Monster Hunter has seen a bevy of imitators, but none have managed to dethrone the legendary series. With Monster Hunter: World being one of Capcom’s best-selling games of all time, topping the likes of Resident Evil 4 and any Mega Man, the demand to hunt beasts is higher than one may expect. Electronic Arts took note and created Wild Hearts, aiming to capture the same intense combat and world-building with Koei Tecmo helming development. How does this iteration compare to the likes of the genre’s kings?

Wild Hearts starts you out in pursuit of a deer-like creature called a Kemono. Handily, in addition to a solid tutorial to learn traversal, all of the button inputs are displayed in the top corner of the screen so you won’t have to do any experimentation or be left guessing. Along the way, you’ll be able to determine your backstory, and fully customize your character down to the cheekbones, voice, and scars. It’s a comprehensive way to personalize yourself, even if most of your focus is on monsters.

When the time comes to encounter your first monster in Wild Hearts, you’ll soon realize that you’re ill-equipped to deal with the foe in front of you. It’s a planned-failure moment, a trope in gaming that can temper players to understand how tough enemies can be and how strategic you’ll need to play going forward. Anyone savvy with Monster Hunter knows how long it takes just to whittle away at a humongous health bar, so this early encounter gives newcomers like me a strong idea of how fights will play out.

Something that is important to note is Wild Hearts‘ play time: it’s far from a short affair. Howlongtobeat lists the game as a 50-hour experience, and twice the amount of time if you’re a completionist. After a dozen hours myself, there was simply no end in sight. Whether it be taking a side quest from a villager or trudging along the main questline, there’s no shortage of things to do in Wild Hearts, and the consistency of upgrades made it worth sticking through.

Wild Hearts is not without its shortcomings, unfortunately. Playing on the PS5 under performance mode to prioritize framerate, the game is ugly as sin. There’s pop-in just a few feet in front of you, textures that look rough when they’re close, and a feeling that this is just an upscaled port of the PS4 version. The rough graphics serve to break immersion more than a few times. Thankfully, the character design of the monsters, which your eyes will gravitate towards for the majority of the game, are extravagant and a pleasure to look at in comparison.

At the new-gen price point of $69.99, it’s increasingly harder to gauge whether a game is worth it or not. By length, it’s certainly worth the investment if you’re ready to sink your teeth into 50+ hours of gameplay. How many hours of that is spent learning the ropes, though, is determined by you either being a newcomer or a seasoned monster hunter. It’s certainly a better game for the latter, but might be worth the delve for the former at a sale price.

A PlayStation 5 Review Copy of Wild Hearts was provided by Electronic Arts for this Review.

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Wild Hearts

69.99

7

Score

7.0/10

Pros

• Engaging Combat
• Ample Customization
• Tons of Content

Cons

• Poor Graphics
• Daunting Learning Curve for Newcomers