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 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+]

Hyrule Warriors (Wii U) Review

We're nearly halfway through October already, and we've yet to see a review! That is until now. I have four reviews lined up for this week, actually, in order to make up for it. SuperPhillip Central's first review of October is an unlikely partnership, The Legend of Zelda and Dynasty Warriors. What you get from that is Hyrule Warriors, and here is my in-depth review!

The Legend of Dynasty Warriors

When it was revealed early last year that The Legend of Zelda was shifting genres and receiving a spin-off based on Dynasty Warriors, many gamers, notably fans of Zelda, didn't quite know what to expect, or even think for that matter. Was Nintendo selling out and cheapening the Zelda name in the process? Well, after having played the end result, Hyrule Warriors, quite extensively, I can happily say that not only is the Zelda brand not cheapened, but the actual game itself is a remarkable creation, worthy of both Zelda and Dynasty Warriors fans.

For those who have never played a Dynasty Warriors or Musou-style game before, which is quite possible considering how niche of a series/genre it is, Hyrule Warriors basically follows the same approach. Thus, once you've played through Hyrule Warriors, you can most likely ease into any other Musou-style game without much problem.

Feel free to attack me, Ghirahim,
just don't do that creepy tongue thing!

In Hyrule Warriors, you control one character in a relatively expansive battlefield, being a one-man or woman army, effortlessly slashing and striking down an abundance of enemies. Most missions require the capturing and holding of specific rooms called keeps. As enemies are defeated inside an opposing force's keep, the keep strength gauge decreases. Once it has emptied, the keep boss, usually a slightly stronger mook enemy, makes an appearance. Defeating this foe will allow your side to take over control of said keep.

Target practice for Link.
It helps he's aiming for the big one!

Beyond weak enemies that seldom fight back, there are more powerful enemies known as captains that not only strike back often, but they also possess a larger amount of health. In Hyrule Warriors there are even more formidable and larger boss characters in the form of Legend of Zelda creatures like King Dodongo, Manhandla, Gohma, and more. Through acquiring the proper item from a treasure chest (even awesomely including the traditional "Zelda opening treasure chest" animation and jingle), such as series' staples bombs, a bow and arrow, and a hookshot, your character is able to exploit boss creature weak points to slowly hack away at their health.

Open wide and say "ah", King Dodongo!

Captains and boss characters have points where they are the most vulnerable to attack. This usually happens after they have used a forceful move. It's here where a silver circular gauge will appear over their head. Through attacking them until this gauge is emptied, your warrior will be able to unleash a mighty blow to their overall health.

Lana is a wholly original character
for Hyrule Warriors.

Combat is relatively simple, sometimes heading in a direction of overly repetitive, in Hyrule Warriors, requiring you to simply hit two buttons for attacks, one light attack button and one heavy attack button, with the latter taking your warrior more time to use. Using these buttons in specific combinations lets loose different combos, allowing a whole slew of creative and awesome-looking combat maneuvers onto foes. As enemies are defeated, a yellow gauge slowly fills. Once filled to the max, you can unleash a powerful move that can easily wipe out a wide area of weaker enemies, resulting in a high total of K.O.s. While it can seem tedious to only use two buttons to take out enemies that are for the most part pushovers (save for captains and boss characters), the combat remains engaging. It's a wonderful and empowering feeling to be able to take down legions and rooms full of enemies by your sole lonesome.

Link occasionally uses this sword at home
when he misplaces his flashlight.

Of course, there can also be some annoyances, such as dealing with AI partners who are pretty much brain dead. Don't be surprised when you're the only person on your force doing your fair share (generally and then some) of the work, taking keeps, beating down captains, protecting members of your force, and all that jazz. Furthermore, Hyrule Warriors features a lock-on system that is similar to what debuted in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. This is terrific for keeping focus on one stronger foe, but I noticed that when there were two or more captains and/or bosses present, it was sometimes harder to change focus to my intended target than I would have liked.

Regardless, there are approximately a dozen characters to use and level up with experience points within Hyrule Warriors. Each possesses their own personalities and combat styles to fit said personalities, making so that each character feels unique from the others. In addition to that, each character eventually unlocks multiple types of weapons. For instance, Link starts out with a basic sword, but he can go on to unlock an arsonist's dream, a Fire Rod, and a mighty ball and chain as seen in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.

Burn, baby, burn.

Defeated captains, bosses, or otherwise stronger-than-normal enemies can drop new weapons for players to pick up. Each weapon has its own attack strength, potential element (fire, water, light, etc.) as well as possibly slots to equip beneficial bonuses like increased hearts from fallen enemies, stronger attacks, and much more. Weapons can be merged together to form new creations in the Smithy portion of the Bazaar in order to make weapons that fit a particular need in battle.

The Bazaar is where the customization of characters takes place. Dropped materials from captains and bosses can be used to create badges for characters. Badges basically instill effects on characters, such as giving them new combos, better defense, better restoration upon collecting a heart, decreased time to capture keeps, and so much more. As the better badges require rarer materials from foes, there can be A LOT of grinding in hopes that that one enemy will finally drop that rare material you've been looking for, which can be frustrating and no doubt annoying to some players.

Badges are a warrior's best friend.

