Today was the day and the Expansion Pass for Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity is now finally complete with the release of the second wave, "Guardian of Remembrance". This post is going to be a rough overview of all the new features, but it's work in progress and will be updated continuously. The unannounced playable character will be treated as a spoiler.
EX Chapter
The main addition of the second DLC wave are new major battles, which take place in memories. They come with new cutscenes and show certain events all over the storyline of Age of Calamity, while the narration is done by Purah and Robbie this time. The first battle features Terrako's first encounter with Harbinger Ganon, where he is also playable, so this DLC does take place after the main game and probably won't be unlocked any earlier.
The early of the DLC scenarios put the Champions together with their descendants on different tasks. It seems that every one of the main characters is getting at least one new battle dedicated to them in some form.
There are no any hidden Koroks to be found, instead there are certain "Memory Quests" that have to be fulfilled. Those can be a variety challenges, like "Defeat 100 enemies with ice attacks", or conditions, like not letting certain allies flee. One of the Memory Quests is always obscured, however, where you have to find out yourself what has to be done. Here is a list of the secret conditions:
Clearing all of these scenarios once will reward you with Purah & Robbie as a playable character and also unlock a small series of new Challenges. For the other unlockable character you have to fulfill one of the obscured Memory Quests.
New Enemies
Even more enemy variants were added together with the new scenarios and Challenges. These include flying Moblins, which are tied to Octo Balloons, as well as "Malice Moblins". There is also a new major boss in the game.
EX Stages
Half of the EX battles feature new stages, the rest does not. Likewise, about half of the new stages come with new music. Here is a list of what you can expect:
- Mount Daphnes (featuring the Coliseum)
- Goponga Village
- Kakariko Village
- Lanayru Road
The reused stages don't really have changed in any way, though you might go through them in a different direction. For example there is a new battle at Crenel Peak, where you have to go all the way up instead of down. The reused stages also don't have any new collectible treasure chests on them, instead they are shared with the original scenarios.
EX Challenges
Despite the addition of new stages, they don't seem to come with many new Challenges, which were the focus of the first DLC wave. There is one new challenge, "Lv.59 EX Zelda's Culinary Research", unlocked right after downloading the DLC, which takes place at Fort Hateno, but completing the new scenarios only unlocks few new Challenges and not even all of them use the new stages.
There are new Vicious Monster Battles, however, the so called "EX Alerts", which take place on all of the new battlefields: Mount Daphnes, Kakariko Village, Goponga Swamp and Lanayru Road. The Coliseum gets also used for real this time for some new boss battle Challenges.
Here is a list of the new Challenges:
EX Quests / EX Enhanced Abilities
After completing one of the new scenarios, the featured fighters will get new Quests, where you can unlock another "Enhanced Ability" for them. This requires the new "Report: Hidden Battle" item, which is obtained from clearing Memory Quests.
Similar to the enhanced abilities of the main game this can be a new mechanic added to the character, but sometimes also an additional combo move. So, the moveset of the every original fighter has been extended by a bit.
In addition, the Champions and their descendants can unlock a new weapon with base 36 damage, similar to the Prototype Ancient Short Sword. These can also be gotten (once) from new Quests and are locked by default. You can also lock more weapons now, as of version 1.3.0, around 20 in total (the number seems to vary a bit).
EX Characters
Purah & Robbie are unlocked by beating all of the new memory scenarios once. They are treated like any of the other bonus characters, so they don't actively get used in any of the major battles.
Their weapon type is called the "Sheikah Arms", where Robbie uses some sort of suit with robotic arms. The "Ultimate Sheikah Arms" are even designed after his Ancient Blade Saw from Breath of the Wild.
They ZR ability lets you summon Purah's "inventions", small devices which emulate the power of the Divine Beasts. What invention gets used next is random, but it shows the corresponding symbol next to a bar below your Special Meter. The Vah Medoh invention for example summons a small airstrike and the one from Vah Ruta is a hydraulic apparatus, which shoots a strong water stream, similar to the one found in Damel Forest during the "When Courage Fails" scenario.
These attacks can also hit Robbie, however, but he won't take damage, only get stunned and alike. They also will drain the Weak Point Gauge of enemies, which makes them quite powerful, almost like additional Special Attacks that can be deployed regularly.
2 comments:
Huh. I'm really surprised golden enemies didnt make it in.
Was positive the dlc enemy type from BotW would make it into this game's dlc.
Will you ve doing a comparison of how much you enjoyed this game w all the dlc vs HW1 Definitive Edition?
Regardless this entire journal series has been good fun to read through.
I get the feeling that this game might get a second season of DLC. There is still so much stuff they could add, including the golden enemies...
Well, I actually haven't played the Definitive Edition of HW1 yet, but I want to. I've only played Wii U original and HW Legends. Once I'm done with Age of Calamity, I might play through HW on the Switch again, however, where in this case it will be much easier to compare the two. I would really like to see how it holds up.
Overall I think I enjoyed HW much more, because it was a more fun grind, while Age of Calamity is a little bit too focused on intense boss battles all the time. But at the same time Age of Calamity offers the higher quality experience and really goes all-in with the source material.
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