Wild Hearts Review (A Wasted Cow)
My review is long overdue, mainly because I was saddened by how this game lost its support. This game had a lot of potential in the monster-hunting category, maybe not enough to make the Monster Hunter series "sweat" as new competition but enough to make the players see that the genre can evolve more than what Monster Hunter currently provides.
If this game is on a big sale (at least 50% or more, maybe 75% if you can't spare too much), this game is worth picking up just to experience the fresh ideas the devs had. Please note that my pointers below are in comparison to Monster Hunter as it's arguably the biggest name for the genre Wild Hearts is in.
Pros:
- The karakuri system as an idea as well as how it was executed is the biggest pro. It is a new inventive way to interact with your environment in order to plan your hunts and mobility to augment your quality of life during gameplay. This was something that I strongly feel was not expected by anyone coming into the monster-hunting genre much less this game. It expanded how you approached each quest rather than simply augmenting some factors of it.
Karakuri introduced new ways of base-building such as being able to customize your own camps and move them around, resource farming, ziplines you could place for mobility and so much more. To me, this was something that Monster Hunter should have adopted a long time ago. The freedom to make a map comfy for you in whatever shape or form is amazing.
Combat karakuri added a fun and freeing way to approach how you can augment your fight kind of like how wirebugs work in Monster Hunter Rise, but combat karakuri are more tangible in use as they can directly influence combat rather than passively influence your skills. You can build a wall to shield yourself, build a gadget to hover in midair for eagle-eye vision and positioning, or simply create weapons like ballistas for extra damage.
- Diverse weapon fighting styles is something that Monster Hunter already has, but Wild Hearts expands on this with its unique weapons that encourage you to dominate not only on the ground, but in aerial combat as well. Because of the karakuri system, weapons have ways to incorporate aerial combos not only for mobility, but to get better angles on hits.
The claw blade lets you perform guerilla attacks to a monster, the cannon lets you use an arguably nuclear laser, and the wagasa introduces a new way to enhance people who like parries or counters.
Cons:
- Linear gear progression (specifically armor). There's not many skills to customize and most of your changes are tied to your weapon crafting tree. The armor skills are still neat, but because it pits you into choosing one or two forms of passive skills, there's not a lot you can customize. I suppose this is somewhat fair as the available weapons and combat in general are already customizable.
- Performance can tank at times. This is an ongoing issue, and even though I rarely ran into this myself, I do admit that because Wild Hearts requires you to be able to watch things happen smoothly, any frame drops may kill you both in-game and your motivation to play. A part of me thinks they definitely could have toned down on the outer ends of the environments and made it easier within the sandbox instead.
I haven't played in a long while due to responsibilities IRL, but this game is definitely one I look fondly back on. Wholeheartedly recommend this game to those who can afford it, and/or those who wish to see a new way monster-hunting can still evolve as a genre. The pros outweigh the cons, and with enough budget and time, this game could have easily solidified a spot as a monster-hunting game in the genre.