Warning, there are major spoilers in this review!
Introduction
In this review, we are going to time travel and make things complicated, as they usually are with time travel. Are any of you avid readers interested in how the Einstein Rosen bridge theory works? I have always been interested in time travel and wondered if it possible for humans, traveling through wormholes to different times or undo past mistakes? In Hyrule Warriors Age of Calamity, this is exactly what is happening, for the people that have played The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild already know that the guardians of the divine beast perished when they tried to defeat Calamity Ganon. In this game, it is your goal to save them from this horrible fate and create a new timeline in the franchise of the Legend of Zelda.
The story is very good but the gameplay is different compared to Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild. The adventure takes place in the same world only 100 years ago and you will meet many of the same characters that you have met in Breath of the Wild. The gameplay is more akin to Dynasty Warriors. This game builds on things learned from the previous Hyrule Warriors game and tries to improve these elements. There are many playable characters and secret characters to unlock. You will also find Koroks hidden on the battlefield, completing the game 100% will not take extremely long if you know what you are doing.
What did I think before playing Hyrule Warriors Age of Calamity?
We pre-ordered this game since We are a big fan of Legend of Zelda, We have enjoyed the previous Hyrule Warriors game a lot, this game also has a co-op mode!
We always wondered what happened before Breath of the Wild and how the guardians perished, with this new game we could finally explore what happened.
When We pre-ordered this game I did not know yet that game would involve time travel and that we needed to create a new timeline.
Time travel is always messy in games, no one knows how exactly time travel should work but I think that it works as is shown in a series called Eureka*
I looked up trailers before getting the game in the mail and it shows the world of Breath of the Wild with the gameplay of the previous Hyrule Warriors.
It was unclear as to what I could expect but everyone that loves the franchise of Legend of Zelda would be very excited with a new game in the franchise.
I rate Hyrule Warriors Age of Calamity with a 9.0 before playing.
The gameplay looks very good, I like that we get to explore a new piece of Breath of the Wild.
* In Eureka you can see Jack Carter return back in time to right the cosmic balance but he has to give up the love of his life and his unborn baby. When he travels back his soul with new experiences jumps back into his body several years ago.
Even though he knows how things are going to turn out, things are still different due to ripple effects.
Story
The game starts with Link before he becomes a true knight of Hyrule, he is following the footsteps of his father who was also a knight. The monsters have been growing more violent lately and they are attacking the castle. While defending the castle Link finds a small guardian that seemingly came from nowhere. The guardian has information regarding future events, due to how Link performed on the battlefield he is knighted and assigned to guarding the princess of Hyrule, Zelda.
Together they are going to do all they can to stop the coming Calamity that is called Ganon, the first steps are to recruit gifted individuals that can pilot the giant divine beasts. They also need to find the knight that can wield the sword that seals the darkness.
I rate the story of Hyrule Warriors Age of Calamity with a 9.0.
The story is very good and explores an unknown piece of the story of Breath of the Wild while also crafting its own story. I enjoyed the story.
Gameplay
In this game, you can play using multiple characters and they all fight differently, they also use different weapons. Link can even use multiple different kinds of weapons. The map of Breath of the Wild is the hub where you can select a mission or a challenge. On the hub, you can learn the character’s new combos or upgrade their stats. To upgrade a character by completing a mission on the world map needs items that you can find while playing the game. When you use a character to defeat enemies you will gain experience points to level up. It would be very troublesome to grind everyone to the max level of 100 by doing many missions, right? As you progress through the story you can unlock the military camp where you can upgrade characters, you cannot level characters higher than the highest-level character. You need rupees for the military training, these can be acquired by doing missions and killing enemies. There are a lot of small challenges that you can also complete for rupees. A lot of the challenges require that you use a specific character and usually the time limit is very tight, it might be wise to keep everyone leveled.
