At the beginning of last month, the AAA-level original hunting game “Wild Hearts”, developed by Omega Force, the development team of “Dynasty Warriors” under Koei Tecmo, and EA Originals, was suddenly announced, attracting the attention of many players. . When I saw this new product, I suddenly realized that I hadn’t played a “fighting game” other than “Monster Hunter” for a long time.
After “Monster Hunter” carried forward the “hunting action” game, many manufacturers became interested in this gameplay and launched many similar products. The term “fighting game”, which became popular around 2013, pushed the sub-category of “four people to slash monsters together” to a climax. Unfortunately, with the end of the 3DS/PSV handheld era, this category has also returned to the regular situation of “Monster Hunter” dominating the arena.
Although games such as “God Eater 3” and “Dreadnought” in 2019 do not seem to be very far away from us, the two works of “Monster Hunter: World” and “Monster Hunter: Rise” have already been under control. A new-age quality standard in this category. The “fighting alliance against monster hunters” that made a lot of noise back then was just a joke in the past.
Against this background, it is quite surprising that Omega Force, which has tested the waters of the co-fighting category with the “Bou Gui Zhuan” series, still chooses to spend 4 years developing new products to continue the challenge. After watching a large number of real machine demonstrations released by “Wild Heart” recently, I became more and more curious about whether this “Spirit of Ghost Hunter”, which will be released in February next year, is just a new game when we wait for the new monster hunter. “replacement”, or can you really make your own piece of the sky?
Sewing too hard? still have something
To be honest, my first impression of “Wild Heart” was indeed “familiar”. If games such as “God Eater”, “The Legend of Ghosts”, “Soul Sacrifice” and other games have made obvious differences in audio-visual styles in the structure of hunting action, then “Wild Heart” can only use “visual sense” ” to describe it.
I feel that the overall style of the game is clearly influenced by Monster Hunter: World. It’s a bit like the guidance of a guide insect, the attack actions of some monsters, the silky half-slope takeoff, and the small numbers that explode after hitting, all make me call me an expert. Many players also reported that the game has obviously sewn many elements, which can be regarded as an in-depth reference to many masterpieces in recent years.
Vivid descriptions of netizens at station B
However, although the sense of sight is somewhat obvious, the sales of “Wild Heart” are not bad. The excellent picture quality, the grand and open map scale, and the brilliant art design are all enough to make me want to try this new 3A-level hunting product.
Speaking of combat and monster design, the performance of “Wild Heart” seems to be reliable. Judging from the move design and action interaction of the three weapons of the sword, bow and umbrella in the demo, they are all smooth and eye-catching. Moreover, compared with the heavy action system of “Monster Hunter” centered on the esoteric weapon mechanism, “Wild Heart” seems to be more intuitive and dazzling, and the concept of weapon modification is attractive.
The same is true for monster design. Although there are some similarities in the overall look and feel of the game, the texture is still online. Whether it’s the “rat monster” that bursts out a big tree, or the gigantic boar monster, they are all expressive.
In addition, although there are not too many in-depth interactions between the enemy and the enemy for the time being, there are also bright spots in the game. For example, the clip of grabbing the monster’s body and climbing up in the demo made me dream back to “Wanda and the Colossus”. I don’t know if this grabbing system will become another important part of the battle like Capcom’s “Dragon’s Creed”.
Climb on a giant monster
Join the free-to-build new co-fighting
As for the biggest differentiated design of “Wild Heart” – the construction of the mechanism, it seems that it has a lot of potential at present. Just like “Fortress Night”, which added construction gameplay to the chicken-eating game, the production team also seems to want to complete a dazzling creative graft in this regard.
In the earlier trailer, the player character generated a wooden table or a wooden spring out of thin air, which actually made me feel a little awkward. But judging from this complete demo, this system is still well integrated into the entire worldview and gameplay framework.
Players can carry four different building schemes in advance, and then accumulate materials during the battle, and as long as the number of materials at the bottom of the screen is consumed, the corresponding buildings can be built immediately. A high platform that allows players to make a falling attack, a spring that can accelerate jumps, a wall that can block monsters… Different buildings directly affect the battle process, helping players to play with their prey in applause.
Make a high platform, cast a jump chop
Just looking at the combat demonstration, these buildings play more of a “creating opportunity to cut in”. Just like when some players play “Monster Hunter: World”, they always like to find slopes or high platforms to play some special moves. The architectural gameplay in “Wild Heart” fills the action generated by interaction with the scene into the player’s self-selected game method, providing more initiative for the player’s basic actions such as combos and dodging, which brings Different hunting pleasures.
However, it is not yet possible to see whether the player’s moves can interact more with different buildings, or whether there are exclusive skills related to buildings. Otherwise, in my opinion, the current construction combat gameplay seems to be similar to the hooks and flashbangs in “Monster Hunter”, and its essence is still a bonus to increase the effective output timing.
At the same time, the experience of building together when multiple people team up is also worth paying attention to. After all, the official number of online players is specifically set at 3, just out of consideration for the balance of multiplayer construction.
In addition to fighting for more opportunities in battle, the building gameplay of “Wild Heart” seems to be the core of content such as development and exploration. The game has designed a corresponding building skill tree for players to learn, and players can also freely build their own strongholds and enrich the map exploration experience. For example, to build a zipline, you can move quickly between two places freely. Being able to shape the whole world into a more three-dimensional shape and at the same time enhance the depth and breadth of the gaming experience may be the deeper value of the construction elements.
