One of these days, that scarf's gonna wrap over his eyes
and he'll stab himself by mistake.
Developed by Omega Force.
Co-published by Nintendo and Tecmo-Koei.
Released mid-September 2014.
Format: WiiU exclusive.
Hold the presses - Nintendo farm out prized characters for unrelated spin-off title from lesser studio! NEWS AT ELEVEN!
Actually, no, that's uncalled for. While Nintendo absolutely deserve the snark they get for, say, Mario and pals showing up in an NBA-branded basketball game, they are generally more cautious with a few of their other big names, like Metroid or Kirby or, in this case, Legend of Zelda. Whether or not that's down to producer demands or an attempt to preserve those titles' status by restricting their appearances to only core games is unclear; actually, it might simply be down to these series all picking one particular game 'style' and sticking with it, whilst Mario in his first 3 core titles (Donkey Kong, Mario Bros, Super Mario Bros) went through 3 wildly different takes on what a platform game can be, so he's always been fairly malleable in that regard.
But let's just say a big 'whatever' to all that because now there's a Zelda Musou game and Nintendo would really like you to buy it okay.
"I FOUND A THING!"
In case you were wondering, no, the chest-opening jingle still isn't getting old.
Perhaps the most important point to clear up about Hyrule Warriors is how much of it feels like Zelda and how much feels like another Warriors title. I'd go with an 80-20 split in favour of Warriors, although in terms of aesthetics, almost everything channels Link's adventures in some form or another, right down to the HUD style with a green magic bar and a row of hearts indicating health. So just to make this clear, this is NOT 'the WiiU Zelda'. Whether it's good or bad, Hyrule Warriors isn't aiming to scratch that itch and you shouldn't hold it accountable for it,
So, when you first start up the game, the main menu will present you with only one option, Legend Mode. This is the standard story campaign, and since the first stage is also your on-the-fly tutorial you'll need to clear it before unlocking the other options. Those options include the expected Free Battle, where you can replay any beaten story level without cutscenes and with any character you want, a Challenge Mode that adds specific stipulations to arranged battles for when you're feeling confident/cocky, and Adventure Mode, which is a bit more interesting: taking the world map from the first Zelda game (preserved in original 8-bit blocky pixels!), you dungeon-crawl through Hyrule on a treasure hunt, with the gameplay turning to its usual battle style when you run across enemies.
Impa is too cool to look at people when she stabs them.
Said gameplay is, as stated, largely in the same mould as past Warriors titles. You control one of several 'generals' amid a massive army of cannon-fodder mooks, and go to battle against an even bigger army of mooks with its own generals backing it up. Combinations of Y and X button whacks pull off a variety of combos that chew through the enemy with whatever weapon you're holding, until you score enough KOs to charge up a power bar and unleash a special combo with A that chews through 'em even more efficiently. Additionally, your magic bar can be filled with green bottle pick-ups randomly dropped by enemies, and when full lets you enter a rage-mode state where all your normal strikes do upgraded damage and you can pull off an even bigger special combo that chews 'em up like a dog with a stray sock. These games are very keen on letting you know how much of a badass you are, generally speaking. Of course, enemies respawn constantly, so bodycount alone won't win the day. The exact conditions for victory and defeat change from map to map, and often change mid-battle according to your performance (there are a stream of sub-missions given out on the fly during the fight) or certain plot events. When it comes to taking control of the field, though, the targets are usually the same: outposts, which are small spawning points for fresh soldiers, claimed by killing the single officer watching over each one, and keeps, squarish walled-off areas that are often plot-important, and can be taken by beating up regular soldiers inside until their boss appears, then offing him. Like securing spawn points in team-based shooters, there's an organic sense of progress to this that gives the chaotic battles some logical flow.
The main two points that separate Hyrule Warriors from Omega Force's past titles (and full disclosure, I'm by no means an expert, though I've sunk 50-odd hours into Samurai Warriors Chronicles on 3DS) are the sub-weapons and the bosses. Obviously, every character in every Warriors game has at least one very distinctive weapon, and in a nice touch it seems every character in Hyrule gets at least two separate weapon 'styles' with correspondingly different movesets, compensating a bit for their being a shallower pool of player characters than usual. But aside from swords, fire rods and spellbooks, progress also unlocks some of the traditional Zelda arsenal, including bombs, boomerang, bow and hookshot. These can be switched between and used on the fly with a tap of ZR, and though they do have battle applications they're also fancy keys to open bonus areas on the map. It's nothing taxing - bombs destroy cracked walls and boulders, hookshot pulls you up impassable ledges etc. - but it's a sweet acknowledgement of the kind of hidden nooks littering most Zelda overworlds and encourages exploration. They're also used against some of the bosses. Now, when confronted by an enemy general in past Warriors games, you fight them the same way you fight normally, while taking into account they're tougher and will at least half-heartedly block some of your attacks. In Hyrule Warriors, specialist enemies like Darknuts and Lizalfos are almost hilariously resistant to normal attacks even when not blocking; to do significant damage, wait for them to make a big move against you, after which their 'stun gauge' is exposed for a precious few seconds. Damage is amplified if you strike them during that period, and if you deplete the whole gauge your character pulls off a finishing flurry that will almost certainly end them. The same approach applied to the full-scale bosses, although they require a bit more coaxing to show their stun gauge - for example, using the hookshot on Argorok's tail to pull it down from the air, just as you'd do against it in Twilight Princess.
Not pictured: Ghirahim's tongue, which is still gross as hell.
