The Demon King has risen! This entry covers the rest of the second chapter, where you have to play a series of three scenarios in a row, all in the red glow of the first Blood Moon. But this is also where you can unlock three more characters to play with, so there is already quite a bit to talk about, before going into Chapter 3.
Difficulty: Very Hard
Scenarios: 8
Challenges: 6
Quests: 17
This part is the equivalent to "Calamity Strikes" in Age of Calamity, only that this is happening much earlier in the game ("Calamity Strikes" was in Chapter 5). The Gloom has hit the Zonai fan device and your party has to escape from Hyrule Castle, facing a number of growing threats on the way.
The "Striking North" scenario is already reusing one of the Battlefields, if I'm not mistaken, the same one as in "Raging Sands", putting you on Hyrule Field. Even though the are labeled as "Southwest" and "Northwest", they seemed to be the same terrain. But it comes with a hefty visual change, so only the layout is giving this away. And this is giving a direct comparison between before and after. It's like the Hyrule Castle stage in the first Hyrule Warriors, which turns into Ganon's Castle at the end.
Interestingly, I found some Koroks on the final stretch, but not before. Maybe I have missed some elsewhere, but this felt like a glimmer of hope and a teaser for what was about to come... Well, after the first Lynel encounter.
I feared this to be another roadblock, but this was much easier than the boss of the previous scenario, where I was able to beat this on my first try, sighing in relief. But when Rauru wanted to also fight the first Archfiend afterwards, I was like "no, no, stop it, I need a break!"
I was not going to get a break, though. As mentioned in the beginning, you have to play two more scenarios before you get to see the map screen again, but you're swapping teams for this. The next mission puts you in the sky, where Calamo is riding on Link the Mysterious Construct, flying around the sky islands, "Beneath the Blood Moon".
This was like a whole other game. It's effectively a 3D space rail shooter, so you follow a given path and have to shoot everything that gets before you. This is Link's Crossbow Training on steroids. And while this technically could have been fun, the first impression was absolutely awful!
The main problem is that this keeps spamming tutorial boxes in your face and then it adds a new gameplay mechanic every ten seconds, which you have to learn on the fly... quite literally. The tutorial boxes constantly interrupt the gameplay, but you also get some tutorial messages during the gameplay, which you have to read and quickly understand while playing, because those are the ones that teach you the critical stuff.
It was a video game nightmare, where they will use this level at schools to teach game design students how not to do things. They wanted too much at once with this, where this should have been split up somehow...
They even make you fight a Frost Gleeok at the end as a boss. Luckily, it was rather forgiving, even on the hardest difficulty, so despite all the frustrations I didn't have to restart. The level may even be fun once the tutorials are all gone. (Update: yes, it actually is a lot more fun to play the second time.)
Afterwards starts a third scenario, "The Howling Tempests", where play as the Mysterious Construct on the ground. One new thing it can do is Fuse Attacks, where you can use collected horns to unleash them. They will wear down the Weak Point Gauge no matter the situation, so this feels quite useful.
And you get to discover a new Zonai Device on top: the fan. This is yet another counter move, where you can use them to send certain attacks back to the sender, like when a Moblin is throwing a Bokoblin at you.
That's already a fourth technique to counter something. Well, the Construct didn't have a dash counter yet, but eventually you have to assign all your free buttons to counters, just to have them ready. And I still think that both the R and ZR buttons should open the same face button selection, split between Zonai Devices and everything else, because now I'm afraid that I will have to constantly change the equipment mid-battle going forward...
But I was also afraid that Calamo might simply be an assist character and not playable after all, where much to my rejoice you swap to him after the first camp.
And he's a beast! This little Korok will win the game and might become my favorite character, or at least among my favorites. What makes him so good is that he has an unlimited supply of the different elemental fruits. His first combo gives you Shock Fruits, the second Ice Fruits, the third Fire Fruits, and finally Splash Fruits. And all of them give you the elemental effects that you normally can only get from the Zonai Devices.
They can also be enhanced by the environment to give you the full effect instantly. Thanks to some nearby water puddles, Calamo could quickly destroy Weak Point Gauges thanks to the Shock and Ice Fruits. This is a killer!
His storyline is also funny, where he wants to set root somewhere and comments on how nice it would have been at Hyrule Castle, or on Hyrule Field if it weren't for the recent destruction. The first reaction of every Zelda fan hearing this is probably, "will he become the Great Deku Tree?" And this would be hilarious, but I think the Deku Tree is who had created the Koroks in the first place.
