Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity (NSW) Review

It's time for a new review here at SuperPhillip Central. This time we're taking a look at a game that combines two great things (one perhaps greater than the other): The Legend of Zelda and Dynasty Warriors to make one awesome Musou game. It's Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity. Here is the SPC review.

A magnificently made Musou 

The day that Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity was announced by Nintendo was one where I immediately jumped back into the original Hyrule Warriors, albeit the Nintendo Switch's Definitive Edition version, resuming my 100+ hour save file. I was beyond hyped and wanted to get another happy helping of Zelda Musou-styled gaming goodness. I ended up playing 100 hours more from the announcement of Age of Calamity to around the start of November. 

My worry after playing so many hours was that I'd be burned out of Musou and be bored of Age of Calamity within minutes. Fortunately for me, the absolute opposite happened: I spent 50 hours enjoying the game this past month, and one of the main reasons for that is that Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity plays differently than the original Hyrule Warriors, thankfully enough. Plus, its structure is vastly different, too. It amounts to a game that both feels fresh and familiar as a Musou fan and lover of the original Hyrule Warriors.

Have no fear! Link storms the battlefield before Hyrule Castle to battle some Bokoblins.

One of the main things that distinguishes Age of Calamity from its predecessor is that the game is more action-focused than the strategic "run here, capture this outpost, beat this general, so you aren't overwhelmed and can turn the tide of battle". There's still plenty of outposts to capture in Age of Calamity, but there's more of a focus on battles and varying objectives. 

For instance, an early game mission based in the Gerudo Desert tasks you with first making your way to Gerudo Town while fighting through waves of enemies. Then, you're asked to make your way to Urbosa's chamber, one of the Four Champions, who is for some reason sending her Gerudo soldiers to attack you inside. From there, you need to dispatch several of the Yiga Clan's top blademasters, a group of ninja-like foes who wish to awaken Calamity Ganon. After accomplishing this, it's a rush to escape into the desert, where the Yiga clan strikes yet again, but by making noise by blowing up bombs, a Molduga worm awakens from the sandy desert depths to terrorize the Yiga Clan, making them retreat. Finally, it's time to capture some outposts to lure out and defeat Master Kohga, the leader of the Yiga Clan. As this hopefully shows, the variety on display in missions is much better than the original Hyrule Warriors, which makes for a less tedious and less repetitive game overall. Hence, my lack of burning out when playing.

Maps in Age of Calamity are incredibly large and complicated. The size and scope most times is just amazing, and the variety is astounding. One map has you battling in front of Hyrule Castle on Hyrule Field and the surrounding towns and fortresses that surround it, while another sees you entering the labyrinth that is the aforementioned castle with its satisfying layout of hallways, rooms and passageways. Secrets abound on these maps, as there are treasure chests to discover as well as hidden Koroks, which will reward you with a seed as a token of its appreciation for you finding it. 

These Yiga Clan members are probably kicking themselves for not requesting a sick day today.

Not all is great with these more expansive maps, however. For one, indoor areas are massively tricky when encountering larger foes. The camera can become obstructed by map geometry, which makes for some frustrating moments. More importantly, though, in every map, especially ones with waving grass that can be cut, the frame-rate takes a noticeable tumble into woeful territory. While I didn't mind so much, those sensitive to frame-rate issues might want to try the demo of Age of Calamity first. Regardless, there is much more right and many more positives than there are things wrong and negative with the maps in Age of Calamity.

Areas with lots of enemies and grass such as this one can result in some dreadful frame-rate problems.

I very much enjoy the parts of missions where I'm running around as one of up to four characters (these can be cycled between with the press of the up and down directions on the D-Pad), hacking and slashing my way through hordes of enemies and battling big baddies like Hinoxes, Stone Taluses, and even those especially pesky Lynels. The parts of missions that I don't enjoy are separate from the standard Musou-style gameplay. These are where you pilot one of four Divine Beasts. Controlling these humongous mechanical monstrosities can feel liberating as you fire massive beams of energy, lasers, and lightning into swaths of hundreds of miniature (at least compared to your Divine Beast) foes at once. However, for me, these Beasts move so slow and feel cumbersome to control. Obviously a gigantic machine that rivals the size of mountains won't turn on a dime or move with swiftness, but knowing that doesn't make these sections any more fun, any less tedious to play, or serve as tremendous pace-killers.

The Divine Beast segments of the story missions are decidedly my least favorite part of Age of Calamity.

While I did initially dread piloting a Divine Beast when those sections were interspersed between the traditional Musou action, I eventually came around to them--or at least tolerated them better. But, obviously, the main draw here in Age of Calamity is the hack and slash, destroy enemies, battle bosses, capture outposts, and complete objectives gameplay. And it's honestly better than ever in Age of Calamity. 

Using a combination of weak and strong attacks, characters perform combos to unleash damage onto hordes of enemies. As enemies are damaged and eventually defeated, characters have their special gauge build, that when filled and used, delivers a devastating area-clearing special attack. Weak enemies can be defeated after a few hits, but stronger foes, like commanders and bosses, take more hits as well as more tactfulness to beat. Each of these have weak point gauges that appear when they perform certain attacks. Weakening this gauge completely allows you to unleash a strong attack that deals a considerable chunk and dent of damage to their overall health meter. You can also dodge an attack with proper timing to slow down time and perform a flurry attack, which also takes off a chunk of health and their weak point gauge. 

Urbosa spins to win like a slot machine to battle this Blue Moblin.

Instead of the items from the original Hyrule Warriors, every character in Age of Calamity possesses the Shiekah Slate, used to perform one of four abilities in battle. Each use results in a cooldown period before it can be used again. These before mentioned abilities include freezing an enemy in place with the Stasis rune, throwing a concussive blue bomb with the Remote Bomb rune, summoning a pillar or series of pillars of ice with the Cryonis rune, or grabbing metal objects such as crates or even an enemy's own weapon with the Magnesis rune. Many enemies will use moves that can be countered by a specific rune, making them susceptible to an assault and have their weak point gauge be revealed and depleted. This is especially useful for large boss enemies.

An icon appears near an enemy when they have a move that can be countered by a Shiekah Slate rune.
This Moblin, for instance, can have its hammer turned against it via some Magnesis!

