Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, The Ancestral Beat - Proof
Hyrule Warriors
Here on sportsgaming.win we don't usually give numerical votes to DLCs, but we recommend or discourage their purchase. In the case of the Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity Expansion Pass, we preferred another type of approach because the DLC in question is divided into two parts. The first, entitled Volume 1: The ancestral heartbeat, has already been available for a few days. Announced shortly after the release of the original title, this pack of additional content has been waiting for several months, and still others we will have to wait to play the second part, which will only be released in November. This is why the Expansion Pass is a bet on the future: the two DLCs cannot be purchased separately, which is why we will only rate the whole package after playing Volume 2.For now, therefore, referring you to our review of Hyrule Warriors: The Age of Calamity, we will limit ourselves to examining the contents of Volume 1 and expressing a first preliminary judgment on the Nintendo proposal in this tried of the Expansion Pass of Hyrule Warriors: The Age of Calamity.
New missions and rewards
If you are reading these lines, it means that you have probably played Hyrule Warriors or at least you do not belong to those categories that have snubbed him regardless just because he is a musou. Alternatively, you are a masochist, but who are we to question how you use your free time? Seriously, we will spare you all the spiel about musou and how this Koei Tecmo title tries significantly different paths in terms of gameplay to go straight to the heart of the matter: what's in this first DLC?To begin with, a new difficulty level - Apocalypse - accessible right away for every mission. And then a stack of new missions, marked with the word EX, which see us face hordes of enemies, timed and not, in the maps we have already explored. Some have been redesigned for the occasion and have small differences from the originals visited in the campaign, but in this case Koei Tecmo has mostly recycled various assets.
Hyrule Warriors, The Age of Calamity Among the new enemies, for example, only the Grublins who carry the explosive barrels on their back stand out, while the others, such as the giant Chu-chu, are models already seen. Most of the new bosses and minibosses are essentially identical to the old ones, except for the evil aura that surrounds them and a noticeably different move park, especially in the case of the new Shamanx.
EX missions are meant for players who have reached a fairly high level - most ask for at least level 70 and can be quite challenging. The objectives range from defeating all enemies to conquering outposts, passing through the escort of NPCs to a real fight for survival within a time limit.
In addition to the EX missions, the DLC also unlocks the dangerous monster missions, which work a bit like those of the Red Moon: two or three red icons appear on the map that represent as many missions in which we will have to defeat monsters more powerful than usual, real sponges that will test our ability to merge weapons and choose the right Brands.
Hyrule Warriors, Age of Calamity What are all these new missions for? To find new materials, of course. In fact, the DLC unlocks the Ancient court laboratory (EX) in which Rovely and Pruna work: in practice it is a scheme composed of nodes that represent new contents to be unlocked by paying in old and new materials. The bonuses are really interesting.
Some will upgrade the Sheikah tablet runes, others will enlarge the hero inventory, allowing you to accumulate more weapons for fusions. There are nodes that unlock new features: one of the first, for example, will allow us to buy apples before facing a mission, while another will reduce the cost of ingredients when cooking, and another will improve the stocks of merchants. To unlock some nodes it will not be enough to recover the required materials, but also to overcome small challenges in combat: to upgrade Kalamitron, for example, we will first have to counterattack at least five times using the Sheikah rune in question.
Weapons and characters
Hyrule Warriors, Age of Calamity The Ancient Court Laboratory (EX) also serves to unlock two new weapons, one for Link and one for Zelda. Although they are the protagonists of the series, the choice seemed a bit forced in some respects. Link, to begin with, could already wield three different weapons, and with the new one we are four: it's called a scourge and it's basically a sort of giant nunchaku that Link can wind around himself. It's a versatile and spectacular weapon, with a really weird special ability that allows Link to temporarily replicate the enemy's weapon.The copy will remain temporarily attached to the tip of the scourge and Link will deal more damage for the duration of this upgrade, represented by a dedicated indicator. When the gauge is completely discharged, we will have to wait for it to reload to be able to copy another weapon.
Hyrule Warriors, Age of Calamity Zelda, on the other hand, acquires Hyrule's steed, practically the "bike" "ancestral that unlocked in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Beyond the fact that Zelda could already use two different weapons, we found the bike not exactly perfect for her character, and perhaps we would have preferred it for Link instead of the scourge. In any case, it is a truly tamarra weapon. Her combos are extremely chaotic and weird, and her special ability is called Mega Run: by holding the button, Zelda speeds up and damages all enemies she runs over as she dartes across the map. If the gauge is fully charged, Hyrule's steed will overheat and you'll have to wait before you can use the Mega Rush again.
Hyrule Warriors, Age of Calamity Both weapons have three variants, which are unlocked with the knots in the Ancient court workshop (EX). The difference is all in the strong attack: a variant allows you to attack from a distance, one generates a protective force field and one shortens the distance to the target.
Finally, completing the researches of Rovely and Pruna unlocks an additional character: the veteran Guardian. While he is very powerful, and has a certain charm to control a real Guardian after having fought them in industrial quantities in the campaign and in Breath of the Wild, we must say that we would have preferred a "hero" with a lot more personality. Hyrule Warriors is full of characters that Koei Tecmo could have added to the roster with this first DLC: we know that Rovely and Pruna will join the team in the second DLC, and they probably won't be the only ones, but perhaps it would have been better to unlock characters like Astor and Supa in this Volume 1.
In this sense, the Veteran Guardian is a much less attractive final reward.
Volume 1 of the Expansion Pass takes about ten hours to complete, depending on how much you are quick to "farm" the materials needed to unlock any research in the Ancient Court Laboratory (EX). The new missions are not particularly brilliant, but still represent an inviting additional content for those who loved Hyrule Warriors and were looking for an excuse to return to lead their hands in the world of Breath of the Wild. The rewards are OK, although perhaps we would have chosen different weapons and characters - the veteran Guardian, in particular, is just too anonymous to be an ultimate reward. Let's put it this way, for now we only recommend this Expansion Pass to those who are hungry for content and have not yet stopped merging weapons in view of more difficult challenges, but to make a sensible judgment on the whole package we will have to wait for November and Volume 2.