It's also funny to discover other Koroks while playing him, where he gives little comments. Rest assured, I will 100% use him exclusively to search for any missing Korok Seeds at the end.
And poor Typhan had to follow up on this... He was not winning any hearts to begin with, because these type of playable soldiers feel like a very random addition to fill the roster. There is nothing special about these guys. They are not sages, they are not some cool Korok, nor are they some Link imposter. But yet they share the same status.
On the one hand this is actually quite respectful. It's a good thing that you don't just have the superstars, but also some ordinary soldiers, making the otherwise faceless masses of cannon fodder feel more alive and tangible.
On the other hand we didn't get to play as Nabooru, Darmani, Mikau, any Deku, Makar, Linebeck, Byrne, Groose, or Hilda in the first Hyrule Warriors, but here we are... playing as Typhan, some dude with a big shield. Isn't that great...?
And that's also what his whole moveset is all about: he shields. And then follows this up into attacks. It's nothing overly special, but it works. He joins the Mysterious Construct and Calamo in a battle against a Hinox, but you can also conquer some keeps at the sidelines before doing so. There is no point to it on the Very Hard difficulty, however, because the camp that you're getting out of this won't heal you... Though, some healing before the finale would have been nice.
Because after the Hinox you have to battle against Grimgera, Archfiend of Tempests. It's a discount version of Colgera, but unlike the boss from Tears of the Kingdom this one actually posed a threat. I've learned this the hard way by standing on the water when the battle started and being greeted with its ice breath. Game Over.
And this was the second time where I had to restart the entire battle, because I was left with little to nothing, which is so very discouraging. Dead ends like this make me regret going with the Very Hard difficulty, because this just seemed totally unfair and in this case I didn't have the option to improve my fighters, because you unlock them for the first time in this mission. I was stuck on the given levels (where they all start at 17) and the weapons they have, so my choices were to either try again or to lower the difficulty.
But I don't know what would have happened if you were to exit the battle now. Would you have to replay all three scenarios then? I didn't want to risk it and I also don't want to back down so easily, so I gave it a second run, this time ignoring absolutely all of the optional outposts and gunning straight for the Hinox, so that I would have enough health and two rations left for Grimgera.
Still, it took a while to beat this boss, because I was at a loss here. I just didn't understand what I was supposed to do at first. Sure, it's made out of ice and its Weak Point Gauge is mantled in ice, indicating that you have to do something about that. And sure, everyone was also equipped with Flame Emitters in this scenario, even though you didn't really need them before... And you can use those to literally melt its weak point. Shooting it with the new Cannon device also looks super cool, where you've learned that it's effective against flying enemies
It makes all sense... except that these flame throwers and cannons eat away your batteries in no time, which isn't even enough for a single weak point attack. Since I was heading directly to the boss, I also didn't have enough materials for Fuse Attacks. So, my only other option were seemingly Calamo's Fire Fruits, but those come with the third combo string, making it quite difficult to hit Grimgera with them, since this boss is airborne most of the time. It was also another boss where you just want to keep your distance.
However, what I didn't understand is that your batteries actually recharge on their own, like they do in Tears of the Kingdom. It's just atrociously slow in comparison and it only happens when they are depleted, so I never even noticed this before. Why in the world is this so bad? Is this also difficulty dependent? Anyway, I hope you will be able to speed this up eventually, because the slow recharge made this boss battle the least fun it potentially could be. Roast it a bit and then dodge attacks for two minutes until your batteries are back. Rinse and repeat. I was not amused...
By the way, I also don't expect there to be a villain campaign any longer. The Archfiends are still too monstrous, so they don't see like something that you should be able to play as. The Shaded Construct seems to be the same as the good version. And Koume and Kotake are so basic that they make Typhan look interesting. So, this would only leave Ganondorf... and I'm not sure about him either. After what he did to Sonia, celebrating this character in his own scenarios would leave a sour taste in the mouth.
Plus, Ganondorf already appears in the gallery in both his forms, together with Sonia, Lenalia and also Grimgera, which indicates that he won't be playable... for now.
So, I think that this will unfold in the same way as Age of Calamity, where you exclusively play on the side of the good guys and where the next chapter seems to be about recruiting all the sages.
PS: Koei Tecmo has announced that the game will receive two free updates in the near future. But as long as I'm not done with the game, I doubt that I can say anything of relevance here. Maybe it contains the "Apocalyptic" difficulty. Or maybe this will add a Ganondorf mode after all.
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