Game #958: Hyrule Warriors - Age of Calamity

 I hate time travelling shenanigans.

 It's no secret that I didn't like the original Hyrule Warriors, so I took a gamble when I decided to get Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity. Thankfully, that gamble paid off because Age of Calamity fixes most of the issues I had with the original, if not all of them.

 The game was marketed as a retelling of the war that came before Breath of the Wild. And if you're gonna make a Warriors game out of BoF this period made the most sense. We'd finally get to see how the four champions died and Calamity Ganon took over Hyrule. Except not really. This game is an alternate dimension, something the trailers don't tell you. A mini-Guardian travels back in time, and the time travelling only gets worse from there. Heck, in this dimension Link gets the Master Sword much later than in BoF's flashbacks, and the rocky relationship between Link and Zelda is nowhere to be seen, as they are good friends from the very first moment. Is it neat to see the previous champions interact between each other? Yeah, it's pretty cool, since we mostly got to meet them through flashbacks in BoF... but considering we get a happy ending because this is NOT the prequel they were selling... that's lame.

 Dumb time travelling garbage aside, the gameplay is really good. Age of Calamity focuses exclusively on BoF's world, so the cast from the original Hyrule Warriors got scrapped entirely. There are about 18 characters, although Link can equip three different movesets and Zelda gets two. Every character feels very unique, aided by the fact that the ZR button works very differently between characters. For instance, there are two Zora characters, Mipha can press ZR to dive into the ground and come out of water geysers she can place with her strong attacks with an aerial attack, while the other Zora character gets this unique mechanic in which if you press ZR at the right time after a strong attack you'll get an even stronger attack. So, while you'll be doing a lot of Y-button mashing, characters really do feel different and trying them out was fun. Of course, this also means that you'll love playing as some and hate playing as others.

 The game itself is your standard Warriors/Musou fare. Weak attack strings with Y, end said string at different points with the X button for different Strong attacks, and you also have a Super gauge for your Super moves. In this game you take up to four characters, depending on the level it might be less, with you, and can swap at any time, as well as direct your characters to move to specific places on the battlefield.

 To aid yourself in combat, you have two different inventories, R and L. Holding the R button lets you use runes: Magnesis, Bomb, Cryonis and Stasis. To add some flavor to this, every character uses them in a different way. Link is the most vanilla and just uses the rune, but, for example, Mipha performs a strong X attack after using stasis, or Zelda can mash Y to stack light orbs and then press X for a massive attack. Most of the time, Link's basic use proves the most useful, but hey, sometimes you can dash-cancel the secondary action other characters perform. Enemy generals, AKA the enemies with the health bars, have different attacks that, if you use the right rune, will make the weakness gauge appear. But there's nothing stopping you from using runes at any moment. Stasis is particularly useful since you can use it as soon as you see the weakness gauge appear to land some free hits, and Bombs can, most of the time, damage the weakness gauge directly. On the other hand, the L button inventory has magic rods, Fire, Ice and Thunder, and they usually make the weakness gauge appear on bosses so they are massively useful... but have limited uses per battle.

 Thankfully, bosses are much easier to take out than in the original Hyrule Warriors. The weakness gauge is not a necessity to kill a boss, so if you miss your chance with the right rune... no biggie. Plus, the game shows you which rune you need to use and when, so if you miss it's 100% on you. Much better than trying to remember which item to use and when. But even if your reflexes are awful, there are more ways to make the weakness gauge appear, such as using the elemental rods, using air attacks, dodging attacks... or performing perfect dodges, by dodging JUST before you get hit, which will give you an opening to deal massive damage to the weakness gauge. Taking down bosses is not a chore this time around. They still soak up a bit too much punishment, but I prefer this over the alternative.

 There are no extra modes, like the awful Adventure mode from HW. Every main story stage and every challenge stage just pops up in the map. Eventually the map will get filled with icons, since you upgrade your characters by activating different icons in the map, provided you have the necessary items. And while it could be a mess, by tapping R on the map screen you can get a menu-based stage select, in case you need it. It's still not the most elegant menu around, but it's not terrible.

 An interesting little thing in the game... there aren't many alternate costumes or colors. The four champions can equip or unequip their blue capes, and Zelda can pick between her white dress or her winter clothes(For whatever reason the basic blue-shirt costume she uses throughout most of the game can't be selected later in the game), however, Link gets pretty much every costume piece he had available in the original Breath of the Wild. You can even change their colors if you activate the Dye Shop!

 Age of Calamity doesn't crack my top 5 Warriors games, however, as far as I'm concerned it's a massive improvement over Hyrule Warriors, and I was finally able to have as much fun as I usually have with the Warriors games.

 8.0