Age of Calamity @ Tokyo Game Show 2020

 

Today was Koei Tecmo's long live stream at the Tokyo Game Show 2020, where they've showed us nearly 14 minutes of gameplay footage from the first level of Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity and the new  "Champions Unite!" trailer. Good stuff and I've taken some notes, so let's go over them.

First of all, the game looks great and feels very, very close to Breath of the Wild, almost as if you're playing a mod for that game. It's still a Warriors title underneath so and you can also see some enemies pop in here and there... But they've overall done a great job, where the game feels much more impressive than the original Hyrule Warriors.

Mainly, there is a greater attention to detail in the environments. For example the "keeps" can vary in size now, are filled with all sorts of things and feel a lot more like a natural part of the battlefield than some artificial choke points. And it's actually super interesting to experience Hyrule Field like it was 100 years ago with all its villages in tact. One of the keeps, which was basically a small village, even reminded me a lot of Hyrule Castle Town from Ocarina of Time with the well at the center and you can also spot the Lon Lon Ranch area during the footage in the background, where it will be nice to explore this in full glory later on.

Another issue that I had with the original Hyrule Warriors and that was seemingly addressed here are stronger enemies. Those were for the most part absolutely pathetic in the first game. For example the mighty Dark Nuts and King Bulblin from Twilight Princess became a total joke in Hyrule Warriors and I did not like that... Here it seems like a Red Moblin is even sturdier than they were in Breath of the Wild. And that's good. I don't expect that Lynels will take you five minutes to beat them, but they should give you a hell of a fight nonetheless. And if the Red Moblins were any indications, they probably will.

The upscaled Bokoblins in the keeps felt a little bit silly, however, because that's nothing that appears in Breath of the Wild and they simply could have used Moblins in their place. But for now it seems like they will simply stick to all kinds of enemies from Breath of the Wild, so the size variety could be a good thing.

Anyway, I love how destructible the environments have become. Well, you could cut grass and blow up rocks in Hyrule Warriors, but that was about it. Here it seems like you have about the interaction that you get in Breath of the Wild and even some more stuff on top, e.g. blowing up the giant skull caves or the enemy towers, which wasn't possible in Breath of the Wild.

And for this you can use Bombs from your Sheikah Slate, which basically provides you with the item feature from Hyrule Warriors. Instead of Bombs, Bow, Boomerang and Hookshot, you get Bombs, Cryonis, Magnesis and Stasis. What's interesting here is that not only Link can use this, but also Zelda (who has the Sheikah Slate as her main weapon) and the other Champions as well. You can see how Daruk uses Stasis in the trailer...

There is only one Sheikah Slate in Breath of the Wild, but I've always wondered how the four Champions piloted their Divine Beats, where it kind of makes sense that there actually were multiple Sheikah Slates and each Champion got one of their own. But I'm curious how this will be explained. And even if every Champion gets their own Sheikah Slate, what about the other playable characters? Speaking of, we got our first look at the seventh confirmed character...

Impa! So beautiful! So amazing! She really looks like her granddaughter and she utilizes a wild mix of Sheikah ninja art, mainly by employing a group of clones, which is kind of similar to how Maz Koshia fights you in Breath of the Wild, just without the technological weaponry. But I love how she has a Sheikah Paraglider and fights with kunai. It's a very flashy moveset and that's the kind of stuff you want from Hyrule Warriors. I also love how extremely different this Impa looks and plays when compared to her counterpart from the previous game.

In the footage it also didn't seem like Impa can use the Sheikah Slate items, at least they never used any of these moves with her, so it simply might be that certain characters come with a Sheikah Slate and others don't. (Update: everyone gets to use the Sheikah Slate Runes remotely.)

But as an alternative there seem to be additional items. In the footage Impa obtains a Fire Rod after defeating a Fire Wizzrobe, but they didn't show this item in action. It certainly would be nice to go all crazy with those fireballs again.

There also will be a second bonus weapon for Link: the Training Sword, which you will receive, if you have a savegame of Breath of the Wild on your Nintendo Switch.

Like the Lucky Ladle, it's nothing too special and apparently you will be able to get both items at a later point as DLC.

Oh, and the Mini Guardian, who follows Link around, is absolutely adorable. It seems to be more of a feature, however, and not another playable character. So, the theory that this might become this game's "Proxi" could be right, though it doesn't seem to talk, it only beeps.

The only major complaint I had with this demo was the music. The Breath of the Wild battle music on a  loop might work for a little while, but it gets repetitive fast... Hopefully, the other stages will offer some better variety here, since Hyrule Warriors used to have excellent music that makes even the most mundane tasks a blast.

Well, overall this was amazing stuff and I can't wait to play the game later this year. They also showed off the "Treasure Box" items, which is the Japan exclusive Limited Edition of the game. A Paraglider cloth, a Mini Guardian key chain and a frame with the game's main art. It doesn't seem like we will be getting any of this, but it also doesn't seem like we're missing out here. In fact I never was too fond of the Limited Editions for Hyrule Warriors, because it came with very cheap stuff... But let's see.