Age of Calamity War Log, Entry 1

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity got released to the world just yesterday and I'm in the middle of Chapter 2, after unlocking Urbosa and Mipha, where I now want to share some of my thoughts so far and what's taking me so long. If you haven't already, check out my demo impressions from last month, where I've already talked about some general things, which I'm probably not going to repeat in this journal.

Generally, it was a good idea to get a Nintendo Switch one week in advance, so I could prepare a little bit for this game. I've played through the demo once more, so I could get a little head start, and I've started a new save game in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, so I would qualify for the Training Sword bonus. But I also did this to check out the game again, where in addition I've played the first four scenarios in Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition. Just to get a feel for these two games again and how they compare to Age of Calamity.

But maybe I shouldn't have, because the first Hyrule Warriors runs smoothly in 60FPS on the Nintendo Switch and makes it really tough to go back to its successor. It doesn't look as great as Age of Calamity, for sure, but I personally would have sacrificed some of the details in the environments for a more stable frame rate.

However, what Age of Calamity already does better is not spamming you with tutorials that interrupt your game. I completely forgot how awful the first missions in Hyrule Warriors can be, if you play them for the first time, because it constantly takes you out of the action. "Hey, listen! Did you know that you can blow up rocks with bombs? Hey! Did you know that you can cut grass! Listen! Listen! Hey!"

I also went back to Breath of the Wild on the Wii U, to my 100% save games, mainly because I wanted to check out Hyrule Field and Breach of the Demise to see how they compare. And again, I probably shouldn't have done this, because the differences are larger than you'd expect. The battlefields get the general idea right and look just as you might remember these places, but the scale and the distances are quite off. Take the Sacred Grounds for example, where this place looks quite small in Age of Calamity for some reason. And the Central Hyrule Tower should be further away.

And that's not even counting all the artificial borders that aren't there 100 years later, where this is quite obvious around the Breach of Demise, which will be quite the open area. No detours to the Royal Ancient Tech Lab required. (By the way, that's not Hateno, Nintendo Treehouse.) Of course the changes in the environments could technically all be explained by the devastation and the one hundred years that have passed, but it's still off.

It almost makes me wish that there was a proper prequel to Breath of the Wild, using the same engine and world, but with the buildings and everything in tact. Age of Calamity will only give you a rough idea, but it's altering all these areas heavily just to wall you off. But since Dynasty Warriors 9 showed how "good" Koei Tecmo is in making open worlds, it's probably for the best that they just stuck to their trade and did what they are good at... So, I'm not really complaining, but still.

Anyway, after playing the beginning of Breath of the Wild again, where both the Stone Talus and a Blue Bokoblin showed me that it's been a while since I've played this game, I was inspired to dare something with Age of Calamity. When I started the demo I've selected "Very Hard" and went with it so far. I really want to try to complete and beat the entire game on this difficulty level, where at the end I don't want a single record on "Hard", "Normal" and certainly not "Easy" in any of the battle details.

It's actually the complete opposite of what I've been doing with the first Hyrule Warriors. Because Legend Mode tracks completing every scenario on every difficulty with little, green checkmarks, treating it like an accomplishment, I've always started on "Easy" and then played the higher difficulties for grinding, the Hard Mode Skulltulas and the Medals.

But in the first Hyrule Warriors I also didn't mind breezing through the levels. The lack of difficulty didn't really concern me, where I've always enjoyed plowing through the enemies like some unstoppable force. It is what simply made a "Musou" for me. In fact I hated to play the harder difficulties too early, because everything just seemed needlessly tanky and hit you like a truck. It wasn't much fun to play until you were leveled up properly.

However, the "Very Hard" difficulty in Age of Calamity seems to be scaled quite nicely. It makes the game feel more like it should feel. Blue Bokoblins can be a threat early on and don't die so easily, while larger enemies can potentially kill you in a single hit, exactly like they could in Breath of the Wild. Well, here it's two hits, actually, because like in the first Hyrule Warriors you will always fall back to a quarter heart and only then die.