Outside of badges and creating new weapons, new potions with varying temporary effects can be conjured up at the Bazaar too. In addition to those helpful things, characters can be leveled up as far as the highest leveled character, pending you possess enough rupees to do so.

As for modes within Hyrule Warriors, Legend Mode is the story mode of the game. It puts you in the role of various characters through multiple chapters, following a story involving a wicked witch who wishes nothing more than the destruction of Hyrule. Thus, Princess Zelda and her faithful assistant Impa look to an ordinary soldier (save for his blatant disregard for safety, as he is the only soldier without a helmet) named Link to help save the kingdom. The story is told through cinematics and has bookends featuring a fully voiced narrator.

It's a who's who of Zelda characters
in Hyrule Warriors.

The second mode that most players will delve into is the more challenging Adventure Mode. Here, the map from the original Legend of Zelda on the NES/Famicom is shown, divided up by squares, and through completing missions, you open adjacent squares with newer challenges to take on. Each mission has its own set of rewards for not only beating the mission, but also for getting a great "A" rank on them, performed by satisfying a number of requirements like taking a minimal amount of damage, defeating a number of enemies, and clearing the mission under a set time. Sometimes adjacent squares will only unlock if you've beaten the mission above a certain rank.

Aren't they the same per--
Oh, wait. "Spoilers" and such!

Taking the idea of items from The Legend of Zelda, many squares require searching in them to unlock bonus rewards that can be earned for completing them. This is done through using item cards, acquired through completing specific mission squares, on the correct part of a square's map. For instance, using a compass on a part of the map will show where a hidden bonus reward is located. Then, by using the appropriate item on that spot will unlock the ability to play for that bonus, such as using a bomb on a specific wall will reveal a secret cave, unlocking a new reward to play for in that square's mission.

Adventure Mode contains the 
hardest challenges within Hyrule Warriors. 

Like getting materials, there is some grinding to do with Adventure Mode as well. Many squares require the use of an item card to find that square's bonus. This means you'll eventually have to redo already completed missions just to earn the requisite item card needed for another square's bonus. While farming for rare materials wasn't annoying to me-- nay, it was perhaps even fun-- playing the same missions over and over just to get enough bomb item cards, for instance, was less than enjoyable.

The further out you are from the starting Adventure Mode square, the harder the missions become. However, the better the potential bonuses become for completing said missions are, as well. Some missions are as simple as defeating a set number of enemies, while others implement parameters such as all attacks being devastating (i.e. a given hit takes out nearly all of your warrior's health and the same goes for attacking enemies). Adventure Mode is necessary if one wishes to strengthen their stable of warriors, unlock exclusive weapons for them, and increase their health through finding heart containers and pieces of heart.

Stop, Darunia says, because it's hammer time!

Both Legend Mode and Adventure Mode contain hidden heart containers, heart pieces, and gold skulltula (a la Ocarina of Time) to collect. These are not at all mandatory to proceed in Hyrule Warriors, but they're nice for completionists to collect and those who'd like an easier time at the game. In Legend Mode, heart pieces are generally found hidden in chests that are revealed by bombing unsuspecting rocks on each map. Whereas in Adventure Mode they're generally found by capturing certain keeps for your own benefit. Gold skulltulas happen to appear once certain in-mission objectives are complete, such as defeating 1,000 enemies, for example. They appear at a general marked location on the game map. You have to find and defeat the gold skulltula before it disappears from the battlefield. Many of these collectibles only pop up if a specific character is used, so don't be surprised if you must play through given levels and missions multiple times just for a chance to collect everything.

Playing missions multiple times is sometimes a requirement just because some missions can be quite challenging! However, Hyrule Warriors does allow for an easier time if you have friend to help you with its local cooperative play, which can be played in any mode of Hyrule Warriors. One player uses the Wii U GamePad and plays on its screen while the other player uses a Wii U Pro Controller or other controller and the TV screen. This is a very cool way of doing things, as it gives both players an entire screen of real estate to work with. However, there's two negatives here: 1) The frame-rate takes a noticeable hit during co-op play, and 2) While it's nice to see local co-op represented, online co-op play, something that most Dynasty Warriors games have featured in the past, is questionably absent from Hyrule Warriors. This is a big oversight, especially for those without a local buddy to play the game with.

Two warriors are better than one!
That IS the saying, right?

Outside of the frame-rate during cooperative play, Hyrule Warriors sports a pretty well put-together presentation package. While ground textures and environments aren't the most impressive to look at, the characters and their animations lead the charge to amaze. They're really well done, and the combat's fastness and fluidity is shown well via a smooth frame-rate. There's no voice acting aside from the aforementioned narration of Legend Mode, so it can be a tad hard to pay attention to the text dialogue while in the middle of battle. Meanwhile, the soundtrack is typical Dynasty Warriors fare with multiple remixed Zelda themes as well as a healthy helping of new stuff thrown in. That is to say that it is incredibly awesome.

Hyrule Warriors is without question my favorite of the Dynasty Warriors/Musou style games. That is most likely due to the amount of Legend of Zelda fan service, but it's also because of how complete, engaging, and enjoyable the entire package is. The lack of online play and some minor gameplay annoyances do detract from the overall experience, but all in all, Hyrule Warriors successfully gives Dynasty Warriors and Zelda fans the best of both worlds.

[SPC Says: 9.0/10]