Back in December 2013, Nintendo teased a game that would make the gaming community perform a flat “What?” Link would be seen cleaving a great multitude of enemies all on his own, performing over-the-top sword strikes, showing how crazy the Magic wand could get, and just generally being B.A. At the end of the trailer, a no-graphic title card showed up, but it did have the tentative title: “Hyrule Warriors”. In the months following, many has branded this game to being “Dynasty warriors with a Zelda skin”, and a good few were giving it the shaft just because “it wasn’t Zelda”. The Legend of Zelda, while having fights here and there, is all about the dungeon crawling, overworld exploration, puzzle solving, and the story immersion. It’s not mindlessly murdering every last thing that moves. What those people fail to realize is there is such a thing as a Spin-Off. Not part of any sort of continuity, the game is there for the fun of it. Think say the Mystery Dungeon or Ranger series for Pokemon or any sports title that Mario stars in. The creators of Hyrule Warriors would go on record to state that this is supposed to be a collaboration with the likes of Koei Tecmo to make this game a celebration of the Zelda franchise. Almost museum-esque, actually; making it a priority to make all sorts of continuity nods, lampshade hangings, and so on all while providing a hard 180-degree twist to what everyone knew what Zelda is about.
Dynasty Warriors, let alone the spin-offs of it, is a game that I never really went out of my way to go play. The premise of it interested me enough, honestly. It exemplifies the whole concept of the “one-man army”. Furthermore, it was supposed to hammer it in that when you actually fought enemies that actually proved to be a threat, namely anyone that had an actual given name to them, it gave the feeling that there was going to be a clash of titans on the battlefield. With all said however, while intrigued in the game, I never really took the dive for some reason and honestly, I wasn’t sure as to why. In fact, before Hyrule Warriors was released, I was debating for quite a bit in getting Dynasty Warriors 8 via Steam, but I just didn’t do it. Perhaps speculating the game’s difficulty? The game series in general has been criticized for being stale, if not for going through eight main series games and who knows how many off-shoots, but that the whole “one-man army concept” grows real old real fast within individual games, namely because of tearing whole armies of enemies new ones with such ease. Maybe the game could be relatively unplayable since your gaming machine has to process hundreds to thousands of enemies at one time, which may not only contribute to the ease of enemies, but also maybe slow your game down a la NES era of games. To be honest, this is a fear that I had going into Hyrule Warriors, which is sad on my part because I’m generally accepting of Hack-and-slash, beat-em-up type of games, because that’s what they are. Repetition is going to be prominent, for better or worse. That said, I never had a game where I’m one warrior against a few thousand foes in one shot in one level.
Well come September of 2014, the game was finally released. How does Hyrule Warriors for the Nintendo Wii U stand up in the hands of the Cold One? Find out.
The Story:
There are a few modes within Hyrule Warriors, one of which is an actual story mode known as Legend Mode. Within that mode, the story takes place in no particular time within Zelda lore, though it looks to be somewhere in the ballpark centuries after the events of Twilight Princess. At any rate, the story goes that throughout the ages, there is a sorceress, charged with overseeing the balance of the Triforce, who became intrigued by one particular soul. That soul was the hero of the ages, always clad in green. Feeling alone, and for the most part feeling jealous of the princess whose fate is intertwined with the hero, she ended up becoming corrupted. She was going to get the affection of the hero. By force, if need be. The corruption itself, however, had different plans. Before anyone knew it, the sorceress’s dark forces start taking over the lands, eventually, reaching the gates of Hyrule Castle. The only warning of the Dark Forces’s approach was a dream that came to Princess Zelda, which came to her as a premonition of oncoming dark times. When the battle at Hyrule’s gates started to look dire, the hero comes forth, clad in the training gear of Zelda’s army and saves the day. For the moment. From there, Link, Impa, and the Hyrulean Army would set forth to clash against the Sorceress’s Dark Forces to restore peace to Hyrule.
What's so sad is that it doesn't matter if you're hot or not, no one gets Link's "Master Sword"...
