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Description
TEAM MEMBERS
. Dolkka - Hellblade Glavenus -
. Tygan - Fulgur Anjanath -
. Stitch - Brute Tigrex -
. Globox - Zamtrios -
. Nanuq - Barioth -
. Joshua - Deviljho -

So a bit ago i beat Wings of Ruin, it was pretty fun and after finding the team i wanted i decided to do a Pokémon style team picture, i would have done them full body but it was pretty dam hard to make it work, so instead i went for a layout inspired by the battle cuts done by the AMAZING artist Dragonith
(i HIGHTLY recommend you check out their work, especially if you are a Pokémon fan)

NOW LET'S START WITH WHAT I LIKED
I genuinely loved the World and setting, this has been a thing Monster Hunter has always done good, the places you visit really do have a sense of being lived in from the starting town to that cool hunter city in the desert, every place was so well done in design, think the only place i wasn't a fan of was the Volcano area because it wasn't as visually interesting as other places.
(did make up for it with a cool looking village with an amazing song)

The art style was another stand out for me, i was worried it would be like most anime style games i have played were no one fucking emotes, but this game everything was really expressive, i mostly loved that even the created character actually emoted.
An issue i see with Pokémon (especially Sun & Moon) is that my character wouldn't emote, the world would be ending and he'd still have a smile on his face like he is going to get McDonalds within the next hour.
In this game though my character would smile, get angry, look sad, pull that face of shock were the eyes turn into big white circles, it was cool seeing that, made him feel less player made and more like he was apart of the cast, this is a thing i feel most character creator games struggle with.

The monsters you were able to ride were all awesome too (besides maybe 2) with each translating wonderfully in the art style and the fact they all had unique actions that could help traverse the over world was a really cool idea that both made the world intractable and also helped make some monsters stand out from one another.
I kind of wish Pokémon would take a page out of this book, with you not needing Surf to swim but requiring a Water Type to swim or a Flying type/Levitator to Fly.
The best bit about the Monsters though was there super moves, each one was so full of personality and over the top shit, they felt on par with ultimate jutsu from Ninja Storm 2.
(Zinogres being the MOST Ninja Storm looking one)

The combat was pretty fun too, i love it when Turn based games spice it up a bit, like how Persona 5 wants you to beat it as efficiently as possible, or how Mario & Luigi allow you to jump over attacks, it's a i nice way to make it MORE than just a turn based game.
In Wings of Ruin's case, the method was to have every single monster have a unique pattern to memorize and exploit, rewarding you for understanding the Monsters on a deeper level than just "it is weak to X element" and with the enemy monsters having form changes most of the time, swapping out their attack types, adding some more spice to the fights.

all and all, a really good game
but it isn't perfect, when people say "it is better than Pokémon in EVERY way" i have to disagree.

The combat, though interesting did get boring after a while, with most fights boiling down to "this guy does red attacks, so use blue (does blue) well done you did blue, you both hit him really hard and prevented his move from even happening, do that again until he does a form change or dies"
i hardly ever died due to this, the only reason i ever failed a battle was because my team mates AI was really bad in cases.

Some monsters are in the game but not ridable, so things like Tetsucabra, Duramboros, Plesioth and Agnaktor are in the game, just not playable, which is lame once you notice most of them are water users, which could have really helped even out the water types with the others, but no.

Another issue i had was the horrible imbalance in both attack types and Elements, there was WAY too many Power types and an equally massive amount of Fire element monsters, Water and Dragons getting the worst side of this stick, with a water move pool that was mediocre and best, and about 3 TRUE water monsters
(even though i used Zamtrios as a water monster he was better with Ice moves, This could have been avoided if they had Tiger Stripe Zamtios, who could have been a more water focused monster)
Dragons got it REALLY bad though, with Deviljho and Stygian Zinogre being the ONLY dragon types in this game, there wasn't even a speed type dragon move, that's how little dragon there is.
I recon another way they could have made the elements more varied is if they made status types (Poison, Paralysis, Sleep & Blast) their own types, allowing for more freedom of choice when team building, this would have reduced the fire type count by a noticeable bit too making this more even.

