We previously got a glimpse of the character customization of Monster Hunter Stories during the Monster Hunter Festa 2016 earlier this year, and Capcom has uploaded a direct feed video from the event.
The customization part starts at the 0:25 mark of the video, where it begins by selecting the gender of your character. From here, you’re able to customize the face type, skin tone, eye-type, eye color, and mouth.
It’s interesting to see how you can switch through different emotions during the character customization so you can get a look at what they’ll look like in different situations. Additionally, they have hairstyles based on monsters, which is also pretty cool.
At 4:55, they show footage from parts that are a little further into the game past the beginning with a look at the main character exploring with his Lagombi partner. The sakura area is something we haven’t seen in past Monster Hunter games, and it’s something Capcom wanted to add in Monster Hunter Stories to show that these kind of places exist in the series’ world.
The following part shows how you’ll get to slide around using the Lagombi and its characteristic belly slide to get around the field. Following is a symbol encounter battle against the Qurupeco. In Monster Hunter Stories, Qurupeco will have a variety of moves to power itself up. They demonstrate more on the bonding system, where the protagonist and Lagombi team up for a combination attack.
Next, at 8:45 they show how you’ll get to switch out monsters during battle, with a demonstration of the Nargacuga friend that replaces Lagombi. We even get to see it do its powerful tail-slam ability against the Qurupeco. At 10:09 they show a super ability with the Spiral Edge, where Nargacuga busts out a speedy move to knock out Qurupeco to finish it off.
Finally, at 11:40 they show us a look at the town called Girudekaran. At first, you’ll start out from what’s called a Hunter village, but as you move your way out you’ll get to visit larger areas like Girudekaran, a town where Hunters gather. While you’ll be considered a “Rider” in the game, the world will have a lot of Hunter-related themes going on, and they’ll play big roles in the story.
Monster Hunter Stories will release in Japan in 2016 for Nintendo 3DS.