One of the greatest pieces of Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition is simply how robust the playable roster of characters truly are. Each has a unique twist to their play styles, which makes each worthwhile for the most part. Some take more practice to learn than others, such as some of the unlockable, less obvious to mention playable characters in the game, but the reward for doing so is truly fantastic. The previously mentioned Urbosa can channel the powers of electricity to shock foes into submission with bolts of lightning, needing to occasionally charge her powers when they run low or deplete completely. Meanwhile, Link has multiple move sets he can use based on what weapon the player gives him. From a sword and shield combo, to a long-range spear, to a powerful but risky two-handed blade or club, Link has the most versatile set of abilities in battle. 

Revali makes it rain pain down on these enemies.

Like Hyrule Warriors on the Wii U, then 3DS, then Switch, each character levels up through gaining experience from defeating foes. Alternately, there's a training ground area that allows you to spend Rupees to level up your cast of collected characters as well for fast--albeit expensive--leveling capabilities. Further, each character has their own assortment of weapons they can acquire in missions and after missions are completed. Weapons have their own power levels and attached skills such as increased damage to aerial enemies, increased likelihood of earning rare materials, increased defense, and much more. Weapons can also be fused at a special shop to not only make them stronger but also give them bonus skills.

There are a total of 20 story missions in Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, but there's plenty--and I do mean plenty--of more content to discover in the game. Completing story missions unlocks alternate side missions, which are shorter in length (fortunately, because story missions can run a tad too long for my liking) and feature varying objectives. Generally, though, they involve beating down a number of enemies or bosses before time runs out, protecting another character, or capturing outposts. While there is some semblance of variety in these missions, you don't really notice it after the seemingly hundredth time you're tasked with battling a Lynel.

Most side missions have set rules, such as limiting the character you can play as,
whether you can use items, heal, or even whether you can take any damage!

Nevertheless, completing side missions rewards you with materials and Rupees, both of which are used to complete requests around the kingdom of Hyrule, which uses the same general map as seen in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. These material requests earn your characters new combos, more health, new abilities, new shops to do business with, and much, much more. There are hundreds upon hundreds of these to complete, and the more you do, the better your characters become in battle with more strength, abilities and moves to utilize. It can be a bit overwhelming seeing a massive abundance of icons on the screen needing completion, but at the same time, these are purely optional bits of content made to extend your enjoyment of the game.

And as you've seen, there's a LOT to enjoy about Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity. Between the reimagined story that certainly GOES places, the fun that comes from slaying a slew of enemies like they were nothing, rushing about the maps like a Cucco with its head cut off as you complete objectives, the robust roster of playable characters with unique play styles, and the massive amount of content available in the story missions, side missions, material requests and Korok hunting, Age of Calamity is up there as one of my favorite Musou games. Admittedly, it certainly helps that it's one based off of one of my favorite video game franchises of all time, but in general, it's just a great Musou. It definitely won't make fans out of haters of the genre, but for those who love games like Dynasty Warriors and want an evolution of the formula, you have one with Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity.

[SPC Says: B+]

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity (NSW) "Unleashing the Divine Beasts" Trailer

A new trailer for Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity was revealed during today's Nintendo Direct Partner Showcase, the final showcase for 2020. This trailer reveals the ability to play as the Divine Beasts in special segments of the game. In addition to this, a demo is now available, which will allow one's save data from the demo to be transferred to the full version when Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity launches on November 20th.

Fire Emblem: Three Houses (NSW) Review

Before we conclude this week here at SuperPhillip Central, let's talk about one of the better games of the summer so far--and it's been a pretty good summer, especially for the Switch! Fire Emblem: Three Houses is one such game, and it gets reviewed on your Saturday night here at SuperPhillip Central.

Class is now in oh-so-satisfying session.

For a lot of Western Nintendo fans, Fire Emblem wasn't on their radars until Roy and Marth's inclusion in Super Smash Bros. Melee. Though several releases of the Fire Emblem franchise launched after that fact, it wasn't until Fire Emblem: Awakening that the series truly climbed into the upper echelon of Nintendo franchises. In fact, Awakening historically saved the franchise from a nasty fate of being shelved indefinitely if it hadn't reached Nintendo's sales goals and far surpassed them.

Regardless, while Fire Emblem has mostly stuck to handhelds since its Western arrival, now the series returns to a home console after over a decade and this time for its first appearance in HD. It's Fire Emblem: Three Houses, and unlike what the setting might suggest, this game is no schoolyard scuffle. It's one of the bleakest stories in the series to date, and moreover, one of the best overall games in the franchise yet.

Fire Emblem: Three Houses has you in the role of silent protagonist Byleth, giving you the choice of a male or female version, similar to more recent Fire Emblem games, Awakening and Fates. Your avatar plays the role of a new professor for Gurreg Mach monastery, home to the Church of Seiros and its knights. There, you choose one of the three houses: the Black Eagles led by Edelgard, the Blue Lions led by Dimitri, or the Golden Deer led by Claude. Each house has its own set of students each with their own defining personalities and character traits.

No matter which house leader is your favorite, you're wrong if you didn't choose Dimitri.

Though you don't get a lot of information to assist you in choosing which house you wish to join, other than basically a short introduction of each house leader, the repercussions of the story are greatly affected by your choice. While the first half or so of Three Houses plays out similarly regardless of the house you choose, the second half is where the story greatly differs, and the mission types and story scenarios change greatly. It truly is worthwhile to play through all of the routes in the game in order to get a full idea of all characters' motivations. War certainly isn't as black or white as it can seem, and Fire Emblem: Three Houses' tale hammers that point home quite well, even if it requires several 40+ hour play-throughs to get the complete gist.

Three Houses is structured significantly differently from past Fire Emblem games. There's a lot more downtime in the game instead of rushing from battle to battle with short breathers here and there like past games. A lot of your time will be as professor of your house, and that involves all of the teaching duties one would expect in such a role. The game plays out in a monthly structure with each month containing one major battle while each week has you choosing from one of four actions to do for that week: Explore, Battle, Seminar, or Rest.

If you opt to Explore, you'll venture around the Gurreg Mach monastery--the hub of Three Houses--a fully three-dimensional campus where you can chat with students of the eponymous three houses, participate in various activities like gardening, entering suitable students into mock battle tournaments for prizes, cooking as well as sharing a meal with some of your students, among other options. A helpful fast travel option makes getting to each section of the monastery extremely easy as the loading times are negligible between traveling. You only have a limited number of activity points to use on days you opt to explore the monastery, and these are of course used up when performing a given activity. You gain more points to participate in more activities by leveling up your professor rating.

