, and break down well being bars till the monster stops budging. Notably, you’ll have loads of time to resolve the best way to deconstruct your prey with out worry of them working off or slaughtering you mercilessly. Necessary disclaimer, although — even with the additional time in your aspect, they nonetheless may.
In fight, you management your self and your monster, sharing hearts within the course of, although you’ll typically combat with compatriots from the Rangers workforce, too. Every member specialises in a sort of assist, with the cute pink-haired Thea providing the next crucial hit fee with the caveat of decrease defence, the place the chiselled Gaul tends to heal up your celebration together with his utility belt of things.
Selecting a strong ally is extraordinarily essential to success, particularly as you face extra feral opponents down the road. When you’ll inevitably stumble alongside the way in which to discovering your excellent match, the method is gratifying nonetheless, with failure by no means feeling too punishing.
Finest bit
Nurturing digital pets may be laborious work, nevertheless it’s extraordinarily fulfilling. Twisted Reflection supplies one other alternative for gamers to boost a lineage of digital beings, procuring them in egg type and training them to turn into lovable killing machines. With six menacing protege pets in your pocket, you may identify, prepare, and gleefully journey them throughout shifting horizons, bonding together with your new buddies all of the whereas.
As you may inform, I completely loved Twisted Reflections’ fight, and, past the anticipated elemental assaults, buffs, debuffs, and stamina bar to take care of, there’s a standout function right here – the assault sort system.
A carryover from the earlier Monster Hunter Tales video games, this technique performs lots like rock, paper, scissors, however as an alternative of dropping to a good friend, your life is on the road. Throughout a battle, you and your prey have an opportunity to focus on one another, resulting in a nerve-racking head-to-head.
If you happen to accurately guess the beast’s sort – between Energy, Technical, and Velocity – and deal the opposing injury sort, you might have an opportunity to spice up your harmful energy. Nevertheless, if you happen to lose, you’ll take extra injury consequently. The extra you fend off enemies, the extra you’ll get a really feel for countering assaults, which results in a satisfying cycle that encourages you to take dangers and wager on your self.
Fight is greater than only a means to an XP finish, although, and also you’ll additionally earn some helpful monster elements which may be crafted into gear to fortify your stats. From a technical perspective, I discovered nice pleasure in recycling guts and scales into bows and armour, with beloved monsters just like the Chatacabra and Nerscylla reimagined into fashionable defensive garb and weapons.
Maybe the best facet of this course of, although, is that what you craft carries the visible markers of monster elements, too. Ergo, if you happen to prepare dinner up the leftovers from a combat with a Kut Kut into gear, your match may have a definite orange-scaled look. There’s lots to like about these hectic designs, significantly because the outfit you select will present up in cutscenes, resulting in some unintentionally hilarious interactions.
What’s most essential, although, is that it supplies you with a purpose to exit and hunt particular creatures past story development and XP alone, which is essential as you glide in direction of the difficult late sport.
Dragon Quest
Over the course of this expansive journey, you’ll enterprise into contemporary biomes like jungles and deserts, sneaking peeks and battling in opposition to a greater diversity of creatures. If you happen to aren’t conversant in Monster Hunter, the sequence has all the time made an effort to make sure the eponymous monsters really feel at house the place you discover them, and I’m completely happy to notice that Twisted Reflection is not any completely different.
The place the lakes and rivers of every biome home aquatic creatures just like the salamander-esque Ludthroth or bulldog-faced Somnacanth, the plains function packs of scrappy scavengers just like the Velocidrome. These touches make sure the world has a lived-in really feel, as if it existed lengthy earlier than you determined to drop in and begin swinging your sword.
It’s intelligent that the creatures in your celebration are held to the identical commonplace, and to succeed in the peaks and valleys of every space, you’ll have to modify between rides – your winged steed isn’t going to take a dip simply since you need to gather some herbs. It’s a disgrace, then, that the platforming may be extraordinarily hit-and-miss.
I misplaced rely of what number of instances I fell off a strong edge, plummeting from tree stumps or slipping off a vertical cliff, solely to should scale complete mountains once more. Invisible partitions seem out of nowhere, too, swiftly taking you out of the fantasy. Given all of the deliberately immersive options, it’s a disgrace {that a} sport so geared towards exploration struggles to make the method enjoyable in the long run.
Aspect quests seem periodically throughout the saga, bolstering the story by reminding you that, on high of the upcoming risk of crystallised tremendous monsters, you might have an obligation as a ranger, too. The missions are pretty easy fetch quests for probably the most half, sending you off to seek out particular monster eggs or herbs with some cute moments peppered in.
Fortunately, there are extra targeted friendship quests to finish, too, that really feel way more thoughtfully written and can help you embed in Twisted Reflection’s world and construct richer relationships with the opposite rangers in your squad. Right here you’ll get to know Kora, the powerful warrior with a harrowing historical past, and Ogden, a heat if not eccentric father determine inside the group.
If you happen to don’t full them as they seem, the story’s pacing goes off kilter a contact, and also you’ll end up warped again to maps that you just nearly actually shouldn’t be visiting in context to the story at massive. Nonetheless, if you happen to can droop your disbelief, the tales are foolish and heartwarming, bolstered by spirited vocal performances from the sport’s forged.
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Accessibility options
You’ll be able to entry Monster Hunter Tales 3: Twisted Reflection’s settings anytime from the pause menu. There’s a Controller and Mouse and Keyboard submenu the place you may rebind keys for traversal, battling, and cutscenes to fit your preferences. Within the Choices submenu is you may toggle font dimension for subtitles and regulate cutscene dialogue to show speaker names. You can even regulate your minimap to rotate with the digicam’s orientation or stay fastened.
The place targets are involved, you may tweak the hunt marker to all the time be on and select to have a warning icon seem while you strategy monsters of a a lot larger degree than you personal. These struggling in fight may select to have a touch message seem in the event that they lose in sure battles.
How I reviewed Monster Hunter Tales 3: Twisted Reflection
We performed Monster Hunter Tales 3: Twisted Reflection’s fundamental marketing campaign on PC for over fifty hours. Throughout that point, we invested within the aspect quests, Ranger tales, and the habitat rehabilitation portion of the sport, along with the primary questline.
It was accomplished on a Lenovo Legion 5 Gen 10 (RTX 5070) with the inner audio system for audio. A mouse and keyboard have been used intermittently, whereas the marketing campaign was primarily performed with an Xbox Wireless Controller.
First reviewed February-March 2026
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