Dreaming of the chance to be dropkicked by a lava monkey the size of a building? Of course you do, and the kind thing is that Wildhearts is thrilled to make that dream a reality. Omega Force and EA’s collaborative monster hunting is very familiar, turning the build-on-the-fly mechanics into gigantic, basic animal battles that take place in gorgeous locations of feudal Japan. I am merging. But sometimes that very clear inspiration leads to comparisons that aren’t necessarily flattering for Wild Hearts, but the dozens of hours I’ve put into it so far have been a lot of fun. Materials towards the end of the campaign and as we progress into the endgame.
Frankly, it’s almost impossible to talk about Wild Hearts without mentioning Monster Hunter. That’s not to say this is a gross rip off or completely unoriginal.Because it offers a lot of interesting additions and fun little twists on its own. But in almost every way that matters, Wild Hearts is basically monster hunter Without the name, it could easily be mistaken for the latest game in Capcom’s series. It’s also true of its escalating and remixing campaign structure, and Hubtown’s brilliant but negligible story that explores why the local creatures unexpectedly started. Attacks outside normal territory.
Crucially, Wild Hearts does at least this recognizable role so well that it’s one of the easiest to recommend to current Monster Hunter fans looking for new prey. Its combat captures a great combination of tactical and terrifying, prompting you to choose your moments carefully against enemies many times your size that often deplete your health bar in the blink of an eye. Learning the details of each monster, weapon, and even the surrounding terrain is just as important as actually performing the button inputs.
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But Wild Hearts isn’t like that actual As Monster Hunter games, Monster Hunter World and Monster Hunter Rise continue to streamline and modernize the 20-year-old series, leaving behind certain legacy mechanics that are beginning to feel a little dated. We didn’t miss things like sharpening weapons and cluttered inventory management. Simplified qualities like stat-boosting food and support items meant less time was spent preparing for pre-hunting and more time in the field. So far, Wild Hearts seems to have lost some of the complexity I enjoy in Monster Hunter, as well as those clunky parts, but this ground-up approach means it’s much easier to recommend to new hunters as well.
The biggest feature of Wild Hearts is the karakuri construction system. This allows you to create tactical objects such as walls and springboards during combat, or place structures such as fast travel tents and ziplines anywhere on the four hunting maps. The system is good, and the limited number of structures you can build allows you to really think about the best places to build custom base camps and useful shortcuts, but it’s also flexible and open. , you don’t have to think twice. We turn our stunningly detailed maps into tiny puzzles that you can solve any way you like, rather than just fighting them in arenas.
During those battles, Karakuri acts as a quick-use support item – anything you place remains until destroyed (by you or a monster). You can summon simple blocks to jump off or build walls, use springs to shoot in any direction, or summon torches to deliver quick fire attacks. It’s an interesting mechanic, but when you start unlocking fusion karakuri and being able to stack these basic objects in specific patterns to create special structures like giant bombs and chain traps, it really becomes Shine. This feels like a mini-combo system to finally master, and adds great consistency across all weapon types.
In addition to that mechanism, each of the eight types of weapons plays very different from each other. There are obvious options like a half-baked katana, a huge but slow hammer, or… literally just a gun. But there are also some unique options built around parrying attacks, like the swift, bladed umbrella. It’s a fun dance, but it was also a bit daunting until I found the perfect weapon for me: the Claw Blade. This fast slicing his knife allows you to almost fly through the air after hooking on a monster, creating an absolutely epic moment when attacking from above.
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The monsters themselves are also a lot of fun to fight. Each cool creative design boils down to “a normal animal multiplied by an elemental type”. bigThe battles are really hard if you’re playing solo (which is how I’ve spent most of my time so far due to low pre-launch server population). Through practice and study, it’s hard to come across trifles. My main problem at this point is that the number and types of monsters are pretty low, with various elemental variants or more powerful “Mighty” versions being introduced almost immediately.they can’t see or Either it’s different or it feels like a whole new enemy to fight, so I’m still enjoying it so far, but I could see it fade if things didn’t go well.
This is also a sign of the structure of Wild Hearts, with a campaign that quickly confronts an enemy that it believes can’t be defeated without preparation. That means gathering monster parts to craft new armor and upgrading weapons through sprawling tech trees. It’s also a very familiar system, but so far you don’t have to fiddle around here to look for small advantages over what you’re accustomed to as a veteran of Monsters his hunter. The only way to customize your weapons is through the few perks that you can inherit as you upgrade. That means these difficulty spikes will give you some motivation to polish your armor and weapons, specifically tailored to take down gatekeeping monsters.
That said, there are still plenty of Wild Hearts to play and I’m excited to do so now. Its equipment system looks simpler than Monster Hunter’s, but that can be both good and bad, so time will tell if it’s worth digging deeper. Hopefully the variety of monsters will make more sense as we progress through, but we won’t get bored with what we’ve already seen. Just to see what it brings me.
