Synopsis: Wild Hearts is a unique twist on the hunting genre, where technology gives you a fighting chance against fearsome beasts infused with the ferocious power of nature itself. Take on these creatures alone or hunt with friends in seamless co-op.
Publisher: EA Games
Reviewed on: PlayStation 5
Also available for: Xbox Series X|S, PC
Cast: Yuki Matsuzaki, Miracle Vell Magic, Crystal Kay, Yurie Collins, Yuta Koga, Kane Kosugi, Mai Nakazato, Marika Dandoy, Takayuki Yanagi, Asia Grace Sawane
Developer: Koei Tecmo Games, Omega Force
Director: Kotaro Hirata, Takuto Edagawa
Art Director: Marina Ayano, Yu Oboshi
Sound Director & Music: Junya Ishiguro
Technical Director: Shotaro Deguchi
I am obsessed with Wild Hearts. I’ve spent hours playing the game into the early hours of the morning and more thinking about hunting the creatures and what items I need to build my next weapon upgrade or armour set. The hook of this monster hunter has dug deep within me. Even if there are more than a few technical issues to mention, this is the first Monster Hunter alternative with a legitimate place alongside the champion of this genre.
The basic premise and loop here are similar to Monster Hunter games. You hunt (sometimes) giant monsters called Kemono and pick up other materials in the wild in order to upgrade your gear to take on the bigger monsters. The fights can last upwards of an hour, especially if you play a lot by yourself, as I have been, but they are never tiresome thanks to the thrill of the fight and the chase of unlocking the next piece of gear. If you want to play Wild Hearts as a solo player, you’ll find the experience closer to that of a ‘Soulslike’ with an action-combat system relying on you pacing the fights, knowing when to heal, attack and retreat. The game is clearly designed to be played with others, however, and when you team up with either two other friends or with randoms, the combination of abilities and attacks, paired with the highly different weapon types, makes for a unique battle each time you take on any of the Kemono.
The Kemono are creatures based on real-world animals that are much larger and also induced with elemental power. The Lavaback is an aggressive fire-infused ape capable of erupting the ground with lava; the Ragetail, meanwhile, is a rat-based earth-infused Kemono that’ll raise pillars of earth into the hunters. In other hunts, you can also run into different versions of the same Kemono. The giant boar Kingtusk which you’ll fight early in the game as an earth-infused beast, has an ice-based cousin you’ll find later in a different plain. These creatures also change the environment of the four biomes you’ll explore and hunt while playing Wild Hearts. A beach setting of the second biome you visit is altered to a tundra at one stage when an ice wolf drifts out of its home to wreak havoc.
The story behind these beasts and why you’re hunting them are all straightforward stuff, especially for a hunting game like Wild Hearts. With that said, there’s an engaging enough, if not all-too-simplistic, story to pull together everything for your player-created hunter. You have a little choice in the backstory, but otherwise, you’re a hunter coming from another part of this Fuedal Japan-inspired setting who’s either going to be looking to hunt strong Kemono, discover who they are, or are simply a wanderer looking for friends. Across the other side of the continent, stories of Samurai fighting and a kingdom falling apart creep through, but Wild Hearts’ narrative is contained in what feels like a wild-mostly untamed area of the fantasy Japan setting. The Kemono are being pushed into places they wouldn’t normally travel, and some usually calm ones are acting out with aggression, so there is the question at the centre of everything as to why they’re acting this one — but all the missions you take go the same route: investigate a thing, fight a Kemono.
Combat in Wild Hearts isn’t the button-mash antics you’d expect from Omega Force and Koei Tecmo’s other games like the Dynasty Warriors series; instead, it’s a much more thoughtful one with a focus on making sure your attacks land with direction and your dodges fall between I-frames to take any damage at all. For fans of Bloodborne, Dark Souls, or any similar Souls-like, you’ll quickly feel at home with the combat here as the type of weapons, and the pacing of the fights feels similar. As you’re landing 1-2 hits on a Kemono before backing out to dodge between the legs of a giant creature, you’ll be wondering how you’re managing to pull it all off without taking any damage. With a samurai sword, a dual-handed buster-blade-looking sword, and a big hammer, plenty of weapons will make those that love playing around the enemies’ feet happy here, but there are other options. The bow can be one of the most potent weapons in the game but requires a focus on player placement and awareness of what bow type you’re attacking with, as it can switch between two forms. And then there’s the claw weapon which will fulfil Attack on Titan fans as you’re able to attach to an enemy and bounce around in the air pulling in and around the Kemono that you’ve tied yourself to, which makes hitting the weak points on the some of the larger enemy types easier than a lot of the other weapons, while also looking very cool.