Bond with your students over a freshly prepared meal. This obviously wasn't like the school I went to...

At the start of each week, you begin teaching your students. Depending on a student's motivation, you can level up multiple skills at once. As these skills, such as lance, axe, Faith (magic), heavy armor, etc, are leveled up, new skills are learned. Teaching can be done manually (assigning skill points to your own satisfaction) or automatically (where the skill points are handed out in an automated fashion without your call). It can be a slow process to manually teach students, and even slower of a process to motivate your students to allow them to be taught--which is prompted by spending time with them via activities and giving them gifts sprinkled about Gurreg Mach and dropped in battles.

Develop a lesson plan and tutor your students to magnificence.

As stated, major story-related battles happen once per month, but you can also opt to perform special Paralogue battles which are side-missions that flesh out your characters more, as well as simple auxiliary missions for experience and level gains. Battling in Fire Emblem: Three Houses is much improved with some much desired and welcomed new features to make for the most engaging tactical battles in the series yet. Although the primary foundation and structure of Fire Emblem is still here--what, with its grid-based battlefields where different unit types can move a set amount of spaces, its combat forecast that tells you when you are in range of an opponent, and the likelihood of a successful attack in addition to how much damage you or your opponent will do.

This grid-based system is no stranger to Fire Emblem fans.

For one, the rock-paper-scissors-like weapon triangle system has less prominence in battle. Weapon durability makes its return. The system stills works where using weapons will lower its durability, and overusing it without repairing it between battles will result in it breaking on you, significantly weakening it. Using special attacks in the form of Combat Arts will cause the durability to go down faster. For example, a normal attack costs 1 point while using a Combat Art such as Helmbreaker costs 5 points of durability to use.

While the Iron Gauntlet isn't the strongest of gauntlet-type weapons,
it has a higher durability than those gauntlets that have a higher attack.

Essentially, having the best weapons available to you (i.e. the most expensive ones) will result in an easier go of battles, but the catch here is that unlike past Fire Emblem games, you don't have a constant influx of money to purchase new weapons at a steady rate and this time around, materials to forge and repair weapons as often as you might need. Fortunately, your units are more freely able to mix and match weapon types as their roles and classes change. This freedom to explore and be more creative with your units' abilities and roles in battles in a great inclusion in Three Houses.

Finally, another worthwhile inclusion to battles in Fire Emblem: Three Houses is that of gambits. These allow you to equip mercenary groups and battalions to a given character to use in battle. When used, these will allow you to attack your opponent with the gambit without having to worry of a counterattack, and in many cases, will result in the foe being unable to move on their next turn. Gambits have limited uses per character, but they're terrific in their effects. Some gambits call upon a brigade of characters to charge directly into the enemy--stampede-style--while others have a defensive purpose such as a giant circle of mages that summon a healing circle for surrounding characters. These gambits are paramount to tackling fierce 2x2 grid space-sized monsters and beasts that regularly show up in later maps of the game.

The cavalry has arrived with Edelgard's equipped Gambit. 

While a lot has changed in Fire Emblem: Three Houses, some aspects do, in fact, carry over. A lot of this comes from Awakening. Casual mode is available for beginning strategists and those of us (yep, myself included) who want a less intense Fire Emblem experience where downed units return after battle instead of being gone for good like in Classic mode. Various difficulty options are available, but you can only go down difficulties and never up. For me, I enjoyed playing on Casual/Hard mode, and I feel that is the best way of playing the game. Of course, future play-throughs are Casual/Normal, just so I can enjoy the story at a faster pace.

Also, like Awakening, Fire Emblem: Three Houses has romance and support options, granting boosts in how your units interact with one another. The amount of support conversations can be quite overwhelming if you unlock a grand number at one time. I got to the point late in the game that I just skipped the conversations (I know, how dare I!) so I could rake in the rewards of having a class of students that got along well and did better in combat together.

Fire Emblem: Three Houses has certainly upped the presentation as the very first high definition mainline entry in the series. That said, the visuals apart from the character models and occasional cutscenes (which both do look ace, to be fair) do little to amaze. That said, the budget must have gone into the voice acting and music, because both are phenomenal. Every bit of dialogue within Three Houses is fully voiced--all major conversations, all support conversations, all minor characters, and so forth). My only issue with the music, particularly as it pertains to the battle music, is that a lot of it is repeated way too much throughout the game.

Though I didn't care for the slower structure and pace of the game or having to tread through a ton of familiar ground story-wise just to get to wholly new content in my second (and eventually third and fourth) play-throughs either, Fire Emblem: Three Houses managed to rekindle my long, lost interest in this tactical RPG series anyway. Just the fact that I wish to continue playing to see all the sides of Three Houses' involved story says a lot about how much I enjoyed the game. (For those that don't know, I have a habit of quitting a game as soon as I review it, but this certainly won't be the case with Three Houses.) Fire Emblem: Three Houses schools other games of its genre and is a master class of engaging and enthralling tactical grid-based battles. The amount of freedom to customize your units based on your particular play style and overall whims as well as the aforementioned various houses to play as make for a game with so much content and for me, so little time to take it all in.

[SPC Says: A-]

Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition (NSW) Review

Here is the final review of the month of May. The third time is definitely the charm with Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition. SuperPhillip Central storms the battlefield with its in-depth review of this Nintendo Switch Dynasty Warriors-themed delight.

The many splendored spoils of war

I greatly enjoyed my time with Hyrule Warriors when it originally released on the Wii U. The game already came packed with content, characters, and scenarios to play through and engorge oneself on. Then, Koei Tecmo continued to provide content for the game in the form of new characters, weapons, costumes, and Adventure Mode maps via DLC. If that wasn't enough, the Nintendo 3DS release, Hyrule Warriors Legends, brought even more new content in the form of brand-new scenarios such as Linkle's Tale, Cia's Tale, and a multiple mission scenario based off The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker.

The only problem with the Hyrule Warriors Legends was that the Nintendo 3DS, even in New Nintendo 3DS form, just wasn't capable enough of a platform to showcase a game with myriad enemies to slay and destroy. Between the less than stellar frame-rate and the lack of as many enemies on screen as its big brother Wii U version, Hyrule Warriors Legends wasn't the most satisfactory way of playing Hyrule Warriors on the go.