The story is actually a pretty different take to Zelda games prior. Truth be told, the game still goes on the eventual “Hijacked by Ganon” plot, but even Ganon has a little bit of a difficult time hijacking it this time. The base underlying story, however short, is an interesting take. For a change, someone isn’t out to conquer the world, it’s just to get someone’s attention. Sure, one cannot justify the sorceress’s actions, but the game actually does a decent job taking a rather sympathetic view of the villain in a round-about way.
What’s a bit upsetting about it though is the fact that it is short. I was expecting going into this game a story line for the heroes and a separate story line for the villains. What I got instead was a story line where only three of the eighteen stages were villain based. Keep in mind that each stage you have 60 minutes to finish them, but you’ll only need 20 to 30, if that. It almost feels like the Legend Mode got a bit on the short changed side.
The Gameplay:
Now we get into the meat of the game. Throughout the game, rather it be in the game’s story mode or any other of the game’s modes, you can control many characters, most of which that are known throughout the Zelda franchise. You got your series staples such as Link, Zelda, Ganondorf, some off the wall ones like Darunia and Ruto, then some completely insane ones like the self-proclaimed bug Princess Agitha from Twilight Princess, and that’s not to mention new, exclusive characters this game has. These characters play generally the same in regards as far as button presses are concerned. You alternate between your light and heavy attacks to lay waste to any foe that you see. That said, however, execution is a whole other matter. Some characters will attack slower or faster, depending on their fighting style, which in turn will force the player to time their light and heavy attacks just to get the combinations they want on the fly. Otherwise, the player will just ultimately end up spamming the same combo over and over, something frankly I’m still guilty of from time to time. Incidentally, some characters will be able to get multiple weapon types at one point or another. One early on, for example, that Link can receive is the Magic Rod. It’s not as fast moving as say his standard bread-and-butter Sword and Shield, but in the right circumstances, can be relatively destructive. However, just as mentioned, the same rules apply. Timing is everything in executing the combo. Warriors also come with their own ace in the holes, regardless of what weapon they’re carrying or who they are for that matter. Apart from their hearts, they have two different meters, a yellow special meter that will fill when you attack enemies constantly, then a green magic meter that will only fill when finding magic jars when cutting grass or slaying certain enemies. Using the yellow gauge will trigger a special attack in an attempt to slay many foes in one shot. The Magic meter on the other hand when triggered will empower a warrior. The warrior will be faster, shown by everyone slowing down to near bullet time, and hits harder, so hard that anyone trying to guard against your attacks will have their guard broken and take damage anyhow. With the magic meter, you can let your meter drain out and it will unleash an area-of-effect damaging finisher or you can press your Special button to use up the remainder of your magic gauge and cause a different damaging attack, but this one being able to rend other enemies incapacitated temporarily.
Enemies will come in various…tiers? Let me explain. Enemies that don’t come with their health meter by default are the most expendable and there are the most of for that matter. Next following that are enemies that do come with health meters, but die almost as fast as the lowest of enemies. Followed by them are actual ‘captains’. Captains are usually ones that you will have to make a priority in taking out since these guys will be leading the charge and actually have the capabilities of taking, or taking back, what keeps you hold. These guys, like any captain should, will take a considerable amount more work in killing and for that matter, depending on the enemy in question, will actually guard and parry against your attacks. Up there with the Captains are the boss monsters, which are essentially damage sponges, and just in Zelda fashion, you will need that particular sub-weapon to lay a hurt. Finally the final enemy type are enemy leaders or could otherwise be known as other Warriors. Warriors that you can or will eventually control. Whatever you can do while playing them yourself, the AI can do as well, other than going into Magic Meter Super Mode, that is, unless the situation in the mission calls for it. To circumvent Captains’, Boss Monsters’, and Warriors’ guards and greater amount of health, the enemies in question may unleash attacks that will leave their guards open, exposing a Weakness gauge. Attacking these enemies while the gauge is visible will deplete it and depleting the entire gauge will enable you to perform a Weak Point smash, or in simple terms, a critical hit.
