We have been living in the Breath of the Wild era of The Legend of Zelda since March 3rd, 2017. That means we are coming up on 9 full years since the original Switch came out, and that game was released. When looking back on other Zelda games, it’s clear that there have always been some major switch-ups with the series that have kept every single game fresh. Look at the jump from Majora’s Mask to Wind Waker or Twilight Princess to Skyward Sword. There have always been major jumps and shifts in style, gameplay, and worldbuilding. Nintendo decided to take a pretty big swing with Breath of the Wild in basically every meaning of the word. Tears of the Kingdom was the first true sequel to a mainline Zelda game, and the first time that we stayed in the same world that maintained a recognizable aesthetic and gameplay loop. Ultimately, I think it worked because both games are all-timers. However, spending nearly a decade in this world has me feeling a little fatigued.
Now with the release of Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment, we are once again hopping on the sequel train. Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment is the follow-up to Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, yet it also serves as a prequel to Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. As much as I love BOTW and TOTK, they are, without a doubt, my least favourite games in the series when it comes to the story. I’ve always thought their stories were interesting on paper but poorly executed and fleshed out in practice. So I guess it made sense to find a way to expand on what little story was actually showcased in both of those games. The Hyrule Warriors games have always been a way for Zelda fans to play as their favourite characters across different Zelda games. That was the nice thing about the original Hyrule Warriors release – it wasn’t canon. You could play as all the iconic characters across the Zelda games. There wasn’t any attempt at a story that would expand on anything; it was just a sandbox for Zelda fans to play with some new toys. Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment is a continuation of the BOTW and TOTK story, and because it takes place before TOTK, there aren’t a ton of iconic fan favourites left over. This is Age of Imprisonment‘s first major issue – the playable characters.
The story is that Zelda travels back in time during her encounter with Ganondorf. This freak moment of time travel takes her to the genesis of the Imprisoning War, which is discussed extensively throughout Tears of the Kingdom. Zelda meets her ancestors, Rauru, the king of Hyrule, and his wife Queen Sonia and together they must find a way to get Zelda back to her timeline. You also get to meet Mineru, the sister of King Rauru – she is a researcher who fights alongside Zonai constructs. There’s also a Korok adventurer named Calamo, as well as a Link-shaped Zonai construct that can transform into a bunch of different things. These are the most important characters in the story and, easily, the most interesting. They’ve all got great designs, they’re all very interesting lore-wise, and they’re decently performed. Strangely, Queen Sonia is not a playable character, which is confusing given that the game shows she can definitely hold her own in battle. Ganondorf is also present, which is no surprise, but what IS surprising is that he is not playable. What I liked about the previous games in this series was that everyone was playable – hero or villain. I understand that, given the game’s canonical nature, it would be weird to play as the villain, but the game has 19 playable characters. It kind of feels like either Sonia or Ganondorf could have been made playable characters to round the game up to 20, but that’s not how it is.
What further confounds me is the rest of the playable roster of characters in Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment. Ever heard of Raphica, Agraston, Qia, or Ardi? Probably not, but those are the four sages, so they’re important to the lore and make sense to be playable. Okay, how about Typhan, Vance, Pinnec, Quino, Cadlan, or Sholani? Did you say no to each of those names? No, of course not, because they are essentially a bunch of nobodies. Tragically, the vast majority of the game’s roster is made up of these seemingly random and uninteresting warriors and soldiers of different races. These characters are high-ranking members of the different squadrons led by the sages. They are all highly forgettable and don’t feel exciting to have on your team. Few of them offer anything interesting to the story, and do very little to spice things up in terms of unique gameplay. I have a hard time believing anyone would play Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment and walk away thinking any of these new characters could become future iconic fan favourites. I remember watching YouTube videos about this game a few months ago, leading up to the release. There were screenshots and clips featuring these soldier characters, and people thought that you might be able to create your own character because “they look generic.” Personally, I’ve never applied the word ‘generic’ to a single Zelda game, but I can’t argue with the masses. The bulk of the characters in Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment are pretty generic and boring.
Like seriously… who is this guy?
Thankfully, the core gameplay is fantastic. I’ve played quite a few of these musou games, and this is easily among the best of them, gameplay-wise. My main problem with this genre of games is that it often takes a while to feel like a true badass mowing down thousands of fodder enemies.Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment lets you feel that power fantasy right off the bat. Zelda wields the Blade of Light, which is exactly what it sounds like. She is able to use the power of light to cast magic spells to help her in combat, and she is a lot of fun to pilot around the battlefield. Rauru wields the Spear of Light and can also wield the power of light to strengthen his abilities. He also has the Ultrahand and is able to smack enemies with it as well as deflect projectiles. Being that they are the first two characters you’re able to play, it’s a little strange to me that they’re also my favourite characters to use. As the game goes on, you will be able to unlock additional combo strings for your characters by collecting various materials. There are so many materials that are constantly being added to your inventory, so it never feels like there’s a real grind to unlock these things, which means you’re constantly progressing at a rapid rate. I do wish that there were further unlocks or perhaps craftable weapons for characters like Zelda and Rauru, as they are stuck with their default weapons.
Each character has a few special actions that can be used in combat. You can even use them to deflect powerful attacks from the enemies, as well as knock enemies out of the sky before they can launch a devastating aerial attack. Bad guys will start glowing red either on the ground or in the sky, and that is when you know you can interrupt their moves. These attacks are telegraphed well in advance, but they can do pretty major damage to you if hit. So it’s best not to spam your abilities the whole fight and to use them strategically. Your basic attacks and combo strings are usually enough to deal with the fodder. You can also dodge out of the way of attacks at the last second to get a flurry of strikes in. If you are just mindlessly hacking and slashing, you will likely get your ass kicked, so you do need to keep on your guard. I like that this is the case, though, because most of these Musou games are turn-your-brain-off type games that pose no challenge. Age of Imprisonment actually requires you to think about your approach, and it requires a little bit of brain power to actually do well. It’s not a hard game by any means, but if you’re not on your toes, you could get wrecked.
I had some fears about how Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment would run, as Age of Calamity infamously runs like complete garbage on the Switch. The game was capped at 30 fps and would often drop to single digits, 10 fps or below, during more visually busy moments – and because it’s a musou game, it’s always visually busy. So I was really surprised at how great Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment runs on the Switch 2. Talk about an improvement! The game runs at an uncapped 60fps. Sometimes it dips below into the 50s, but it really doesn’t bother me at all, and it usually only happens when you’re hit or you’re hitting an enemy and there’s a lot of visual effects happening. Because it happens in these impactful moments, it almost feels like a design choice or some sort of hit-stun, so it never really bothered me at all. Visually, it’s quite striking. There’s a ton of vibrant colours and tons of enemies on screen at all times. It just pops right off the TV screen. It even looks and runs great in handheld mode, but its resolution is noticeably quite low. I think they had to lower the resolution to make the game run as well as it does, which is unfortunate, but I do think the game actually looks great.
I’ve got my problems with Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment, but I ultimately think the gameplay is good enough to outweigh most of them. You, the reader, might not agree. I do not like that this game is a canonical piece of Zelda lore because it hinders its creativity. Fan favourites are set aside and replaced by forgettable nobodies that will likely never appear in another game. I’d love to see some updates to this game so we can maybe get some characters from the TOTK timeline, but that might be asking for too much. However, I basically like everything else going on here. The fun factor is palpable! But I also feel like Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment could have been so much more. There are a few things holding Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment from greatness, but it’s a pretty awesome game, there’s no denying that.