Enter the Nintendo Switch and Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition. The subtitle isn't just there to make the name sound pretty. It really is the definitive edition of Hyrule Warriors, sporting all of the content, characters, costumes, Adventure Mode maps, scenarios, weapons, and features of both the Wii U original Hyrule Warriors and the Nintendo 3DS' Legends, including the latter's My Fairy. Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition is a beast when it comes to content, and it keeps its satisfying gameplay that made the game so beloved by both The Legend of Zelda and Dynasty Warriors fans.

Link's fashion sense for this battle is decidedly retro and old school.

Hyrule Warriors is all about eliminating as many foes as possible with all-stars from The Legend of Zelda series, in addition to several all-new characters specifically created for the game. K.O. counts racing up to the thousands is easily achievable by just how many enemies are on display at one time on the battlefield. While fighting foes, the goal is to capture keeps by eliminating enemies within them and then defeating the keep's boss in order for your side of battle to control it. Of course, the enemy's forces also plan to accomplish the same goal and make sure your mission is a failure. This is performed by the enemy defeating you or one of your captains in battle, having your allied base taken over by the opposition, and letting a specific target perish mid-fight.

Newcomer from Hyrule Warriors Legends, Linkle, sprays the battlefield
with the arrows from her twin crossbows.

While it's true that sometimes battles can be won by pure button-mashing, there is an elegance to combat to take note of. Combat is as simple as combining weak attacks with strong attacks to create different combos. The more times you press the weak attack button before you perform a strong attack determines which combo you use. The combos used, however, need to be smartly used on later difficulties. Many can leave your warrior open to attack or caught in a compromising position in battle. Avoiding attacks from enemies is also key, so careful evasion and watching for enemies when they wind up attacks so you can counter them after the fact for maximum damage is something to factor in fights as well.

Impa is about to give Darunia one serious surprise attack from above.

Legend Mode follows a new tale in The Legend of Zelda franchise, combining multiple characters from the series' mythos into one story. This is where Linkle's Tale, Cia's Tale, and the Wind Waker scenarios from Hyrule Warriors Legends take place. Nevertheless, the most interesting and content-rich destination in Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition is Adventure Mode. Adventure Mode places you on Zelda series inspired 8-bit maps where completing missions successfully with high grades opens up adjacent squares on the grid. The goal is to reach the square on the map where the dark ruler of the map is situated, and taking them out in battle to clear the map.

Of course, there is a lot more to discover than just clearing grid spaces to make your way to the dark ruler. As stated, Adventure Mode maps contain the most content in Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition, and that's because by completing missions with "A" ranks as well as finding character-specific treasure chests, you unlock new weapons, costumes, characters, health-increases via Pieces of Heart and Heart Containers, and more as rewards. It's absolutely addicting to continually unlock new content through normal play, and with eight Adventure Mode maps to fully explore, you won't be starving for battles to engage in.

Pressing the "A" button when the special gauge is full launches
a cool crowd control move such as this one from Lana.

Adventure Mode improves upon Legend Mode as the former is not just a collection of keep-capturing and enemy-annihilating. Adventure Mode's missions run the gamut from quizzes where you take out the correct foe based on the question posed, to battles against three giant bosses like the fire-breathing, bomb-hating King Dodongo; the aerial dragon from Twilight Princess Agorok, or the most hellish giant boss of them all, the Imprisoned of Skyward Sword fame. It can be mighty challenging to earn "A" ranks for rewards on these missions, but now that the Switch version has more manageable and gracious requirements for "A" ranks (especially in the damage taken department), these are much less of chores.

Shot through the heart and Zelda's to blame. Moblin gives his forces a bad name.

Speaking of chores, one of the biggest problems with the original Adventure Mode in both Hyrule Warriors and its Legends incarnation was that grinding for item cards was such a chore. Item cards allow you to discover secrets along the Adventure Mode maps, which in turn allow you to earn the reward for that particular grid square. The Nintendo Switch version remedies this with an insanely helpful ability to press the Plus button on the right JoyCon to bring up a shop where you can purchase any item card you've already collected in the past on that given Adventure Mode map. It's such a welcomed feature that I wondered why the heck it wasn't included in the original game to begin with!

Furthermore, another impressive improvement to Adventure Mode as well as numerous levels in Legend Mode and Free Play is the ability to switch between characters on the fly, something introduced in Legends on the Nintendo 3DS, but available in this definitive version as well. It's a twofold benefit: 1) For Adventure Mode map spaces with two rewards for two different characters, you can switch between characters to acquire their awards in battle, and 2) It allows you to cover more ground without all the frantic backtracking to save bases. Additionally, you can command captains to different areas in missions, making it so you don't have to babysit everyone or every base on the battlefield all the time. While one character takes on the enemy's offensive on the allied base, you can capture some keeps.

For days when Link's legs are just too tired, he takes his Spinner out for a spin.
The creativity with weapons and moves in Hyrule Warriors is phenomenal.

This is even better realized through cooperative play with two players locally on one Switch. This makes most missions much more manageable with the addition of splitting up tasks between players. In certain Adventure Mode missions, one player can choose a weaker character that relies on a much stronger, higher-leveled character in order to do the brunt of the work, all the while earning the rewards for the mission. Co-Op mode understandably contains less enemies on screen at one time for either player instead of a mass horde of enemy forces to bulldoze through like when playing solo, but that's to be expected. What isn't, however, is that strangely, Co-Op mode has to get activated with a click of the left stick before the beginning of every mission, which is a bit vexing, especially as sometimes I would forget to allow my older brother into the session by starting the mission before he had a chance to join in. Thus, I'd have to back out to the mission menu again and let him in. Why it couldn't just be turned on once and kept on for every mission so players wouldn't have to continually add a second player is anyone's guess.

Call upon a "My Fairy" fairy in battle to clear the surrounding area
of enemies, racking up a big K.O. count in the process.

Here comes the verdict, and the question many of you have probably been asking: If you've already played either or both versions of Hyrule Warriors, is it worth picking up the Definitive Edition on the Nintendo Switch? Well, yes and no. I annoyingly have to say, "It depends." If you're like me and have played both versions, but never downloaded the DLC, then heck yes, it is! There is still so much new content to be had here. If you already have invested hundreds of hours into unlock characters, costumes, weapons, and more in past Hyrule Warriors versions, then you can probably feel safe in passing on the Switch game.

While small in stature, Toon Look makes a big impression on the battlefield.