As mentioned, there are a few different modes within the game, but they all share for the most part the same underlying principles. The game is for the most part frantic. The base idea is that you have an entire map to roam, kill everything that wants you dead, and also in the meantime capture these areas known as “keeps” so it will provide you and your allies, namely your important allies, a defense against the opposing forces. That said however, sometimes it’s not that cut and dry. There will be different missions that you will need to accomplish within the meantime, all the while still trying to follow the base victory and defeat conditions, which usually is defeat a particular named enemy all the while keeping a particular ally, or allies, alive and/or not letting your main base get overrun and captured. Depending on the scenario, however, defeat and victory conditions could change at any time which the game will prompt you on as the battle rages on. While you are the so-called “one-person army”, battlefield management is the name of the game.
Apart from Legend Mode, Adventure Mode is the other main mode that you will be paying attention to. The Adventure mode consists of a map that is the same one that was explored in the original NES game. Within each segment of the map are battles for you to complete. Long story short, the Adventure mode is essentially a scenario mode. It not only has battles similar to what you contend with in Legend Mode, but also has various other challenges for you to do such as “Kill x-number of enemies in 10 minutes” or “rescue allies” or “test your observation powers” or “Zelda Trivia”. Even then, in some of those scenarios, like in the story mode, at times they don’t stay that cut and dry either. It may get progressively harder, such as placing a Cucco right near you that apparently wants to watch you kill everything, but while doing so gets caught in the crossfire, angering it, and triggering the infamous Cucco attack.
I'm going to die horribly now, aren't I?
In other situations, the adventure mode will limit you to using a particular character, or even, that character’s particular weapon, putting you in a position where if you want to unlock everything that Adventure mode holds, you will have to get good with everything. Especially considering also the fact that in some situations, to be able to get to adjacent parts of the Adventure mode map, you will have to do something more than just simply clear the stage. Because of what goes against you, Adventure Mode will last you a considerable while, lasting at least three to four times longer than what the Legend Mode will provide minimum.
Apart from the two main game modes, you have a Free Mode, which you can play Legend mode missions as any character, with no restrictions what so ever. Then finally, Nintendo just recently released a patch, adding a new mode known as Challenge mode, which you go through a whole series of challenges in succession and try to complete them in succession. It may start off with something like “Kill x number of enemies in x-minutes” but then it could turn around and say “kill x-enemies in x-minutes, but kills will only count if you managed to slay them with a special, and any other kills don’t count.” That said, there’s only one Challenge mode map so far. There may be more challenges later, but I haven’t heard anything on it at this time.
If there was any gripe about the gameplay as a whole that I may have, it would probably be how they implemented the collectables and unlockables. You can unlock characters and weapons within story mode, sure, but you only barely dip in the pool as to what the game has to offer. When I started realizing that I had to be almost done with Story Mode, I went into adventure mode only to discover that the mass majority of weapons, and some characters to unlock only can be unlocked in the Adventure mode, and that was a bit disappointing. Throughout the Legend Mode, I was trying to find excuses as to use a particular character or a particular weapon, only to find myself using some of the same characters multiple times for whatever reason. For that matter, it would have given me an excuse to get good with a weapon or character THEN instead of having to learn it on the fly in Adventure mode when it called for it. In other words, getting everything in Adventure mode is a bit of a slog at times.
The only other gripe that’s more of a nit-pick if anything is when dealing with the Boss Monsters and opposing Warriors, who are essentially damage sponges. While yes, they do have that Weakness gauge that I mentioned, at times the critical strikes don’t chunk off a whole lot, and it’s more prominent in the higher difficulties or the latter scenarios in Adventure mode. Seeing the same over the top super strike on one creature or one warrior in one centralized skirmish in one mission multiple times while gets old. The super impact isn’t all that impactful in the end, as it were.
There was once a time where I could feel my eyes gouged out by two kunai watching this...
