Monday, March 21, 2016

Hyrule Warriors Legends: Season Pass Announcement


Last Friday the future DLC plans for both Hyrule Warriors and Hyrule Warriors Legends were revealed. There will be four packs in a Season Pass again, three of which are also going to be available on Wii U, but only contain the new characters and weapons. The 3DS version will also get new Adventure Maps and lots of My Fairy costumes.

The Wii U version won't be all that interesting, because characters and weapons alone don't do much, since you'd also want new missions for them. This was already a problem with the DLC characters Twili Midna, Young Link and Tingle in Hyrule Warriors, where now nearly half of the roster will be in the same state, when the new DLC is done.

I'm not too unhappy about this though. I've put over 700 hours into Hyrule Warriors on Wii U and I was 100% done with Adventure Mode, all A ranks. All that's left to do for me there is Challenge Mode, where you get the same missions for every character. It will be nice to try all the new characters in HD, but my main focus will be on the 3DS version from now on, where I made my peace with going through Adventure Mode all over again. It seems to be a lot more well balanced, where even the Twilight Adventure Map can be enjoyed on lower levels.

Currently my New 3DS is my gaming system of choice, so Hyrule Warriors: Legends is a welcome addition, even if it's a graphical downgrade. If they also would release all the new Adventure Maps on Wii U, I probably would be overwhelmed...

Ideally both games would have completely different Adventure Maps though. My original idea was focusing on the style of Link's Awakening and then make maps for the handheld games, instead of recycling all the Wii U Adventure Maps again. But it seems that this is what they will be doing with the DLC maps. At least I hope that they will go for the Link's Awakening 8-Bit style and not just redraw Koholint in the NES style. Even the "Master Wind Waker" map could be already done in the Link's Awakening style. We'll see.


Capcom Zelda games?

It's obvious, how they are going for all the handheld Zelda games, except for Tri Force Heroes, which is probably still too new (A Link Between Worlds was also "too new", when Hyrule Warriors came around) and the games made by Capcom. No Oracle of Ages, no Oracle of Seasons, no Four Swords and no Minish Cap.

Make your peace with this. There might be some issues with rights here, similar to how the Symphony of the Goddesses can't play any pieces from those games, because the music was made by Capcom. Now, Hyrule Historia also covered those games and their characters, so the rights weren't a problem there, but the main problem probably lies in the heavy rivalry between Capcom and Koei Tecmo. Capcom even successfully sued Koei Tecmo around the time, when Hyrule Warriors was released, about their ten year old Xtreme Legends expansion system for Warriors games, which was absolutely ridiculous.

Even if the rights were fully available, Koei Tecmo might just avoid all Capcom Zelda games for the sake of it. If there is even the tiniest issue with character rights involved here, Capcom won't allow any of it or will try to sue again. I already took note in the past, how Cia, Volga and Wizzro essentially acted as replacements for Veran, Onox and Vire, while Lana shared traits of all three Oracles. And I'm quite happy with what Koei Tecmo is doing with their original characters here.

At least the Four Sword as a weapon for Toon Link should be possible at some point.


3DS Character Usage and Costumes?

It also seems that this time the new characters and weapons won't be available on their own in Japan. This is a good thing, because this way the new characters and weapons might be well integrated into the new Adventure Maps, making it all more valuable. At least Medli should be an important part of the Master Wind Waker Map, since she gets released for free similar to Cia, Volga and Wizzro with the original Master Quest pack.

It's also noteworthy that they didn't announce any new costumes. I guess, the Adventure Maps will have the usual color costumes, but maybe some more original costumes will also be unlockable on the maps, e.g. a train engineer costume for Link on the Phantom Hourglass & Spirit Tracks map. This goes hand in hand with having actual packs this time. On the Wii U the better costumes could be bought on their own in Japan, but on the 3DS all those costumes became now unlockable in Adventure Mode.


A post about my predictions for the individual packs will follow! It's nice, how the individual packs are spread over the entire year, instead of being released one month after another. This will keep the talk about Hyrule Warriors up!

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