Starting in 2013, I became a hunting game enthusiast starting with Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate on Nintendo 3DS. Growing up playing grindy JRPGs, I quickly fell in love with the hunting genre, which was founded by Capcom. Breaking parts, farming rare materials, crafting armor and weapons, learning monsters patterns and mastering weapons gave the game immense replay value. I couldn't stop playing and looked forward to each entry. Over the years, Monster Hunter evolved in different ways when Monster Hunter World released. Instead of having to load into different zones, the new Monster Hunter game introduced open-world maps. The hunting genre ignited, and many game developers got in on the action. Published by EA and developed by Koei Tecmo (who developed Toukiden for PS Vita, another hunting-style game), Wild Hearts delivers a dynamic hunting experience with its own unique features and styles.

Image: EA

Monster Hunter Meets Fortnite

Wild Hearts isn't just another Monster Hunter clone; it has distinct qualities, such as building karakuri, which can seem similar to building in Fortnite at first glance. When I first saw the trailer for Wild Hearts in 2022, I found it to be a cross between Fortnite and Monster -- something I found interesting, but I wasn't sure how to feel about it. To be honest, I was skeptical of the game at first. When Wild Hearts finally launched in February 2023, it didn't take me long to get a feel for the longsword. The weapon was dynamic with a small learning curve, along with its own distinct gameplay-style separate from Monster Hunter's longsword. However, building the karakuri was foreign and difficult for me because it was different from Monster Hunter. Because I'm not a fan of Fortnite, I didn't think I would be a fan of the building aspect of Wild Hearts.

Nonetheless, by wanting to give the game a chance and play cross-platform with friends, I kept going. As I upgraded my tsukumo, which is the player's assistant like the cat in Monster Hunter, I started getting used to gathering the thread and crafting the karakuri to counter and attack the monsters. At first, I was complaining and ranting to my friend over the headset about the building feature. However, once I nailed a monster with a giant karakuri hammer (called a pounder) for the first time, watched it topple over, and took the opportunity to wail on its face with my longsword, I understood how Wild Hearts had brought its own combat style compared to Monster Hunter.

Image: Xbox Wire

Quality of Life

In Monster Hunter, the player had to eat before leaving on a quest to get your buffs for health, damage, stamina, reward chances, etc. However, starting with Monster Hunter World, the player could eat for buffs at designated camps they unlocked. While following World's style with massive open-area zones, Wild Hearts lets the player can build a camp wherever they want, which wasn't possible in World. This is game changing as it utilizes the game's karakuri crafting feature. As long as the player isn't in combat in Wild Hearts, they can eat the food in their inventory. Through the different types of food, the player can buff themselves with multiple different skills: crit rate, attack, defense, elemental resistances, and more. In addition to this, players can build drying racks at their camps to obtain higher quality food by using gathered materials.

After enough of the initial grind and gaining experience, it becomes easier to get food and other resources by unlocking karakuri tools that gather resources: ore, food ingredients, etc. By setting these resources up on each map at a camp, the player can keep a constant cycle materials coming in.

Wild Hearts also doesn't require the player to craft potions. Instead, the player refills on potions throughout the map and at the Ancient Guardian Trees when players discover them on the map. (Tip: This would be a great place to establish a camp). The player can increase how many potions they can hold by upgrading the karakuri skill tree, which brings us to our next difference from Monster Hunter.

Karakuri Skill Tree

With how gear works in Monster Hunter, the game doesn't need a skill tree. Wild Hearts also attached skills to armor. However Koei Tecmo brought in an additional feature and took a different approach. Still having skills on the armor, Koei Tecmo created the karakuri skill tree. Unlike in Monster Hunter, the player levels up in a sense through this skill tree, which allows players to upgrade the additional karakuri tools they can summon. Players gain experience to upgrade the skill tree as they fight karakuri.

Through the skill tree, players will unlock different tools, such as the mighty pounder, the brutal harpoon, and Wild Hearts savage version of a large barrel bomb. The karakuri skill tree gives the player another aspect of progression aside from unlocking new monsters, armor, and weapons.

Unique Weapon Builds

Monster Hunter also had weapon lines for the 14 different weapon classes within the game. However, the weapon lines didn't come with activated skills. In Wild Hearts, the weapons can be taken down different trees to obtain different skills, whereas in Monster Hunter, the skills come from armor and decorations. Players select which inherited skill they want to pass down to their weapon as it is upgraded. Wild Hearts let's the player choose which path they will take to upgrade to a certain weapons. The different paths allow the player to customize the weapon for their own unique gameplay style, resulting in each player having unique weapon builds alongside the skill from their armor.

Map Upgrades

Aside from unlocking camps in fixed-locations, Monster Hunter doesn't allow the player to customize the hunting zones. Wild Hearts gives the player another sense of progression with the ability to build camps. Upon finding dragon veins and upgrading them, players can conjure more tools and camps, which provide several fantastic features: crafting camps at the locations of a player's choosing, building kemono tracking devices, drying racks for food, and much more.

Cross-Platform

To this day, there hasn't been a Monster Hunter game released that is cross-platform. One of the most exciting parts of Wild Hearts for me has been the ability to play with friends across different platforms. My two friend and I playing on PS5 being able to play with our friend on PC was incredible, especially considering how many games still aren't cross-platform. However, the in-game audio chat wasn't great, but Discord voice chat can finally be used on Playstation, so no need to worry.

A New Hunt

Since each player can set up their camps differently, craft weapons with unique skills, upgrade the dragon veins to allow more building, Wild Hearts remains a hunting game like Monster Hunter while bringing in its own features, making it a unique game full of spectacular surprises.