Welcome to Azuma, a fanciful take on feudal Japan where mountains of gold shimmer beneath sparkling waters, cherry blossoms dance playfully, and monsters known as Kemono—monstrous creatures fused with the very essence of nature—roam freely. Anyone who has ever played a Monster Hunter game will feel right at home.
Although discussing another game at the beginning of a review never feels quite right, in the case of Wild Hearts, it’s practically inevitable. It takes so many cues from Capcom’s venerable Monster Hunter series that it isn’t just reliant on it—it couldn’t function without it. Though there are moments when the game seems a lot like déjà vu, developer Omega Force’s deft reworking of a well-known template pushes Wild Hearts above good clones to become an amazing experience all on its own.
The fundamentals of Wild Hearts, however, will be instantly recognizable to fans of Capcom’s series—or even any of its sporadic copycats, like as Omega Force’s own Toukiden games—offering a growth cycle centered around repeatedly hunting vicious mega-fauna. In essence, defeated enemies drop components that may be utilized to construct better armor and weapons, which in turn make it simpler to defeat far more formidable opponents, and so forth. It’s a system of acquisition that’s as interesting in Wild Hearts as it is anyplace else, pulled together here more loosely by a story of ecological disturbance that stands out for its cast of unexpectedly well-drawn people than any particularly inventive plot elements.
Additionally, Wild Hearts’ structure demands careful balancing and moment-to-moment activity to prevent a quick descent into mind-numbing drudgery. Fortunately, Wild Hearts meets and exceeds these expectations. Primarily, this is attributed to its exceptional combat, which sustains an intense level of excitement throughout its extensive campaign. This is largely because of astute revision and refinement choices that are integrated throughout the majority of the game, distilling the monster hunting genre to its most intriguing core elements and then reinforcing them with some captivating new facets of its own.
For example, Monster Hunter’s naturally fussy nature has been exchanged for something sleeker, more efficient, and more responsive with its eight unique weapons in combat. These include a beginner-friendly katana that focuses on light and heavy attacks as well as more unusual weapons like a staff that can change into five different shapes and a bladed parasol that can deflect blows. Throughout Wild Hearts’ rather small toolkit, there’s a strong feeling of focus and clarity. This also holds true for its fairly narrow but incredibly unique monster lineup. From graceful creatures like eagles and wolves to drop-kicking chickens, sap-spewing jackalopes, and stretchy-limbed fire apes, each has their own set of moves that expands intriguingly as additional elemental varieties are added throughout gameplay.
All of this seems like a calculated reaction to Monster Hunter’s more maximalist methods in many respects; Wild Hearts’ various structural changes exchange hassle and friction for more fluidity and flexibility. I adore the ease with which battles and seamless co-op online play can be started by simply choosing a target on the world map; the flexibility with which you can customize the temporary bonus-granting properties of foods to suit your specific needs while in the field; the ability to transfer over your preferred skill boosts when switching between weapons in the upgrade tree; and the nostalgic video game-like simplicity of leveling up your tiny spherical companion, which aids in solo battles, by tracking down its companions in the real world.
And what a world it is, too. Tall Japanese strongholds emerge from the fog of snow-filled valleys; deserted towns collapse onto riverbanks beneath golden-hued mountains; burnt battlefields open up onto fields of vivid red flowers and crystal grottos; and bamboo thickets twist and turn into narrow rock gorges before bursting once more onto boundless expanses of shimmering silvergrass. While there are a few occasions where the battle flow is annoyingly hindered by claustrophobic, overdesigned places, overall the game is rather spectacular, especially when rampaging Kemono start smashing everything to pieces.
Most importantly, though, Omega Force has left behind a wildness that needs to be subdued. Its five distinct environmental stretches are cleverly designed so that they serve as more than just battlegrounds; instead, they are meant to be conquered and shaped to your will, which is where the Karakuri system comes into play. Every aspect of Wild Hearts’ action is influenced by karakuri, which are complicated wooden contraptions that unfold impossibly into a variety of unique gadgets for use in battle, navigation, or both. They also give the game’s otherwise conventional monster hunting rhythms a lively personality of their own.
Outside of battle, players may build Karakuri wherever and whatever they like, transforming Wild Hearts’ maze-like environments into extremely customizable, endless playgrounds, with some gradually reducing restrictions. In its simplest form, it means you may set up a respawn camp wherever it appears to be the most advantageous strategically at any given moment. You might decide to camp beside a stream that yields fish that you can eat, or by an Ancient Tree that you can tap for flasks of healing water. However, you may go farther by constructing a forge outside of Minato, where you can make armor and weapons, or even a radar tower that can locate target creatures and other objects.
But once you start to access traversal Karakuri, things get a lot more fascinating; like Monster Hunter World, the settings in Wild Hearts are disorganized, perplexing, and occasionally overpowering sprawls. Whereas Capcom’s bewildering endeavors always seemed like a design error (one that has since been fixed in both Iceborne and Rise), the mayhem here feels deliberate; a wilderness that is just waiting to be tamed with enormous fans that can launch glider-wielding players straight up cliff sides, zip wires that can be used to jump enormous distances in a matter of seconds, and more, all of which endure for other players as they enter and exit your world.