Another issue i had was that a lot of the side quests are really boring most of the time, with only 2 standing out, those being the DreadQueen quest line as it fleshes out Guardian Ratha a bit making me somewhat care more for him and the Velkhana quest were you have to look for your granddads notes on it in order to defeat it, as that is both interesting and allows you to feel like you are following in his footsteps. (even used the MHW music too which i LOVED)
Every other quest though is basically "give me ore (gives ore) thank you" they could have had some much more fun with dialog and have more interesting plots.
Like imagine if you got quests to turn some of your monsters into the Variant/Deviant forms, you know, make you EARN them rather than just finding them in a den that has a 1% chance to spawn.
Imagine if you got Hellblade though beating EVERY monster in the volcano with just Glavenus, proving your power and allowing plenty of ash to build up on it, leading to the Hellblade Deviation to occur, or if you had to beat 10 Deviljho with your own Deviljho, leading to yours turning into a Savage Deviljho.
Sure it would have came across as "ooh they're evolving" but it would have been interesting, it would have been memorable, would have given you something to work for before post game, and it would also lead to your chances of getting a Deviant/Variant up to YOU and not up to luck
(also going off the lore with Deviants & Variants, they basically are evolutions if you think about it)

so all and all, i'd say Stories 2 is a great game, just not perfect...
but yet again i was able to find a Tigrex with the same colouration as my pet cat and named it after her, so that already boosts it from a 7/10 to a 8/10 right there
if you haven't played the game, i recommend it, it's a fun one

feel free to share your own teams in the comments
what did you name your Monsters?
Who was your favorite in your team?
i hope you all enjoy this and i look forward to seeing what you guys had in your teams
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
UPDATE
Bad news to all the Zamtrios fans, due to him lagging behind badly, i recently replaces Zamtrios with Lagiacrus as my Water user, so far i kind of love him, plus there is that bit of Nostalgia with him being 1 of the 1st monsters besides Rathalos i ever saw, so yeah, sorry Big Zam Bois
if anyone was curious i named it Sobek after the Crocodile god from Ancient Egyptian myth

Description
TEAM MEMBERS
. Dolkka - Hellblade Glavenus -
. Tygan - Fulgur Anjanath -
. Stitch - Brute Tigrex -
. Globox - Zamtrios -
. Nanuq - Barioth -
. Joshua - Deviljho -

So a bit ago i beat Wings of Ruin, it was pretty fun and after finding the team i wanted i decided to do a Pokémon style team picture, i would have done them full body but it was pretty dam hard to make it work, so instead i went for a layout inspired by the battle cuts done by the AMAZING artist Dragonith
(i HIGHTLY recommend you check out their work, especially if you are a Pokémon fan)

NOW LET'S START WITH WHAT I LIKED
I genuinely loved the World and setting, this has been a thing Monster Hunter has always done good, the places you visit really do have a sense of being lived in from the starting town to that cool hunter city in the desert, every place was so well done in design, think the only place i wasn't a fan of was the Volcano area because it wasn't as visually interesting as other places.
(did make up for it with a cool looking village with an amazing song)

The art style was another stand out for me, i was worried it would be like most anime style games i have played were no one fucking emotes, but this game everything was really expressive, i mostly loved that even the created character actually emoted.
An issue i see with Pokémon (especially Sun & Moon) is that my character wouldn't emote, the world would be ending and he'd still have a smile on his face like he is going to get McDonalds within the next hour.
In this game though my character would smile, get angry, look sad, pull that face of shock were the eyes turn into big white circles, it was cool seeing that, made him feel less player made and more like he was apart of the cast, this is a thing i feel most character creator games struggle with.

