The Zelda franchise values its narrative, however its significance to defining the collection rests behind components like exploration and puzzle fixing. The story of Zelda is, nevertheless, vital to me, and it’s particularly personally vital relating to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. With out providing spoilers, the earlier Hyrule Warriors, Age of Calamity, didn’t take Breath of the Wild’s canon severely. It led to a supremely disappointing expertise, regardless of some enjoyable musou motion. Age of Imprisonment affords myriad enhancements throughout the board mechanically and visually, however my favourite component is that it treats Tears of the Kingdom’s story with respect.
Age of Imprisonment isn’t a prequel to Tears of the Kingdom, per se, however should you performed that 2023 sport, you’ll know what to anticipate from the story. It performs it protected by providing little or no in the way in which of revelation, however it works as a chance to see extra of Zelda’s circumstances and introduces a lot of new characters that each one have nice designs and are enjoyable to play as. The dialogue and voice performances usually are not significantly spectacular (dwelling as much as the usual set by Tears of the Kingdom), however I loved spending extra time with Zelda and Rauru, and gaining a deeper perception into the tribulations they skilled.
Like a typical Zelda sport, nevertheless, the first expertise just isn’t the plot. Imprisonment is a Musou sport that follows within the mechanical and structural footsteps of Dynasty Warriors. Zelda should go on a collection of missions with a deep bench of secondary characters, preventing 1000’s of enemies at a time throughout battlefields giant and small. The gameplay is acquainted to different video games within the style, and undeniably repetitive, however quite a few wrinkles preserve the motion more energizing than comparable video games.
Alongside bouncing between a number of characters and utilizing their numerous particular strikes as cooldowns expire, boss characters now enact sure particular strikes that require pausing time to pick out the proper counter for giant payoffs. Knocking bosses out of the air or breaking their shields provides worthwhile contemplation to fight, however like mashing the assault button time and again in opposition to the identical forms of enemies, it did get previous after roughly 20 hours. That mentioned, it’s the most pleasing Musou fight I’ve skilled so far, and on Swap 2, all of it seems to be and runs fantastically, which is a welcome improve over the primary two Hyrule Warriors video games.
Outdoors of fight, you look over Tears of the Kingdom’s acquainted map and allocate the gadgets you’ve collected to the place they’re wanted to improve your fighters. I loved this break between missions as a result of it supplied the sensation of perusing Tears of the Kingdom’s map, and likewise created a worthwhile loop of gathering gadgets and distributing them. It supplied the additional benefit of really making me need to deal with sidequests, regardless of all of them taking part in equally. The gadgets can be used earlier than every mission to improve weapons, enhance assault energy, expertise, velocity, and different stats, which makes all of the collected gadgets really feel genuinely useful and price chasing.
Maybe Age of Imprisonment’s greatest trick, nevertheless, is the way it makes me really feel like I’m again on the earth of Tears of the Kingdom. The artwork route, menu components, music, sound results, and extra all make me really feel like I’m again in 2023 getting misplaced in one in all my favourite video games of the final decade. Imprisonment’s gameplay may be very completely different, and never practically as partaking or constantly novel, however I eagerly pulled the nice and cozy blanket round me whereas executing Zelda’s final assault for the hundredth time.
