Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity - Review

Over the last few years, we’ve seen an expansion in Musou type games which obviously started in the ever popular Dynasty Warriors. The hack and slash DNA has touched a variety of franchises such as Berserk, Fist of the North Star, One Piece and more.

The latest addition to their arsenal of satisfying fun combo-smashing gameplay is Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity. Yes, a Zelda themed Musou game. Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was such a masterpiece on the Nintendo Switch that fans have been eager to play the sequel since June 2019, when a teaser trailer was revealed in E3. So what better way to get your fix of BOTW while you’re waiting. And sure, it might not necessarily be as in-depth as the masterpiece, but with all the familiar faces in this game, you’ll definitely still have fun, especially for Musou game fans.

Nintendo has worked pretty hard with Koei Tecmo to bring over the visuals, characters and mechanics over from Breath of the Wild to their Musou type games, which they’ve managed to strike a pretty good balance without straying too far away. The gameplay uses a the Musou formula where you use a character where you’re able to run through the map and attack your enemies with a set amount of satisfying combos, which you unlock as you open the game up. However, not only that but they’ve brought over some fighting mechanics from Breath of the Wild such as the parry, or dodge which lets your character ‘flurry’ attack. Familiar weapons are used such as the bombs, and ice pillars (just to name a couple) which you can use to stun and break some mini-boss’ guard. You’ll also see all the familiar weapons Link handles in BOTW as some levels require you to use a two-handed weapon, spear and other specifics to ensure you use a variety of weapons. However, as Breath of the Wild’s weapons break after wearing it down from overuse, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity does not hold that mechanic, but rather lets you upgrade your weapon of choice’s level by collecting duplicates through gameplay and using them.

Age of Calamity really does bring all the familiarities of Breath of the Wild from the identical world-map, all the way through to the familiar faces you’ll come across as you progress through the game. This is no surprise as the story takes place prior to the events of Breath of the Wild, so you can see this more as a prequel. Age of Calamity narrative starts during the events when the guardians were wreaking havoc and destroying Hyrule Castle. As the castle is being over-run, a tiny (baby) guardian is activated from Zelda’s power from its slumber. This ‘baby-guardian’ manages to escape the war and destruction by time-travelling back to an earlier era where they had only just unearthed the Divine Beasts, and the only enemies to be worried about are the hordes of Bokoblins (initially).

As you advance through the story, you meet the full cast from the Divine Beasts and its Champions all the way to the evil yet bumbling and lovable Master Kohga and his Yiga clan, and a whole lot more! And while there’s a high volume of familiar enemies you battle, there’s also a new and ‘mysterious’ enemy. But that’s something you’ll have to uncover as you play the game itself (no spoilers here). 

Age of Calamity does a great job in filling in details that might have been missing in Breath of the Wild. You know that Link has met some of the Knights of the Divine Beast before... but was never expanded on in detail. It had always kept you guessing, whereas Age of Calamity fills the gaps for you, revealing Links interactions, also due to the lack of memory loss as seen in Breath of the Wild.

As per any Musou game, this is not only a hack and slash. There’s a strategic element involved in terms of ensuring you take over a base/camp by defeating a ‘captain’ to ensure your side of the battle takes over that camp area. There are other sub-tasks which we see in all other Musou games such as defending certain camps and/or guiding a character from one area to another. Additionally, some enemies might appear and spawn at certain points, in which you’d have to either make your way over to that area on the battle-map, or switch over to one of the other characters you’re able to play, which provides a good variety of move-sets and combos.

There’s also an RPG element to this which expands the map areas. We see this by way of picking up items (as you do in BOTW) which lets you ‘unlock’ the Blacksmith to level up your weapons, and the Military Training Camp allowing you to level up your character(s) and more. In addition, items can be purchased to unlock character movesets and open up stables for purchasables across the map. Unfortunately this doesn’t add much to the game as it’s more of a hassle if you’re wanting to tick all the boxes on the world map. The only bonus is being able to unlock and have a 4 hit combo (and so on) opposed to the previous 3 hit combo, but doesn’t add much more to the gameplay itself.

Overall, Age of Calamity is still a Musou game down to it’s core, but has done a fantastic job in porting over the Breath of the Wild visuals, characters and expanding prequel story. It’s great to see all the familiar faces and learning the prequel story to Breath of the Wild, which fills in the gaps in the narrative. This is one that’s probably worth it for any Breath of the Wild enthusiast… at least until Nintendo released the sequel to Breath of the Wild.

The Score

8.0

Review code provided by Nintendo

The Pros

+Expands on the Breath of the Wild narrative

+Satisfying hack and slash combos, as per Musou games

+Able to pilot the Divine Beasts and play as their riders

The Cons

-Could be bored if you’re not a Musou-game fan

-Wish more elemental dynamics as seen in BOTW would be integrated

-Can come across repetitive once you master all combos