Hyrule Warriors Preview: Not Your Typical Zelda Experience

Well, I’ve done it folks. I’ve advanced as far in the game as I am allowed to talk about in the preview… and I even decided to play some Adventure mode. I bring this up because I can only talk about so much, so I figured the best way to restrict myself is to stop playing at this point to get this preview out. Why, you ask? Why not! I do warn that there may be some light spoilers in this.

For starters, I have never really played

Dynasty Warriors game before. I’ve seen them played in the past, but I never really saw the appeal. I could argue I still don’t see the appeal even after playing Hyrule Warriors, but for some reason the Zelda goodness has overwhelmed me and it feels so good hacking and slashing my way through some of the most memorable baddies in the Zelda universe. The gameplay is simplistic and you can simply button mash B all the way through the experience to this point, but that’s not fun. In fact I dare say you may get bored playing that way.

If there is nothing else I take away from my experience to this point, it’s that there is a lot of reward and feeling of superiority by mastering the combo system. Sure, it’s just a different combination of two buttons, but learning these combos and when to best use them is tricky. It’s also important to understand their radius. Even using the special attacks – they are different for every character. Some attack all around you, some to the side, and some only directly in front of you. This changes a lot of aspects in combat even with just minimal planning.

For those who are totally lost to this point let me explain:

Hyrule Warriors is not a Zelda game – it’s very much a Dynasty Warriors game featuring Zelda enemies, story, and characters. Of course most of you may know this, but I wanted to be clear for those of you who just found us today. Basically, it is a hack and slash game that involves some critical thinking in conquering various battlefields.

But boy, when you start getting deep into the combat system these battles really begin to stand out. I have so far only played the game on normal – I can’t imagine what the game is like on easy – and if I switched it to Hard I imagine I still might not be writing this preview: A few boss fights had me down to my final heart or less when I got in the final blow, even after popping a potion or two. Needless to say, dodging, timing, and blocking are all vital to survival when you get deeper and deeper in the game – but you also can’t generally afford to waste too much time. Each battlefield in Legend Mode (Story Mode) gives you 60 minutes to complete it.

While that may not really be a huge barrier (I never came close so far to the time limit), if you focus too hard and long on the boss, your base can get overrun and you’ll quickly lose. That’s what’s really intriguing to me as a first timer experiencing this sort of gameplay: there are multiple ways you can lose a battle, even if there is really only one way to ultimately win.

So far almost every stage has unlocked a character. I am 10 stages in (and yes, there are still more to play) and can play as

Link, Impa, Sheik, Darunia, Fi, Midna, Lana, and Zelda. I know it may confuse you to be able to play as both Sheik and Zelda – but *spoiler warning* you’ll find out in the story that they are actually the same character lore wise. I won’t explain how or what that screenshot with them both on screen means, but at the end of the day Sheik still equals Zelda. *end spoiler warning*

The stages themselves so far are rather straight forward. There are multiple paths you can take and you really have a lot of control over how your army progresses. The landscape is awe-inspiring at times, but equally bland too. Some of the textures get old, but other times things simply blow you away. This is really the first time we’ve seen so much of Hyrule’s past in HD, and for the most part it delivers in all the right ways.

The plot so far is interesting but feels like it progresses rather slowly. In earnest, for all the differences the story may offer compared to a traditional game, it still keeps a lot of the Zelda story staples – such as splitting into three lands (for a reason I won’t get into here). Hmm… I feel like that number three has been overdone at this point. Either way, the story is serious, and I am slowly falling in love with the narrator. In fact if I get nothing else from the way the story is told, it’s that voice acting, especially for cutscenes and plot points, really needs to exist in the main Zelda series.

I dabbled a bit in Adventure Mode and it’s fairly straight forward. Complete various objectives to unlock new areas to gain new items, weapons, and unlockable characters. It’s fun, especially if you do it with a friend.

For how much fun I am having, there are still some things that crop up time to time. One such thing is the frame rate – while in general it seems to hold 30FPS, there are moments where the game will literally stop moving at all – skipping ahead several frames. This happens a lot when pulling off really complex combos when surrounded with a few hundred enemies and some captains. The more going on, the higher chance of noticeable FPS issues. It’s not really such a big deal that it made me want to stop playing, but it’s rather jarring considering the amount of polish I am accustomed to with

Zelda games. You simply won’t see something like this happen in Zelda U next year.

There can also occasionally be some strange clipping moments. As an example, I literally clipped through

The Imprisoned at one point and was staring inside a totally hollow boss. It was an odd feeling, and while I know all characters are like this in every game, it really took me out of the game for a moment. I was fighting a giant hollow Easter Bunny without any of the joy that chocolate brings.

Setting those quips aside, in general I am having a really good time. There are a lot of aspects to the game I am not covering – such as the crafting system, item upgrades, badge upgrades, weapon fusing… and so much more, but I wanted to cover that better in the review when I am further into everything. There are a lot of ways to customize your characters.

With that I’ll sign off and get back to working on attempting to 100% complete the game for our review. Feel free to ask any questions you want below and I’ll try to answer as many as I can. There is a certain part in the game where I am no longer allowed to say anything – so if you want story details I will gladly share what I can, but you’ll have to wait for our review, or until the game is in your hands, to have any idea how it all ends. Oh, I included a gallery of screenshots that I have gathered up to this point. I can’t promise there are no spoilers in these shots, so please only view them at your own risk.