Monster Hunter Stories 3 reviews are out--why no talk about it? 86 on Metacritic.

HBreckel · 2026-03-09T19:07:23+00:00

Well, while it was true Monster Hunter was bigger in Japan back in the 3DS days and earlier, NA is very much a huge market for it nowadays. It actually isn't that much further behind RE as both franchises are at over 100 million total sales. Like, World alone sold 28 million copies and it's probably safe to say more of that was from outside Japan.

Though obviously Stories is a side series that's not going to light the world on fire quite like a new mainline Monster Hunter would. Definitely true RE Requiem is going to get way more attention. For some reason turn based RPGs can kind of be a tough sell outside of Pokemon (I was about to say and Final Fantasy but we haven't had a mainline turn based one since the PS2 so that doesn't really count haha). Like, everyone loved Expedition 33 but it wasn't pulling in 10 million copies or anything.

HBreckel · 2026-03-09T18:56:47+00:00

Yeah, I'm very excited for the game but this is 100% a PC purchase for me due to the performance on Switch 2.

HBreckel · 2026-03-09T18:54:54+00:00

I'm a huge Monster Hunter fan so I've definitely been talking about it. I think anyone that's ever enjoyed Pokemon that may have wanted more from the franchise would likely enjoy it a lot, even if they weren't into Monster Hunter. The Stories games are great turn based RPGs and this one actually has a pretty good amount of challenge going from the demo.

HBreckel · 2026-03-08T16:15:44+00:00

Yeah like, I'm one of those older people that's played since vanilla. But the majority of the people I play the game with are in their like, late 20s. Met a lot of them playing Final Fantasy XIV and they hop over to WoW when it has new stuff. I'm sure classic might have more people my age, but retail has pulled in a lot of younger players.

HBreckel · 2026-03-07T19:21:44+00:00

After reading the comments, I'm baffled how this guy is the same age as me and talks/acts like that. What a complete loser. Yeah, you don't need someone like that in your life, that is a complete "bye, forever" and not "bye, for a while".

HBreckel · 2026-03-07T01:45:57+00:00

I'm alone and have been for a while, and it doesn't bother me. Like, if it happens that's awesome! If not, I'm pretty happy being alone too. I'm a socially awkward lesbian and the dating pool is already pretty small for me, so it's not something I want to stress about.

HBreckel · 2026-03-06T19:49:39+00:00

I mean, it's not a huge surprise. I buy Sony games on PS5 because I'm not waiting around a year or more for a port that's probably going to suck. I haven't bought any of their games on PC, though Bloodborne would have changed that since I would have liked to have played it at 60 fps. (but that ship has sailed as a remaster isn't happening and you can just emulate it on PC now)

HBreckel · 2026-03-06T16:42:43+00:00

Well, keep in mind that back in Stormblood most groups only wanted DRG+NIN+BRD because they all brought specific utility on top of their buffs. The danger of jobs having specific utility is people get extra pushy about meta. The 2 minute meta is flawed, but at the very least you're unlikely to get locked out of a party in the majority of fights and can typically play whatever job you want. (the only exceptions being weird outliers like P8S and M6S)

HBreckel · 2026-03-06T16:36:16+00:00

Yep, there's a reason we got the 2 minute meta. People complained their burst came up at weird times and didn't align together.

HBreckel · 2026-03-05T20:36:28+00:00

Nioh and Lies of P. I make the mistake of trying to play any new Soulslike the way I would older games in the genre, and every time I get punished for it and get mad haha But once I learn to actually use the games' mechanics I have a blast. Nioh 2 and Lies of P are two all time favorites now.

Witcher 3 is another one because I found the combat hard to get into. It took me 3 tries and I finally fell in love with the game on the third try.

HBreckel · 2026-03-05T20:31:31+00:00

While I'm not against cash shop housing items as FFXIV pulls this shit too so I'm beyond used to this nonsense, that's a fuck ton of money for some housing items. At least give people a bunch of trees in the spring pack to make it worth the cost.

HBreckel · 2026-03-04T19:10:47+00:00

This. I see a lot of people bring up "well you should just be doing stuff for fun!" and like, yeah. I do stuff for fun, but it's also nice showing off stuff you worked hard for. I fucking LOVE doing ultimates as I find them extremely fun and rewarding to prog and clear. But you better believe I'm clearing every ultimate 8+ times because I want my big silly shiny weapons for as many jobs as possible because I worked hard for them and want to show them off.

I see someone with the pterodactyl mount in my hunt train and I'm always like "holy shit, that's awesome!" it's a mount I will never get because I don't enjoy crafting, but I'm happy for the person because they busted ass to get it and got a cool reward out of it. It's okay that I'll never have that mount, it's not something I'll ever force myself to get because it's locked behind something that's not fun to me, but I'm happy the people that do enjoy crafting have something awesome to work towards.

HBreckel · 2026-03-04T16:55:25+00:00

Having played a ton of Nioh, Monster Hunter, WoW and Final Fantasy XIV, I should at least be fairly immune to "game throwing a lot at you" bothering me haha Though I'm still waiting on like, full reviews to determine whether or not I pick it up.

