Frontier Hunter: Erza’s Wheel of Fortune review

It seems odd to me that I first checked out Frontier Hunter: Erza’s Wheel of Fortune in early access over 18 months ago. Coming back to it now for the 1.0 release, I find it hard to place exactly what has changed or improved one way or another in the gameplay. There have been plenty of patches and tweaks to small elements like the duration of certain buffs and there’s now an additional voice option, but gameplay that felt finished before has simply been polished a little more here – and that, at least, shows.

The titular Erza is a bounty hunter and adventurer in a sci-fi-fantasy universe where such a profession is akin to being a professional streamer. She has legions of fans who tune in to hear the stories of her derring-do, and she’s one of the best in her field. Unfortunately, the intro to the game sees Erza’s ship crash on an alien world teeming with all kinds of hostile flora and fauna, and it’s up to Erza and her two friends Ciara and Nia to gather the missing parts that will get the ship space-worthy again.

Playing as all three characters at once via a flick of the right stick means travelling through various biomes, levelling up, discovering new traversal powers, and slaying bosses to recover bits and pieces needed to repair the ship. Each of the protagonists plays very differently, with Erza wielding two-handed swords, Ciara sporting some deadly feet and massive auto-cannon, and Nia dealing some devastating fisticuff damage.

Combat is combo-based, though each character also has a selection of special ranged attacks, a swift evasive dodge, and some interesting special abilities. Whereas most Metroidvanias would see you unlocking new skills such as an air-dash and double-jump, many of the new abilities in Frontier Hunter: Erza’s Wheel of Fortune involve your ranged attacks and the way they interact with certain doors and obstacles.

While the exploration is fairly standard for the genre, there are a few elements that break it up. For example, now and then you’ll need to defend the makeshift base your crew has built near the ship, and will be able to switch between characters operating mounted guns to defeat encroaching monsters and whoever is on the ground in the thick of it. While these moments feel a little out of place, they do at least mix up the action a little.

A lot of activities reward you with cores that you can equip in limited slots in your weapons and accessories, which increase certain stats and afford buffs like increased crit chance or attack speed. It’s nothing ground-breaking but comes in handy for the boss fights, which can be maddeningly tough. It’s not just that the bosses hit like trucks, either, but that it can be a little sluggish to control the characters, and you simply don’t deal all that much damage – at least early on. It’s not helped by the fact that many bosses have multiple health bars that you’ll need to slowly chip away at while they gradually increase their repertoire of attacks.

Yet there’s something undeniably charming about Fortune Hunter: Erza’s Wheel of Fortune. The characters are adorable, even if they are quite shameless Waifu-bait – particularly given how Ciara fawns over Erza and has quite severe nosebleeds when she sees the other girl in her underwear (seriously, this happens). There’s also a disembodied spirit called Diablos who lives in Erza’s haunted hairpin and repeatedly makes lewd comments about the ladies.

This character is just one of the many elements of the story that feels a bit tacked on, like Erza’s streaming career, and helps to make the already confusing plot even less memorable. It’s not an awful story, but with random anime elements (some of the characters are anthropomorphic animals, because of course they are) it’s all a bit of a mess to try to follow and feels secondary to the enjoyable action.

It helps that Frontier Hunter is a pretty good-looking game. A lot of focus has been placed on the main characters and their outfits (which you can customise from a variety of dress, ensembles, and hairstyles), and the bright, detailed backdrops. Enemy design is kind of off its meds for the most part, with no real themes regardless of the biome. You’ll fight giant bugs, killer plants, and zombies all at the same time without much explanation or context.

Going back to Frontier Hunter: Erza’s Wheel of Fortune this long after the early access launch was an enjoyable experience. The game itself is now complete, with a full story to enjoy (if you can get your head around some of it), and movement, combat, and balancing have all been tweaked with multiple patches to deliver a more consistent experience. It doesn’t do anything particularly new or daring, but fans of Metroidvanias will find it well worth their time.