I’m not much of a fan of the monster-hunting genre, to be completely honest with you. I know there is a huge market out there for a game with the exact name, Monster Hunter, so there are obviously a lot of players out there; I’m just not one of them. I mean, the premise of the game is pretty badass. You’re a, well you’re you, and there are a variety of monsters or beasts out there of varying sizes and temperaments and a huge array of abilities. Each one needs a different tactic to defeat, and it just sounds like a really cool boss battle one after the other. To me, though, it just kind of got a bit boring. I don’t really remember if there was a story or not, but I suppose that just adds to the fact that I didn’t enjoy the games. Hunt, win, return, repeat.
Regardless of that, I was still given the duty to review Wild Hearts, and, well, maybe I’ve had a change of heart. Wild.
Wild Hearts is Koei Tecmo’s (responsible for the Warriors and Dead or Alive franchises) take on a monster hunter style of game. So it’s not like they’re just some out-of-nowhere-studio that’s popped up and tried to create something for a genre that already has a massive following. These guys know what they’re doing, and it comes across that way in the game.
Without giving away too much of anything regarding the story, in Wild Hearts, you’re a Kemono Hunter that’s entered a continent that has been mostly overrun by these Kemono. The humans have been pushed back to one last town on this continent and are pretty much hanging on by a thread before the Kemono eventually wipe them out. Your duty is to remove the Kemono from these lands. The reason why you do so is completely up to you. Slowly but surely, the more Kemono you hunt, the more you learn about them and why they have become the way they are. The town slowly progresses with you, and its vibrancy and people are sorely missed when you’re out in the wild by yourself. I found myself giggling at a few of the comments made by the NPCs that hang around the town on more than one occasion.
The Kemono in the game have attributed themselves in some way to an aspect of nature, and they slowly turn the environment around them to suit this aspect. As you fight the monster, they’ll slowly lead you to their “nest”, where they play by their rules, and the abilities they use against you lean more in their favour as they have nature around them on their side. One element that really differentiates Wild Hearts from the little bit of Monster Hunter that I’ve played is that you also have a mysterious magic on your side called Karakuri. Karakuri give you the ability to manipulate the threads of the world around you into physical objects that you can use to your advantage. Whether it be building platforms or springs to give you elevation or speed in certain directions or catapults and nodes that grant you the power of the elements, the Karakuri you use can really make the battle interesting.
Learning what combinations of Karakuri work for each type of Kemono helps you in battle more than you can imagine. Think of it as Fortnite with build mode, except more fun, and you’re not getting owned by a 10-year-old with more skill than you. Of course, you don’t have to use Karakuri, you can go in with just the standard fight, dodge and fight style that is traditional of monster hunting games, which leads me to weapons.
What would a monster-hunting game be without weapons? Pokémon. It would be Pokémon.
Wild Hearts is not Pokémon; it does have weapons, and lots of them. Whether you’re a whip sword-wielding samurai, or a giant maul-smashing brute, there is an option for you. Then, to dig in even a little deeper, each weapon can be upgraded and customized, depending on which meaty, fleshy bits you’ve accumulated from all the monsters you’ve hunted. Looking to make a poisoned arrow long bow? Just make sure you’ve picked up a poison sack from that beasty. Maybe your massively enormous maul needs to look like an acorn full of sap? Well, make sure you’ve picked up enough sap along the way. Ok, yes, I know I mention the Maul a lot, but it just hits so hard, man it’s glorious. This same customisation can be done with all your armour pieces as well, it is not as in-depth as the weapons, but you can attune your armour to focus more on certain aspects depending on what you’re out on the hunt for.
At its core, though, monster hunting games are about the gameplay, yes, you can customise yourself up the wazoo, but is it even fun to play once you’re done? The short answer is yes. I had a real jam playing Wild Hearts. So much so that I may even give other monster hunting games a second chance. The long answer is, well, a little longer.
Yes, Wild Hearts was a lot of fun to play, but it’s not perfect and not even close. The cut scenes between characters feel very stale. There’s not much going on except for a bit of 2000s head bobbing, and sometimes a jaw will move. There’s a bit of clipping and hair, swords, bows and mauls magically going through pieces of armour where they really shouldn’t. Worst of all is the performance.
This game took every last breath from my poor little PC. Admittedly, my specs are pretty close to the lower end of things. I think I just scratched the minimum requirements, however, after chatting with a few of the other reviewers out there, they seemed to have similar issues on their super-duper-trooper machines. Now, I know this can probably be fixed in a few ways, one being a PC upgrade, which, thanks to this game, I am in the process of, and the other being a day one patch, but no one enjoys a day one patch. You want to get the game and play it, and sadly, if you do get it on PC, you might have to play it with a bit of a positive outlook for a short time.
Overall, I loved playing Wild Hearts, and I can’t wait to get back to playing it when I finally get my PC upgraded. It’s a really fun game, and the monster hunting isn’t as boring as I remember it to be from previous games in the same genre. If I were you, though, I would opt for getting it on console. I feel like it would perform a hell of a lot better there, and games like these feel like they’re made for a controller. Either that or give it a month or two for EA to work on getting a performance patch out there. The Koei Tecmo team have got two free meaty DLC’s coming up on the timeline, one for this month and another for March, so the likeliness of there being a performance tweak or two in these updates is relatively high. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
== Giveaway ==
As luck would have it we have a Digital PS5 Code for Wild Hearts to giveaway! Keep your eyes peeled on NAGs social media channels to find out how to win the game for yourself.
Terms and Conditions:
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- The competition closes at midnight on Friday, 24 February 2023.
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