Wild Hearts Review (Espresso Depresso)
DISCLAIMER! If you have any interest at all in buying this game ONLY do it when it goes on sale, which it does frequently, as it is NOT worth your money at full price.
While I am giving this a no for recommendation, I will say it briefly scratches that monster hunter itch if you're willing to put up with the horrible optimization. You may need to find some videos/posts/threads discussing what changes you can make to help it run a bit smoother.
The Good:
- Each weapon feels great to use once you learn it's flow, aside from ranged weapons but I'm biased to ranged weapons.
- The visual aesthetic, music, and world (lore wise) is pleasing. All of it is Asian/oriental themed and inspired (specifically Japanese from what I can tell).
- The Karakuri system (building things) adds a nice layer to the combat system, but it can be frustrating at times.
- Unlocking certain karakuri can only be done using certain other karakuri and/or weapons, I think this gives a good incentive to try new things but can be frustrating for players who feel forced to use something they don't like.
- There are a few places in the world that look genuinely beautiful and amazing.
- It's a "monster hunter" game, we need more of them.
The Bad:
- There are only 21 monsters in total, with 6 or 7 just being reskin/variants. For reference, MH:World launched with 37 monsters with 3-4 being reskin/variants.
- Not all monsters have an armour set so there is barely any build crafting to be done. The armour sets also don't really feel like they're related to the monster they come from, but are just Japanese influenced instead.
- Weapon skins are recoloured and reused often. Not as bad as MH:Worlds slap-on weapons, but not much better either.
- The human/kemono path system for armours is a nice touch but still feels shallow.
- Once you unlock certain karakuri some fights become trivialised, doubly so if you already understand the match up.
- Monsters don't have much in the way of move sets, both in and outside of rage, so it isn't hard to download and adapt to the fights.
- The food system for buffs is just a bit too tedious and grindy, making it feel more annoying than rewarding.
- It is stupidly easy to mess up your karakuri fusions by moving slightly, so you have to spam out your build quickly and correctly or risk wasting a huge amount of threads. (Probably just a skill issue on my part, as I keep trying to move whilst in combat and placing fusions.)
The Ugly:
- VERY BAD OPTIMIZATION. Seriously, even beefy systems may have frame drops or stutters.
- Very low player base. SteamDB says 250-ish a day is the max.
- The game is dead in the water as it was abandoned by EA not even 6-8 months after launch, there are no more updates/patches beyond keeping the game up and running.
- You can grapple onto a monster to perform a move called "hunter arms" to overflow your karakuri threads but the grapple system is so dog water you can only reasonably do this by giving up a DPS window.
- The camera distance/angle will get you killed more than you like, as it too is dog water for no reason.
- Human/kemono paths for armours require kemono blood/tears. As far as I can tell, it is RNG on which you get and you need a lot to upgrade the armour for its path.