This month for MMO Co-Opportunities we’ll be spotlighting Wild Buster: Heroes of Titan, the MMO/ARPG hybrid from Nuriworks.
Wild Buster is currently in Early Access on Steam with a few different pricing plans. The core game is a buy-to-play (once purchased, you won’t have to pay a subscription fee) for $25. Nuriworks offers a few different options of DLC that you can purchase in bundles with the core game or separately at a later date. These pieces of DLC give your account more character slots, character class unlocks (otherwise unlockable in-game), more inventory space, more bank space, mounts, and pets. I have seen absolutely no microtransactions or microtransaction-like items (e.g. XP buffs) as of yet in the game.
Upon starting up the game, players will pick a character from one of two factions: Guardian or Abandon. Lorewise, these two factions don’t really get along, but sometimes have to work together. Mechanically, this means that characters from different factions can group together for PVE, but they will often have to talk to different NPCs for quest progression and vendoring. Each class has a distinct set of skills and a unique character model (like some of the older ARPGs, the class is tied to a specific model, so you can’t customize gender or facial features). Abandon classes appear to be more focused on a specific role while Guardians seem to be a little more varied.
In Wild Buster, players will pick up quests in a hub area (usually one that resembles a town) that prompt them to enter a dungeon via a portal. They can either try to find a group or enter with their current party (even if their party only consists of one person). The dungeons are generally 5-10 minute affairs that follow a similar structure. Players run through a series of rooms and hallways, killing a bunch of trash mobs until they reach a mini-boss. Upon killing him, a couple of NPCs will show up that give players the opportunity to vendor loot and pay some in-game currency to heal up. There will be another portal behind these NPCs that leads to the dungeon’s boss. Once the boss is killed, players will automatically get a chest that will either contain a piece of gear or a box of tokens. These tokens can later be spent on chests that contain a variety of items (a bit like gambling). You can then leave the dungeon, returning you to the hub, to turn in your quest(s). Upon completing a dungeon and its quests, players will then be prompted to fly to another hub. Rinse and repeat.
By blitzing through dungeons, characters will rapidly level up, with levels granting players a point to spend on upgrading one of their skills. Characters have an innate passive and five active abilities, one of which is a sort of ultimate ability. Each of the active ability slots have two options players can pick between to equip and players can even set up a few ability presets to swap between whenever they're out of combat. It’s fairly likely, however, that players will end up choosing a few abilities they like and stick with them, because they have a limited number of upgrade points to spend. For the character I was playing (Noxious), the two choices were usually a support choice vs. a damage choice.
Specifically regarding co-opportunities, Wild Buster makes it easy to jump into the game with a friend or two and start hacking-and-slashing the heck out of stuff. Drops are on a per-player basis and if you get a piece of gear, it will always be for your class. There is a trade system in the game, however, for if you find things you want to trade with you friends or group members. There have only been two small wrinkles I’ve run into in terms of grouping: 1) there doesn’t appear to be a quest sharing system, and 2) I’ve run into one quest (which involved rescuing NPCs in dungeons) that did not allow shared progress for all group members. Other than that, the grouping system works well, with XP being shared to all group members (distance doesn’t appear to be much of a factor).
While the various classes appear to be reasonable self-sufficient, there are many skills that have clearly been created with party play in mind. The character I’m playing, for example, gets a lot of area heals that can really help top off player health, or even be the difference between living and dying during some of the later boss fights. The characters one of my friends plays has a taunt ability that has proved useful in managing enemy hate. So while I wouldn’t say characters are directly reliant on each other, they can often easily support each other to make the group stronger and more efficient.
Wild Buster may not have the most compelling world or story, but it does supply a steady stream of content that keeps you moving forward towards the next thing. It's fairly simple and straight-forward for an ARPG, but it feels streamlined and sticks to its strengths. The main draw here are the mini dungeons and the ability for players to progress their characters (via levels and minor gear upgrades) for each mini dungeon they run. Wild Buster does a good job at that and, as a result, a great job at providing mindless fun in bite-size pieces.
Providing a self-contained and progression-focused gaming experience in a short amount of time is an important and undervalued ability of a video game. It enables players to jump into a game for literally 10-15 minutes and get something done. Players can then string together those 10-15 minute chunks into any length they desire, making the game extremely customizable for all sorts of players. There's also a good amount of replayability in the game since the characters are diverse in their abilities, making it an attractive idea to level up multiple characters. It's not a super crunchy or complex game, but it's not trying to be; it's trying to provide a simple, sleek, and accessible experience, and it definitely succeeds in that. I think it’s the perfect type of game for the busy gamer who wants to blow off some steam with friends.
Note: Review copies of the Ultimate Edition were provided to Co-Optimus by the publisher