A story that takes place 100 years before the events of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild…
Version tested: Nintendo Switch
Omega Force e Koei Tecmo - in close cooperation with Nintendo - return to the gaming scene with a new Musou: Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity. An interesting and exciting title - even if at times repetitive - that manages, with a bit of overall adaptation, to offer one spin off satisfying and focused on combat packed with many elements and references to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
Koei Tecmo tried his best to blend the other themes of the series into a heterogeneous mix as well. But the attachment to the kingdom and to the characters of Breath of the Wild is all too evident and represents the greatest strength of the experience of Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity.
“Although peace reigns over Hyrule, a deadly threat looms on the horizon. Unbeknownst to its inhabitants, a terrible evil plots to throw the kingdom into 100 years of darkness. "
It is a prequel of the famous Switch launch title, which put the developers in a rather uncomfortable situation, that is, having to deal with one of the greatest video games ever made. But beware, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity is a distinctly different production, and the fact that it manages to capture so much of the spirit of Breath of the Wild is remarkable considering it still remains a title. hack-and-slash to Dynasty Warriors.
The nature of odi et amo that many players have had towards the Musou productions of the developer Omega Force is here mitigated by the fact that the title is strongly permeated by Zeldian themes - just as it had happened in the past crossovers of Hyrule Warriors and Fire Emblem Warriors.
The development team with Age of Calamity has managed to make a Musou title much more accessible and varied in terms of gameplay. Even those unfamiliar with the genre might find something to enjoy.
Story
Breath of the Wild takes place in a devastated world a hundred years into the future, with many of its mythical heroes - when Link awakens - long dead now. There is a deep sense of melancholy and pathos in knowing the enormous price that has been paid to defeat Ganon. The prequel era proposition is succulent: what if we could relive all the events we heard about in Breath of the Wild?
And this is precisely the cornerstone of the entire production. The game begins in that catastrophic future, and then inexplicably throws a mysterious robot into a time vortex. We were immediately intrigued by this premise and spent the entire time wondering how - or if - things could deviate from the BOTW timeline. Everything we took for granted in Breath of the Wild is not necessarily the same in the Age of Calamity, at least not in the beginning. We found ourselves to see how the are erected Sheikah Towers and how Zelda convinces i Samples to guide i Sacred Colossi.
Even though we knew exactly what would happen next, we were still thrilled and excited to be a part of all of this. The Japanese developer has found a way to incorporate nearly every element of BOTW into the Age of Calamity, from Korok's gathering for power-ups to state-affecting cooking ingredients. Even some minor aspects, such as the animations of each character, are imbued with an undeniable reverence and joy.
Although we found the ending (which of course we wouldn't reveal) a bit… unsatisfactory, it still manages to provide a better emotional picture than we expected. Seeing the characters at their glories is something certainly unusual and at times tearful and having had the opportunity to spend more time in the company of Link, the Four Champions and a world we never wanted to leave, further strengthened our feelings for them.
Perhaps most notable is that the game pays homage to everything that made Breath of the Wild great while establishing - perhaps unwittingly - its own distinct sense of grandeur as well.
Is it necessary to play Age of Calamity before Breath of the Wild?
One question that might arise is whether we should play Age of Calamity before Breath of the Wild. The answer is no! Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity relies on nostalgia and attachment to characters whose stories have left an indelible mark and to make these endless trials and battles have meaning you need to have played Breath of the Wild first. .
Combat
Basic combat is familiar to anyone who has ever touched a Musou game. Normal and strong attacks are performed through the "Y" and "X" buttons and after two, three, four or more normal attacks, combined with as many strong attacks, you get a variety of combos. Each of the unlockable characters - some quite unexpected - have completely unique attacks. Massacre of Boblins, Lizalfos and the like will fill an indicator that allows - by pressing the "A" key - to unleash a powerful special attack.
It is a system that works well especially when selecting the fighter that best suits your style of play. Parrying (by holding "ZL" and combining it with a 'Y') is usually the quickest way to expose enemies' weaknesses, although dodging an attack at the right moment opens the familiar window that allows you to take out a group of bad guys through a devastating explosion. Again, these differ depending on the character and may depend on the weapon, the situation or the enemy.
The characters also have a unique action on the “ZR” trigger: Link, for example, will draw his bow and fire a volley of arrows; Revali will take flight; Urbosa will reload the lightning. Then there are the Sheikah rune attacks like Remote Bombs and Freeze - again, tailored to each fighter - which are activated by holding "R" and pressing the corresponding screen button. Enemy weaknesses are reported when they are vulnerable. Defeating the Wizzrobes will also give you access to elemental wands (which can be used by holding "L"), another handy way to quickly reach an enemy's weak spot bar.
