Review of Wild Hearts: Building a New World in Azuma

A fresh competitor in the hunting game category makes a wild debut!

I am once more confronted with a ferocious beast that is solely interested in inflicting his vengeful wrath on me. I attempt to put up a wall in front of me to protect myself from this monster’s fury and retaliate because I have done this dance a lot and I know it too well. I conjure a wooden monowheel instead, much to my dismay.

As a joint venture between industry titans Koei Tecmo and EA, Wild Hearts joins the hunting game scene as a fresh challenger, prepared to take on titles like Monster Hunter and Toukiden.

I noticed a lot of parallels between Azuma and those other games when I first set foot in it, but soon I became lost in the fascinating and engaging world that was waiting for me.

You are greeted by the city of Minato as the focal point and hub of the land of Azuma, where you may find new side missions, make weapons, and recuperate from a hunt. 

You will be able to go to five vast locations with distinct ecosystems outside of the city, either to explore the places or to embark on tasks related to hunting. However, these aren’t your average sandboxes where you can go tear apart strange creatures. 

Before beginning your adventure, you may gather your bearings by visiting many abandoned castles that you can climb or break into to uncover hidden mysteries. You will also find winding passageways and walls that can be broken.

As the narrative progresses, you’ll witness Azuma’s reactions to strange events and changing seasons, which enhances the feeling of development and makes the world feel more vibrant. In rare instances, even new locations to discover arise. Even though it is as colourful as the world can get, the Karakuri System is the true star of the show.

Similar to what Fortnite offers, but stick with me for a while, the Karakuri is a little gadget that stores resources from the wild to build devices and buildings of various functions. In contrast to Fortnite’s structure, it prioritises fighting in addition to making movement and exploration within the open-world regions easier. 

This system comes in so many different shapes and forms that your only true limitations are your imagination. Examples include wires that can assist you in crossing a damaged bridge, pyrotechnics, and explosives that you may use to shock adversaries during combat. 

Your constructed Karakuri devices will remain on the landscape until you destroy them, and when you do, NPCs will engage with them, further deepening the sense of involvement in the Azuma universe.

Monsters abound in the places, as is typical with hunting games, and it is your terrible responsibility to confront them and eliminate them. These creatures, known as Kemono, can range in size from smaller to bigger, and they all have unique behaviours, fighting styles, and tactics. 

But one of the nicest things about Wild Hearts’ Kemono is that, unlike other hunting games where different versions of the same creatures behave similarly, each one seems distinct in behaviour and overall fight choreography. 

Every adversary in Wild Hearts has a unique personality and set of subtleties that you must unravel, whether they are brand-new or a subspecies of an existing Kemono. Each encounter will be harder than the last.

You will need a formidable arsenal to take on the Kemono, and this game offers eight distinct weapon categories where you may discover just that. The majority of the weapons have unique interactions with the Karakuri constructions, which may drastically change your strategy for fighting based on what you wish to combine or the type of creature you’re up against. 

These interactions reinforce the Karakuri system and its significance throughout the gameplay, from utilising trampolines to do aerial manoeuvres to firing at monsters while gliding over them and even applying fire to your weapons to deal more damage to them.

Character from Wild Hearts sprinting towards a massive ice monster

The game might require one or two updates to improve performance. Intermittent hiccups and frame dips occur, and visibility can occasionally become impaired during a snowfall. 

Though, narratively, I suppose that makes sense, it doesn’t make it any less annoying. In a game this dynamic, a few frames missing here and there might complicate matters; perhaps, those components of the game can be properly polished to enhance the overall experience.

In the end, Wild Hearts emerges as a vibrant and intriguing competitor in the hunting game category—and one that is much needed at this particular time. 

This game is the breath of fresh air the genre needs, bringing intriguing ideas that make it stand out from titles like Monster Hunter Rise, which take a less demanding approach. It does this by mixing intense combat with some surprising twists in mobility and building. 

The sad performance issues do require some upgrades, but they don’t make the game any less pleasurable overall.