However, it's important to note that regardless of whether or not you jump into Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition, you can feel safe in buying it at full price. The Wii U version, plus all of the DLC, would run a given person way more than the asking price of the Switch game. Add in two exclusive Breath of the Wild costumes for Link and Zelda respectively and all the quality of life improvements of the game, and Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition scores high marks and a high K.O. count while it's at it.

[SPC Says: A-]

800th Review! Fire Emblem Warriors (NSW) Review

It's a monumental day for SuperPhillip Central! We've amassed 800 reviews as of this new review on the site! Not a day too early or too late either! A day after my birthday and a day before a new month rolls around. Nice! Here are my thoughts of the Nintendo Switch version of Fire Emblem Warriors! Here's to the next 100 reviews!

These warriors are ready to come out and pla~a~ay!

Hyrule Warriors was a Dynasty Warriors game that incorporated a myriad of satisfying elements from The Legend of Zelda franchise to create a Zelda Musou that was a pleasure to play. It having a tremendous amount of fan service for those who love the series didn't hurt things either. When the game released and after the hype winded down, Nintendo fans quickly brainstormed what would be another franchise from the big N that would be perfect for the Musou treatment. A clear winner in that debate was Fire Emblem, which recently has become quite popular over the past five years.

Apparently, Koei Tecmo and Nintendo both agreed with the fans here, joining together to make Fire Emblem Warriors, the resulting project, a reality. While Fire Emblem doesn't have as much of a draw with the mainstream as Zelda, can one who knows little about Intelligent Systems' series of strategy RPGs still find enjoyment out of Fire Emblem Warriors with its fast-paced action focus?

Like any Dynasty Warriors style game, Fire Emblem's take on the Musou genre pits an all-star cast of characters, this time all related to the games of the Fire Emblem franchise, and throws them into pulse-pounding, action-packed quarrels across a great many battlefield. With just a sword, axe, bow and arrow, or lance to your name, the joy of games like this is being able to feel like a one-man unstoppable army, unleashing your might on a plethora of foes, mowing them down by the hundreds with fantastical attacks and combos.

Make a path through the opposition like a knife through butter.

Most maps require you to secure enemy bases and defeat particular opponents on the battlefield to progress in missions. This is all the while defending your own bases and characters yourself. Fire Emblem Warriors makes this process easier by allowing you to command your forces before and during battles. You select a character on your side and set a point of interest on the map screen for them to travel to, such as an enemy location, a base, or a specific grid on the map. You can have up to eight characters on your side at one time, with a maximum of four of them being playable, able to switch between on the fly with the up direction on the Left Joy Con. Having these options opens up new battle strategies, and makes it on harder fights that you're not as easily overwhelmed by the enemy as you attempt to make sense of all of the carnage on the battlefield. Dictating where your units move and what opponents they do battle with can be the difference between a swift victory or a horrible defeat.

Many lives were lost to Rowan's blade on that fateful day of battle.

Of course, some Fire Emblem trappings go into this Musou take on the franchise, so you can't just send your units willy nilly to battle. Like its patriarchal series, Fire Emblem Warriors uses a weapon triad, which takes a paper-rock-scissors like approach with weaponry. Obviously, instead of using rocks to crush scissors to smithereens -- swords, axes, and lances are the three weapon types used in the game. If you use a weapon strong against a certain opponent, they'll go down with ease, while using a weapon that they can easily defend will make that enemy take a lengthy period of time to whittle their health meter down. Likewise, the weapon triad works against you as well, making it so you can get bodies by certain weapon types if you're not careful, especially if you're under-leveled. Additionally, it's important to consider magic tome users, archers, and Pegasus Knights as well, as archers can immediately take out Pegasus Knights with one or two hits of their arrows while being weak to spells of tome users.

As long as Cordelia is out of the way of archers' shots, she's golden in her goal to demolish enemy forces.

Dynasty Warriors and Musou games seldom have complex controls, and this is also the case with Fire Emblem Warriors. Through a simple series of presses of the X and Y buttons, one for light attacks and one for heavier attacks, you slice, dice, thrash, and attack your way through enemy defenses, all the while carving a path towards victory. As you attack and defeat foes, two gauges increase. One is the Warrior Gauge, which when full allows you to press the A button and unleash a powerful and impressive-looking attack on a group of enemies in the vicinity. It's perfect for clearing a room or surrounding area with ease.

With a press of the A button, unleash incredible Warrior attacks like this one when your gauge is full.

Furthermore, when the higher powered gauge fills and is used, your character enters Awakening Mode, granting them the power to break enemies' guards effortlessly and build up a huge combo and K.O. streak. Also, when a stronger opponent like a base or enemy captain performs a heavy attack, if you dodge it, a circular meter will pop over their head. If you deal enough damage to empty this meter, you'll unleash a special power attack that will take out a considerable amount of enemy health, perfect for depleting a more difficult foe's health bar more quickly.

After battle, you get a tally of rewards given to you in the form of weapons, materials, and money. As you progress in the various modes and difficulty settings of Fire Emblem Warriors, the weapons you find from fallen foes on the battlefield and occasionally found after battle have improved stats to them, sometimes offering higher attack power and many slots to store abilities in. These abilities can range from taking out monster-type enemies in one hit to getting higher defense in battle. Materials have two uses: upgrading weapons and upgrading your characters' skills by using crests. Crests improve aspects of your character such as increasing their combo length, granting them the ability to use healing items mid-battle, being better at defending against specific weapon types, and much more.

Fire Emblem Awakening's Chrom isn't here to show off his new armor. That much is for certain.

I must say, however, that I wish there was a more streamlined process to upgrade each character in Fire Emblem Warriors. It's not so much an issue at the beginning of the game where you have a limited number of characters to select from, but by the end of the story mode, you have about 20 individual characters, each with their own crests in three categories. I found that after each battle I did I was moving between character page after character page, using new crests to provide new skills for each character or simply checking to see if something new could be learned. It's an involved process, and one that many players will spend a fair amount of time devoted to if they want to have a fighting chance on higher difficulties.

While not as tedious, changing weapons is also something that you will want to do in Fire Emblem Warriors as well. Thankfully, FEW offers the ability to optimize your equipment to use the strongest weapon available for a given character. Still, it only bases that off weapon power and not things like added slot bonuses that weapons also possess.

Don't worry, female Robin fans. You can pick that version of Robin as an unlockable costume option.

