CHENNAI: I am going to try describing The Wild at Heart without calling it ‘cute’ even once. Here goes. The Wild at Heart has a kawaii aesthetic (phew). The artwork is figuratively a giant face of a puppy dog. It would be a hard choice to pick between this game and scrolling through kitten videos. The story line has a hint of the JumpStart-esque genre of games — but only because it is kid-friendly. It is also a game suitable for beginners, and it comes free with the Xbox game pass. If you’re looking for an adventure, but a peaceful one, I recommend you play this. And now, for some facts about the game that are not tainted by its cuteness:
The Wild at Heart is the story of a young boy who runs away from home. He is armed with nothing but a modified vacuum cleaner. His name is ‘Wake’. Wake and his friend Kirby find themselves in a magical realm inside a hidden forest. They befriend the ‘Green Shields’, who provide them with the magical ammunition to free the forest of evil. The strongest of the weapons they own are tiny creatures of the forest, known as Spritelings. Spritelings come in different forms, each with their unique special powers.
Finishing the game requires solving of a series of environmental puzzles with the assistance of the tiny spriteling army. Spriteling army management may sound daunting, but these cute twig-headed creatures are more polite than comments on a YouTube video. Even the enemies are non-confrontational for the most part, and I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that they were cute. It hurted to deploy Spritelings to squash them. The game has virtually no learning curve, as the interactions are intuitive.
There are fast travel locations aplenty, and multiple opportunities to save the game. Having played games that are determined to make life difficult for me, I am grateful for this. What makes it even better, is that all objectives can be tracked via the in-game map. I was always able to trace back to a location to finish any pending objectives, and this saves time and the additional frustration. The background music is pleasant and rich, like elevator music in a palace. Did I already mention that the game is cute? I give it a full rating of cute out of cute.
Anusha Ganapathi
@quofles
(This economics graduate spends her leisure time preparing for the zombie apocalypse)