Hyrule Warriors: Back to the Calamity

 Where it all began

I was never a fan of Dynasty Warrior style games back in the day, so as you can imagine Hyrule Warriors was already a bit of a tough sale. On paper it sounds exactly like my cup-of-tea, large-scale sweeping and dramatic battles that have the potential to shape the fate of entire nations, who doesn't want to be involved in something that cool? But it was execution that always rubbed me the wrong way. In my mind, the appeal of simulating big epic battles comes in standing shoulder to shoulder with your allies and being that one cog in the larger machine that decides the shape of the battle. In a way it's the apparent insignificance of your contribution that highlights the importance of your actions, you aren't special in anyway, just another solider on the front lines; but it's the combined sacrifice of so many that forms the very front lines you're fighting for. Sounds somewhat epic, right? Well if you've any familiarity with the style of Dynasty Warriors then you'll see my initial gripe right away.

Early Dynasty Warriors titles have this sort of style to them wherein the battles around you were merely backdrop for the player's 'One-man-army' style rampage through historic battles. Now admittedly this wasn't totally out of left field as these games did portray a purposefully stylised and overly dramatic version of historic and legendary battles, but it still didn't suit my personal style for the lord of the manor to go strutting out into the battlefield with a halberd and start slaying entire regiments with a single strike. (It just came across as odd.) Plus, I was never a fan of the way that in those games the player character and enemy lords were about 8 foot tall when compared to everyone else on the field, it made everything look like a child's playset with mismatched toys in the fray. So if all that's mostly the case, then why am I so excited for 'Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity'?

I'd say that a big part of that comes from 'Breath of the Wild' itself, the game who's cannon 'Age of Calamity' proposes to elucidate on, because that was a Zelda game that just perfectly hit everything I was looking for in that property. 'Breath of the Wild' was an open-world action adventure RPG title that delighted in showing players a beautiful world as much as it did letting players mess around in it. Quite simply it was an escapist's dream and sold it's premise beautifully with a mastery of world design that I'd say even rivals Rockstar in some ways. More than any other Zelda before it, 'Breath of the Wild' felt like a game for me, that perfectly wiggled itself into my preferences and everything I would want. Therefore when a game comes along threatening to expand upon the story of that specific Zelda world then you can bet I'm all in for it.

Thus I was ready and eager when I first heard about the demo for Hyrule Warriors which was headed our way and decided to give it a shot. (Whereas I never got the chance to try the original Hyrule Warriors, because of the whole 'Wii U being an abject failure that only 3 people and their dog bought' debacle) And right away I can say that the basics of Hyrule Warriors really do fix some of my gripes about Dynasty Warriors. Yes, you are still basically playing the one man army who does everything by themselves, but you are at least of a similar height to your fellow compatriots so you don't look absolutely ridiculous. (Although Link does do that 'anime protagonist' thing of being the only solider with his helmet off. That's just bad uniform maintenance, my man.) But what about the meat of the game itself?

Well from the demo it seems that the heart of Dynasty games remains untouched. The majority of the game revolves around felling large squadrons of enemies with little effort between slightly larger enemies who require more strategy and planning. I was worried going in that BoTW's slightly rudimentary combat system (which relied a lot more on ingenuity with resources rather than robust button combos) would have trouble shaping up but the team seems to have done a great job making that worry more than moot. Simple combos have been built into the game which, similar to Smash Bros, elude to the abilities in the main game (such as gliding, shield surfing and spin attacks) whereas the strategic part of player's arsenals come with the Sheikah slate which operates as a slightly more martial mirror of the original game's one. This makes for a surprisingly well thought-out system that had me working with different abilities more than I would in the few traditional dynasty warriors games that I played, (wherein in those I had to switch characters to feel diverse in combat) so I'm liking the gameplay a lot more than I thought I would.

Of course, me being me the thing that's really appealing to the ol' sensibilities is the way in which different characters are being bought to the forefront of the gameplay. Impa, who served as mostly a loremaster in Breath of the Wild, is playable as a incredibly fun-to-control ninja who's main abilities revolve around managing a sort of Shadow-jitsu that's every bit as badass as it sounds. Even Link, who's powers are mostly what you'd expect, seems to be tuned up to 11 in every attack in a manner that sort of reveals how rusty he really was after that 100 year nap. (I can only imagine how badly I'd react to stumbling into a Lizalfos den in BoTW, whereas here it's hardly an inconvenience at all.) Huge points go to the team in making it so that every single Sheikah Slate attack is handled different depending on the character in control, really driving home the need to mix and match characters for the right situation.

I see real potential for this game throughout the length of it's campaign, especially if the trailers are anything to go by. Letting us see the way that Link carves his place out amidst the legendary heroes of the ballads is enticing enough, but actually having the chance to play as these people who we've been but teased about up until now is exciting. Whatsmore, there'll even be some moments where the Divine Beasts will be under our control for the first time ever, really showcasing what these war platforms where capable of. Yes, a lot of what we've seen is huge fanservice, but I don't think there's anything wrong with that when it promises to be this cool and interesting to try out.

Obviously the majority of my, and everyone else's, excitement is fuelled by what this game represents. By going back and showing us the great war, 'Age of Calamity' is closing the book on the story of Breath of the Wild and leaving no lingering questions, perfectly opening up the way for a new story to launch in Breath of the Wild 2, or whatever it's going to be called. This is very much a stepping stone on the journey to part 2 and I want to be there for every second of it. I'm just glad we're seeing all this first hand in a game that's actually pretty fun rather than spending an entire game watching flashbacks about it. (I really wasn't a fan of the 'flashback' storytelling, I really hope it doesn't make a return)