It has been almost a full ten years since the release of the first Monster Hunter Stories game. Since then Monster Hunter has continued to grow as a franchise and clearly CAPCOM shows no signs of stopping with the JRPG line. While Monster Hunter Wilds was released in 2025, it wouldn’t quite scratch the itch for those who enjoy a good turnbased combat game set in the universe. Later this year, it seems we will get that with Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection. The demo alone can take you anywhere from 2.5 – 4ish hours depending on how much you choose to complete. So it seems there will be plenty in store when the full game releases in March. But if you can’t wait to hear about some of the features and whether it’s worth the time, keep reading.

The Story So Far

We see a group of expeditioners walking through a frozen tundra. So many monsters from previous games are stuck in time. Are they waiting for the ice age to be over? What is happening? They are currently of no consequence though. One brave soul, Queen Amara, finds an egg and brings it home. Home to the Kingdom of Azuria to be hatched.

This is where we meet our player for the first time, the sole heir to the throne of Azuria, watching the hatching ceremony take place. Somehow you know that egg is special, that egg, has twins. Unfortunately for this world, twin Rathalos are a very bad sign, no matter how beautiful a newborn may be.

Time moves forward and you’re much older now. You are also the only Rathalos ride, the heir to Azuria, and a ranger. You’re handling quite a few responsibilities on your shoulder in a world that is facing down a potential war. No matter, you can totally learn more about monsters out in the wild, rehabilitate the local habitations, and be the prince or princess this country needs right? The game shows us where your priorities lie rather quickly and introduces us to the cast of characters joining you on the first steps of your journey. We also see the tensions between the royal family, the advisors, and the world at large. You’ll have to try the demo out on your own for all those details.

Characters

No matter whether you choose prince or princess, you are heir to the throne of Azuria. Your story is also one filled with quite a few colorful characters to join the fray. Simon joins us early on but Thea is someone who we take under our wing. Ogden treats you as just another ranger while Rudy is quick to remind everyone you are still the heir. These are just characters that the game introduces you to early on while everything still feels quite light and fun. The reality of the world won’t come down on you just yet.

That’s not to say that even the characters that bring a darker, heavier reality aren’t quite nice and colorful to look at. When we meet a princess from a neighboring kingdom, she’s vivid and pops off the screen as well. These characters each bring their own personalities too. While it has only been a taste of these characters, they each have a role to play and play it well. No one feels out of place and the voice acting with the characters fits. Even if sometimes the subtitles or the lip flaps don’t match perfectly.

Character Customization

I can’t give a full demo overview without talking about character customization. You can spend quite a bit of time here. Kudos to the team for ensuring there was quite a bit of flexibility in your character. It is isn’t just your character at the start of the game either. Later on you can customize the armor and outer layers that your character wears. Not a fan of that blue color? Not a problem, once you unlock the chest you can dress in your best fashion.

Character customization has been longstanding in RPGs and JRPGs but its nice to see how much time you can truly spend in here. However, it is only within the binary of male and female that you can choose in the creation screen. While ti does not explicitly say male or female, or give you pronoun choices, it defaults based on the body type that you choose. However, you can change your body type throughout the game if your journey takes you elsewhere.

Combat

Welcome to another turn based combat game with some nuance to ensure a proper battle. You fight alongside your monstie, a companion, and their monstie in each battle. However, there’s much more to the battle than just picking your move and hoping it hits.

Before battle you can choose to try and sneak up on your opponent to get a preemptive strike. This is always a good rule of thumb and highly recommended. It’ll give you a round to attack the monsters and is great especially when facing something a bit stronger than you are. For your base combat, you also get three attack types: speed, technical, and power. Once the enemies are facing you, this becomes even more important as you could end up in a head to head sequence.

It’s important to know the strategies here. Power beats a technical attack, technical will beat speed, and speed beats power. You’ll be able to see who is being targeted in this moment so you can choose the right kind of attack for your character. You can also choose the skills your monster will use as well as any skills you want to use. Throughout your combat, you may also want to swap out monsters for another monster in your party. Early on being strategic might not seem too important, however, once you start fighting the feral monsters these tips will be very important.

Did I recognize how important this was at the start? No, not at all. But once I noticed my health taking quite a bit hit early on, I paid more attention to this. It also helped build my kinship with my monsters which meant being able to use a double attack if we were using the same attack types to take out our opponents that much quicker. It also looks quite cool so enjoy the care given to these scenes.