It’s a personalized system that makes landscapes come to life and gives the action a nice pre-action cadence. When exploring a new area of Azuma, reconnaissance and exploration are practically necessary. You’ll almost certainly want to head out and prime the land before you even think about taking on new Kemono. This includes building shortcuts, placing campgrounds strategically, opening up new Dragon Pits to increase the amount of Karakuri you can place, and tapping Ancient Trees to fully refill Healing Waters as needed. Everything is masterfully done, and there’s a true sense of synergy between the world, your actions inside it, and how those crucial fights are affected. For example, knowing that an Ancient Tree is just around the corner may literally save your life in a fight, and you can’t help but feel proud when you use a zip line you prepared earlier to cut off a fleeing Kemono at the pass.
Naturally, certain Karakuri serve a more clear purpose in battle. You may construct a spring to catapult yourself quickly out of danger, stack crates to launch yourself into the air and perform an aerial assault, and use a grapple to hurl yourself about Kemono like a particularly obnoxious fly. That’s only a small portion of the vast Karakuri unlock tree in Wild Hearts; what matters most is how all of this affects the fight rhythms, which have a combat flow that reminds me a little bit of Fortnite (a similarity I never would have imagined when I first started playing). Wild Hearts has a similar feel to that game, where the familiar action suddenly lurches into the realm of furious multi-fingered construction to gain the upper hand. It also has that satisfying “I made this!” feeling when, with a flurry of digits, something impossible springs into existence just in time.
It’s true that adjusting to all of this takes some time, and it might be stressful when you also have to worry about the 20-foot monster looming above you. However, it’s a challenge well worth meeting, especially with its more sophisticated Fusion Build combinations that convert simple Karakuri into massive, game-changing traps are known as Karakuri, and they are both crucial to winning and incredibly satisfying. For example, if you quickly set down six torches, you can create a firework that can ground anything in the air. You can also conjure a bulwark that will send charging enemies into a devastating tailspin. Other weapons include bombs, harpoons, and a spring-loaded mallet that, when used at the right moment, can deal enormous damage to enemies.
However, there is even more to this, which just heightens the ridiculous spectacle and delirious excitement of it all. You see, Karakuri need Thread to construct, and you can only have so much on you at once. Normally, you won’t have to worry about it because it can be readily cultivated from rocks and trees when you have some peaceful time to kill time, but in combat, it’s significantly more valuable because developing strong Fusion Karakuri is expensive.
This is where the last battle loop of Wild Hearts comes into play; much like in Monster Hunter, precise hits to particular body areas of an enemy will ultimately force them to shatter, yielding a rare farmable drop. However, in Wild Hearts, it can also reveal thread sections that glow, and here is when Omega Force enters Shadow of the Colossus territory. Sheathe your weapon, leap forward quickly, and you’ll be able to climb all over your enormous opponent. Once you align your body with a glowing point and submerge your arm, you will earn a large boost to Thread, far more over your normal limit. This prize has the power to drastically change the course of a battle.
Although there is a lot to take in, Wild Hearts takes its time revealing its quirks. As you become more comfortable with its interlocking combat systems—the building, the real-time resource management, the pattern recognition, and the good ol’ hitting things with a pointy thing—the entire experience begins to sing, developing into a joyful ballet of barely restrained chaos that is swift, slick, and exhilarating in Wild Hearts’ own special way. It goes without saying that the online cooperative mode, which is judiciously limited to three people for readability, is also a lot of fun, including enormous monsters going crazy, enormous Karakuri traps blinking into existence, hunters shooting across space, and barely controlled chaos unfolding.
I do worry about the impact of Wild Hearts’ relatively small monster pool, but other than some unavoidable tiredness brought on by its near closeness to Monster Hunter (both in terms of its fundamental architecture and release timeframe), complaints are surprisingly minimal. Even though elemental variants frequently add intriguing new twists to well-known battles, and higher-level variants necessitate far more precise tactics due to their increased aggression and altered timings, when all is said and done, elemental variants account for just 21 unique monsters, or less than half of Monster Hunter Rise’s base game. It’s hard to predict how long Wild Hearts will last in the end, especially with the promise of additional monsters to come after launch.
Lastly, performance must be mentioned. Despite being well beyond EA’s suggested specs, my review PC was beset by unsettling graphics problems including persistent stuttering and slow pop-in, irrespective of the settings. Early access gamers have reported that issues could be present on all platforms, and Omega Force has promised to address the issue, beginning next week with a patch to address PC CPU bottlenecks. Even so, it’s something to consider at this time, even if I personally thought the performance was passable if not great.
In the end, though, Omega Force’s creation in Wild Hearts is a game of exquisitely entwined systems that, although obviously recognizable, is clever and novel in ways I didn’t anticipate. I couldn’t help but question early on who all this was for, but after 50 hours, it’s obvious that everyone will have much to enjoy. With literally hundreds of hours of Capcom games under our belts, I think many people who have bounced off Monster Hunter will find Wild Hearts approachable. It also delivers a clever and extremely energizing take on a cherished concept for those like myself. Since this first installment of Wild Hearts is so damn entertaining, I genuinely hope that this isn’t the last time we see it and that Omega Force is given the chance to continue growing and improving the series for many years to come.