Outside of the story mode, taking up to 10-14 hours to complete if you're not revisiting missions, there is the History Mode which is Fire Emblem Warriors' side mode. However, unlike what Hyrule Warriors offered in side content with its Adventure Mode, FEW's History Mode is much less of a headache. History Mode tells the tale of numerous stories within the Fire Emblem mythos.
This mode is played out on traditional Fire Emblem series maps, but instead of each skirmish being a quick one-on-one fight as seen in the FE games, they unfold in Warriors form with different objectives and conditions to consider. Successfully completing a battle might have barriers get removed from the battlefield to access new portions of the History Mode map, or backup forces might be called in as well. Winning a battle also rewards you with a prize, and you get a special prize for completing a mission with the highest grade possible (usually performed by clearing the battle under a set amount of time, while taking low damage, and taking out enough enemies).

History Mode provides a double dose of the content story mode already provided, bolstering the playtime of Fire Emblem Warriors to astronomical levels. You're definitely going to be getting your money's worth by purchasing this game. Throw in the ability to play with a friend locally and DLC packs for new characters and costumes, and the amount of content is seemingly endless without wearing out its welcome.

Things get a little dicier in cooperative play, but Fire Emblem Warriors
is still more than playable (and enjoyable, too).

Fire Emblem Warriors isn't the most technologically advanced Nintendo Switch game on the market. Textures and environments don't do overly much to make you wish to marvel at them, but the characters do animate wonderfully and have lots of color and vividness to them. While the visuals don't particularly excite, you can use one of two options to run FEW at a higher frame-rate with a lower resolution, or vice versa, which is an option I don't see much on home console releases. Thus, if you prefer 60 FPS with less pronounced features or 30 FPS with more detail, you can get it. Either way, it's nice to have a choice. The amount of foes on screen is also amazing to see, but you decidedly have less enemies to slice through in cooperative play, where the frame-rate is iffy at best. As a series, Fire Emblem has a terrific soundtrack to it, and many of the remixes and rearrangements in Fire Emblem Warriors sound energizing, though some are muffled by all of the voicework and action going on on the battlefield.

I think this enemy is regretting saying, "You'll rue the day you ever did battle with me!"

If there's one big gripe that Fire Emblem fans will have with this version of Warriors is that the roster isn't the most remarkable to be found. Only picking and choosing from mostly modern releases like Awakening, Fates, and Shadow Dragon means that the representation for the entire Fire Emblem series is not that admirable -- merely passable at best. Perhaps the developers wished to keep some picks for a sequel, but what is available now from a limited selection of games is rather disappointing to say the least. Fans have made it no secret that they don't care for the small amount of games and characters represented in Fire Emblem Warriors, and I can't help but agree with them on this point.

That notwithstanding, Fire Emblem Warriors does manage to be a delightful Musou game that is filled to the brim with content, unique battles, scenarios, and customization options to give anyone a satisfyingly good time. Though some characters play too similarly -- and the selection of characters and games is a bit on the small side representation-wise -- Fire Emblem Warriors doesn't disappoint much when it comes to the unmatched thrill and pleasure of striking down enormous swaths of enemies with a few simple-to-pull-off strikes and stylish combos. Sure, the simplistic combat of the Warriors franchise hasn't much evolved, making the games repetitive at times, but when you're defeating 100 enemies with one Warrior gauge attack, how can you argue? You're a Fire Emblem all-star, after all, destroyer of worlds.

[SPC Says: B]

Hyrule Warriors Legends (3DS) Review

It's a Nintendo 3DS centric month here on SuperPhillip Central, but if you're like me, you were a bit uneasy that we were more than halfway through the month of May without a review! That ends now, as I have in store two more Nintendo 3DS game reviews planned for this week. The first of the three is for Hyrule Warriors Legends, a watered down port of the Wii U original Hyrule Warriors. Though watered down, as you'll see with my in-depth review, that doesn't mean it still isn't fun!

Hyrule Warriors, come out and pla-a-ay~~!

When Hyrule Warriors hit the Wii U several years back, the draw of beating down armies of enemies across sizable maps as one's favorite Legend of Zelda characters was highly appealing. Taking such a large game and sizing it down on the Nintendo 3DS was no doubt a herculean task. Somehow, someway, the developers at Omega Force managed to successfully do this, though not without some hurdles. Overall, though, the final product in Hyrule Warriors Legends successfully brings the Wii U game to a bite-sized format, and also brings with it a slew of new content to make an already massive game even bigger.

Hyrule Warriors Legends continues the Musou-styled gameplay that other Koei Tecmo-developed Dynasty Warriors games follow. As a character in The Legend of Zelda mythos, you basically serve as a one person army, slaying upwards of thousands of enemies in a single mission. You run around an expansive battlefield capturing keeps to weaken the enemy forces. This is done by defeating multiple foes inside an enemy keep to lower a given keep's gauge. Once it is empty, the keep boss will appear. Defeating it will allow you to instantly claim that keep. Of course, the enemy wishes to do the same thing, so you have to be vigilant and as defensive as your are offensive.

The fun of the Dynasty Warriors series is wiping out armies of enemies quite effortlessly as Link is about to do.

While keep bosses are just slightly more powerful than the random enemies you can effortless slash and strike through, captains are much stronger foes, possessing their own health bars. Enemy commanders, usually taking the form of a Legend of Zelda character, have even more health than normal, and are the most difficult of ordinary foes to take down. It's usually smart to wait for them to make a special attack that leaves them temporarily vulnerable. It's then where a weak point gauge will appear over their head. When it's emptied through attacks, you can perform a powerful strike that can clear out a good portion of their health bar.

Then there are even bigger adversaries that can appear in certain missions in Hyrule Warriors Legends. These take the form of boss characters such as the fire-breathing dinosaur King Dodongo, the laser-shooting arachnid Gohma, or the flying dragon Argorok, to name a few. In true Zelda fashion, each boss has a weakness to a specific item. For instance, when King Dodongo opens its huge gaping maw of a mouth, ready to spew its flame breath, that is the opportunity to toss some bombs into its mouth. This dazes it, revealing a weak point gauge.

One of the two new bosses in Hyrule Warriors Legends, Phantom Ganon.

Like many Dynasty Warriors-themed games, the combat in Hyrule Warriors Legends doesn't stray too far from its accessible roots. There are but two main buttons for attacks, one weak and one strong, and pressing the buttons in different combinations offers different combos of varying strength to wipe out large swaths of enemy forces. Furthermore, the ability to lock onto stronger foes (though a bit more difficult in this version because it requires the use of the up direction on the D-Pad), helps in keeping your eye on a particular foe.

