Hyrule Warriors Direct Synopsis
Posted on August 05 2014 by Jon Lett
As was recently announced, yesterday was the day of the special Hyrule Warriors themed Nintendo Direct stream. It just wrapped up, so this morning, we are going to quickly go through all the new things that were detailed in the video that over 40,000 eager Zelda fans tuned in for.
Check out the info after the jump!
To start off, we were given some details about the game’s standard progression, and this was when Mr. Hayashi mentioned the quality of the enemy A.I. It seems that, as fighters, some of the more ferocious monsters and such will be about as smart as, if not smarter than, the ones in Skyward Sword. They put up a good guard when they are weak, and put up smaller attack windows.
Soon after, we were show how the map works.
It’s rather self explanitory. But, then they showed us the primary focus of the fights themselves: the keeps.
As you take over more keeps (by beating the keeps’ respective bosses), and by strategically choosing to capture specific ones, you can make it much harder for enemies to advance in battle.
After that, King Dodongo was shown again, but we now see that the classic Zelda-style title and name are shown as they appear.
Nice touch. This occurred with Gohma as well later in the video.
During the fight with Dodongo, though, an interesting little tidbit came up in a text box:
Apparently, the villain we have, for so long, referred to as “Wizzro” has a different name here. Is this the English version of his name, or have the characters simply not found out the character’s name yet up to that point?
Also, this item-scroller was shown for a moment. It is different from the one we saw in the recent NicoNico stream. Perhaps the player can change how certain aspects of the interface like this look.
After this, Aonuma came in to make our lives awesome with this amazing addition:
We already knew that cuccos would appear in the game, but now we know that there are going to be giant golden cuccos that appear when you anger them, AND they can even be your allies in battle. Those ferocious poultry hordes should prove quite effective on the battlefield.
We are then treated to some character descriptions.
Link is actually training to be a Hyrulian soldier in this game, which is why he starts off with this outfit, before later being given the green tunic by Impa.
Oh. And of course:
The dance really never gets old, does it?
Midna has apparently been “changed by someone’s spell” again, so either she has been changed a second time, or she was pulled from a time period when she was still under Zant’s original curse. We will have to wait and find out.
We can never forget that twisty, twilit freak of nature, can we? Indeed, the Userper King, Zant, will be fully playable, and we finally see some play footage of him using his scimitars.
As for our other favorite evil freak of nature, Ghirahim gets play footage, too, and looks like an even better fighter than he was in Skyward Sword with his Demon Blade in hand. And he still won’t put away that darn tongue of his.
Aonuma returns to talk about what is obviously the most action-packed part of any Zelda game: cutting grass.
I must say, the unused level he mentioned, where the level revolved around Link showing off his gardening prowess and ONLY cutting grass for the duration of the stage, could have ended up either really dumb, or really amazing. I will leave that up to you.
It has also been confirmed that certain items will be character exclusive, such as the Wind Waker for Zelda, and the Spear for Lana.
Lana was shown off a bit more, with her ability to joust atop the Deku Tree Sprout with the Deku shield and Spear. We also get to see a new ability/weapon of hers, called the Summoning Gate. A massive, raging cucco came out of a portal because of it, so I officially approve of this weapon. Perhaps we will soon see a trailer for it, with more creatures appearing from it’s gates.
The “Focus Spirit” mechanic was then touched upon, stating that once the magic guage is filled, the character being used can release a burst of power to boost the damage caused by attacks…
…as was displayed by Zant, and his awe-inspiring belly-flop.
As a small update, the “Land of Twilight” is now called the “Twilight Field” in the English version. The stages section of the stream also claims that more stages, mainly from Twilight Princess, Skyward Sword, and Ocarina of Time, will be appearing in the final game. Whether Hayashi is referencing the other previously announced stages or new, upcoming stages is unclear.
After telling us about this, it is official: Aonuma is undiluted awesome. I bet that it was he who thought to make Bow Wow a skin for the Ball and Chain. Perhaps we will soon see more sweet optional skins like this for other weapons as well.
The level and stat systems were then covered. Materials like Aeralfos Leather and Old Rags will be able to be crafted into badges for upgrading stats, which can be used to further enhance weapons and character skills in an upgrade tree. Weapons collected from fallen enemies may have skills that can be combined with current weapons to boost the weapon’s abilities.
We were shown afterwards that Majora’s moon can be pulled down with the Hookshot by any character, not just Midna, as many previously thought due to certain screenshots and video.
After that, Adventure Mode was explained.
Adventure Mode, apparently, is not actually the main story. It is based around various challenge stages, where specific conditions are to be cleared to move on to new levels, each contained in tiles around the map from The Legend of Zelda. You can find exploration items around the map and use them in specific areas to unveil secrets, like with the candle burning a bush, just like in the original game. If you explore enough, certain rare rewards, like sealed weapons and playable characters, will appear in battle.
As a side note, it is nice to see newer items in a pixelated, classic form for this new mode. Perhaps these items will be used around the map for new types of puzzles.
The Gold Skulltulas were mentioned again, showing that killing one gets you an “illustration piece”. We are unsure of what these are for as of yet.
Hayashi also mentioned the 2-player co-op mode, reminding us that online co-op is unavailable, and making us all cry a little inside.
And finally, the bombshell:
It is about darn time that Ganondorf was shown off. Besides sporting maddeningly magestic hair, and looking strangely similar to Zangurak from The Last Story, there are a lot of details in the character trailer to mention, which will soon be discussed in an upcoming article. Look out for it, as well as info on the new costume DLCs!
Make sure to check out the entire video here. Hyrule Warriors is set for release on September 26th.
Are you as hyped up as we are for this game? Leave your thoughts in the comments!
