Monster Hunter Stories has finally been given a concrete release date for Western gamers, and it’s scheduled for a September 8 release date. The new date was delivered with the latest trailer showcasing the game, as well as the fact that a demo will be available to test things out on August 10. That’s not very far away in either case, so if you’re intrigued by the new, more whimsical Monster Hunter game, better charge up that Nintendo 3DS and get ready to test things out.
For the uninitiated, Monster Hunter Stories is a colorful spinoff of the regular, more realistic-looking Monster Hunter series with tweaks like turn-based combat and the ability to hatch and raise your own monsters to assist you in battle. It’s a lot more Pokémon-like in execution, and that’s part of what makes it such an intriguing prospect.
You can see some of this at work in the trailer that was just released, featuring a lively world full of characters with personality as well as new anime-styled characters looking for monster eggs and investigating the world of monsters in general.
If you’re planning on trying the demo, you should know that you’ll have the ability to transfer over all of your save data from the trial version once you decide to make the full purchase, so you’ll get a bit of a headstart when it comes to the retail version of the title.
Changing things up like this to appeal to a much wider set of players may end up being a good thing for the series, but series vets may be understandably cautious about all the alterations. It’s a good thing, for example, that the Monster Hunter Stories: Ride On anime series isn’t a reliable indicator of how fun the game will be, since it was a pretty big letdown. Hopefully the actual game will be reminiscent of some good, old-fashioned turn-based “monster collecting” RPGs.