R&D buildings and enrich bases
In general, the specifications and quality of “Wild Heart” are clearly in place. Even if there are hidden dangers in terms of perspective, enemy-friend interaction, etc., it can be called the most textured hunting action game other than “Monster Hunter” in recent years. I am very pleased to see such ambitious challengers again (dog head).
Monster Hunter: The Charm and Embarrassment of Co-fighting Games
Around 2015 and 2016, maybe it was because there was no Chinese version of “Monster Hunter” for 3DS at that time, or maybe it was just a rebellious mentality. During the same period when most players were addicted to “Monster Hunter X”, I was on PSV with my friends. And on the PC platform, there are fighting games such as “God Eater 2”, “Freedom War”, “Soul Sacrifice”, and “Tougui Chuan 2”. Even if I know, their overall quality is not as good as that of the founder of the mountain.
God Eater 2: Furious Liberation, which once fascinated me
So why am I still willing to play these messy “monster hunting alternatives”?
Because in my opinion, these followers at least have their own innovations. When I get used to the more “simple and heavy” style of “Monster Hunter”, there will indeed be many surprises.
real hunter, play haunting
The characters and world view of the “God Eater” series are already brilliant enough, not to mention the handsome and unique gameplay such as blood skills, bullet editing and “God Eater System”. “Freedom War” has a very secondary “thorns” system, and also added PVP content to the multiplayer mode. The rich Japanese elements of the “Touguizhuan” series are very attractive, and the second generation has tried it with an open world structure, and the ambition is not too big. There is also “Soul Sacrifice”, a gloomy “heavy taste masterpiece”. Its unique presentation method in the plot is still the only existence in the co-fighting game.
Themes, plot, art design, characteristic gameplay… The concentration of these works in different dimensions allows me to see that there are still many possibilities beyond the hunting action game dominated by Capcom.
“Soul Sacrifice” with a bit of heavy taste
So why are none of these challengers able to shake the dominance of Monster Hunter?
I think this is because no matter how much differentiation these games make in terms of subject matter, gameplay, plot and other dimensions, as long as it still relies on the core underlying architecture of “hunting action”, the upper limit of its experience will eventually be implemented in the action system, operation On the hard indicators such as feel, monster design, and friend and foe interaction.
At this level, almost all competing products can only be secondary imitators of “Monster Hunter”. It is undoubtedly a thankless road to confront Capcom’s profound ACT R&D accumulation head-on.
So when the freshness brought by those themes and innovative systems has passed, many core hunting enthusiasts will find that these games are lacking in hard power. It’s not that Monster Hunter must be the supreme god, but it definitely requires continuous accumulation to be successful in this category. If it is just to catch up with the “fighting trend” and fails to continue to iterate like Monster Hunter IP, it will be difficult to polish its own characteristics to the extent that it can truly compete with “Monster Hunter”.
Good ideas also require strong R&D capabilities
From this point of view, it seems that “Wild Heart” will also have a hard time shaking the domination of “Monster Hunter”. Even this new product does not seem to have special bonuses such as two-dimensional elements to attract a wider audience. But today is different from the past. After breaking away from the old era of co-fighting competition with the handheld market as the main body, I am optimistic that the “3A co-fighting products” in the Internet era will have new vitality again.
The Internet of Things: Anything is possible
The launch of “Monster Hunter: World” in 2018 symbolized the complete end of years of fighting games.
Recalling that at that time, major forums were still discussing whether leaving the handheld would be a misjudgment for “Monster Hunter”. As everyone knows, with the popularity of “World”, “Monster Hunter” has entered a new era of high-standard Internet connection. Even though “Rise” relies on the NS platform to have a face-to-face foundation, the playing habits of the player group have undergone earth-shaking changes.
The success of Capcom in the eighth generation has truly pushed the “hunting action” category to the global market. The 18 million sales of “The World” and the over 10 million sales of “Rise” show that this category has developed a wider user base. Looking back on the development process of “Monster Hunter”, from the birth of PS2 to the development of handheld consoles to the full bloom of various platforms, I really have to admire the top-level R&D iteration strength of “Action Tianzun”.
So after the new generation of “Monster Hunter” has once again set the benchmark, is there still a way for more diverse co-fighting attempts? At least I am willing to be optimistic. Driven by the Internet connection boom, isn’t it a great joy to have more strange new products to experience with friends?
Of course, if the wind of co-fighting resumes, I think all major manufacturers need to do more thinking and polishing on the core experience of the product. Just like “Wild Heart”, in addition to ensuring the level of dimensions such as picture and action, it is necessary to play some tricks in other aspects.
If every new “Monster Hunter” game, players expect the main body is the design of weapon moves and monster ecology, etc., then I sincerely hope that similar products can develop core competitiveness that is different from this. Maybe it’s more delicate exploration, maybe it’s more sub-playing games, maybe it’s a richer multiplayer online mode, and then do a long-term operation on this basis, and try to iterate new fun different from “Monster Hunt”.
Comments by netizens at station B under the “Wild Heart” demo: This money has to be earned by CAPCOM
The emergence of a challenger is always exciting. Whether this “hunting and fighting” money can only be earned by Capcom, let’s wait for the launch of “Wild Heart” next year.