Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity Second Opinion

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity takes us back 100 years before The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, revealing the story of the Great Calamity that changed Hyrule forever. This game lets you play as iconic characters like Link, Zelda, and the four Champions—Mipha, Daruk, Revali, and Urbosa—as they face off against massive hordes of enemies.

With a mix of intense action and storytelling, Age of Calamity gives you a closer look at the events leading up to Breath of the Wild. It's a chance to experience epic battles and uncover new stories in the beloved Zelda universe.

Graphics

Hyrule Warriors Age of Calamity has a cell shaded art style similar to "Breath of the Wild," making the game consistent with the Zelda series. The game's environments, including familiar locations such as Hyrule Castle and the Great Plateau, are detailed and reflect different regions of Hyrule. I also enjoy that the enemies are all the same and I find some of the enemies more challenging in this game than I did in Breath of the Wild. While the game generally runs smoothly, there can be minor performance dips during intense, fast paced battles.

Storyline

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity serves as a prequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, set 100 years before the events of the latter. The game shows the events leading up to the Great Calamity, a catastrophic event caused by the awakening of the Calamity Ganon. This game made me become more attached to the champions that were show in Breath of the Wild and builds onto their personalities alongside relationships to Princess Zelda and Link. The game also introduces some other characters later in the game like Hetsu, who we’ve never seen fight before.

The game had me filled with hope that the champions would survive against Ganon, however the game makes me feel sadder about the sacrifices the champions made in Breath of the Wild.

Upgrades and Character selection

The game allows players to play as a range of recognisable characters from Breath of the Wild. This includes our main heroes like Princess Zelda, Link and the four champions. There are also other characters like Impa and later in the game, some more characters become available for you to play as which makes the game feel less repetitive, especially considering the characters all have different special abilities.

In the game, you can upgrade your characters weapons, character abilities, Sheikah slate alongside being able to cook meals to help you complete the quests. Near the end of the game, this becomes more challenging as you must grind to be able to upgrade your characters, I found the quests more challenging and needing money for the upgrades became the main problem I faced when trying to upgrade the characters.

Likes

Range of playable characters

Builds more story for the original Breath of the Wild game

You see the champions on a deeper level and learn more about them

Dislikes

Feels repetitive at times

Limited exploration in comparison to Breath of the Wild

Final thoughts

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity is an exciting game for fans of Zelda and action-packed battles. It offers fun combat, a variety of characters, and an interesting story that sets up Breath of the Wild. While the gameplay can get repetitive and has some performance issues, it adds a lot to the Zelda lore and it's a great game for anyone curious about Hyrule's past and the events leading to the Great Calamity, although I must confess at the later part of the game, it became too challenging and means I never finished the game (although I looked up how the game ends as I was curious!)