Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Since the announcement, players have been keeping a close eye on Wild Hearts. The authors did not hide the fact that the ideas were borrowed from Monster Hunter, but they promised not a cheap copy, but an original project, inspired by a series of games from the Capcom studio and with interesting ideas. They didn’t lie, but only partly.
After the release of the stunning remake of the original Dead Space, players slightly changed their attitude towards Electronic Arts. They naively decided that the publisher was trying to improve and change its reputation in the eyes of the gaming community. Alas, Wild Hearts came out next.
Released under the EA Originals brand, Wild Hearts offers a couple of “original” ideas, but they lie under such a thick layer of problems that just trying to dig them out causes melancholy and fatigue.
In Wild Hearts, players, having chosen an appearance and decided on a pronoun (“they”, “she”, “they”) for a character, go hunting for kimonos – giant and formidable creatures that have absorbed the destructive forces of nature and threaten the inhabitants of a small village.
The plot quickly fades into the background, and most of the dialogues become so predictable that sometimes you can finish his monologue without writing. “Hard past”, “missing brother/matchmaker/father”, “help save the village, be kind” – Wild Hearts doesn’t even try to make the story interesting, instead forcing the player to hit the “A” button so that the interlocutor will shut up and let him beat the next one monster.
As mentioned above, monsters in Wild Hearts are physical embodiments of the unbridled forces of the elements and nature. But unlike Monster Hunter, where each animal was recognizable and unique, the design of the kimono in Wild Hearts does not shine with originality. There are giant monkeys, boars, rats, wolves – with their own characteristics and a certain set of attacks.
In terms of dynamics, battles with monsters in Wild Hearts are slower than in Monster Hunter, but they can hardly be called completely boring. If only slightly. Each enemy requires an approach and forces you to memorize a sequence of attacks, since some of them can deplete the hunter’s health bar instantly. The monsters also have a huge amount of health, which makes fighting them feel like trying to pick at a concrete wall with a plastic spoon.
This is one of the problems with Wild Hearts, which is why we didn’t even play through the game to write a full review. Despite some interesting ideas, Koei Tecmo’s new project quickly descends into a dull grind if you want to upgrade your equipment and have a better chance of coming out victorious in battles with stronger “gis”.
The main problem of Wild Hearts is the technical component. Although the game looks like it was developed for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles, this does not stop it from mercilessly slowing down on the Xbox Series X and computers with an RTX 4090 on board! Moreover, the drop in frame rate occurs not only in the heat of battle, with a monster rushing back and forth, but also in the process of exploring locations.
Analysis
Underneath the heap of technical problems and dull grind lies, if not a worthy answer to Monster Hunter, then at least an attempt to enter into dialogue with the Capcom project. Wild Hearts has a lot of interesting ideas, some of which are even passably implemented, but the boring plot, inexpressive graphics and disgusting optimization in no way contribute to the desire to stay in the game longer to get to know it better.