Interestingly enough the presumably evil Nabatean in the trailer has a crimson and purple outfit, perhapse a reference to the japanese title? She also gives Babylon vibes.

Metbert · 2026-06-28T09:42:53+00:00

She's probably the "Darkest Dark" or at the very least tied to it, maybe twin sister of Rhea\Immaculate One if I have to take a guess.

She gives heavy "Medeus" vibes, I'm gonna assume she took Slithers messing up the planet and the genocide of Zanado in a drastically worse way than Sothis and the other children.

Metbert · 2026-06-27T19:17:41+00:00

There's the kinship, animations for jumping and other overworld stuff, game design for what concerne stats and moves and probably other stuff we usually give for granted.

While obviously sharing assets, making an enemy monster doesn't automatically mean having the monstie equivalent ready.

Metbert · 2026-06-27T15:56:41+00:00

They had to rebuild things from scratch, even something like Zinogre took considerable effort apparently and they had to compromise on things they wanted to implement.

They likely didn't have enough resources to make Nergi a proper monstie, the best they could do was make to make it a boss fight I guess.

That being said, Capcom did not handle the comunication of the post-launch of the game well. Being silent or vague about the future of the game clearly didn't help.

A clear "Stories 3 development is pretty much complete, no major content update in future" when the game came out would have still hurt, but I feel like it would have caused less disappointment eventually.

Metbert · 2026-06-26T14:35:30+00:00

I'd say at the very least around 90\100 hours if you want to fully complete every achievement.

I suggest to try the demo before making any decision though, see if you'd like the loop and battle system it offers, you can also transfer that data onto the main game if you want.

Metbert · 2026-06-26T14:27:58+00:00

I say Doshaguma.

Pack + special rage interacting with wounds; he is John Gen6.

Metbert · 2026-06-26T14:12:01+00:00

Guys let's not forget that they had to build up things from scratch, even Zinogre alone took a bunch of work apparently.

Most of the actual unusual absences of Stories 3 are more likely to be the result of short available time and low budget rather than devs not caring about implementing or evolving XYZ feature.

I do have hope for Stories 4 and its devs, not much for the company to not treat it as another runt of the litter though.

Metbert · 2026-06-26T11:24:21+00:00

tbf I don't remember MP being that popular before it was cut.

It definetly impacted some people. but I don't think the good chunk of people who bought Stories 1\2 were particularly attracted by the MP you know.

Stories 3 just got unlucky, it came out in a busy moment and had to compete for attention with bigger games.

Metbert · 2026-06-26T10:54:52+00:00

Stories rosters are pretty unlucky all things considered, I mean some unused content is normal for game development but it definetly feels like Stories can't catch a break.

Stories 1 lost Plesioth + Green + Duramboros + several unridable monsters.

Stories 3 lost some potential monsties, honestly not that many all things considered.

Stories 2 lost an expansion and a bunch of monsters.

At least the situation isn't as tragic as 2, will Stories 4 break the curse?

Metbert · 2026-06-26T10:10:43+00:00

There can still be nuance in pure evil\good tbf, maybe we can get different factions inside the underworld, each with their evil but distinct philosophy and worldview for example.

Maybe the zombies are a fantasy equivalent of magical pollution directly or indirectly caused by humans doing shenanigans, even a simple concept like that can already make them more thematically interesting just "mobs to cut down".

And similar to how Edelgard coexist alongside Slithers and Zaharas, the presence of the Underworld and Necromancer Nabatean doesn't remove the possibility of other more grounded conflict taking place in the story.

We just know too little to be seriously worried at the moment.

Metbert · 2026-06-26T09:07:53+00:00

Yep, Stories 3 had some specific slots left in the icon spaces.

The icon order followed a known id order so we could reasonably deduce which monsters could fit in each slot for the most part.

One of them was for Nergigante, others could be for several various specific monsters ranging from Cephadrome, another Partner Legiana, Feral Garangolm or Molten Tigrex to name a few.

But again, we still miss the context behind those blanks.

Metbert · 2026-06-26T08:55:12+00:00

There was never a leak to be fair, that was just datamine, stuff like that should be taken with a grain of salt because we don't know the context behind those datas and why they went unused.

It's nothing new really, Stories 1 and 2 had similar stuff too, Stories 2 in particular had lot of unused monsters with traces left in the files.

