Monster Hunter Puzzles is a match 3 puzzle game developed by CAPCOM, set in the Monster Hunter world. You wash ashore on an island populated by felynes—short, chaotic, catlike creatures who recently had their home destroyed by a monster. It is up to you to help them rebuild and take the fight to that foul attacker.
The Bare Meownimum
Monster Hunter Puzzles frames its gameplay with an overarching narrative. You are a felyne. An island of felynes suffered a recent rampage at the hand of terrible monsters. Your task is to help the poor, hyperactive felynes of the island so their home can once again flourish. You do this by completing stage after stage of match 3 puzzles.
When it comes to presentation, Monster Hunter Puzzles goes the safe route. Graphics, sound design, soundtrack… none of them stand out particularly, but they don’t hinder gameplay, so there isn’t too much to complain about. Animations and sound effects can get rather repetitive, especially during story sections. It can be considered either minimalist or lazy, depending on how much credit you want to give the title.
Monster Hunter Puzzles of course tries to go for the aesthetics of its namesake series, and while it pulls it off in the menus, the game itself lacks the fidelity to actually come close. As a mobile game though, that can be excused. If the presentation doesn’t get in the way of gameplay, then it’s doing its job.
Pawsible Purrgatory
Being a match 3 puzzle game, Monster Hunter Puzzles is easy to understand. Each stage presents you with a layout filled with colored tiles and objectives. Complete the objectives to finish the stage and move on to the next. Objectives can be a variety of tasks like getting certain objects to the bottom of the screen, uncovering certain tiles by matching colors around them, destroying a certain number of objects and so on.
Since each stage only gives you so many moves before you run out of time, a core mechanic is matching more than 3 of a color to create powerups, which can cover much bigger areas all at once, giving you more bang for your move. This is where the biggest problem with the title comes up: reliance on luck. Since so much of each stage is taken up by the layout or the objectives to begin with, there is very little wiggle room for skill expression and a lot of reliance on the right colors falling onto the screen. It makes the best strategy doing the same thing over and over again until you finally get lucky enough to win.
Time Is Meowny
Fortunately or otherwise, Monster Hunter Puzzles has the solution to this. There are plenty of things one can spend their premium currency on while playing. Buy extra moves so the stingy number of them isn’t quite so stingy anymore. Buy powerups to spawn at the start of a stage so you don’t have to get lucky right from the start. Buy tools you can use during a stage in case you’re still lacking a little bit of luck to win.
Monster Hunter Puzzles is a completely different experience depending on whether you’re willing to pay for these benefits or not. If you’re not, the title quickly devolves into repeating the same stages, then waiting for your stamina to recharge before you can repeat them more until you finally get lucky enough to win. There are ways to monetize such a game that still makes it a fun and fair experience for everyone involved. Monster Hunter Puzzles definitely went a bit too far with it.
When you do find the luck to finish a stage, Monster Hunter Puzzles can be very satisfying. Watching all the tiles fall into place, forming new powerups so you can pair them up and explode the whole screen over and over again is fun to watch. But the time or money it takes to get there is a little too much. If you’re willing to sink either into the title, it can be worth your while. If not… well, the felynes have many other islands they can choose to move to, right?
