The Wild at Heart (Xbox One)

At the start of The Wild at Heart, a young boy named Wake has finally built up the courage to run away from a rough situation at home to try and live in the woods. Immediately this is proven to be a poor idea as his self-made map of the woods is inadequate, his friend Kirby whom he planned to meet up with can’t find him, and he’s only packed enough sandwiches to last a short while. However, the woods open up to him, the supernatural Deep Woods proving to be a surprisingly fitting place for him to escape to.

 

While Wake and Kirby will take a bit to meet up in this more mystical part of the forest, the two do end up on the same path as they come across a group of people known as the Greenshields. A quirky band of characters who have lived in the forest for ages, a dark force has nipped away at their memories over time, leaving them referring to each other by simple indicative names like Grey Coat, Paper Planes, and Toothpicks. The Greenshields do wish to protect the forest as best they can, but the Never has worn them down over time, and while they’re happy to let the two runaways koin their ranks, they also end up needing their help to try and expel the corruptive force from the otherwise peaceful Deep Woods. Two children hardly have what it takes to do so though, their best options in a scuffle a rather weak kick, but little forest creatures known as Spritelings have taken a liking to Wake and Kirby, the pair able to explore the woods and face down whatever stands in their way by commanding their new minions to complete tasks.

 

Generally a fairly relaxed adventure overall, The Wild at Heart’s story has both some delightful silliness found throughout but darker undertones to make your quest a touch more meaningful. The endearing Greenshield group contains some truly strange characters like the twins Can Dance and Can’t Dance and most every member is able to help in some small way once they are found, some providing extra opportunities to earn resources and rewards for finding collectibles out in the world. However, you can see the gradual wear the Never has on them and how it has impacted certain relationships, but only near the end does it really feel like it starts trying to tug your heartstrings. In fact, the implications about Wake’s escaped home life feel like they’re building towards something only to feel like they’re hastily wrapped up, a chance for greater emotional resonance lost perhaps because diving in deeper could have gotten a bit uncomfortable in a game that otherwise doesn’t spend much time on serious subjects.

The lovingly drawn world of The Wild at Heart remains inviting and appropriately deep, its connections allowing for a satisfying sense of gradual expansion as you get more ways to reach new places while also having a warp system to take you about more quickly to the major areas. Things kick off in the forested areas that immediately immerses you in the stylish art, but as you start to solve puzzles and find new Spriteling types you’ll be able to enter a cave, explore the shore, and travel through a snow field, the transitions well spaced to make it mostly still feel like one cohesive location rather than a group of stitched together biomes. Rather smartly The Wild at Heart also spaces its missions out so that you get a handful of options at once, the player able to head towards the one that interests them most but also able to deviate from a task if a puzzle is stumping them or they want to test ideas out after getting new Spriteling options.

 

Spritelings are the main tool for most everything you’ll do in The Wild at Heart and appropriately so as they are versatile little minions you’ll need to manage properly as the puzzles grow more complex. The initial Spritelings you encounter are fairly straightforward but good for getting you into the adventure. They’re fast workers so you can quickly move through the process of learning the many universal uses of Spritelings like breaking down barriers, hauling materials both as a nice way to supplement a rather limited started inventory or as a means of improving the environment like building bridges. They do have a poison resistance as well, and later Spriteling types all seem immune to at least one form of dangerous hazard you’ll come across both from natural environs and specialized foes. However, Spritelings aren’t just defined by what element they resist. The barbed Spritelings can latch onto counterweights to activate mechanisms or receive lifts to new areas, the icy Shiverlings can be thrown through special devices to create icy clones in different parts of the map, and the Lunalings are perhaps the most unique as they play into the game’s day and night system.

 

Night time in The Wild at Heart will start to lead to servants of the Never appearing, these floating shades able to easily deal damage or kill Spritelings while barely suffering injuries themselves. At first the day/night cycle doesn’t really contribute too much. You need to run back to a nearby camp to rest at night and then you can get right back to work in the morning. That does make the fact the game barely draws attention to the time easier to tolerate and the Never’s servants do take a bit to appear after dark, but Lunalings engage with this in a more interesting manner. While night does reset a few small things that are barely felt, nighttime is able to justify its presence as the Lunalings grow exceptionally strong at night. The most Spritelings you can have at a time is 60 and upgrading to that level is costly, but Lunalings at night are powerhouses who can sometimes be the only way to move massive objects and grab special treasures. A risky night excursion ends up rather tense as you need to manage avoiding the creatures that stalk you while performing your work, but that’s hardly the only way The Wild at Heart makes managing your minions interesting.

