Warriors games have been around for a fair while, but tend to fly under the radar for whatever reason. For the uninitiated, it’s a series of games that began with Dynasty Warriors in 1997 and encompasses countless spinoffs and sequels all the way up to the 2018 release of Dynasty Warriors 9. The basic premise of a Warriors game is simple enough – run around a battlefield slashing away at hundreds or even thousands of enemies, taking over forts and ultimately defeating the commander to advance to the next level. Hyrule Warriors combines Warriors gameplay with characters and locations from one of Nintendo’s most beloved franchises, The Legend of Zelda.
Hyrule Warriors was originally released on the Wii U back in 2014, with an expanded 3DS port in 2016 that included previously-released DLC, a handful of brand new levels and playable characters, and a few new gameplay additions. While both were well-received by critics and gamers, Hyrule Warriors didn’t quite catch the attention of the masses. So here we are in 2018, with a new Definitive Edition on Nintendo’s super-successful Switch console featuring every single piece of content from both previous versions of the game. Exactly how much content is there? Well…
The main story is set outside of the main LoZ timeline but still within the realms of Hyrule lore, with environments, characters, weapons, and even remixed music from Ocarina of Time, Twilight Princess, and Skyward Sword. The story plays out over roughly 30 levels in the game’s Legend Mode, during which additional characters, weapons and items can be unlocked for use in later levels. Free Mode offers the ability to replay any level from the story with whichever character you like, allowing players to search for any undiscovered collectables.
Adventure Mode is where you’ll likely be spending most of your time – a vast collection of grids of various sizes, with each individual square requiring players to complete a specific objective to earn rewards such as heart containers, weapons, costumes, unlockable characters, and items that can be used to reveal extra rewards in other stages. The first map is an 8 by 16 grid, giving 128 separate challenges to be completed. And when that’s all over, players can move on to one of the other nine adventure maps! Finally, there’s Challenge Mode, which might be less substantial than the others but is no less entertaining. Players can participate in timed challenges against bosses, or even control Ganon in his ultimate giant form wreaking havoc across Hyrule.
While there are several different modes to play through, the core gameplay remains the same throughout. Attacks are performed by two-button combos, with most enemies taken down by one or two hits although the occasional larger bad guy might need a little more persuasion. There are a handful of bosses that you’ll see quite a lot of, but they all bring some much-needed variation to the game and require the use of your secondary items like the boomerang, bombs, bow and arrow, and hook shot. Most characters have multiple weapons, and each weapon has its own unique combos and attacks so nothing feels boring or repetitive. Throw in a bit of magic, some special attacks, showers of rupees, hidden chests, and a few other collectables, you can see there’s plenty here to keep you busy for a seriously long time.
It’s totally possible that playing through every single piece of content HW:DE has to offer could take a good two or three hundred hours, and we haven’t even mentioned the insanely addictive levelling system, where each of the 29 characters can be upgraded independently from each other. Players can add skills to weapons, use materials collected from enemies to make badges that enhance your attacks and abilities, create useful potions, and even play nursery with a fairy by feeding and dressing it up to unleash its full potential on the battlefield.
As something of a hidden gem on the Wii U (and, to a lesser extent, the 3DS), we’re ecstatic that HW:DE has found a new lease of life on the Switch. There’s plenty of new content for Wii U owners, 3DS fans get the opportunity to play a high-definition version of the game on a bigger screen, and newcomers have got a ridiculous amount of incredible button-mashing adventures ahead of them. If we could change one thing, we’d be tempted to make the map a little larger as it can be a tad tricky to read when in handheld mode, but that’s really the smallest nit-pick in an otherwise incredible title. Just go and buy it right now!
HYRULE WARRIORS / DEVELOPER: OMEGA FORCE / PUBLISHER: NINTENDO / PLATFORM: SWITCH / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
