It took a while, but Capcom finally confirmed that it is localizing its colorful Monster Hunter spin-off game, Monster Hunter Stories, for the English-speaking world this coming fall. During yesterday’s Nintendo 3DS presentation, the company scored prime real estate with the announcement and promised that the game would be out by this fall.

In Japan, the company was forced to admit that the game did not live up to expectations, which were reasonably high since it’s based on a popular series and was given a serious dose of Pokémon medicine. This makes the confirmation all the sweeter since Capcom is showing trust in its English-speaking fans to put the game over the top.

A fun spin-off, regardless of your age

It doesn’t take a genius to see what Capcom was aiming for here. Monster Hunter is still immensely popular in Japan, and Capcom was just sitting on a potential spin-off while watching Nintendo and Level-5 rake in the big dollars with Pokémon and Yo-kai Watch. Capcom made a move with this monster collecting and training game, and while it’s a quality release, it just didn’t pick up steam in its home country.

Shame, too, because this game is marvelous. Its combat is similar to Pokémon, but the key difference in design is that it provides an entirely open world RPG in the palm of your hand. Maybe it’s not on the scale of Skyrim, of course, but there is a fully 3D world tucked away inside just waiting for gamers to explore. This world might have made it a bit complicated for kids, but on the flip side, those looking for a colorful JRPG based on the Monster Hunter universe could do a lot worse.

The graphic engine also gets the job done.

Monster Hunter Stories launches this fall for the Nintendo 3DS.