Wild Hearts

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It’s interesting to observe the evolution of a genre over time. An initial foundation is one thing, but real gaming gems tend to arise when developers build on what came before. Wolfenstein 3D was one thing, but DOOM added more complex maps and weapons, Half-Life revolutionized the way first-person games told stories and so on. From a more contemporary perspective, take a look at bite-sized Vampire Survivors and its many progeny; we’re sure to see even more great games come out of that ecosystem.

There’s also the hunting-action genre pioneered by Monster Hunter, and that’s what we’re talking about today, as Omega Force’s Wild Hearts takes the hunting-action genre a step forward by adding in a creative construction twist.

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The land of Azuma is a beautiful place, with sweeping mountain vistas, deep and mysterious forests and all manner of natural wonders. It’s also home to the kemono, monsters with the ability to control primal forces and shape the land to their whims. That makes them a little difficult to live with, since it’s tough to keep a village running when it keeps getting flattened by giant rampaging boars and the like, so there’s also people who make a living out of hunting kemono. You’ll control one of these hunters as they do what they do best, ensuring the safety of the town of Minato and its citizens in the process.

Wild Hearts’ basic gameplay owes a lot to Monster Hunter, which shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. You’ll select one of eight different weapon classes – five initially, with three more unlocking a little bit into the game – and get to work bashing away at the local macrofauna. Victory will earn you monster parts that can be used to upgrade your weapons and armor, giving you an edge in future battles. You’ll likely spend a lot of time repeatedly fighting kemono in order to find rare parts and complete equipment sets, both for increased stats and to avoid looking like a clown-suited doofus.

Your weapon options are a great place to start talking about Wild Hearts’ gameplay in comparison to other hunting-action games. You’ve got your basic sword, greatsword and hammer, for instance, as well as an incredibly overpowered bow that could probably use a nerf or two. On the more esoteric side of things, there’s a difficult-to-use bladed umbrella that relies on counterattacks, a dagger-and-hook combination that plays a bit like the fight scenes from Attack on Titan and an incredibly bizarre shapeshifting staff. All the weapons are a lot of fun to mess with, though as mentioned, there’s some balance issues – that bow ought to be illegal.

Things get shaken up a little, though, by the addition of karakuri into the mix. Karakuri are essentially wooden contraptions powered by magical thread; your character is capable of storing up that thread and spending it to conjure new karakuri during a hunt. This offers you a huge and versatile array of options unlike many other hunting-action games. A simple karakuri crate, for instance, serves several different purposes: you can use it as a stepstone to get to high places, as a springboard to perform plunging attacks against monsters and even as a makeshift wall to stop a charging monster’s assault.

Later karakuri, like a controllable wired spike that can be sunk into monsters, offer even greater advantages, and on top of that your character will learn to combine various karakuri into more powerful forms. That stack of crates that you were using as a makeshift wall, for instance, can eventually become an actual wall that will really show an attacking monster who’s boss. It’s a little bit like battle royale darling Fortnite in the sense that you’re going to be speedily constructing to suit your needs at the moment. A player that effectively uses karakuri in combat is going to find themselves more effective both offensively and defensively, running circles around monsters while dealing deadly strikes at the same time. Making the most of karakuri is a huge part of victory…unless you’re using the bow, in which case you’ve already won. Hoo boy.

That’s not all, though, as karakuri are also useful outside of battle. Consider the way that a map in, say, Monster Hunter: World is interconnected via ziplines, secret passages and so on…and then consider what might happen if you were able to design that interconnectivity yourself. That’s what Wild Hearts offers via karakuri, allowing you to set up ziplines, footholds, vehicles and even spawn points wherever you please, with your creativity limited only by collectible Dragon Pit energy sources scattered throughout each map.

Every player is going to have their own idea about the best way to traverse a map and they’re free to set things up precisely the way they’d like it. It’s difficult to overstate how unique this makes Wild Hearts’ hunting experience compared to similar titles and it’s a concept I hope we see carried on by other developers.

Along with doing a lot to advance the hunting-action combat, Wild Hearts also looks pretty darn fantastic. We’re going for a sort of Princess Mononoke shtick here, with kemono representing animals infused with nature-themed powers, and there’s a lot to be said for how impressive everything looks and feels in practice. Using a karakuri to just barely avoid a giant kemono attack is exhilarating; Wild Hearts feels fresh and dynamic as a result. It also feels a little gross to play on PC as of this writing and it’s highly recommended that players avoid that platform at the moment. Stick with the console versions if you can, even if you’ve got a high-end gaming rig.

Those issues aside, Wild Hearts does more than any game since Monster Hunter: World to advance the hunting-action genre in necessary ways. The addition of creative construction to monster hunting is one of those things you might not have thought you’d needed, but it’ll be hard to give it up when you return to other hunting games. It’s a great step forward in the world of monster hunting (pun intended) and a must-play experience, especially with friends.