As you acquire Triforce gauge pieces and attack foes, your character's special gauge fills. When it's full, you can unleash a powerful strike that can take out a group of foes or even take out a good portion of a captain, commander, or boss's health bar. Through grabbing magic bottles, you can fill a focus gauge that when let loose, you can take out enemies with ease, even causing commander and boss weak points to automatically appear at the conclusion of your character's focus attack. Despite only having a handful of buttons for offense, the combat doesn't get too repetitive. It's quite enjoyable actually. That in addition to using the A button to roll out of the way of enemy attacks and to get around to the backside of an otherwise well-defended foe, and you have a lot of variety in Hyrule Warriors Legends's combat.

Unleash a special attack to clear the surrounding area of enemies.

There are some added benefits of convenience with Hyrule Warriors Legends. For one, many stages contain Owl Statues, that when activated, you can use an all-new item, the Ocarina, to warp to them. There's no more needing to trek all the way across a given stage just to perform a quick task. Additionally, many missions allow you to switch between characters. Not only does this mean you don't have to babysit the AI, as when a certain character is low in health, you can control them and move out of the way, but you can also use the touch screen to order the AI to a specific location or near a specific character. In stages where there are treasures that can only be opened with a certain character, you no longer have to play a mission twice or more just to open all of the treasures. You can simply switch to a playable character mid-battle.

The first mode players will jump into is the story-based Legend Mode. The story tells the tale of an unassuming Hyrule army soldier named Link that helps save Hyrule Castle from an attack from monsters. This piques the interest of Princess Zelda and her trusty guardian Impa, who both ask that Link join them on their quest to put an end to the evil that is threatening the land of Hyrule. Legend Mode spans 32 stages, having you control multiple characters as you defeat certain enemy commanders, complete objectives, and capture enemy keeps, all the while protecting your own keeps, particularly your base, and rescuing companions when necessary.

Link makes this look easy. Well, when you're facing ordinary foes like this, it actually is easy.

Hyrule Warriors Legends currently has 24 characters you can play as with more coming as DLC. You start out with just Link, but as you play through the game's various modes, you unlock new characters. Each character plays differently, some easier to use as others, and display personalities in both their victory celebrations as well as their attack styles. All characters earn experience points through defeating enemies, and through gaining levels, they grow stronger. Found Heart Containers and Pieces of Heart in stages and missions add to a given warrior's overall health.

Captains, commanders, and bosses drop materials as well as weapons when defeated. The materials are used to create badges that give characters abilities like more buttons combinations to use to make more powerful attacks, a second special gauge, the ability to use potions, quicker weak point deterioration, and a lot more. Many times you'll have to grind for a certain material if you want to get a specific bonus for a particular character, which can be very time-consuming on top of a bit aggravating. Each character has their own specific weapon type, and dropped weapons each have their own attack strength, potential element, as well as slots that add benefits in battle, such as increased Rupee, heart, material, and weapon drops.

Newcomer Linkle may not know east from west, but she can clear a room of baddies quite easily.

Compared to the Wii U original, the Nintendo 3DS's Hyrule Warriors Legends contains extra stages. There are three alternate tales in Legend Mode that feature a brand-new character named Linkle, who believes she's the legendary hero, several stages that show how the evil Cia built up her evil army, and an all-new Wind Waker-themed series of stages featuring newcomers to the Hyrule Warriors series, Tetra and King Daphnes (AKA The King of Red Lions).

The other new boss, the Helmaroc King, returns from The Wind Waker.

As stages in Legend Mode are completed, new levels open up in Adventure Mode, a mode that takes place on several grid-like maps, the first based on the original Legend of Zelda's map. Starting from the beginning position, you complete missions in order to open up adjacent missions. Some require you to earn a certain ranking through defeating a set number of enemies, completing the mission under a specific amount of time, and taking little damage. Completed missions unlock goodies like new weapons, Heart Containers and Pieces of Heart for specific characters, new costumes, and even new characters. You also earn item cards to be used on maps like Bombs, Candles, and Digging Mitts which are used on grid locations at specific spots to reveal hidden goodies to earn in a mission. Some goodies can only be earned through uncovering them on the map and by satisfying conditions such as getting an A-Rank.

Like grinding for materials, there is a certain amount of grinding to be found in Adventure Mode as well. Certain missions unlock new item cards once you complete them, and this means that many times you'll find yourself lacking a needed item card to unlock a hidden prize. This results in having to replay certain missions just to get the item card that you require. This gets a bit annoying especially as you progress across the Adventure Mode map.

To say that Hyrule Warriors Legends is packed with content is truth, but even then, that might be an understatement. Between defeating all 180 Gold Skulltula in missions that appear after finishing off a certain in-mission task, leveling up characters, earning each character's several weapons, unlocking new costumes, collecting all of the Pieces of Heart and Heart Containers in the game from completing Adventure Mode map missions and finding them in treasure chests in missions, beating each Adventure Mode map after the initial NES Legend of Zelda map, and collecting enough materials to max out each character's abilities in the Bazaar section of the game, Hyrule Warriors Legends will keep players hacking and slashing for hundreds of hours. If you can deal with the occasional repetitive gameplay, then you'll have more than enough motivation to keep playing.

The skies might be clear outside, but it's still raining arrows on these unsuspecting foes nonetheless.

Outside of being packed with content, Hyrule Warriors Legends is packed with frame-rate issues on OG Nintendo 3DS hardware, whether the vanilla 3DS model or the 3DS XL model. The New 3DS allows the game to run much better with a much stronger frame-rate. Still, I played Hyrule Warriors Legends on a vanilla, non-New 3DS, 3DS. My experience was not ruined by this at all. In any case, you'll find enemies appearing in front of you out of nowhere (though the amount of foes on screen at one time is quite impressive), a relatively weak draw distance in levels, and some slow-down, Regardless, having a Wii U game paired down onto the Nintendo 3DS hardware was no small feat, but it is highly stunning what the developers were able to accomplish all the same, even with the game's performance issues.

Hyrule Warriors Legends takes the brilliant hacking and slashing fun of the Wii U's Hyrule Warriors, places all the DLC from the game into this 3DS version, adds a ton of new content, and makes for a game that fans will be playing for months if not years. While the performance issues do detract slightly from the experience, and some control issues do rear their ugly head into things, overall, Hyrule Warriors Legends is very much a love letter to Zelda fans and a great game on top of that.