Your character also brings in three different weapons you can switch through. Change these up in town and upgrade them to have different affinities. Those who have played a Monster Hunter game prior will recognize some of these weapons including possibly my favorite a nice little hunting horn. You do get the opportunity to build news ones in town to try out but the game. Of course, you’ll have to find the resources to build these by attacking certain parts of the monsters to get resources and collecting any items you find out in the wild. Happy hunting!

Side Quests

There are a handful of side quests in this demo that will absolutely extend your time with the demo. However, each of these help you learn the mechanics and flow that will most likely make up quite a bit of the game. You get these side quests like you would in almost any other RPG, speak to people with the icon and accept their quest in return for goods and possibly some experience points.

The side quests aren’t overly complex in the demo. A few quests to kill 30 bugs, collect a specific monster egg for a citizen, all basic quests. Again, these aren’t really meant to get you to do anything too deep in the demo. This isn’t a bad thing as the game itself is rather enjoyable and the side quests may help you roam the region and bond with your monster. Some of them also feed into a large aspect of the story, the habitat restoration.

Habitat Restoration

The habitat restoration aspect of this game feels like it might have the “political” agenda here and that’s not a bad thing. The game wants you to help restore some balance out to the world and help release creatures back into the wild. As a ranger, you are trying to rehabilitate the world around you and that means saving eggs. We don’t know why this is happening and the Rangers feel getting to the bottom of what is happening is part of their job.

So where does one find these eggs? In Monster dens of course. You’ll wade through a few eggs and be able to take one back with you to hatch. After hatching monsters from the eggs you can decide whether to keep them or release them into the wild into specific habitats. The game will let you know which habitats you can release them into. Just keep in mind before you do, you’ll have to rid the area of any invasive species that can throw off the balance. Welcome to the World Wildlife… I mean your job as a Ranger.

Helping the ecosystem also means the ecosystem will help you. The higher the rank, the better the stats of the monsters you’ll hatch from eggs in this area. It does seem that this will be extremely helpful in the long term play of the game. If you’re playing the demo and plan on importing your save to the full game, I definitely recommend putting the time into this. The map is also helpful in showing you how many other monsters you can find. Don’t let the question marks remain and then raise these ranks for your benefit. This may take your playtime from 3ish hours to many many more.

Voice Acting, Art, and Music

The voice actors are quite good. One thing that did happen a few times however was that the subtitles seemed to lag behind the voice acting just a bit. Not an issue, just a note as there were a few times I noticed this was fairly far behind.

The scenery in many areas is quite pretty. While the characters, including your customized one, is seemingly fairly standard for a JRPG with this art style, it’s the landscapes that pop. It has a fun light aesthetic compared to the mainline series that feels like it has harder edges. If the monsters weren’t named the same, it would almost feel like Monster Hunter Wilds and Monster Hunter Stories 3 were completely unrelated. Of course, this feels purposeful, as they do seem to be aimed at very different audiences.

As far as the demo goes, the music isn’t anything that stands out. It feels like standard RPG music and isn’t anything that gets stuck in your head. Does it match the aesthetic of the game? Absolutely. Will it follow you after you shut down the game? Probably not. Of course it’s not to say the sound design and music aren’t well done. It just isn’t going to wow you the way other aspects of the game may.

The Best News?

This demo is easily about 3 hours, especially if you’re trying to make the most of everything. Should you choose to purchase Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection, your save data will carry over to the full game. If you’re anything like me and you’ve already put in over three hours into the demo, this is great news.

Another fun tidbit? Even if you end the demo and get the “To Be Continued” screen, you can load your last save to go back to just before that final cut scene. So if you haven’t completed all the side quests or explored all of the monster dens on the map, there is still plenty of time to do so before it releases on March 13th.

Final Thoughts

The demo has this reviewer quite excited for the full game. Minus a few longer loading screens, the game itself is already proving to be well worth any JRPG fans time. It appears there will plenty to explore and do for those who want to dive deep into the Monster Hunter world. For those who want a story of political intrigue along with their creature collecting, so far, Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection absolutely delivers.

Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection demo is currently available. The full game releases March 13, 2026 on Switch 2, Xbox Series, PlayStation 5, and PC (Steam).

Will you take up the role of the heir to Azuria? Let us know your thoughts down below or when you join the conversation over on the Gamer Social Club Discord.