Visuals and Audio:
As usual I don’t judge the games graphics too harshly unless it’s the virtual boy. Because screw that thing. Anyways, for those who are concerned, it doesn’t seem to be pushed as hard as one might want to believe, but that might not be too bad of a thing. The game’s graphics is about that of a regular Wii could put out. The colors and detail are not exactly to write home about, but then considering what’s going on behind the scenes, in a way I kind of look at it as a necessary sacrifice. Just like with prior Dynasty Warriors games, there is just so much to process, probably more than what the Wii U is known to handle. Not only the console is trying to provide you visuals of everything happening, it’s having to keep track of everything in other parts of the huge battlefields and give you the timely prompts as needed to let you know of what is going on. Because of which, slowdown was bound to happen if the graphical department was pushed to the limits. Despite the so-called ‘necessary sacrifice’, slowdown still happens anyways. The game is by no means unplayable or even THAT slow, and fortunately the game doesn’t take the opportunity to cheat you out of anything while everything is going in slow-mo, but it is noticeable and at times a bit of an annoyance on occasion.
The Music on the other hand doesn’t really suffer at all. The game is loaded with various rock remixes of tracks known throughout the Zelda franchise all the while bringing in new tracks to the fold. I’ve already found a favorite in “Eclipse of the Sun” and the remix of the Hyrule Field theme in Twilight Princess, as well as Skyloft in Skyward Sword. In a surprising twist, there is actually a voiced narrator telling parts of the story before every Legend Mode mission. That said, don’t go crazy yet because, the characters themselves, though, still stay in their pantomime states, talking in grunts, laughs, and weird sighs, holding true, for better or for worse, to their source material. Personally, other than Link, I don’t see why to not voice everyone, but I digress.
The Side Notes:
There’s not too much more to talk about at this point, other than the fact that the creators did do what they promise for the most part. This game has many call-outs, lampshade hangings, and things of the like. A Dynasty Warriors game this may be, but it is in fact a celebration of Zelda. From the nostalgia rush from seeing the massive over world NES Zelda map, to obtaining weapons from the iconic to the most obscure. Even finding the Gold Skulltullas, which are triggered by performing certain events within Legend and Adventure mode, was actually interesting to do as opposed to doing it back in Ocarina of Time.
As of making this review, the first batch of DLC came out, known as the Master Quest DLC. That DLC contained three characters, namely the three antagonists that started the whole mess in Legend mode, which I’m curious as to why they weren’t included in the first place since they played like actual warriors. Incidentally, speaking of those three characters, it adds four more story missions in Legend Mode, which adds a little more insight to the antagonist’s point of view, but still left me to wonder why this wasn’t done in the first place? The DLC also gave me an extra map in adventure mode to go through, which so far has been harder to go through so far than the first adventure mode map, so this game has been hyper-extended just on that alone, which for a few bucks, isn’t bad at all. There were also some other little interesting tidbits here and there within the DLC, like additional weapons for some characters and alternate costumes for a couple of warriors. The impression that the DLC is giving so far is really good. If we are to get this much content in every pack for Hyrule Warriors, I have high hopes in the future for the longevity of this game.
The Final Say:
Hyrule Warriors is simple fun. That said, the constant hack-and-slash, beat-em-up style, I know will not be for everyone. I’m probably able to easily forgive the game for it since I am accepting of the genre, and for that matter, I never let the Dynasty Warriors’ stagnation get the better of me since, technically, this is the first game I ever played. People coming into the game will have to realize that this is a spin-off, not an actual Zelda title. The game does have its shortcomings. The Legend (Story) Mode is relatively short without the DLC and what is around can get more tedious than challenging in fighting the likes of other warriors or boss monsters on the higher difficulties. The game when things are at its most frantic can slow the game down to noticeable levels as well. The Adventure mode is also a slight bit upsetting since most of the unlocks are in that mode instead of perhaps at least distributing it a bit more evenly between all of its modes. On your typical scale of 1 to 10, I’d give the game an 8 out of 10. The game isn’t something you’re going to want to buy a console over, but it’s probably be one you should pick up eventually if you do have the console.
May the way of the hero lead to the Triforce...
And in a shameless bit of self-promotion, if you're interested in seeing my blind run of Hyrule Warriors, I'll have a link for the playthrough soon.