You will find many items when completing a battle but you will also find new weapons for the character that you are using. Every weapon can have a different skill, these skills are called seals. Later in the game, you can remove seals and replace them with the ones that you like. To upgrade your weapon to hold more seals you need to unlock the blacksmith, the blacksmith can be unlocked in the main hub by completing a delivery challenge. When finding weapons that you are not going to use, you can go to the blacksmith and fuse them into the weapon that you are using. Your weapon can reach a maximum level of twenty but later on, this can be increased to thirty. When you upgrade your weapon to twenty-five or thirty you will unlock a hidden seal. Keep in mind that fusing weapons can become very expensive quickly, choose wisely as to what character you are going to use.
On missions and challenges, you will have a goal that you need to complete, sometimes you need to hurry or you will fail the mission. There are a lot of checkpoints so don’t worry about making mistakes or dying. The main missions are usually long and can be segmented into two different battles. In one of the battles, you might need to pilot one of the divine beasts. When you are walking across the battlefield you might find a Korok, these will give you seeds that you need to upgrade how many weapons you can hold. When you progress through the game you can see how many Koroks there are in a mission, in some of the side challenges you might also find a Korok.
I rate the gameplay of Hyrule Warriors Age of Calamity with an 8.5.
the gameplay works well and it is a very big game compared to the base game of Hyrule Warriors, there are loads of things to do in the game. I also like the roster of playable characters, luckily, they did not make the level cap 255 again.
You might need to capture keeps just like in the previous game but it is barely worth mentioning as the enemies will never retake them from you, there are rare occasions this happens though. In the previous game, the keeps were way more important.
Sound and Graphics
The graphics are exactly what you would expect from a Nintendo game but my biggest problem was that most of the assets are re-used from Breath of the Wild.
The same goes for the soundtracks and sound effects but the voice acting is new and is very enjoyable.
I rate the sound and graphics with an 8.5.
Most of the assets are re-used but luckily there are also a lot of new original assets like the small guardian.
What did I think after playing Hyrule Warriors Age of Calamity?
I played the game co-op with my wife and I had a lot of fun clearing the challenges but it did feel like at the end of trying to 100% the game it drags on a little bit too long.
The story was very pleasant and I liked how they handled the time travel but some of the elements did not make sense.
The blood moon also returns but it was not necessary for the story in my eyes and it was just added for the extra endgame content.
My biggest problem was that the game was too easy, We tried playing very hard but it was still not very difficult except for a few challenges.
Luckily at the end of the game, some of the missions finally delivered some true challenges like the siege of Fort Hateno.
The unlockable characters are very fun and creative, I wonder which characters we are going to get when they add DLC to this game.
The game lived up to my expectations and I got exactly what I expected.
I rate Hyrule warriors Age of Calamity with a 9.0 after playing.
There are some issues with the game but Nintendo did a great job in exploring this new piece of history of Breath of the Wild.
My personal rating
My favorite character was King Rhoam and Terrako, they have very fun combo’s, did anyone else think Terrako said Kamehameha?
My personal rating for Hyrule Warriors Age of Calamity is an 8.5.
Pros
– In this game, you get to explore a new part of the story of Breath of the Wild.
– There is a big roster of playable characters to choose from.
– There are many missions and challenges to play.- You can finally pilot all of the mighty divine beasts.
– The maximum level cap is not too high.
– The system to upgrade weapons works well but it takes some time to learn.
– The graphics and soundtracks are fitting for a Legend of Zelda game.
– You can play the whole game in co-op.
Cons
– Capturing keeps in this game does not have much impact except for continuing the mission, the enemies won’t retake their captured keeps.
– Almost all the missions have a tight time limit.
– Many of the challenges need a specific character, this takes away player freedom.
– There are many re-used assets from Breath of the Wild.
This game is a must-have for all Legend of Zelda fans, I had a lot of when playing through this game.
The final rating for Hyrule Warriors Age of Calamity is…drumroll…
8.8
Let me know what you think about the game in the comments.
I hope that you liked reading this review, I hope to see you in the next review!