[SPC Says: B+]

Better Late Than Never Reviews: Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 3 (PS3, 360) Review

As a fan of a handful of Gundam series, it is with disappointment that I present to you this Better Late Than Never review. It's for Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 3, a game that visually looks striking-- at least the mobile suit part. Unfortunately, it takes more than beautiful cel-shaded mobile suit models to impress SuperPhillip Central. This review shows just that.

Gun...damn, is this game repetitive!

Last year I had the great experience of playing Hyrule Warriors, a Dynasty Warriors style game that featured The Legend of Zelda. Its gameplay and content were both quite excellent. Perhaps I should have lowered my expectations when entering another game with the Dynasty Warriors moniker, Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 3. Instead of a game that could easily be played for 50+ hours without complaints, I received a game that just would never end. I constantly wished for the massively boring and worthless story to be told to be over, thinking the game could go screw itself after fake ending after fake ending. Sadly, Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 3 is a turkey of a Dynasty Warriors game.

The story of Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 3 takes all of the familiar and even unfamiliar pilots and characters across numerous Gundam series and puts them into a parallel world. The goal is to find their way out of this world, forging new alliances and participating in battle after battle until the whole thing gets horribly repetitive and wears out its welcome. I couldn't tell you much else about the story other than I was more than glad to just mash the X button to fast forward through the insanely cheesy dialogue. That was only after subjecting myself to some of the most inane discussions I've had to witness in quite a while. I know this is anime and all, but seemingly every conversation led nowhere or was the same thing only with different characters.

"Oh! You're in this parallel world, too? How did you get here?"
"I don't know. I'm going to tell you the last thing I did before I was transported to this world, and it's going to be similar to the fifty-six other characters' tales. Now, let's have forty more lines of dialogue that is positively aimless in order to annoy Phil."

While the story and especially the dialogue are better left for a high school drama student's audition, the presentation of Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 3 gets points for being visually interesting, if only for the stars of the game, the mobile suits.. The amazing cel-shaded look of mobile suits really is eye-catching and look brilliant. Sure, everything else isn't very compelling, especially texture-wise, but at least what you control and you destroy look great. The music borrows some themes verbatim from past Dynasty Warriors: Gundam games, but that music wasn't bad by any stretch of the imagination to begin with. If it ain't broke, right?

The mobile suits are indeed the star of the visual show.

Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 3 is a cruel temptress. It promises a game packed with countless missions to complete, but they end up all being so similar to one another that one has to ask what the point is. Mission Mode from past Dynasty Warriors: Gundam games returns to the spotlight with this third installment. This time there are a smorgasbord of mission types to select from. History missions focus on reenactments of battles throughout an assortment of Gundam series like Mobile Suit Gundam, G Gundam, Gundam Wing, Turn A Gundam, among many others. In Collection missions, clearing these unlocks rare mobile suit designs to add to your arsenal. Memorial missions unlock after achieving certain in-game goals such as taking down 100 ace pilots, for instance.

It feels great to go in the middle of a huge group
of enemy mobile suits and take them all out.

There are also plenty of other types like the more difficult Challenge missions, Friendship missions, Relation, and Special missions to do. You might think that with all of these mission types that you'll have a lot of variety in the actual missions you battle in. You'd be thinking wrong, however.

Most battles in Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 3 play out in a similar fashion. There are different areas of the map to capture for your side (e.g. repair hangars to replenish health of allies, mobile suit factory to replenish your forces' gauge, and catapults that can send you across the map in an instant), and the aim of a typical Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 3 mission is to get the enemy forces' gauge down to zero by capturing their controlled areas and defeating rival ace pilots. The former is performed by destroying enemy mobile suits within a given area; thus lowering the control gauge. When it hits zero, your side has taken over control of that area.

Don't mind me. I'm just upping my kill count.

When the enemy forces' gauge empties, the commander of the forces enters battle. Defeating him or her results in a victory. The same thing happens for your side's defeat as well. If your side's gauge hits zero and you or your commander are destroyed, it's game over.

It's only when you hit certain History missions that Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 3 offers any semblance of variety. Sometimes you'll be asked to take down 1,000 mobile suits. Others require the capturing of certain bases, while others are time limit oriented. These are so few and far between that you can't help but feel tedium rears its ugly head into the picture.

Additionally, the progression of missions is often too confusing or worse yet, totally obtuse. It's not a good sign when there's an interface that shows what missions are available to proceed in the game, and it isn't always the most up to date and helpful. Many times I'd be cycling through my assortment of Gundam and mobile suit pilots, hoping I'd pick the right one to advance the story.

When two ace pilots strike at the same time,
you get a scene and engagement such as this one.

The actual gameplay of Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 3 is done well enough. Mobile suits control tightly, and each have a nice sense of, well... mobility, about them. You can use a suit's thrusters to speed along the battlefield, though it can run out if used too much, requiring a quick cool-down period. Essentially only two buttons are used for attacks, square and triangle, and these need to be alternated to perform the more visually interesting and powerful combos from each mobile suit. In addition to regular attacks, you can utilize a super-strong special attack or call in a partner for some temporary destruction by sacrificing some energy from your mobile suit's special gauge. Heaven help you if you end up in a battle in a close quarters situation, though. The camera is not well suited for these types of engagements.

The Unicorn Gundam is burning red!
Hey, that's Domon Kasshu's gimmick!

After each battle, your pilot earns experience and can level up to a maximum level of 50. Each level earned grants higher stats like melee strength, shot strength, and armor strength. You also get mobile suits based on ace pilots you defeated and what suit you were piloting in that mission. Each boast different stats, and if you find a suit you really like, you can upgrade its slots with higher stats benefits for a price (each suit has a different amount of slots, and doing harder difficulties can grant you suits with up to 10 slots). This makes it where you can pilot immensely powerful mobile suits that can take down ace pilots like they were butter. It's pretty satisfying like much of the gameplay in Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 3.

That's why it's just a shame that the mission structure is so obtuse and the missions themselves seldom change things up. It makes Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 3 such a chore to play in extended sessions or even after a set amount of hours of total play time. Yes, the gameplay is still the good old fashioned Dynasty Warriors that fans of the series can enjoy, but the lack of mission variety hurts the game tremendously. Mission abort!

[SPC Says: D]