Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition Announced

If you've been anywhere near a Nintendo site or board in the last few days, you know that the hype for today's rumored Nintendo Direct has been crazy. And I have to admit that I got quite excited as well, hoping for announcements of both the rumored Link's Awakening remake/requel for Nintendo 3DS or the rumored Zelda Smartphone game. Or some Metroid Prime 4 footage. The last thing I was hoping for, however, was yet another port of Hyrule Warriors on the Nintendo Switch.

For someone, who has bought and completed both the Wii U and the Nintendo 3DS versions including all the DLC, so far at least each version had their merits. Hyrule Warriors - Legends offered many more and much more balanced Adventure Maps, the ability to switch between characters and the new My Fairy mode. And Hyrule Warriors on the Wii U had the better graphics and performance, a local coop mode and the Challenge Mode, where you can play as Ganon or the Giant Cucco.

The "Definitive Edition", where all of these merits and all the DLCs are combined into a single ultimate version, seems like an obvious offer at this point, but it also makes the previous versions fully obsolete and makes them appear like a bad purchase, almost, which might feel like a slap in the face for all the earlier adopters. "You should have waited for Switch version!" is what Nintendo is saying right now.

They also added two Breath of the Wild costumes for Link and Zelda on top of that:

And some people actually have the effrontery to ask for more exclusive content in the Definitive Edition... As if having all the content, features and advantages of both versions isn't enough already. Well, with any new characters Nintendo should also release them on the Wii U and the Nintendo 3DS as an "apology", ideally for free, which is probably why they won't add any new characters at all. But this would have been a nice opportunity to finally fill that 30th character spot, which is still glaring at us:

Well, finding a suitable 30th character as a promotion is probably still as hard as it was back then, because most of the major characters are already in the game. Hilda wouldn't feel special now and with the big and successful new Zelda game, Breath of the Wild, there are mainly the Champions as candidates for new characters, who come in a pack of four. Those should be saved for a sequel. But they could have created a Wild Link or Wild Zelda as a separate character using the Sheikah Slate, instead of just offering plain skins. On the other hand the Sheikah Slate could also fill that eight slot in Link's weapon arsenal...

(Update: A potential character from Breath of the Wild would also be Kass with the Accordion as his weapon type. He would fill that 30th character slot and it would fit his character to appear out of nowhere on the battlefield, playing his trademark tune. An alternative would also be Beedle with the Bug Net, a character that appeared in many Zelda games including the Wind Waker, the Minish Cap, the Nintendo DS Zelda games, Skyward Sword and even Breath of the Wild. He would be a nice choice for a "final" character of Hyrule Warriors.)

However, at this point, Koei Tecmo probably will save any new characters, weapons, stages or other content ideas for an actual sequel. There needs to be Hyrule Warriors 2 with a focus on Breath of the Wild for the Nintendo Switch. The Definitive Edition is just a filler for all those, who might have missed the previous versions of the game, to get some more sales out of it. It's a great title and certainly deserves every purchase, especially with that much content. But I wouldn't expect any DLC or major exclusive content for the final version.

I'm personally struggling with myself, whether I should get this or not. Well, at first I need a Nintendo Switch and yet another port in the library isn't going to change this. But when I get one, this feels similar to Mario Kart 8, where I really like the game and I'd like having the better version with all the content, but I wouldn't want to complete it yet again. The Adventure Mode is so extensive and takes so much time that I spent hundreds of hours on both Hyrule Warriors and Hyrule Warriors - Legends, where I don't feel like going through all this a third time. Well, I don't have to, but it then it feels like I'm missing on the ultimate edition of one of my absolute favorite games...

As a side note, the new "3D" fairy renders in the My Fairy mode look very weird:

I liked the sprite versions on the Nintendo 3DS much better.