Password: variety
For a genre that basically asks you to do the same thing over and over, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity offers a fair amount of variety. In fact, you will be encouraged to experiment with attacks with different weapons and to wear the shoes of other characters in addition to Link. The battlefield is wide which makes switching to another distant fighter better than having to run across the ground to reach it. And if any of the characters don't thrill you, try them out anyway. Initially, we weren't fans of Revali - it might be because of his temper - and for the whole adventure we hardly ever used him. Then we decided to give him a chance and experience his incredible fighting skills and we were able to appreciate him a lot more.
In addition to the above, The era of calamity can be repetitive at times but there is never a shortage of things to do or collect. You will be constantly distracted by looking for opportunities to upgrade characters' moveset with new combos, increased health, recipes, and more. Each fighter has associated trials that take the form of combat challenges or requests for resources (food, rupees, precious stones, etc.) are earned by fighting or buying them from unlockable merchants. Completing these missions also raises the morale of the residents of each region, which also allows for useful bonuses. Thankfully, you can navigate through the individual options, missions and more via the menus. A real panacea when the icons are so many as to make the map view confusing.
Weapons can be fused together by the blacksmith, with buffs and other perks available depending on what you are going to combine. Scanning up to five different amiibo on a daily basis also offers unique loot. There is also a cooking system, something we almost completely ignored during our normal difficulty playthrough. Although the buffs available from creating and consuming pre-encounter dishes become the key to success in later challenges and higher difficulties.
After the finale, there is more to do
There is still a lot to do once we reach the end credits. After completing all the chapters and going through a lot of challenges and missions, we had about 20 hours of gameplay and there was still a lot to do. We kept playing and we haven't seen the end of the available activities yet. You probably won't be able to reach a counter of hundreds of hours like you did with Breath of the Wild, but you will certainly spend a lot of time in the company of the era of calamity.
Of course not everything in Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity works perfectly. The fact that Koei Tecmo has tried to broaden the horizons of the game has inevitably led to some problems. In various missions one is given direct control of one of the four Holy Colossi and although on paper they had enormous potential, they were the least interesting sections of the game. It all comes down to throwing - awkwardly - bullets at enemies that are difficult to see - the little ones scatter like dust - and the game mechanics after a few minutes tired.
We enjoyed trying to break the normal fight with something different, but these shooter sections just aren't fun enough and congenial to a game like this.
Sufficient performance
From a performance standpoint, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamities performs fairly well. In fact, the performances during the early stages of Hyrule Warriors are convincing but tend to stumble when the weather is no longer beautiful and sunny but is particularly stormy and rainy. In fact, in these cases the camera can struggle to keep up with the gameplay. However, despite a lot of dropped frames here and there, we didn't find anything that actually affected our enjoyment of the game. Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity features an ambitious art style and settings. Ultimately the game is visually very interesting compared to other exponents of the genre.
La docked mode has a dynamic resolution ranging from 1440 × 810 to 1013 × 570. While the user interface is at 1920 × 1080. There portable mode always uses a dynamic resolution ranging from 960 × 540 to 676 × 380. The user interface in this case is at 1280x720. Performance in portable mode is similar to fixed mode. The only real difference between the two is that docked mode has a longer viewing distance and an improved level of detail.
There is also co-op mode but it has some problems
The most obvious problems are found in the two-player mode accessible at any time from the map screen. In this case the screen becomes more blurry and the framerate makes a huge effort to stay as stable as possible - almost never succeeding - especially when the screen is flooded with enemies. There is a lot of room for improvement, but we still found the co-op mode, net of the technical issues, to be quite entertaining.
He still remains a Musou
As cleverly as Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity incorporates the elements of Zelda, there is still room for easy criticism that can be aimed at any Musou game. Maybe it's amplified here because of that inevitable confrontation with Breath of the Wild. The beauty of the Zelda series is the tapestry of themes and flavors it weaves together: combat, yes, but also a sense of discovery with secrets and surprises, puzzles and playfulness.
It is a sort of symphony that contains a real mystery and a magic hidden in the mountains, the forests, passing through the Hyrule Castle, other incredible places and the many characters you can meet. Cadence of Hyrule has done an incredible job of bringing together the hallmark elements of the series and weaving them into something new but it's still “Zelda”. While Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity makes use of the same elements, it still remains a (well-constructed) but diametrically different experience.
Final comment
Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity it doesn't set out to be a real Zelda game, despite its incredible presentation. What Koei Tecmo did with this spin-off, he did very well, and if you've tried the demo and liked it, the full game is definitely worth playing.
Ultimately it is a solid and fun experience, thanks to its cathartic combat, the many secondary and non-secondary activities to be carried out and the attention paid to detail that is nothing short of impressive. It is a sort of appetizer that will allow Zelda fans to better prepare - also in view of the 2th anniversary of the series - for Breath of the Wild XNUMX.
