Monday, October 24, 2016

Hyrule Warriors Legends: A Link Between Worlds DLC Reveal

Finally, the last DLC for Hyrule Warriors and Hyrule Warriors - Legends has been revealed on the Japanese website. You can also find screenshots here. It's scheduled to be released on October 31st, which is weird, because these DLC packs all came out on Thursdays before. Might be different for us, though.

After my expectations I can't help but feel somewhat disappointed. I really was hoping to see Hilda as a surprise 30th character that would come with this pack to complete the Lorule trio at this point, but that's not happening. Of course you're in for a disappointment, if you're expecting such a thing, but it looked like a good possibility. I'm also not sure about some of the design choices, but let's take a look:


While Ravio does indeed use the many different items from his shop, the Hammer was chosen as the main weapon type. I must admit that the Hammer was always one of the images that first came into my mind, when I thought about Ravio and his shop. Him smashing the thing just looks so powerful. But it's still a weird choice for Hyrule Warriors, because Darunia already has a Hammer weapon type and this looks exactly like the Hammer item that every character can use in the game. Of course with Medli we also got two Lyres now, so characters having similar, but yet very different weapon types already was a thing. It still looks a little redundant and they could have chosen the Tornado Rod instead or even the Bracelet.

Anyway, at least it should be easy to find tiers based on A Link Between Worlds and Tri Force Heroes. In the various screenshots he's also using Bombs and Ice Rod, while the description mentions the Boomerang and tornados. This is probably the kind of moveset that you would have imagined upfront, but it also does remove all possibilities for him having additional weapon types in the future. He's another one-weapon-character.

The Hammer also seems to be a Darkness type and it feels a little bit like they went with it, because the Tornado Rod would probably have been a Lightning type weapon, while Yuga already will get this element. With all his lightning attacks in A Link Between Worlds, this was a rather obvious choice and it's nice to finally have a villain, who's not primarily a Darkness user. It's also the first character to be primarily a Lightning user since the base game on Wii U, so I wouldn't have mind two of those. With Ravio it probably doesn't matter much anyway, because I expect him to work in a similar fashion to Sheik, where every combo might trigger a different elemental effect.


Yuga does look kind of weird, though. Koei Tecmo really keeps surprising me, but not always in good ways. When I originally thought about characters from A Link Between Worlds back in the Wii U days, I imagined them remade in a more realistic style. But then Koei just went with the original artstyles for every new game including the characters from The Wind Waker, so I expected them to go with the chibi artstyle here. With Hilda I would have even loved this. But they didn't. His face looks very strange, but that does seem only to be the case on the artwork, not in the game. I'm also intrigued about how Hilda and an unmasked Ravio would have looked like in this style, but we're probably not going to see this yet.

His moveset looks great, lots of picture frames and lightnings in there. Can't wait to try the new characters out. I still hope that he really does use the wall merge technique in some combo, e.g. his Focus Spirit finisher, by just summoning a wall in front of him.

It's not so easy to tell what the new Adventure Map is all about, but at least it seems like I got most of the Item Cards right. There are Maimais and all the items from Ravio's shop, as well as a Painting Link. And there are the Power Gloves, as well as probably the Compass. It also looks like I was right about this being a combination of Hyrule and Lorule on a big 16x8 squares field:


On this screenshot you can clearly see the border in the center. On the top left there is the Death Mountain area of Hyrule and to the top right there are the Skull Woods of Lorule. And I suppose I was right about opening portals to Lorule via a Bracelet or in this case the Paiting Link item card. This all adds up.

I also expected there to be some sort of cheat or bonus functionality and it seems like that's the purpose of the Ravio head at the bottom. You sell him item cards (much like to Linebeck on the Grand Travels Map) and he activates various bonuses, like changing the recommended element or giving you more Rupees throughout the mission. It might have the same potential as the Instruments of the Sirens on the Koholint Map and maybe even more.

I wonder, if we will get the preorder bonus costumes on the map, which includes the Classic Tunic for Link and various fairy outfits. It might just be that those, who have already gotten them via preorder bonus, will have already unlocked them from the start. But on the other hand this would cheat these people out of new rewards, which were promised with the new DLC map.

At least some of the new rewards will yield some pretty amazing costumes. Finally there's something nice for Twili Midna:


I'm not sure, what this is supposed to be other than the color trip from traveling between worlds, but it also reminds me of Splatoon. But it makes sense for her to represent the portals, since her Mirror weapon used to be a portal between worlds as well. I don't like the purple hair all that much, but otherwise this will finally be a pretty sweet costume for her. And Ruto as Oren looks excellent as well:


Ruto has pretty much one of the best collections of recolor costumes in the game.

There also will be the 1.6.0 update, which does indeed come with new Rental Skills, but also with new Weapon Skills including one that does more damage based on your total health (it might just be the one new skill, since there is no clear plural in Japanese). It's like a better version of Heart Strong and seems to be an absolute must-have skill. It annoys me that with some characters I've already built perfect weapons, because I most likely are going to have to change the setups here and there after the update. Luckily with some characters I couldn't decide on the eight skill yet, which might come in handy now. Otherwise this will cost me a lot of Rupees for the skill removals. I expect the new skill to be under a 5000 K.O. seal, so there will be also much more grinding to do... yay. Or it could be a new skill under the Special or Augment categories, where I would hope for a new Special skill, because I'm not a fan of No Healing and alike. And this does sound like a health based variant of Compatriot.

3 comments:

Kuudere-Kun said...

I outright don't see the point in including Lorule characters but not Hilda. Yuga never felt like an actual character to me. So much of Hyrule Warriors has been about celebrating how surprisingly female driven the Zelda franchise is.

Unknown said...

So you're saying they should add more females to be politically correct @Jared? Sorry, but I really don't understand that at all.

TourianTourist said...

Please guys, let's not go there! :-D

What Jared was probably trying to say is that the current selection of strong female characters is simply beautiful and I do agree. I'm also one, who likes playing as female characters and Hilda would have been a nice addition to that.

If you wanted to stay "politically correct" and make this about gender balance, even a potential 30th character would have to be male, because there are already 15 female characters on the roster (counting Sheik).

Overall I do think that Ravio and Yuga were the more interesting candidates from the game. It just would have been nice to get the full trio, but we'll see, if Koei has planned something else or if the bottom right corner will simply stay empty.