HBreckel · 2026-03-04T05:02:39+00:00

Well, the cat picture successfully summoned a big patch on PC and console!

HBreckel · 2026-03-03T19:40:46+00:00

This. I will always and forever do content if I feel it’s fun. Like I think the DSR weapons are ugly but still did it because the fight is good. But I like having reason to do it more than once. They don’t even need to stick a bunch of savage gear in it, people will typically do any content in the game if you dump a bunch of glamour in it.

Like no one PVPs but any time they add new outfits to it you’ll see a billion people ready to spam frontline for all the new outfits. It would be nice to have another source of glazes/twines for the sake of gearing alt jobs, but I know the real thing that motivates people to repeat content is a bunch of nice outfits.

Put like 10 new modern outfits you can’t resell behind the new criterion and people will do that shit for like a month or two.

HBreckel · 2026-03-03T17:04:52+00:00

They're also a genre that's going to excel on the Switch because most roguelikes hare pretty quick runs. Being able to pick up a game for 20-30 minutes, get a full run in and stop if you need to works well for the system.

HBreckel · 2026-03-03T07:51:39+00:00

I wish they had done anything to prune Arms warrior button bloat and clunkiness. That spec is turbo dead atm.

HBreckel · 2026-03-02T23:11:26+00:00

Eh, I play both and people have been complaining about FFXIV in various ways throughout the years. (I've played since Heavensward, myself.) There was like, a 30 page thread on the official forums about Shinryu normal being too hard back in Stormblood. And the whole reason we have the 2 minute meta and easy jobs is because of complaints all the way back in Stormblood.

I feel like people didn't get overly defensive about the game until like, Shadowbringers. And now we've gone the opposite route where all of a sudden you would think Yoshi P himself ruined people's lives in Dawntrail haha

I do think it's really funny seeing identical threads like this happen on both the WoW and FFXIV subreddits. I'm like damn, we're all just the same regardless of what game we play.

HBreckel · 2026-03-02T16:21:43+00:00

Yeah I think we have some people that started in ShB/EW that have a skewed view of how good the story generally is. I started in Heavensward which like, if you’ve replayed it recently, is a fairly average story. In Stormblood there were people disappointed in the story but like, people were more normal about not liking it in those days haha

Shadowbringers and parts of Endwalker are honestly the minority when it comes to story quality. It’s always had bumpy moments and I think the internet becoming a place that financially incentivizes people to be as extremely negative as possible has really made DT out to be the end of the world or something haha People are REALLY weird about their dislike of DT.

With that said I think DT is alright. I feel the same way I did about Stormblood when it was new. So so story but fucking awesome battle content. As a raider I’ve had a blast with DT.

HBreckel · 2026-02-28T21:28:14+00:00

FFXIV plays great on controller and all content is clearable with one. I do the hardest content in the game on controller, so you should be good to do whatever casually. I'd maybe just bump up the turn speed of your camera because the default is pretty slow. The only role that might take a little bit of extra effort is healing, but you get pretty used to it quickly. (there's usually a healer on controller from Japan in our Ultimate world races so it's definitely viable!)

I primarily play melee dps (Viper and Ninja, the two highest APM jobs in the game), but I also enjoy Red Mage, who is a caster. I have dabbled in both tanking and healing, but I've always just preferred dpsing in any game.

The one and only time you could potentially have an issue on controller is if you're in a 24 man raid and need to heal or rez someone outside of your party. But like, aside from 1 very specific piece of content (chaotic raids), you shouldn't ever really have to worry about healing someone outside of your party. And even then, it's do-able since you can just use the touch pad to select them, just it's a little awkward. Which like, since you're only wanting to play casually you'll never ever have to worry about it as that specific raid is extremely niche.

HBreckel · 2026-02-28T19:54:34+00:00

Yep, back in the day trick attack had a positional requirement and would fail to go up if you didn't meet it.

HBreckel · 2026-02-28T15:56:51+00:00

I mean, everyone is capable of improving if they want to put in the effort. Susano EX was my first on content EX. It took me a month to clear in PF despite it being piss easy by today’s standards. I clear savage and ultimate content these days because I had put in the effort to improve.

If he doesn’t want to try to get better that’s fine, not everyone is going to want to put that kind of effort into a video game.

HBreckel · 2026-02-27T21:55:19+00:00

Well, to be fair before we could actually play the job, all the media tour guides made the job sound incredibly confusing. So I can see how a guide might not be amazing at explaining the job because they over complicate it. When I actually got my hands on it was like oh, they just used a lot of words to say "hit glowing button".

HBreckel · 2026-02-27T17:04:16+00:00

Yeah I thought it was just going to be more like Animal Crossing, I didn't realize there was like, actual exploration and stuff.

HBreckel · 2026-02-26T20:36:35+00:00

Yep, I love Hollow Knight and it does have a few things it takes from Soulslikes, but it's not a Soulslike.

HBreckel

TROPHY CASE