The Nintendo Switch 2 has been out two months and its library continues to grow. As a multiplatform gamer, I’m still going to think of it as my Nintendo-exclusive-machine first, but its newness is now giving me an excuse to try out ports of games I didn’t have the chance to play when they initially launched. Such is the case with Wild Hearts S, the Switch 2 edition of Koei Tecmo’s 2023 monster hunting game.
Wild Hearts S acts as something of an early display of the Switch 2’s capabilities for third-party ports as the hardware is poised to house plenty of games that wouldn’t have run on the original Switch, like the excellent launch title Cyberpunk 2077. Of course, Wild Hearts S doesn’t look as graphically impressive as its counterparts on PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X; we’re talking about a slight step above a PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in terms of hardware here. Its textures lack a certain level of polish and detail to truly make them pop, and its framerate can dip during intense moments. Still, if you care more about substance than style, there’s plenty to enjoy here.
As in the original game, Wild Hearts S centers around your created character going out on hunts to track down and slay kemono. You’ll find small kemono out in the maps, and they won’t put up too much trouble. The real fun begins when embarking on hunts to seek out large kemono — great beasts that blend animals and nature. Their designs take familiar animals, like a rabbit or a boar, and coat them in vines and leaves, or give them a bulb appendage they’ll use to slap you silly.
The kemono both astonish and horrify; some kemono are docile, letting you check out the design of a turtle with coral growing from its shell. (Apologies to the turtle I killed unpromoted — I should have tried to pet you!) Others, like the boar boss early in the game, don’t allow you to admire their designs as they’re trying like hell to kill you. As they should — you are hunting them, after all.
The bulk of the gameplay loop revolves around those great kemono hunts. You’ll scout out a location looking for your hulking quarry, and can build towers to find their location. The magical karakuri constructs play a large role in Wild Hearts S; they’re wooden items that can air in exploration or battle. The more you hunt the more karakuri you’ll unlock, like how you learn during an early battle to combine six crates to build a wall and thwart the great boar’s charges. Combine three springs to create a swinging hammer contraption, or three gliders to construct a clutch healing mist to gradually replenish some of your character’s health.
Once the kemono are found, and with your arsenal of karakuri at your disposal, the battles are glorious. They’re long affairs and really make you feel like you’re a powerful hunter fighting an even more powerful beast to the death. A detail I appreciate is how time passes during those great kemono battles. Daylight turns to sunset and eventually to a star-filled sky, implying that your 20-minutes spent willing a Kingtusk to submission was actually hours worth of grueling fighting in-universe.
Something else that made me giddy was encountering the Lavaback for the first time. I always appreciate seeing enemies fighting other enemies in games as it makes their worlds feel more alive, and seeing the Lavaback swing a Spineglider around like the Hulk making a mockery out of Loki makes Wild Hearts S not only feel alive, but even more dangerous. I just exhausted myself achieving victory over a Spineglider, and now a Lavaback is flinging it around like nothing? Oh boy.
As plenty of the great kemono are great in size, Wild Hearts S suffers from some camera jank. I’m not overtly familiar with the Monster Hunter series, so for me some of the kemono fights felt like battling large monsters in a FromSoftware game in the way that the camera would phase through the kemono model (treating me to a lovely view of its hollowed-out insides). Getting too close to a cliff face spells doom as well; with the large kemono models, the camera would often be wildly unhelpful, not showing me my character and instead just a view of the kemono’s back as it trampled me. Before, of course, the camera swung through the kemono.
Jank aside, Wild Hearts S is an enjoyable time and a great addition to the Nintendo Switch 2’s library. While its graphical fidelity isn’t going to make your jaw drop, that shouldn’t be too surprising — or the priority when gaming on a handheld. Stalking great beasts makes for a hectic and engaging gameplay loop, and I look forward to more monster hunting while on the go.
