Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin features various elements that fans of the series will be familiar with, with creatures, terms, and mechanics that are staples throughout the series making an appearance. However, the Stories spin-off titles change it up from the usual action RPG of the main series and instead offer a more traditional RPG experience with turn-based battles and a more story-based focus.

RELATED: Monster Hunter Stories 2 Is The Comforting RPG I Desperately NeededThroughout the game, players collect monster eggs that they can hatch and raise, with their monster companions joining them in battle and being ridable around the expansive world areas. If you’re just getting started with Monster Hunter Stories 2, we have a bunch of tips right here to help you get started.

Gather Everything You See

Monster Hunter Stories 2 Wings of Ruin character gathering mushrooms

As you explore the world, including Monster Dens and Everdens, there will be lots of different gathering spots that you can interact with to gather various kinds of items and materials. You should aim to gather everything that you come across, as you’ll be needing lots of these items for item combining, weapon and armor forging and upgrading, and quests.

Additionally, keep an eye out for rare gathering spots, such as gold ore and golden bones, as they will often yield valuable trade-in items that purely exist to make a decent profit. You’ll hear a twinkling noise when you are close to a rare gathering spot.

Use the Prayer Pot

Monster Hunter Stories 2 Wings of Ruin character using Prayer Pot

You might quickly notice the large pot in each village with the strange face — this is the Prayer Pot. Here you can use prayers and charms to add various buffs to your character. Make sure you use it before you head out into the world — you can have one prayer and one charm active at any one time, so use one of each. Prayer Pots appear in every village hub in the game for easy access and you’ll unlock more prayers the more charms that you use.

You can earn different charms as quest rewards, from Monstie Expeditions, or they can be found in treasure chests. When used at a Prayer Pot, each one will give you a certain buff for a set amount of time, such as increasing your chance of gathering rarer materials for 30 minutes. Charms with the Navirou logo will give an extended buff and will last 45 minutes instead.

Perfect Your Party Setup

Monster Hunter Stories 2 Wings of Ruin character using a monster with Jump

To begin with, you can have five monsties in your party, though later it becomes six. Different monsties offer different Riding Actions, which are special abilities that you can use in the world. For example, Velocidrome can use Jump, which allows you to jump across chasms or jump up to other areas, so you can access new places and more treasure chests. It’s worth trying to have your party cover the most essential riding actions that help in reaching all those hard to get to locations.

Additionally, monsters specialize in different attack types, so having at least one of each attack type monstie in your party will help you to cover all your basics in battle. As you progress, you’ll also want to include other notable monster types, such as cold-weather monsties for when in cold areas to prevent Frostbite.

Carry One Of Each Weapon Type

Monster Hunter Stories 2 Wings of Ruin character using a bow

There are three different types of weapons — slash, blunt, or piercing. Monsters that you encounter in battle will have different weaknesses/resistances to certain weapon types, and each of their body parts that you can target can have a different weakness. To ensure you’re getting the most out of each battle, equip one of each weapon type so that you can change up your battle tactics when needed in battle.

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Though there are only three different weapon types, that are six different kinds of weapons that you can purchase/forge. Sword and shield and greatswords fall under the slash category, hammers and hunting horn fall under blunt, while bows and gunlances fall under piercing.

Respawning Monsters

Monster Hunter Stories 2 Wings of Ruin Paolumu

It goes without saying that monsters respawn when you leave the area to go to another location (not including Monster Dens), but some monsters are deep into an area and so fast-traveling out and then running back to where they spawn can be a pain. If you're farming a particular monster that's only found towards the end of a certain area, such as a Pukei-Pukei near the end of Guardian Ratha Woods, after you have killed it, you just need to hang around for a bit (not in the menu) and the monster will eventually respawn.

Additionally, many quests relating to defeating rarer monsters are repeatable and a number of them will cause the monster to spawn on the main map of the region as opposed to the area you normally find it in. If you are after monster parts to forge new gear, you can repeat these quests to respawn the monster you need and farm parts that way.

Don’t Sell All Your Stuff Right Away

Monster Hunter Stories 2 Wings of Ruin selling items to NPC menu

It might be tempting to sell all those monster materials and items you’ve been gathering to earn a quick buck to buy even better gear, but don’t go overboard straight away. Even if you think you don’t need specific monster parts anymore, especially the weaker ones, you might be surprised to see that they still crop up as a secondary ingredient on forging recipes for better monster gear.

You’ll also open up new quests and recipes as you progress, so you never know when you might need some of those materials/items. Having to go out and farm them as you already sold them all can be a pain, so we recommend making some zenny another way and hold on to the majority of your items for the most part. However, there are special "trade-in" items that have no other function than to be sold. These items are usually pretty valuable and so you can sell these to make some decent zenny.

Upgrade Your Weapons/Armor Often

Monster Hunter Stories 2 Wings of Ruin forging weapons menu

Every time you defeat a new kind of monster and obtain their materials from battle, the Smithy will have new weapons and armor for you to forge and upgrade. This is a familiar mechanic for anyone who has played any of the other Monster Hunter titles, and much like those, you should prioritize upgrading all of your gear whenever possible.

The further you progress in the game, the more challenging the monsters that you have to face will become, so keeping your character in tip-top shape is recommended. It’s also worth keeping more than one armor set on hand later on in the game, that way you can tailor your gear choice by taking into account elements or buffs that will help to take down more difficult monsters.

Rare Eggs and Rare Monster Dens

Monster Hunter Stories 2 Wings of Ruin Rare Monster Den on Hokolo Island

Whenever you see a Rare Monster Den, which will be gold instead of the normal grey rock, you should always take advantage of it and grab a decent egg from inside. Monster Dens are randomly generated every time you enter an area and Rare Monster Dens don’t spawn as often, naturally. Rare Monster Dens have a higher chance of resulting in rare eggs, eggs with better genes, and can sometimes contain rare monsters to defeat also, allowing you a good chance to grab some coveted monster materials. Additionally, if the rare monster you encounter is hatchable, you can try and increase the odds of it retreating to snag an egg as Monster Dens spawned by monsters retreating can appear within normal and Rare Monster Dens.

When you grab an egg from a nest and there is a glow, it is showing that either its weight or smell is better than the default standard (light/regular egg). If the glow is accompanied by sparkles, then the weight/size are both better than the default. Better eggs have a higher chance of resulting in better genes, which are especially useful later on when you unlock the Rite of Channelling.

If the Monster Den is the result of a monster retreating, the eggs in the nest will always be that of the monster that retreated. That means you have nothing to lose by chucking the egg back in the hopes of pulling one with a glow/sparkles as it will always be the same monster. Worst case scenario, you’ll take too long and have to battle the mother, but it’s worth it for a better egg.

Prioritize Upgrading Your Stable

Monster Hunter Stories 2 Wings of Ruin Stables Felyne

The Stable is where you hatch and keep your monsties, so upgrading your stable to be able to house more monsties is a must. You can purchase stable expansions from the Melynx Inc. NPC in any town, which you will be guided to as part of the storyline.

You’ll need Bottle Caps to purchase things from this little feline, but these can be found in Everdens or given as rewards from quests. Having space for more monsties in the stable is not only a good idea to keep a wide range of different monsties available, but it’ll come in handy for when you unlock Monstie Expeditions, or when you start using the Rite of Channelling.

Next: Monster Hunter Stories 2 Complete Guide And Walkthrough