Monster Hunter has been a mass phenomenon for almost two decades. What began with success only in Japan, has eventually expanded to the rest of the world. Millions of players enjoy the hunts all over the planet, thanks in large part to the addictive gameplay and well-implemented cooperation.
With this behind us, it was logical to think that sooner or later some studios would get down to work to try to recreate this formula. The last of them is Omega Force, who through Electronic Arts launches Wild Hearts, but with some very curious new features.
Harvesting, quarrying and hunting
The main peculiarity of this Wild Hearts game is that we are going to hunt creatures, yes, but there is a collection and crafting add-on. In the purest Minecraft style -saving distances, of course, but I think you get the idea-, the game proposes that the user can use the environment to get resources.
With this mining of trees, coal, etc., we will be able to create different elements to use in our favor, from tents to spend the night to, and this is the important thing, platforms for combat. Because yes, here comes the differentiating element.
While the combat design of Monster Hunter is more “horizontal” -to call it in a certain way-, in Wild Hearts it is more “vertical”. We can place platforms around the environment to propel us and make jumps. This simple addition changes the way of understanding combat. In addition, hooks and other elements are added so that the battle not only gains that verticality, but also speed.
From this discordant point, Wild Hearts builds all its gameplay. It may seem insignificant, but it has managed to find that “something” that makes it different from the king of this (Monster Hunter) and enhance it for its own benefit. In addition, the combat itself enjoys good fluidity. After all, we are talking about Omega Force, a studio with a lot of experience when it comes to action video games. You can feel the experience of so many years behind them.
It’s fast, it’s intuitive and it feels good, there’s no feeling of exhaustion. In addition, the enemies respond wonderfully to each slash, with the depth you need depending on each creature.
A problem engine
Wild Hearts looks very good, although with some very serious “buts” that we will now comment on. Behind the technical section of Electronic Arts’ title hides the Katana Engine. This engine, owned by Koei Tecmo (owners of Omega Force), is still under development, and that speaks for itself.
Developing a video game while making an engine is not a very good idea. The history of the industry has shown this with other productions, where it has been seen that the creation of the engine in parallel to the development usually goes wrong. Here it is not that it has done so at the level of how it looks, as it looks amazing, but rather in its performance.
On consoles it runs smoothly, but on PC it has been a disaster. There are frame drops and a lot of errors. In fact, the studio has apologized to all buyers, as well as promised that patches will be released to fix each of the problems encountered. It is not a good sign these stability problems in a game where performance is so important.
It’s one of lime and another of sand, since what Wild Hearts proposes at a playable level is very fun, but its performance on PC hinders this experience. Who knows if when everything is fixed it will be much more enjoyable. And a price drop would also come in handy, by the way.
