If there’s one thing Omega Force wants you to know about Wild Hearts, it’s that you can build an awful lot of nifty things with its Karakuri. The ‘ancient spirit technology’ buildables might feel like they’re straight out of Fortnite, but they still work splendidly for monster hunting – just not as well as they can for the bits in between fighting the monstrous Kemeno. If anything, the traversal system on offer here is so incredible that it’s worth exploring further.
From the very first time you build a Karakuri, it’s a traversal bonus first and a combat utility second. Just build a stack of up to three boxes, and suddenly you have access to ledges you might not otherwise have the stamina to climb. It’s an incredibly simple bonus, but this highlights right away that navigating this world demands more than just standard orienteering. Sure, you absolutely can jump and climb your way around the world, but doing things that way is guaranteed to slow you down substantially, wasting precious time that could be spent slaying monsters.
The Karakuri work in two different tiers. There’s the regular Karakuri and the Dragon Karakuri. A regular Karakuri typically won’t survive your standard battle, but can be combined in unique arrangements to produce combo Karakuris like bulwark walls, proximity mines, and giant hammers. Dragon Karakuri, meanwhile, are typically permanent structures that grant massive utility in the long term. The more fountains of spirit energy you claim across each region, the more Dragon Karakuri can be placed across the world.
So how about instead of a long, winding trek to get around a collapsed bridge, you plant a personal typhoon-strong wind generator? You not only give yourself an immense lift to out-of-reach areas, but can make brilliant use of the helicopter lanterns to gain a substantial glide in the process. If you want to prevent your sprint meter running out, build yourself a wheel bike like General Grievous rides in Revenge of the Sith and drive around in style!
Yet of all the options afforded during my time playing, by far, the favorite was the Vine Launcher.
You know how most games restrict how you can use grappling hooks and ziplines? Not Wild Hearts! Unless it’s material a harpoon can’t latch onto, you can deploy a permanent line that can be ascended or descended at any time. This is one of the most useful Karakuri by far; a persistent bonus to navigation, it can be used by any allies simultaneously, and it totally restructures how you’ll approach hunts both new and familiar.
When I was hunting the Lavaback with a fellow player, he started trying to show me the way we needed to go as I set my Vine Launcher. I cut our travel time down to a third of what it would’ve been, getting us into the thick of the action through just a little observation and forethought. From that point on, we both were regularly finding ways to turn our Karakuri into useful exploration tools. The combat combo builds take far longer to acquire than the navigational Karakuri, so you instinctively rely on them far more often between fights, revealing a delightful platforming puzzle box that’s so open-ended it has potential all on its own. It reminds me of Breath of the Wild’s ability set, rewarding thinking ahead over brute forcing things.
I’m not saying that the combat Karakuri are bad by any measure, but since Omega Force has already promised regular free updates, I hope they explore this aspect of their game somehow. Maybe some navigation puzzle dungeons, or a Kemeno fight that calls for preparation with Dragon Karakuri around the various arenas. There’s so much potential here, and I hope that in the future, the team get to explore it further. If getting to the fights can be as engaging as dueling the beasts, then that would be a huge selling point in Wild Hearts’ favor.
