lylat

Five years ago, Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin was released, a sequel to Monster Hunter Stories and a spin off of the mainline Monster Hunter series. Instead of hunting monsters in long boss fight-like instances, CAPCOM created a monster collector JRPG game that focuses on building monsters that you get in the wild and a more story focus plot. Admittedly, I have never played the first game and have only played the second and newly released third game in the series. However, it was not needed to play the first game in order to understand the plot of the second or third game (thankfully). 

Originally, I played this game on release. I don't have a good memory of the game, and although I remember the general storyline beats of the game my first impression of the game was middling at best. I thought the gameplay was fun (a more rock-paper-scissors aspect) and building your monsters was great, but I didn't enjoy the story much. I didn't understand why we should care about Red (your late-grandfather), why I should care about Ratha (your main companion), or Kyle (your narrative foil). I thought the story was middling at best, and I was irritated that the story thrusted these characters onto you and made you care about them. The game ended, I shrugged my shoulders, and continued onto the post-gameplay. I beat the main story on Oct. 24. 2021. 

Then I replayed the game and beat it almost 5 years to the day (Sept. 26, 2026). And now I completely understand what the game was telling me all these years ago. And it is a lot more personal than I thought I could ever imagine.

Almost 5 years ago, my grandmother passed away. I often joke that my grandmother was my mother. Without going too much into my personal life, I spent more time with my grandmother than any other person on this world to this day. She raised me. She taught me morality. I am not religious, but I completely believe that she is my guardian angel. 
I originally played this game 2 months before her death. I did not understand why the game put so much weight onto your late-grandfather. The scenes that played throughout the game of him teaching you, of the flashbacks of him interacting with other people being a reflection of the present time made no sense to me. In fact, I was annoyed so much about how the game compares YOU to your grandfather. It didn't make sense to me and I brushed it off as nothing as poor writing. Ah... it is almost funny writing that today. Really, having played the game and watched the scenes of your grandfather mentoring you and watching scenes of your grandfather reaching out to you as if guiding you throughout the story... I get it. I really do. In every cutscene with your grandfather, I saw myself. It was bittersweet watching the scenes with your grandfather and watching how the story unfolded with his spirit guiding you. As I watched it, I could feel myself standing there and my own grandmother guide me. And I felt foolish. Not because I related so much to what the game was showing me, but because I took for granted the scenes on my first playthrough. Would it have taken my grandmother's death to really understand what the game was trying to convey to me? Maybe not. I did originally play the game in a pretty dark time in my life. But as time marches on we grow and learn to appreciate the things we never would have originally. Five years is a rather long time, and a lot has happened to me in the five years between when I played the game and when my grandmother died. And it there is a bit of irony to that too as the five year mark of her death is a huge landmark to me, personally.

I didn't consciously choose this time of my life to replay this game, but we all come into certain things at a certain time. And maybe I was finally ready to face these feelings that I did not understand. Maybe I won't understand them completely. But maybe it will help me to learn to move forward and learn to face what is to come.