The bladed wagasa is one of the more unique weapons you gain access to in Wild Hearts, and its playstyle is a lot more aggressive and in-your-face than other weapon types. It’s a bit tricky to learn and even more difficult to master, but in the right hands, a skilled bladed wagasa user can spin and dance their way to a successful kemono hunt. This Wild Hearts bladed wagasa weapon guide will teach you how to stick to your prey throughout the fight.
- Related Reading: Wild Hearts – Nodachi Weapon Guide
Do note that as with every weapon, you unlock more moves as you progress through the story. As this can be a bit of a spoiler to some, we’ll only cover the karakuri moves that you can pull off via the crate and the spring, which you gain access to fairly early on in the game.
Wild Hearts Bladed Wagasa Weapon Guide
Overview
The bladed wagasa is a short-range melee weapon that excels at dealing consistent damage. Though its attacks are relatively simple and straightforward, it rewards an aggressive playstyle thanks to both its Spindance gauge and its parry, which incentivizes staying on top of the kemono for as long as possible.
Because the bladed wagasa benefits from aggressive hunting, it’s a fairly advanced weapon, and you may struggle with it when hunting new kemono for the first time. If you’re new to the monster-hunting genre of games or action games in general, then you may find it easier to hunt with more straightforward weapons such as the katana instead.
Weapon Gauge
Unlike other weapon types, the bladed wagasa’s weapon gauge isn’t actually tied to one particular button, and it’s more of a passive gauge that you build up over the course of the fight. It increases whenever you land attacks with the bladed wagasa. You also increase the gauge by a sizeable amount whenever you successfully parry an attack (more on that later).
After not landing any attacks for a brief period, the gauge will quickly deplete. Landing an attack stops the depletion and resets the timer.
The weapon gauge has various tiers to it, and whenever you reach a higher tier, you gain a damage increase as well as access to better versions of certain moves. The maximum damage increase comes from reaching the third “tier,” indicated by the red glow on your weapon, so you’ll want to consistently land attacks and parry the kemono’s own in order to ramp up your damage output as soon as possible.
Square Button – Spindance Attacks
Pressing the Square button makes your character perform Spindance, a series of quick attacks. These attacks do decent damage and can be used to chip away at the kemono or maintain/increase your weapon gauge.
Triangle Button – Lunge Attacks
Pressing Triangle executes Reverse Lunge, a quick dash followed up by a backward jump. This jump puts distance between your character and the kemono while also leaving you airborne. You an press Triangle once again to execute Plunging Comet, an angled downward dash.
Using both Triangle attacks can help you disengage. Note that you can press Triangle during your Square attacks.
Aerial Attacks
The bladed wagasa also has special air attacks that you can perform while you’re midair. Pressing Square will execute Aerial Spindance attacks up to five times, and you can choose to land back down with Plunging Comet anytime by pressing Triangle. Aerial combos are useful when trying to hit specific kemono parts and dodging low attacks.
R2 – Parry
This is the bladed wagasa’s bread and butter, and you’ll want to get comfortable using it right away. Pressing R2 raises the wagasa in front of your character, parrying any incoming kemono attack that occurs within a specific timeframe. Because it’s a parry and not a block, you need to press R2 as you’re about to get hit in order to actually nullify the attack.
You don’t need to be facing directly at the kemono to parry, so be ready to press it whenever necessary.
It’s important to note that parrying consumes a decent chunk of your stamina bar (around a third of it per parry), regardless of whether or not you actually parry anything. This means that you can’t just spam R2 whenever you think the kemono is about to attack; you need to know the kemono’s moveset and when the attacks actually connect in order to efficiently parry. This is where the difficulty of using the bladed wagasa comes in—knowing what moves to parry and when.
Upon successfully parrying a kemono attack, your character will be knocked back, a sound effect will indicate the successful parry, and you won’t take any damage. You will then briefly gain access to two powerful counterattacks that also cause you to dash back onto the kemono.
The first attack, called “Falcon Fury,” can be executed by pressing Square right after a parry. This is a dash followed by a swing with your wagasa. It covers a decent amount of distance.
The second attack, called “Twenty Tatami Spit,” can be executed by pressing Triangle right after a parry. This covers more distance than Falcon Fury, and is usually the better of the two attacks when it comes to closing the gap after being knocked back.
Finally, if you just parried an attack but think that the kemono’s about to follow up with another one, you can press parry again.
This is pretty situational but can be useful if you want to play it safe when hunting a new kemono for the first time.
Whiffed Parry Combos
It’s not uncommon to whiff your parry every now and then, but doing so isn’t as punishing as you may think. While a successful parry knocks you back and lets you dash again with a counterattack, a whiffed parry can be followed up by either a Square or Triangle attack for two unique moves.
Pressing Square executes Trey Star, a series of close-range attacks.
Trey Star changes forms when reaching the third and final weapon gauge tier and does incredibly high amounts of damage. This is the move you want to be using on a downed kemono as unlike the bladed wagasa’s other moves, you’re left vulnerable while mid-attack animation.
Pressing Triangle, on the other hand, executes a special dash that covers a lot of ground. It doesn’t do any damage, but it’s useful for when you parried just a little too early and need to get away from the kemono before it hits you with an attack. Note that you need to aim in the direction of where you want to dash.
Because parrying consumes a good chunk of your stamina, you ideally don’t want to use these moves unless you accidentally whiff the parry or you want to use Trey Star while the kemono is knocked down.
Dodge Attacks
The bladed wagasa has a couple of dodge attacks that further enchance the weapon’s fluid playstyle. Immediately after dodging with Circle, you can either press Square or Triangle to perform a unique move depending on the button pressed.
Pressing Square after a dodge executes a quick return attack. This attack changes forms based on your weapon gauge. You’ll naturally use this attack while hunting kemono, so you don’t need to think about it too much.
Pressing Triangle after a dodge, on the other hand, executes a dash. This attack also changes forms based on your Weapon gauge and covers more distance. You’ll want to use this move after dodging away from a kemono to get right back on top of it.
After dodging, simply determine how far away you are from the kemono. If you’re right on top of it, hit Square. If it’s a distance away, hit Triangle.
Karakuri Moves
The karakuri moves that the bladed wagasa has access to are fairly simple and can actually be executed without the karakuri. Your crate-based attack is the Plunging Comet move that you can execute with Triangle.
The spring-based attack, on the other hand, is a straight lunge:
You aren’t as reliant on karakuri as other weapons, which can be helpful if you need to save your karakuri for certain kemono attacks (such as charging attacks).
In Action
When hunting a kemono with the bladed wagasa, you’ll want to step on the gas right away. Use Square attacks for chip damage and to build your gauge, Triangle attacks to close the distance, and always remember to parry when necessary.
Upon knocking the kemono prone and your weapon gauge is in the red zone, press R2 + Square to execute Trey Star and deal tons of damage.
If executed properly, you can land consistent hits on the kemono, parrying and dashing back in to continue your assault. As the weapon’s aesthetic and theme suggest, wielding the bladed wagasa is like performing a dangerous dance with your prey, and you’ll want to make sure you’re in the lead at all times.
Though the bladed wagasa can be a tough weapon to wield, it’s an extremely rewarding one to main, as proper execution during fights will lead to fast kill times, clean combos, and flashy gameplay. You definitely won’t regret picking the bladed wagasa up if you’re adamant about putting in the time to master this beauty of a weapon.
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