Wildhearts Academy Review: Monster Taming School is Cool

Introduction

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In the world of gaming, there are those titles that promise a familiar experience, a cozy new home for mechanics you know and love. Then, there are the games that come along to challenge those perceptions, to weave something new from threads you thought you knew by heart. Wildhearts Academy is a game that falls squarely in the latter category. From the moment I first saw the whimsical art and read the initial descriptions, I knew I was in for a treat, a delightful blend of monster-collecting and strategic card play that promised to be more than just a re-skin of a classic.

Overview

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Wildhearts Academy presents itself as a monster-taming game where players enroll in an academy to become the best tamers. The game is a curious mix of deck-building, tableau management, and area control, all wrapped in a vibrant anime aesthetic. The core of the game revolves around a player’s “Plan” (their Player Board), a series of slots where they can play and cycle cards. Each turn, you have a variety of actions you can take: you can Prepare a card from the “Study” (a public market of cards), Summon a card into play by spending resources from your hand, Play a card from your hand into your Active Card Slot, or activate your Mastery Ability if you’ve earned enough Mastery cubes.

The objective is to score the most Victory Points (VP) by the end of four rounds. The primary way to do this is by having the most “Power” in the “Fields”—three central locations that grant VP and other rewards at the end of each round. Power is represented by cubes you place on the Fields, and you gain and lose it through card abilities. When you’ve run out of cards, the round ends, and you score the fields before replenishing your hand and beginning a new round. At the end of the game, you’ll score points for cards that you own and Graded cards.

Gameplay

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Wildhearts Academy is a fascinating study in design, managing to feel both light and incredibly layered. For a game that feels approachable at first glance, there are a number of clever mechanisms working in concert to create a genuinely intriguing puzzle. The deck-building isn’t about simply accumulating the most powerful cards; it’s about building a deck that feeds into your cycling tableau and supports your area control efforts on the Fields. A single card play can create a ripple of effects that combo together for some truly impressive turns. I loved the feeling of playing a card that triggers another’s Exit Ability, which in turn might give me the exact amount of Power I need to win a Field. When everything clicks, it’s a very satisfying experience. The area control element is a constant source of tension and a core part of the game’s strategic depth.

There are a lot of choices on your turn. You can choose the type of action to take (Prepare, Summon, Play, Mastery), which of your multi-purpose cards to use, and the direction to cycle your tableau (left or right). I found that on certain turns, some of my choices ended up being less meaningful than others, which could feel a little anticlimactic. I also have to mention that the rulebook needs some reorganization and polish. It took me longer to get up and running than I think was needed, and I had to refer to a playthrough video to work out some of the effect timing questions I had.

Solo Play

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The solo experience in Wildhearts Academy is surprisingly robust and clearly a labor of love for the designer. I really appreciated the amount of care taken to make it work. The rivals are well-designed and varied, providing a different challenge with each one. The game includes multiple rivals for variety and a general way to increase and decrease difficulty, which is fantastic for replayability. The combination of a rival and a dummy player used for the two-player game makes for a very engaging area control puzzle that doesn’t feel like a watered-down version of the multiplayer game. It felt just as tense and strategic, which is a major win for a solo mode. However, I did find that the solo rules need some polish as well. A standout omission is that the rules don’t mention when or how the Rival Mastery Abilities should be triggered. This is something I hope to see clarified in a future update.

Components and Design

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First and foremost, the art is absolutely fantastic. The game uses a vibrant, colorful anime art style that is immediately captivating. The creative monster designs are a highlight; they seem familiar enough to evoke that feeling of nostalgia for classic monster-taming games, but each creature feels unique and full of personality. The iconography is clear and once you get the hang of it, the cards are easy to read.

Wildhearts Academy is more abstract than I imagined for a game with such a charming theme. For a Pokémon-esque game, I wanted to feel more attached to my cards and more thematic in what I was doing. The mechanics felt a little disconnected from the narrative. Concepts like the “Study,” “Grading” cards, the “Plan,” and “Preparing” cards were mechanically sound, but it was hard to find a thematic throughline that made sense. It felt more like an abstract puzzle than a journey with my creatures. This isn’t a huge knock against the game, as the puzzle itself is very good, but it did prevent me from feeling truly immersed in the world.

While the theme didn’t fully land for me in the gameplay, the art definitely does the heavy lifting in creating the world and making you want to explore it. It’s clear that a lot of passion went into the visual design of the game.

Final Thoughts

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Wildhearts Academy is a game that I wanted to love, and in many ways, I do. It’s an ambitious design that takes familiar mechanics and mixes them into an innovative and rewarding puzzle. I was consistently impressed by the way a simple card play could cascade into a powerful, combo-driven turn. The solo mode is a significant highlight and shows a dedication to all player counts. However, the game is held back a bit by a few issues, mainly the unpolished rulebook and the somewhat disconnected theme. It’s a game that makes you work a little harder to appreciate its brilliance.

If you’re interested in giving Wildhearts Academy a go, there is currently a new Kickstarter campaign for the base game and a new expansion.