A player has posted a video showing a masterful takedown of a postgame monster in Wild Hearts, the new hunting action game from EA and Koei Tecmo Games. The video has attracted attention for how swiftly and skillfully the player defeats the Kemono without using any Karakuri, one of the central gameplay elements.

The player behind the video is Erystia, who posts speedruns and gameplay for variety of different titles. The Kemono fought in the video is the powerful Lurid Soulstalker, which can only be challenged after finishing the game. Yet Erystia is able to dispatch the beast in an astounding 2 minutes and 42 seconds while playing solo.

Wild Hearts includes eight different weapons for players to choose from, and by using them together with Karakuri, a wide variety of different playstyles become possible. In the fight, Erystia uses the Bladed Wagasa, a close-range, umbrella-style weapon capable of combo strings that have few openings.

It is also the only weapon that can parry Kemono attacks. Continuously attacking a Kemono or parrying its attacks will cause the Bladed Wagasa’s Spindance gauge to increase. As this gauge fills, the damage and number of hits caused by your attacks increases, and some moves will even change in nature. The Spindance gauge will decrease over time, so it is important to maintain your assault on the Kemono and to parry when possible.

Erystia rapidly fills the Spindance gauge all the way to max by parrying the fierce attacks of the Soulstalker and uses every available opening to unleash the most powerful version of the Trey Star combo. The last attack of this combo delivers a slew of especially damaging hits when the Spindance gauge is at the third level. Wild Hearts was no doubt designed with the assumption that players would use Karakuri as they fight, but Erystia did not use a single one, instead defeating the postgame Kemono with only a Bladed Wagasa.

A list of all the equipment and skills used was included by Erystia in the video’s description. It is clear that the build was centered around a parry-focused strategy, as it included abilities like Parry Boost: Fury, which boosts attack for a while on a successful parry, and Desperation, which reduces defense but boosts attack.

For players who are aiming to defeat Kemono as fast as possible, it seems that not actually using any Karakuri may be one valid strategy. It has only been a short time since Wild Hearts was released, so it’s likely that players will soon be coming up with all kinds of strategies for both the Bladed Wagasa and the other weapon types. It may also be fun to challenge yourself further by considering a fighting style that forgoes the use of Karakuri altogether.

Written by. Marco Farinaccia based on the original Japanese article (original article’s publication date: 2023-02-22 20:36 JST)

Hideaki Fujiwara

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