Puzzle solving actually seems to be the main focus of this game, the player often needing to figure out ways to get the right person and the right Spritelings to where they need to be. A simple start gives way to more involved solutions as Kirby and Wake join back up and can be swapped between at any time. The two are thus able to command different groups of Spritelings and have their own special abilities as well, Wake having a customized vacuum that can suck in objects while Kirby’s magical lantern can dispel corruption. Both use their items for calling in their Spritelings as well, but when you find an area you need to reach or useful item you want to carry back to base, you’ll need to consider how to utilize the two’s talents as well as which Spritelings are being called for and how to overcome the geography of the area. On top of performing tasks for required items there are optional things to find like lost cats and at times you may need to devote some time to cultivating new Spritelings by gathering resources, the player gradually developing an itinerary of planned actions that continue to benefit them and open up greater opportunities to solve other problems that lie ahead.

 

There is combat in The Wild at Heart but it is often understated, there being one true boss encounter and only one type of truly formidable creature found in the world. However, there are also groups of pesky foes like the Faeflies that emerge from structures similar to termite mounds and will pester you while you try to prevent more from emerging. Some creatures make sure you only attack them with the Spriteling type that resists their element while others might even be invincible until you destroy the object protecting them, but the fights usually keep their scope simple. You often just toss a bunch of Spritelings in to smack the monster, call them back to help them avoid damage, and repeat until the fight is over, so having some fights where you need to break extra objects does help a few of them stand out as a more involved task. However, the way combat unfolds will change depending on the difficulty you pick, the Wanderer and Adventurer difficulties mainly differing here. In Wanderer fights are the straightforward affairs where you just need to toss in the Spritelings and manage their safety a little, but Adventurer mode perhaps overcompensates as even the most basic baddies are made quite durable. This choice in just toughening up the enemies rather than making them have more varied battle tactics seems to have been done to draw more out of the game’s small crafting system, and that is a somewhat fair call to make since otherwise it does feel a little underfed.

 

Crafting in The Wild at Heart isn’t often used to acquire anything too vital. It’s a good way to get more potent healing food for the two child leads and figuring out the recipes through experimentation is nifty at first, but on Wanderer difficulty you won’t really see much use for it besides maybe sticking junk items together to sell for scrap you can use to actually purchase upgrades. On Adventurer though potions start to make their usefulness known, a quick dousing of your Spriteling group able to make them survive fights better and hit harder. If your inventory space wasn’t so limited perhaps dabbling in potions would be easier to justify outside special circumstance, but you can swap between the two difficulties anytime if you do want to either better embrace crafting or practically disregard it.

THE VERDICT: Its charming world and endearing cast of characters makes it easy for The Wild at Heart to immediately find a place in your heart, and thanks to some imaginative puzzle design that expands its small world at a nice pace, your work managing the Spritelings feels consistently rewarding and surprisingly diverse. The battle system does struggle to figure out how difficult it should be and the crafting system it ties to teeters right alongside it, but both of those elements play a smaller role in the experience than figuring out creative uses for your capable little minions and exploring a world rich in activities and visual appeal.

 

And so, I give The Wild at Heart for Xbox One…

A GOOD rating, and one that could have been tipped up higher if it had figured out its rough relationship with fighting and crafting. As it is it feels like combat can work as either a small road bump that won’t interrupt the leisurely adventure or a surprisingly sturdy barrier to making simple progress, the crafting system perhaps having been better off pursuing ideas other than augmenting combat so that the higher difficulty wouldn’t have to work to justify its presence. Still, you are able to pick whether you want the simpler skirmishes or tough encounters with fantasy fauna, the main meat of the experience always being all of the work you’ll do to solve puzzles using the Spritelings’ special aspects to your advantage. Besides your starting assistants they all end up having a few uses and even those plain Spritelings end up a good middle ground worker if you just need to bolster a group without risking reserves or pulling minions away from whatever task you have your other child involved in. The interconnected world does a lot for keeping the player from ever really hitting a major roadblock, there usually being some important work to do elsewhere or some extra goodies you can grab with the spoils of your hard work. Not only do you gradually get to build up your tiny workforce but you open up more of the world, that exciting feeling of knowing your new acquisition can help you reach new terrain made more engaging by the fact the puzzles you find when you arrive there still require you to think once you have the right ability options.

 

Fun characters can make up for a story that doesn’t feel like it completely follows through on some ideas, but more importantly the other Greenshields do help to craft a cozy little game that gives you the satisfaction of a job well done without ever dipping into monotony. Its little under-realized elements won’t necessarily force you to pay attention to them so you can better breathe in the setting, the humor, and the entertaining obstacles that ask you to think without being overly taxing. It doesn’t need to be an intense adventure because wandering around is already engaging enough, The Wild at Heart smartly handling the parts of its design that were most important.