As good as the combat is, it’s not the weapon types or the battle pacing that makes Wild Hearts stand out, it’s the karakuri system. In what is most easily explained as the ability to pull blocks out of the air and create structures, ala Fortnite. These start simple with a block you can jump off to fling yourself into the air to do a large amount of damage when striking down on enemies while also being able to scale larger walls outside combat. But as the game progresses, you’ll unlock the ability to build larger structures to counter enemies. For King Tusk, this is six of the box next to one another, which creates a solid wall that can vary its charge attack and knock it down for a short time allowing the hunters to get free damage. Later in the game, you’ll unlock things like a firework to knock flying Kemono out of the air and even a harpoon-like system to tie Kemono into place. You have a limited supply of ‘Thread’ to create karakuri objects, and the bigger ones will cost more. Attacks on Kemono’s weak spots will cause them to drop Thread, as will spotting things in the wild to hack it out. As the battles progress and the beasts’ runoff, as checkpoint-like moments, you’re best to heal up and grab as much Thread as you take-chase after your Kemono.
All aspects of Wild Hearts are improved when playing with other players, and thankfully, it’s an easy experience to jump into with friends and randoms. At the start of any fight in your game, you can send out a ping for help and have up to two other hunters come to join you against the Kemono at the start of, or even in, the final moments of the battle. You, too, can head out to help other players. Playing with friends is as easy as inviting them into your game from a campfire; overall, story progression only continues for the host player. Wild Hearts is a much more fulfilling experience when playing with others. Even without a mic-on, the feeling of beating a hard Kemono is always felt through the waves of the internet as my partners spam emotes into the chat before we’re dragged back into our game worlds. The karakuri system is also much more thrilling and tactical when other players can finish your builds, or you can team up to tee up a couple of karakuri to hit the enemy in one massive attack. Seeing players quickly dropping karakuri objects in front of themselves to flip themselves into the sky while another play brings a flying Kemono to the ground; all the while, I’m lining up my hammer Kemono to spring upon the monster as it hits the ground is the thrilling sequence of events I’ve had happen multiple times and one of the reasons I’ll keep coming back to play Wild Hearts.
A couple of technical bugs hinder the game at launch. I had the game crash twice during different points, and a few visual bugs can become annoying. Most notable is an HDR issue causing significant bloom at nearly all points of the game. That is something that can be fixed easily enough in a patch. And although I’m playing on PlayStation 5, I’m well aware PC players have been having many issues with the game’s overall performance. I played only in the “performance mode” on PS5, and in the latter areas of the game did feel some frame drops, but nothing to the extent I’ve seen reported on PC.
Without a doubt, I’ll be returning to the hunt over and over again this year. The end-game loop introduces higher-level Kemono, with weapon upgrades I’ve barely begun to touch, as well as gear that doubles my armour score and looks so badass. A quick shortlist for one of my favourite games so far in 2023, Wild Hearts is a thrilling action RPG that’s bound to scratch an itch for Monster Hunter fans while providing something alternative for fans of the genre. The karakuri truly adds something unique, and although it’s hard to wrap your head around in pictures of quick gameplay videos, the building becomes second nature, as does looking for weaknesses in enemies, coming into the fight with the right defensive food bonuses and tee-ing up the correct fighting tactic to get the drop on the enemy Kemono and, hopefully, surviving to fight another day. The loop here is exactly what fans of the genre will want, and with plans for more content in the future, I hope this is a well-supported new IP that I’ll be playing until the day a sequel arrives.
(Wild Hearts code provided for review)
