Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, Game Live Japan 2020 preview

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Link Impa Daruk Certainties and Doubts The community's reaction to Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity is getting hilarious. The musou genre has never met with particular acclaim in our part, but if you thought that a prequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, one of the most acclaimed and influential games of all time, would have made everyone agree, or at least he would have convinced the most skeptical to give the benefit of the doubt to this new collaboration between Nintendo and Koei Tecmo, you were very wrong: if possible, the hatred towards this genre has even grown, perhaps because the fans would have preferred to play immediately Breath of the Wild 2 rather than a musou officially connected to the story. Obviously it is still too early to understand the scope of this new Hyrule Warriors, also because the recent Game Live Japan has been quite stingy with details and information: here's what we discovered about a title that could reserve many surprises even for its detractors ...

Link

Game Live Japan 2020 focused above all on the character of Link, the protagonist who needs no introduction and who in The Era of Calamity has not yet lost his memory : we remind you, in fact, that Hyrule Warriors takes place one hundred years before the events of Breath of the Wild, during the tragic war against Ganon that will claim many illustrious victims. Armed with sword and shield, Link makes his way through hundreds of enemies as in any self-respecting musou, running from one objective to another in the maps shown: the prairies around Hyrule Castle and Mount Death. Obviously there will be many more maps to fight in, but in the gameplay sequences shown we noticed a great attention to detail and sources, recognizing some scenarios that we explored in Breath of the Wild a hundred years later. It is important to underline, in fact, that the developer Omega Force is working hand in hand with the team that created Breath of the Wild precisely to ensure maximum fidelity to the sources.

We have therefore seen Link in action: our hero of course it can attack with the sword, ringing repeated blows, and the combat system is very reminiscent of Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition. Link can dodge and protect himself with his shield, which among other things he can use as a kind of skateboard - just like in Breath of the Wild - to pick up speed and run over enemies on the way. The maps are so vast, in fact, that it will be necessary to resort to some tricks to move quickly, and one of these is the Paravela, the tool that even in Breath of the Wild allowed Link to glide through the air: we don't know exactly which ones are the conditions to use it in Hyrule Warriors, but obviously it will not be possible to explore the maps at three hundred and sixty degrees, since they will still be bounded by invisible walls.

Another tool that Link can use in combat is the Sheikah Tablet, which apparently was very widespread in the era of Calamity, since our protagonist will not be the only one to possess it. It seems that each playable character can only use a certain number of Sheikah runes that, perhaps, will have to be chosen before participating in the mission. In the cutscenes shown, Link uses Stasys to paralyze enemies, Bombs to damage them, and Glacyor to soar through the air and attack from above with his sword or bow. Judging from the above, the combat system guarantees a fair variety of combinations: Glacyor, for example, can damage enemies with blocks of ice - even in the absence of water - and Link can use them to take cover or divide enemy armies. Finally, we discovered that Link will be able to wield at least one second weapon: the spear. The combos will completely change, as the spear also has a greater range than the sword, and Link will acquire a special dodge instead of the usual guard.

Impa

We already know that we can also play as Zelda and the four legendary heroes, but Impa was the first unreleased character to be introduced after the game was announced. Obviously she is a hundred years younger than Breath of the Wild, and for this reason she looks a lot like her niece Paya. In one of the gameplay sequences, Impa mentions her sister Purah, which suggests that the wacky researcher may also be playable. In any case, Impa appears in a cinematic in which, chased by a horde of Bokoblin, she lets the Sheikah Tablet escape: the latter, before ending up in Link's hands, would seem to somehow reactivate a tiny guardian who from that moment on, the protagonist will follow everywhere. We still don't know anything about the usefulness of this character, but Impa has shown itself in combat, showing off completely different mechanics than Link, starting with the weapon: the warrior Sheikah in fact holds a short sword and fights like a kunoichi.

Impa vaguely resembles that of Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition in agility and brutal elegance, but has totally different abilities. This Impa, in fact, can mark the enemies it faces and, by defeating them, it gains up to a certain number of "clones" that fight with it. Of course, the more clones Impa produces, the more damage it inflicts, and the number of clones in battle also alters its combos and the spectacularity of its special attacks. Koei Tecmo's guys have not overbalanced Impa's abilities too much and we don't even know if the young warrior can use other weapons like Link, but the gameplay sequences have confirmed the possibility of using the Sheikah runes also in her shoes and other dynamics game borrowed from Hyrule Warriors. By dealing a certain type of damage to some tougher enemies, it is possible to summon an indicator that reduces with each new hit, unlocking a kind of extremely powerful and spectacular final blow. Impa can also use the Paravela and magic wands, another tool that we have seen used not only to her, but also to the third playable character presented.

Daruk

Koei Tecmo had promised to reveal a new character, but it seems that many have misunderstood: they did not mean a new character, but another playable character who had already been announced. It is one of the four champions, Daruk, who in many ways resembles the Darunia of Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition. Unlike Link and Impa, Daruk is a much slower character who wields a huge greatsword and can use various Earth-related powers: he can hurl fiery boulders and summon small volcanoes under enemies, as well as having the Sheikah Tablet and other abilities. individual. One of them, for example, allows him to ball up and move quickly in this form, while another envelops him in a protective barrier we know as Daruk's Aegis in Breath of the Wild. Just like Link and Impa, Daruk can also collect and reuse the magic wands abandoned by defeated enemy wizards: various types of wands cast different spells related to fire, ice and electricity, just like in the original game.

Beyond Beyond the combat system that distinguishes each character from the others, the general structure of the game does not appear to change significantly during missions and there remain some shared mechanisms that are likely to have more role-playing implications in the intermission screens. We have noticed, for example, that Link and the others can collect materials and objects abandoned by enemies or kept in chests: they include weapons and ingredients, and this makes us think of a progression system similar to that seen in the previous Hyrule Warriors . Spending the collected materials, in fact, unlocked new skills and bonuses for each character, which guaranteed a fair level of customization and simplified life in the most difficult missions. Many aspects remain to be clarified on which these demonstrations of Game Live Japan 2020 have glossed over: the number of playable characters in total, the extra modes in addition to the campaign, the possible publication of themed DLCs and so on. However, there are a little less than two months left until the game is released, so soon we will find out directly everything there is to know.

The demonstrations of the Game Live Japan 2020 did not answer many questions about Hyrule Warriors: L 'era of Calamity, but they have certainly reconfirmed the care that Koei Tecmo and Nintendo are placing in the development of what may not be just another musou. Breath of the Wild fans may want to keep an eye on these pages in the next few days, although this new joint experiment is unlikely to change the minds of the critics of the genre.

CERTAINTY Attention to detail and respect for Comparisons of Breath of the Wild Sheikah runes integrate intelligently into the combat system DOUBTS We still don't know how many playable characters will be in total Many aspects of the gameplay still remain to be clarified