When it comes to big-time franchises that I’ve not only come to the table late with, but have also at times struggled with, the Monster Hunter series comes to mind. Having tried to get an inroad with it more than once on PC, without success, it was one of those titles where I was frustrated at not being able to appreciate the experience so many people were raving about. That began to change a bit when Monster Hunter Rise showed up on the Switch, feeling like it was intended to try to reach out to gamers like me who’d been struggling, trying to help make it more approachable and accessible to newcomers. When that was followed up by the Monster Hunter Stories series, you could really see the effort to go even further in taking the core elements in Monster Hunter that work, softening them, and merging them with a more traditional RPG format. Now, with Twisted Reflection, it really feels like they’ve hit on an amazingly effective formula.

What I think I love most about the game is that it’s clearly based around Monster Hunter, and borrows from it quite liberally, but it is also fundamentally more traditional and approachable. By binding it to a story-driven RPG, but still pulling in the game’s weaponry, gear, and some of its diverse monsters, it is both fresh and familiar. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that it looks fantastic on the Switch 2, and performs like a champ whether in the heat of battle with crazy detailed monsters fighting and pulling off epic moves, or exploring pretty massive open areas with a ridiculous amount of draw distance to contend with. While perhaps after a while you’ll begin to skip some of the more elaborate attack animations, I’ll admit to marveling over them more than once typically, loving that I can hold technology capable of delivering those visuals in my hands.

While with some series, by the third installment, the gameplay and ideas can begin to feel like they’re running thin, in this case it feels more like they’ve just more fully hit their stride. I love that the story this time around feels more epic in scope, with kingdoms put at odds by the threat of their demise while their trust for each other is strained. I love exploring both in the day and at night to try to run into more rare monsters and their nests, hoping to hit gold with eggs that will hatch into increasingly powerful mutated breeds. I enjoyed helping different species thrive in various regions, giving me an added ability to try to improve the monsters I could discover. I even really dug some of the odd side stories that just made the main storyline take a breather while I went off to do less weighty things like racing poogies or finding ingredients for a fabulous dish.

Cap that off with combat that has a whole lot going on to wrap your arms around and try to master, and the package really comes together. Not only are these battles pretty entertaining to watch, but they can also get quite involved, and you likely won’t put all of the pieces together to be effective until you’re a few hours in if you haven’t been with the series all along. The fact that you have 3 weapons, multiple monsters, a rock-paper-scissors mechanic, and a companion with their own monster that will be doing their own thing as well, and there’s a lot going on. Start piling on the challenge of powerful and sometimes unpredictable feral monsters, much more lethal beasts you’ll face by hunting at night, and all sorts of ways you can choose to manage your character and team to better suit your style, and there’s a great deal to discover and enjoy for many hours here. It’s clear that the folks at Capcom have put their best foot forward with the effort here on this system, working to compete with Nintendo themselves in the visual oomph department, and it’s terrific that the gameplay more than backs up that effort to make the overall package worthwhile.