Wild Hearts vale a pena? (Review)

Wild Hearts has arrived to be a new option in the hunting genre, being a title that does not seek in any way to hide its great inspiration in Monster Hunter, even leaving many elements that were taken directly from the famous Capcom franchise, which is successful and has been at the top of the genre for a long time.

While using much of what players already know about a consecrated franchise, Wild Hearts could have found in this scenario a safe way to capture a large player base, who could certainly look for something similar to what they find in the titles offered by EA in the game published by EA. Capcom franchise. However, Wild Hearts is not able to live up to the name it tries to emulate and proves to be far below the source from which it sought inspiration.

humanity against nature

Similar to what we see in Monster Hunter, Wild Hearts offers a world in which humanity is threatened by a colossal force, which in this case are the Kemono, gigantic creatures capable of destroying everything that appears in front of them. While humans live in fear, taking refuge in cities that may not withstand the terrible attacks of the creatures, your character emerges as the last hope to avoid the total devastation of Azuma, the city you must protect.

Dominating the Karakuri, the main character is able to create equipment that is extremely useful against the large creatures, which offers him the chance to fight the colossi. Therefore, you embark on a journey that boils down to exploring islands, getting equipment, defeating giant enemies and fighting really colossal Kemonos that threaten Azuma’s existence.

In its plot, the game tries to demonstrate in a slightly deeper way the conflict between humanity and nature, sometimes even showing a great respect of certain characters for the creatures, however, the plot never really dives into that, and to tell you the truth it never proves to be truly interesting with any proposal or idea. It is somewhat shallow, without presenting really interesting characters that can make your adventure more attractive as far as the narrative is concerned.

Long and not very interesting fights

While Monster Hunter manages to conquer its player base with exciting and exciting combats, Wild Hearts fails precisely at the point where it should appear as one of its main features. Here, the combats are quite time-consuming, normally lasting more than 25 minutes, and they fail to be interesting in fact in almost no time.

With the exception of confrontations against more colossal Kemonos, most of the combats end up being boring and tiring, whether due to the technical problems of the title or due to other elements such as the lack of enemies with interesting movements.

Offering eight different types of weapons, the game features a good variety of weapons, however it fails to use its arsenal. There is the feeling that the title lacks weapons that satisfy the player more, presenting really attractive skills and differences during confrontations. As the melee is not so captivating, the game seems to gain another face when the player uses the bow, which can even result in more fun and versatility during confrontations, something that the game has difficulty offering.

Kemono, in turn, have different moves and characteristics, but they also expose how difficult it is for the game to take advantage of its own content to make the player interested in the journey. There are few Kemono that stand out here, while the game is definitely not capable of delivering any battles that are truly memorable. When they enter a demonic form, Kemono can even prove to be more interesting, with their corrupted nature becoming a real threat that makes the environment around them quite inhospitable, but not enough to truly captivate.

The difference that is not enough

Wild Hearts sees Karakuri as its chance to shine, making it a game with a difference compared to its inspiration and other titles that have tried to find success in the genre. While the combat fails to be captivating, with the Karakuri the reality is almost different… almost.

The fact is that using your character’s special skills to summon equipment is fun and ends up offering a unique dynamic to combat. In real time, you can summon weapons, trampolines and barriers, and can combo builds to create gear that really makes a difference in the action.

Some equipment can trap Kemono and others can knock them down with blows, as well as you can also use Karakuri to recover your life or even invoke a great barrier that will protect you from attacks by large creatures.

In addition, the Karakuri are also interesting with regard to locomotion and crossing. Thanks to your character’s skills, the crossing ends up appearing as one of the main points of the game, while you can use different equipment to move quickly, in a practical and fun way.

However, Karakuri’s possibilities cannot be enough to hide the title’s problems, which completely collapse due to numerous bugs and technical problems.

extremely buggy

On my journey, I encountered a lot of different issues in Wild Hearts. The game’s visuals leave a lot to be desired, with textures far below what we’ve come to expect from current generation consoles. To complicate things, pop-in is a frequent problem in virtually all scenarios in the game, which ends up disrupting the experience.

In addition, the game also had other problems such as dialogues skipping lines automatically, characters speaking two different phrases at the same time and audio glitches. At certain times, the game did not have sound for certain movements and actions, while at other times all sounds in the game happened with a few seconds of delay.

the verdict

Wild Hearts could shine with the Karakuri, being a title with good characteristics unique to the hunting genre, but it ends up stumbling badly on many other problems. His mistakes and failures end up greatly harming the overall result, taking the weight off successes like the crossing.

With several bugs, the title still needs polishing to be able to present a more acceptable journey to players. Wild Hearts fails resoundingly.