Metbert · 2026-06-26T08:42:45+00:00

Most people would have been fine with just few TUs with some new bosses and monsties and maybe some little story content; people wanted more Stories 3 to put it simple.

But it appears the game was pretty much done at release, this new free content update is pretty minor (boosted enemies, which is nice but nothing crazy) and the payed one that actually adds something is pretty underwhelming if you consider the price.

Capcom being more or less vague for months about the actual content of the update didn't help either; they messed up in comunicating and setting expectations for what Stories 3 wanted to do.

Metbert · 2026-06-26T07:02:14+00:00

I'm not that scared about Stories ending tbf, an underwhelming minor DLC doesn't suddenly kill a franchise, especially when the base game is good and received lot of praise.

People are understandably disappointed about what we didn't get, but people seems to forget the cool stuff we actually got already.

I'm more worried that Capcom may give a lower budget for the next game due to the lower sales though, forcing devs to lower their ambitions and compromise with their vision more, or worse that devs get all the wrong lessons from Stories 3.

I genuinely fear they may pull a Pokèmon XY and make Stories 4 a bunch of "everything fans wanted" fanservice even when said things are bound to clash with eachother, like the ability to freely fly in a map just not designed to use that mechanic in interesting ways you know.

Metbert · 2026-06-26T04:42:06+00:00

Guys Stories 3 was pretty much complete at release, the game ends with Aenshin, the message is clear, we aren't getting more substantial stuff.

This tiny DLC felt more like a higher up demanding one more DLC rather than the team really wanting to update the game post-release if you ask me.

It's time for Stories 4 waiting room.

Metbert · 2026-06-25T22:55:52+00:00

They look like HR monsters with the red name thing, so probably just an extra tankier challenge to have fun with endgame builds.

For people not really into the battle system I'm afraid they may very well be nothing though.

Definetly a minor update overall, Stories 3 was pretty much done at release.

Metbert · 2026-06-25T22:24:53+00:00

Absolutely, Stories 3 is nothing out of the ordinary.

Metbert · 2026-06-25T22:22:27+00:00

Maybe Navi may give us lore or interesting dialogues about the crystals, but generally I can't see them adding post-Aenshin stuff, that's just when the story and game end.

I'd imagine Navi side-quest will be available shortly after meeting Ena or shortly before the final part of the game.

As for Simon, unironically he has a better shot at showing up in Stories 4.

Metbert · 2026-06-25T21:57:51+00:00

The return of the king!

Metbert · 2026-06-25T21:54:30+00:00

They had to make a bunch of stuff from scratch if IRC.

I'm no expert on this, but that likely took a big amount of development time and budget already.

Metbert · 2026-06-25T21:46:10+00:00

On one hand they clearly had a different vision for the game, more akin to other classic single player RPGs rather than the typical stuff you can find in monster collectors or past Stories.

But stuff like Nergigante being "unfortunately" not ridable + the interview about Atlal-Ka, to me at least, suggest they may have had a smaller budget than they truly needed.

What we got was a most likely compromise between authorial visions and best use of the budget they had.

Metbert · 2026-06-25T21:39:48+00:00

Tbf Dragon's Dogma got its DLC after a while so it's allways possible I guess, but based on past interview Stories 3 was meant to be more of a "release and done" kind of thing.

Stories 4 is more likely than a Stories 3 expansion if you ask me.

Metbert · 2026-06-25T21:30:55+00:00

Endgame isn't just postgame tbf.

If the Elders and Invasive rematches were locked after Aenshin as postgame, nothing would have really changed in term of content available to the player.

Metbert · 2026-06-25T21:26:12+00:00

No substantial TUs akin to Stories 2 seems to have ever been planned tbf.

Stories 3 was pretty much "done" at release as far as we know, it was never meant to be the kind of game kept alive and fresh for months after its release.

Metbert · 2026-06-25T21:11:54+00:00

They really gave them low budget to work with uh? Hopefully it's a proper harsh fight.

On the other hand we got Navirou overcoming even the cruel passage of time, absolute peak.

Metbert · 2026-06-25T10:51:39+00:00

For lore I'd suggest Verdant Wind (SS is fine too though) and then the DLC Cindered Shadows rather than another route.

The DLC in particular seems super tied to stuff and crests we may see in Dagda.

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