Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity Review
“Style over Substance.” Written by: Hunter (ReaperHunter23)
Back in September Zelda fans received the most welcome of surprises in the form of the Age Of Calamity announcement. The announcement came at the end of a direct with a message from Eji Aonuma prefacing that Nintendo was hard at work on the sequel to Breath Of The Wild but it would still be awhile. But worry not, they have another way for us to explore the world of Hyrule in the meantime. As it turned out it was another Hyrule Warriors game, taking place 100 years before the events of Breath Of The Wild. And it would be here in just two months? Oh Nintendo, you shouldn’t have. In hindsight the marriage of the hundreds of enemies onscreen style of the warriors games within the context of the catastrophe that Hyrule had to deal with is pretty genius. It opened the door for them to be able to flesh out the lore of Breath Of The Wild in a manner that they may not have been able to do in the confines of a more traditional Zelda game. How does it all net out? Let’s take a look.
Image Credit: Nintendo, KOEI TECMO GAMES
Age Of Calamity uses the typical Warriors type of gameplay, and layers some of the systems from Breath Of The Wild onto it. So like in Dynasty warriors you take control of your choice of Zelda hero and make hordes of monsters die by the fistfull with realitive ease. Each character learns a multitude of flashy combos. Because enemies tend to die so easily, learning how to use each of these combos is really only something you would learn how to do for visual variety rather than something that is essential to your survival. Something that is essential to your survival however is outpost control. If you let the enemy side take over the outposts controlled by your allies while you unproductively smack around the monsters spawning in no man’s land you’ll find yourself being overwhelmed.
As previously mentioned on top of the over the top warriors style gameplay, there are a few systems carried over from Breath Of The Wild at play here. Flurry rushes make an appearance for example. When capturing an outpost there will typically be at least one monster that takes a bit more effort to kill. These monsters can be locked onto and with a well timed dodge they can be flurry rushed. This helps melt their defenses and sets them up for a flashy looking special move. The Shekiah Slate runes also get integrated into this game. The cool thing about them is that while every character might have access to them, they all utilize them in different ways. For example: When Link uses the ice block, he summons a pillar that can be used to either block a charging enemy or as a stepping stone to an aerial combo. If Urbosa uses the ice block, she will summon the block and then follow up by zapping the ice with a lightning bolt. Or if Revali uses the stasis rune he’ll freeze the surrounding enemies and then fire a massive arrow volley into the air and rain down arrows upon them. It is a cool bit of flavor that serves to make everyone feel unique from each other despite the general utility being the same.
As far as the characters and their fighting styles go, most of them are a ton of fun. Link is a good introductory character. Solid fundamentals with nothing too crazy to him. Impa’s main focus is manipulating her seals and image clones to deal a crazy amount of damage in a short amount of time. If done right, you can essentially blink away large monster defense meters. Zelda might seem clunky at first glance, but that’s just because of the panicky way she’s animated, because she isn’t a fighter, but after playing with her for a little bit it is pretty easy to get a handle on how her moves flow together. Urbosa is fast and ferocious with her main mechanic being focused on her lightning meter that enhances her strong attacks. This meter can either be filled up by taking a second to stand still and do it with the ZR button or with a bit of timing you can push ZR at the end of a combo and she will instantly regenerate a section of the meter back. Urbosa’s fighting style was probably my favorite and the one I got the most mileage out of next to Link. There were a couple of characters I didn’t really jive with such a Daruk or a few that become available later, but I put that more on me not taking the time to figure out how to use them effectively rather than them being outright flawed.
The game has more to offer than just story missions as well. In between the chapters of the story you get taken to an overworld map of Hyrule, from there you can choose to do extra side skirmishes to level up your characters. Sometimes the missions will just level you up, or sometimes the specific mission reward will be something like a new combo for a certain character, it varies. Aside from missions that make you jump back into battle there are quests that just ask you to give them supplies from the battles you’ve been in in exchange for some kind of reward. All of these build on a community meter that corresponds to the region of Hyrule that the quests take place in and every time that community levels up you receive a hefty amount of supplies. The side quests all also come with a nice bit of flavor text that contextualizes their reason for being there and gives a feeling that reminds me of something like one of Soul Calibur’s adventure modes or The War Table from Dragon Age: Inquisition.
Image Credit: Nintendo, KOEI TECMO GAMES
The story of Age Of Calamity is what had me the most interested in the game when it was announced. Breath Of The Wild’s version of Link and Zelda were my favorite incarnations of the two and I thought the champions were also great, so having something to help fill out more of that picture was a welcome edition. There’s a lot of fun character moments that happen throughout the course of the game. Be it Daruk sharing his food with Link in rather comedic fashion. Revali’s introduction is also rather fun, he and Link pretty much fight each other to a standstill before Zelda pleads with them to stop. Everyone showcased gets a bunch of really cool moments. The story even managed to do a few things that surprised me. That being said, as much as I may have liked the moments in the game, I could certainly see an argument that they don’t come together as a whole as well as they should. Without getting too into the weeds, I’d say that it would be easy to think “Hey this is going to be a real time portrayal of these tragic happenings that these characters went through” and come away feeling a little disappointed about how it all came together. As for my own opinion I thought that the character moments were enough to carry me through. The story even managed to surprise me in a couple ways so take that as you will.
Image Credit: Nintendo, KOEI TECMO GAMES
The fact that this game gets to use the Breath Of The Wild art style is a clear advantage. It lets the dozens of enemies appear on screen without looking bad. I liked getting to see the environments from this version of Hyrule pre calamity as well. Having a visual reference to what all of those ruined battlements and other structures looked like was quite pleasing to me. The music in this game nailed what it was going for as well. It trades in the ambient quiet pieces of Breath Of The Wild for some inspiring fight music. There are some true gems towards the end of the game. That’s not to say the game doesn’t have its more introspective songs too, I think of all the songs I heard in the game, the theme on the map will be the one that sticks with me the most.
The one thing I have to mention as points against the game though, there were a few instances where it started chugging. Certain points towards the beginning of the game and the usage of a particular character a little later seemed to cause the framerate to drop here and there. This happened while I was playing undocked for whatever that’s worth. Now I am by no means a performance fiend. Usually I’m not one to care as long as it doesn’t hurt my experience. But, I feel like if it was at a point where even I noticed a dip in quality, it was worth mentioning, brief as it may have been.
Image Credit: Nintendo, KOEI TECMO GAMES
Summary
I feel pretty confident in saying that I would give Age Of Calamity my recommendation. It manages to capture the world and characters of Breath Of The Wild in a manner that I found to be enjoyable throughout my time with it. If you are someone who is wildly anti-musou games, I doubt this would be the one to turn you around on them. But If you have an interest in The Legend Of Zelda in general or Breath Of The Wild specifically and are open to the idea of experiencing that world in a way that is different than what I typical Zelda game would provide I say check it out.