Stories 2 is just downright gorgeous, the euphoria I feel riding my very own arzuros and tigrex through vast fields is actually unmatched. All the new weapon types added some MUCH needed hunter variety, and made mid-battle weapon swapping actually feel good. At the same time, though, Stories 2 lacked....... something that made Stories 1 feel so good, and I don't think I can pin it down on some glaringly obvious weakness. To be honest, I was kinda bored of this game for most of the time I was playing, and wasn't really sure what this game was offering me to come back to.

Den grinding is still as repetitive and boring as ever, and the monster ranking system which monsters scale stats around railroad you into using only small selections of monsters throughout the game, which badly hurts party diversity and you kinda just can't take one or two faves from the beginning to end because they get so badly outclassed in just the next area.

As beautiful as this game is, the actual landscapes to explore are so barren of anything meaningful that the game just becomes a walking/flying simulator with little reward, it's sad. Stories 2 is a pretty alright game that genuinely has endless potential to improve. It does have the best hairstyle options in Monster Hunter since the mainline 3DS games, so there's that at least!