The monsters you were able to ride were all awesome too (besides maybe 2) with each translating wonderfully in the art style and the fact they all had unique actions that could help traverse the over world was a really cool idea that both made the world intractable and also helped make some monsters stand out from one another.
I kind of wish Pokémon would take a page out of this book, with you not needing Surf to swim but requiring a Water Type to swim or a Flying type/Levitator to Fly.
The best bit about the Monsters though was there super moves, each one was so full of personality and over the top shit, they felt on par with ultimate jutsu from Ninja Storm 2.
(Zinogres being the MOST Ninja Storm looking one)

The combat was pretty fun too, i love it when Turn based games spice it up a bit, like how Persona 5 wants you to beat it as efficiently as possible, or how Mario & Luigi allow you to jump over attacks, it's a i nice way to make it MORE than just a turn based game.
In Wings of Ruin's case, the method was to have every single monster have a unique pattern to memorize and exploit, rewarding you for understanding the Monsters on a deeper level than just "it is weak to X element" and with the enemy monsters having form changes most of the time, swapping out their attack types, adding some more spice to the fights.

all and all, a really good game
but it isn't perfect, when people say "it is better than Pokémon in EVERY way" i have to disagree.

The combat, though interesting did get boring after a while, with most fights boiling down to "this guy does red attacks, so use blue (does blue) well done you did blue, you both hit him really hard and prevented his move from even happening, do that again until he does a form change or dies"
i hardly ever died due to this, the only reason i ever failed a battle was because my team mates AI was really bad in cases.

Some monsters are in the game but not ridable, so things like Tetsucabra, Duramboros, Plesioth and Agnaktor are in the game, just not playable, which is lame once you notice most of them are water users, which could have really helped even out the water types with the others, but no.

Another issue i had was the horrible imbalance in both attack types and Elements, there was WAY too many Power types and an equally massive amount of Fire element monsters, Water and Dragons getting the worst side of this stick, with a water move pool that was mediocre and best, and about 3 TRUE water monsters
(even though i used Zamtrios as a water monster he was better with Ice moves, This could have been avoided if they had Tiger Stripe Zamtios, who could have been a more water focused monster)
Dragons got it REALLY bad though, with Deviljho and Stygian Zinogre being the ONLY dragon types in this game, there wasn't even a speed type dragon move, that's how little dragon there is.
I recon another way they could have made the elements more varied is if they made status types (Poison, Paralysis, Sleep & Blast) their own types, allowing for more freedom of choice when team building, this would have reduced the fire type count by a noticeable bit too making this more even.

Another issue i had was that a lot of the side quests are really boring most of the time, with only 2 standing out, those being the DreadQueen quest line as it fleshes out Guardian Ratha a bit making me somewhat care more for him and the Velkhana quest were you have to look for your granddads notes on it in order to defeat it, as that is both interesting and allows you to feel like you are following in his footsteps. (even used the MHW music too which i LOVED)
Every other quest though is basically "give me ore (gives ore) thank you" they could have had some much more fun with dialog and have more interesting plots.
Like imagine if you got quests to turn some of your monsters into the Variant/Deviant forms, you know, make you EARN them rather than just finding them in a den that has a 1% chance to spawn.
Imagine if you got Hellblade though beating EVERY monster in the volcano with just Glavenus, proving your power and allowing plenty of ash to build up on it, leading to the Hellblade Deviation to occur, or if you had to beat 10 Deviljho with your own Deviljho, leading to yours turning into a Savage Deviljho.
Sure it would have came across as "ooh they're evolving" but it would have been interesting, it would have been memorable, would have given you something to work for before post game, and it would also lead to your chances of getting a Deviant/Variant up to YOU and not up to luck
(also going off the lore with Deviants & Variants, they basically are evolutions if you think about it)

so all and all, i'd say Stories 2 is a great game, just not perfect...
but yet again i was able to find a Tigrex with the same colouration as my pet cat and named it after her, so that already boosts it from a 7/10 to a 8/10 right there
if you haven't played the game, i recommend it, it's a fun one

feel free to share your own teams in the comments
what did you name your Monsters?
Who was your favorite in your team?
i hope you all enjoy this and i look forward to seeing what you guys had in your teams
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
UPDATE
Bad news to all the Zamtrios fans, due to him lagging behind badly, i recently replaces Zamtrios with Lagiacrus as my Water user, so far i kind of love him, plus there is that bit of Nostalgia with him being 1 of the 1st monsters besides Rathalos i ever saw, so yeah, sorry Big Zam Bois
if anyone was curious i named it Sobek after the Crocodile god from Ancient Egyptian myth