Legend Mode is where I've spent most of my time with the game so far. Its story is very much in the classic Zelda style, in that there's an obvious line between 'good' and 'evil' with no room for gray between, and we're dealing with new incarnations of the main cast who haven't previously saved the land before now. Basically, in this version of Hyrule lives a sorceress named Cia (shown below this text) who apparently can see through time and regulates the balance of the cosmos...I think. That part's not defined well. Anyway, her time spent watching all of recorded history has caused her to harbour a clingy love for the reincarnating spirit of the Hero, i.e. the shared soul of the many Links down the ages - and since she's a lonely, slightly crazy lady with no-one to talk to, her desire festers into an unhealthy obsession that attracts the disembodied spirit of Ganon, which possesses her and convinces her to take what she wants by force...which means laying siege to Hyrule with an infinite army of monsters until Link surrenders to her.
Things, of course, get more chaotic and 'bigger' as the tale progresses, and lead to Cia's time/space-related powers tearing gaps into Hyrule's history, which is the plot explanation for our heroes venturing into locations from 3 different Zelda games, namely Ocarina of Time, Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword. If I could make one change to the game, it'd probably be a wider range of Zelda history to mine; granted it'd be weird as hell to jump from these worlds into the chibi-esque Wind Waker universe but there have been so many Zelda titles it feels a bit cheap to restrict the game to only the most popular one and two of the most recent, not to mention all 3D ones. Where's the Link to the Past love? Anyway, it's not so much the details of the plot that hold the attention but, like in Super Smash Bros, it's getting to see the big characters from multiple Zeldas team up and bicker among themselves that's catnip for fans like me. And to Tecmo-Koei's credit, every past character acts and sounds just how they should, even down to the getting the weird backwards-warbling noise when Midna speaks.
Your friendly reminder that Tecmo-Koei also publish the DOA games.
Visually, the game's a much better looker than I'd anticipated; there's probably more engine oomph to be extracted from the WiiU than seen here, but given the sheer number of enemies onscreen at any given moment and the 100% lack of slowdown, it's astonishing how pretty Hyrule Warriors looks. No small part of that is down to the subject matter: whereas past Warriors titles could impress with scale but presented unappealing hordes of grey soldiers in brown battlefields, Hyrule and its many battlegrounds are never shy on bright, bold colour, with even the deliberate murk of the Twilight Realm lifted by its bizarre Tron-style luminous pictogram walls and forcefields. Even so, the pin-sharp textures, detailed character models and nonstop barrage of special effects are a credit to Omega Force's talent.
Plus of course they've taken a shot at adding their own flair to the proceedings. The soundtrack in particular is a highlight of this, filtering classic Zelda tunes through the cheesy buttrock used to support classic Japanese instrumentals in old Warriors titles, and thankfully it supports rather than overwhelms what made these music pieces great in the first place. The core 'Hyrule Prime' characters have been given new outfits, and while Link's is basically his typical modern tunic with a flappy scarf, the battle-armoured version of Zelda is all kinds of badass, taking her Twilight Princess design as inspiration then giving her a spiky crown and boots made for shitkickin'. And Ganondorf...well, he certainly has a lot of hair. There's a few original characters thrown in, of course, to mixed results. Maybe it's just the terrifying cleavage and anime faces talking, but the rival sorceresses Cia and Lana don't quite look like they belong in any kind of Zelda universe. On the other hand, sub-bosses Volga (a horn-helmed knight with a pet dragon) and Wizzro (a floating spectre in wizard robes, sort of like a one-eyed Big Poe wearing its Sunday best) fit in almost seamlessly, and it's easy to believe they could have appeared in one of the core games.
Nintendo's next crossover hit: BIG BAD BEETLEBORGS x GREEN LANTERN
As ever with the Warriors games, I do worry for the game's longevity - hacking identical goons to death a thousand times per battle is the sort of things that gets tiresome after a while. That said, the distinctions in Hyrule Warriors regarding the different characters, weapons and bosses do help to stave that off...at a price. While I think the bosses are a boon to the game on the whole, in the harder maps the sheer volume of them can get tiresome, especially when you've been dancing and circle-strafing around three Fiery Lizalfos for what feels like ten minutes, waiting to pounce on their stun moments, then turn around to find another two flying in to replace them. Gah.
Of course, I've not finished with the game yet by a long shot. And by the look of it Nintendo are planning to support the title going forwards; there's already a pre-order option for three bundles of new maps and whatnot planned for a staggered release over the next few months, and while I remain leery of paid DLC for something that's only just released (not to mention paying for stuff you can't even see yet) this is exactly the sort of game that supports simply adding more content to on the fly, and it's not like the game currently feels in any way anaemic. Plus one of the packs is apparently all Majora's Mask stuff. The playable Tingle dream is still alive!
Not on the carpet! Bad dog!
(Free tip, BTW - when fighting the Imprisoned up there, ignore what the game says and don't attack his toes. It barely hurts him at all and puts you at too much risk from his stomp-shockwaves, which can seriously screw your life up. Just capture the two keeps either side of him, then use the included Groosenator catapults to knock him down when he levitates.)
So yeah, on the whole, Hyrule Warriors has made me a very happy man. It's one of the more polished and dynamic Warriors games I've seen, taking more liberties than usual with the tried-and-tested hack 'n' slash routine, and it's a fantastic tribute to the Zelda series, even if it's not necessarily everything I'd like it to be. It's hard to complain too much about what's not here when what is is this good. 9 out of 10, and I'm dead serious when I say it'll be perfect 10 if frickin' Tingle and Skull Kid wind up playable. Go on, do it. Dooooo iiiiiiiit.
Wow, Petey Piranha has really let himself go.
You'll never fit in the next Mario Kart update looking like that, man.
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