Unlike the first Hyrule Warriors, however, you won't find hearts in the grass everywhere and the apples (and rods) aren't replenished before every battle, which annoys me quite a bit, because I often have to play the first mission the Remote Bomb Challenge over again just to get my health back. Hopefully there will be a store or something similar later in the game where you can refill all this stuff, because right now you can't and it's a very bad idea to start any scenario or challenge with nothing at your disposal.

But this is also what makes playing on "Very Hard" so much more interesting. Every single apple counts, because you need to heal. Using the elemental rods can help tremendously with stronger foes, while I've completely ignored these weapons at the "Normal" difficulty. Also, every level up means something and every new Heart Container counts. And I actually pay attention to how I fuse weapons for matching seals, though abilities like "5% damage increase" are laughable at best. 5% of very little is really nothing.

Well, but it makes the grinding between the main scenarios worthwhile and the "Challenges" really now can be called as such. Completing them actually feels like an accomplishment and not like a chore, where you just beat of bunch of enemies with little to no resistance.

Now, for my course of recruiting the Champions, I'm going with the exact same order as when I first played Breath of the Wild:

1. Urbosa
2. Mipha
3. Revali
4. Daruk

So, I obviously didn't learn from my mistakes in the past and I went to the desert first... But it was certainly worth it for Urbosa, who's a real queen in this game and a lot of fun to play. I really enjoy covering everything with lightnings on combos.

The mission was a tough nut to crack on "Very Hard", however, so it took me quite a while after some back and forth. Well, I haven't leveled Link and the others back to 20 yet and Urbosa starts at 5 (or was it 6?), but I don't think it would have made a major difference. And it did make me learn the enemy patterns quickly, because the best way to deal with major enemies is with care and patience.

However, the mission presented two difficulties... One was the aforementioned scaling of the maps, where Gerudo Town got somewhat more narrow than it used to be, especially the northern alley, where you can go up the stairs to some bar. And Koei Tecmo thought it was a good idea to let you fight a Yiga Blademaster in these close quarters... Well, it was not.

The camera can really get in the way, where you might not see what your enemy is doing, because there is a wall blocking your view. It's even more unfortunate when the Yiga Blademaster can shoot his sword beams right through said wall. That's not fun, I can tell you.

And then there was the boss at the end of the mission... You all know who. Well, no, not Thunderblight Ganon, thank goodness. I'm talking about the top banana!

Overall the fights against tougher foes on "Very Hard" aren't as bad. Well, you have to be careful not to get hit, because every hit costs you multiple hearts. And this usually has you react to the enemy, instead of attacking by your own, where Koei Tecmo now made a big deal out of the item weakness system from the first Hyrule Warriors. Except that now it's, "Use the right Rune!"

Reacting to enemy attacks with the Runes feels more like quick time events, really, and I'm not a big fan. It's better and way more flashy than in the first game, but there also seems to be a stronger reliance on this. Mindlessly slashing at the enemies will always get punished hard, so in the end it plays out more like the big bosses in Hyrule Warriors, where you run around them and wait for them to do the one attack, which lets you expose their weak point gauge.

Of course it's not as bad here, since there are other options as well, where you can always dodge most of their attacks and strike afterwards. Maybe even land the occasional Flurry Rush, though to me this is a lot harder to do here than it was in Breath of the Wild. There are foods and weapon abilities to increase the timing window, but still...

But it's doable. You can beat those Yiga Blademasters on Very Hard with Urbosa right away. The real problem is when you have to face two aggressive foes at once, may that be two Moblins or two Gerudo Captains... Or the boss of Urbosa's scenario, who is easy enough first, but then plays some duplication trickery on you. In addition, he then starts using completely new attacks, which can easily multi-hit you for some very cheap deaths. If you focus on one of the two enemies, the other will always take the chance and attack you from behind or from the side or really from anywhere where you don't see it. And then it's quickly "Game Over".

