Sunday, June 12, 2016

Hyrule Warriors Legends: Twilight Map Impressions


Twilight Map completed. I got all A ranks, all Plus Weapons, costumes, fairy clothings and Heart Containers. Only some 2nd Skulltulas are missing, but I'll save those for the 2nd Master Sword seal. (The missions with the Skulltulas for the most didn't give any Item Cards and they also don't give Fairy Food by nature, so replaying them wasn't worth it yet.)

Both the Twilight and Termina Maps get unlocked after the Master Quest Map and they even share the final set of fairies and weapons. So, originally I wanted to play them simultaneously and both maps start out quite sturdy. I quickly got the impression that with characters just above Level 40 I was seriously underleveled for the task ahead. So far I could avoid grinding just for the sake of becoming stronger, which you had to do way too much in the Wii U version. The thought repelled me and since the Twilight Map has some of the best grinding spots in the game, I decided to give it a try. And as things turned out, it wasn't bad at all. It actually went surprisingly well with very little backlash.

It's very different from the Wii U Twilight Map experience. There the map starts easy enough, but the more you advance, the more it turns into HELL, where every single mistake can cost you the A rank. But thanks to the rescaled difficulty and the fairy features on the 3DS the whole map is really enjoyable now. It still can be tough at times, but it never gets frustrating and unfair.

For example the "Defeat 1000 enemies in 10 minutes!" mission next to the Dark Ruler square was awful on the Wii U, where an army of Argoroks with high resistance and damage output would turn your warrior live into a nightmare. But on the 3DS it's one of the fastest places to farm Argorok materials... You can make much better use of the double drops that the Twilight Map is giving you, now that the enemies aren't super resilient anymore. And that shows.

In addition you can now use the Bombos Fairy Magic against the high defense of enemies. On the Wii U only the elemental weaknesses really helped. If an enemy character was weak against your weapon's element, he would go down very quickly, instead of being the tankiest tank in the existence of tanks. You can have now the same effect with any weapon, as long as a Double Bombos field is in place. For example there is this "Divisive Plan" mission against Zant, which always was easy enough with a light weapon, but you have to do it with the Magic Rod first. On the Wii U this could take forever, but on the 3DS Bombos is your friend.

Shade still gets to be very useful as well, e.g. with the "Balanced Attack" missions. Those worked exactly like I imagined. There's this one hellish mission, where you had to fight three Dark Ghirahims with Ganondorf. On the Wii U you either had to use Coop mode or the Item Power-Up Mixture to make it easier, but on the 3DS Shade is your friend.

I didn't even have to use the Item Power-Up Mixture once! On the Wii U I pretty much used it on every mission to clear the map, because the Power-Up Bow is the best way to keep enemies at a safe distance and (slowly) kill them. This never felt necessary on the 3DS and thanks to the Water Wall Rental Skill every character can now have Sheik's useful shield, even if it's only once per battle.

Sometimes I wished that I would have equipped the Repair Rental Skill, though, because relentless attacks on your base were usually the biggest danger on the Twilight Map. You get lots of Super Saiyajin troops spawning everywhere, quickly marching into the base and sometimes that's easy to miss, because of all the other stuff that has been going on... Suddenly you get the warning that your base is in danger, where it might already be too late.

But overall I was able to fully enjoy the Twilight Map without any major frustration for the first time, as I already said. The double drops also turn this map into my favorite grinding place, where replaying missions usually is worth it. And you nave to replay a lot of them, because the Item Cards requirements are quite demanding. Seemingly every unlocked square needs something that you don't have and I constantly moved around the map with only a couple of Ooccoos in my inventory. But since most of the challenge battles, like the Bombchu escorts or the Divisive Plan battles, can be beaten very quickly and you always get lots of materials out of your troubles, I usually didn't mind as much.

Only said Ooccoos were pretty much useless, because the portals on the map are a mess. On the 3DS you can't even see, where most of the portals are going, since there is no way to see the full map on the screen. But there's only one useful portal anyway, which leads from the Divisive Plan battle against three Dark Fis to the Western border of the map. There you have other useful Divisive Plan battles to keep you going, mainly the ones against Zant and Ganondorf. The Magic Rod Plus was even my first Plus Weapon to get.

I'm not a big fan of the Plus Weapons, by the way. They do have a golden background for their icon, they offer more attack power and they always have at least seven skill slots, but they still looks the same as all the Level 3 weapons. I do have some good Level 3 weapons, but now it feels like starting all over again.

It's also weird, how they shared the Plus Weapons among the Twilight and Termina Maps. The weapons that originally came with the Twilight Princess DLC on the Wii U, the Dominion Rod and Midna's Mirror, got their plus versions for some weird reason put on the Termina Map, while Tingle's Balloon is found on the Twilight Map. Why, Koei Tecmo, why...? This might seem like nitpicking, but they could have distributed the weapons more meaningfully.

They also could have distributed more Owl Statues... Those were very rare in the Twilight Map battles, which gets especially annoying on large maps like the Gerudo Desert.


Anyway, all my character are now at least Level 50 and their badges are starting to fill, thanks to the many material drops. I hope that one of the future DLC maps will also have double drops for all the new enemies, where I'm especially short on Phantom Ganon materials for Medli, who still hasn't gotten her Level 4 weapon yet. I did get all the Hard Skulltulas in the Wind Waker mission in Legend Mode, which unlocks a Rewards Map battle with three Phantom Ganons, but that still feels very slow compared to the possibilities of the Twilight Map.

But overall it was probably the right decision to focus on the Twilight Map first. I heard that the Termina Map is the most difficult one and it also leaves you no place for grinding, because you have to plan your steps on the map wisely and you don't want to waste any hours. Whenever it gets too hard, now I can use the Twilight Map for leveling and such, while working towards the big finale of the Termina Map...

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