Get hyped for some fun, button-mashing Zelda goodness!
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/hands-on-preview/38291/hyrule-warriors-hands-on-preview
Zelda Musō, better known as Hyrule Warriors in the west, is an interesting proposition for Wii U owners and Nintendo fans. Generally, the Warriors series is something Nintendo fans likely don’t pay much attention to. With Hyrule Warriors, the influx of Zelda characters and locales make for an experience that Nintendo fans should have on their radar, however. After six hours with the game, I can honestly say that while the game has flaws, gamers should look into the title to fill the void between now and the next proper Legend of Zelda title.
As the name suggests, this is, by and large, a Warriors game set in the Zelda universe. This means that some of the familiar faces from the Zelda series are going to be facing off against hundreds of enemies on open battle fields, vying for various locations on the map. You do all of this while completing additional mission objectives to help further the story and overall progression in the game. These missions range from helping out comrades who are in danger to things like defeating bosses. It’s simple and addicting.
Controls have a very distinct flavor of Dynasty Warriors. During my time with the game, I found that most of my time was spent mashing the Y and X buttons for combos attacks on massive groups of enemies. While this can become a bit tedious, there is help from additional gameplay mechanics, such as special moves executed by pressing A (after a meter is filled after defeating enemies) and the ability to use magic with R and items with ZR. Using Magic gives a limited boost to attack speed while attracting more enemies to your position and doling out a higher payout of rupees. Items come in the form of familiar Zelda items and weapons, such as bombs, a bow , a boomerang, and potions. These additions help set this apart from just simply cutting and pasting Zelda characters and trappings into a game and calling it a day.
Hyrule Warriors offers three different gameplay modes to choose from with Legend Mode, Free Mode, and Adventure Mode. Unfortunately at this point, I’ve only had a chance to mostly play through Legend Mode, which serves as the story mode. If you’re looking for a well fleshed out narrative, you are definitely looking in the wrong place. Hyrule Warriors does a good job at putting all of the familiar characters, as well as some new faces, together, and then pushing them through a fun anime-like story that allows for crossover from different entries in the series. Adventure Mode is a nostalgic mix of old-school Zelda visuals with Warriors action stages. I’ve only played somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 minutes of the mode, but the general gist seems to revolve around giving players quick goals (for example, kill a certain number of enemies in 10 minutes) to have them in and out in a hurry. The presentation shows an overworld on a map with graphics from the original Legend of Zelda. Players can explore the overworld to find items, fight enemies and more. It’s an obvious but awesome nod to long-time fans of the series and you can expect to hear more about it very soon.
In terms of visuals, Hyrule Warriors is the best-looking Zelda title to date, at least from a technical standpoint. The game runs in 1080p and features some detailed, crisp main character models that look fantastic on the big screen. To cope with having dozens, perhaps hundreds, of enemy characters on screen at the same time without slowdown, enemies and companion soldiers are typically lower quality, lower polygon count models. The levels are pretty detailed in terms of design and layout, even having some nice touches like arrows sprinkled through the battlefield. However, they do sometimes feel a bit bland and murky and not quite up to snuff with the main character models. There are definitely worse looking games out there, and even with these small complaints, the game runs very smoothly. With the frantic nature, most gamers probably won’t notice these nitpicks.
Even after sinking a nice amount of time into Hyrule Warriors, it feels as if I’ve only scratched the surface. Adventure Mode looks to provide short burst gameplay experiences. Leveling up characters and managing new equipment has been entertaining and it really is enjoyable seeing how all of the characters come together. There are tons of new secrets and weapons that are still waiting to be uncovered. In the coming few days, expect to hear more about Adventure Mode, as I’ll be digging in deeper to the game.
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