I was so annoyed by this that I thought about giving up and changing the difficulty down to "Hard". However, when I did this, everything felt so mindlessly easy again that it wasn't much fun. Thing is that so far the enemies had just right amount of health. They don't always die on your first weakpoint attack and they stand a fight. You have to be careful not to get hit and you have to be mindful about your resources. And this made the game so much more interesting that I wasn't going change the difficulty. Very hard it is. Well, at least for now...

It's kind of ironic how the easiest boss in Breath of the Wild became one of the toughest challenges so far in the game. Of course it's still early and it's even implied that he is the good-for-nothing we all knew. And of course it's also still a learning process for myself here...

Well, what I've learned is that fighting multiple stronger enemies at once is really where the elemental rods come in. Fire Rod, Ice Rod and Lightning Rod can target a larger area, which lets you hurt and stun multiple enemies all at the same time, so that one can't stab you in the back, while you deal with the other. Also, Stasis can be very helpful with this as well. And after figuring this out, I finally stood in triumph, welcoming the magnificent Urbosa to my team...

(Oh, did you know this game is copyrighted by Nintendo and Koei Tecmo and licensed by Nintendo? I sure didn't, thanks for the insightful info, Nintendo Switch screenshot...! Okay, I probably won't be sharing many screenshots about this game due to this. Complain to Koei Tecmo about it.)

The scenario overall was great, though. It looks great, it had some fun twists and the music was absolutely awesome. Like the quest for Vah Naboris in Breath of the Wild, this really set the bar high.

After the Gerudo Queen, the Zora Princess followed. And she literally followed, because during the mission it seemed like she was stalking Link, whenever you weren't playing as her yourself. "I'm here, Link! Notice me, Link! What are doing, Link? Looking for Koroks? That's so like you right now, you truly haven't changed!"

Doing some of Urbosa's side quests actually helped with the scenario here, because it unlocked a recipe that reduces lightning damage by 50%. And that was quite the life saver, since all the Electric Lizalfos really enjoyed acting like a power generator all around you.

The mission also had a first Lynel as a boss at the end, where I ran out of apples and all my rods to beat the thing. But it was super satisfying, similar to slaying your first Lynel in Breath of the Wild. Of course I hope that things will get easier later on, where it would be annoying if the difficulty kept increasing in a way where it negates all your progress. But it's good that the tougher enemies aren't complete pushovers in this game. They might even be more dangerous than what they used to be in Breath of the Wild, especially the Moblins.

Vah Ruta was even at danger at being destroyed by some explosive barrels and Lynels, which feels like a joke. Nothing in the world of Breath of the Wild should be able to put a dent into the Divine Beasts, but here you have to use a shield to keep it from being destroyed. Well, it was fun to blast the enemies away and despite the "Very Hard" difficulty it was still easy enough, where I'm looking forward to more of this action. It's certainly no "Ganon's Fury", that's for sure. And that's great.

Anyway, Mipha has joined my party and her ability to heal herself and others around her with her Special Attack will certainly be very useful going forward... She's also fun to play, but so are Urbosa and the others, where I haven't really decided on my favorite yet.

Curiously, the one character I liked playing the least in the demo, Princess Zelda, has grown on me quite a bit. The nice thing about her is that lets you use the power of the runes at any time with her normal and strong attacks, which works well with Cryonis and bombs. Especially the big bomb is super useful and you can detonate it with ZR when it rolls into enemy groups. I find that combo also quite good against weak point gauges and I'm eager to try her full moveset, once unlocked.

But overall, playing as Zelda feels remarkably safe, which is a good thing when playing on the hardest difficulty. The best thing here is the Bomb Rune, where nothing can hit here while you control the thing. And it also depletes weak points quickly.

So, go try some Zelda, if you haven't already...!