After the end of the second chapter, the game opens up a bit more, where I've been busy with clearing a plethora of Challenges and recruiting a bunch of new allies, including two of the Sages: Qia and Raphica.
Difficulty: Very Hard
Scenarios: 11
Challenges: 32
Quests: 58
One new thing, which you can immediately unlock after getting to the Forgotten Temple, is the possibility to apply camp effects pre-battle. So, this works now exactly like the cooking in Age of Calamity and also lets you use these effects in Challenges. But it also makes conquering any camps on the Very Hard difficulty completely pointless now. There is zero reason to do it, where I'm not sure it was a good idea to nerf them this hard...
As I said in entry 2, I didn't make much use of the cooking in the previous game, but here I supply the camps every single time, even though the buffs are quite similar. What really makes a difference is that certain materials are marked as "camp supplies only" with the little, yellow camp icon, meaning that you don't need these for any quests. And when you know that, then there is essentially no reason to hold back.
Some EXP boost is always good, but I also found the Sync-Gauge Charge to be quite valuable. In Age of Calamity Special Attacks were the way to success, but they really are taking the backseat here to the Sync Strikes. Those are more flashy, more effective, and they do charge on their own, as long as you keep two fighters close. But for the most part the game makes sure that you have some companion around.
And it's quick to expand your list of fighters. In Chapter 3 there is a split into two teams: Team Rauru fled to the Forgotten Temple, while Team Calamo first makes camp on Hyrule Field and picks up any fighters Rauru had to leave behind, like Typhan and Quino.
The latter can be added via a Challenge, where he may even be fully optional. But if you ever wanted to play as a purple-haired Hylian swordsman since A Link to the Past, then he will be your guy. He's fighting with a two-handed blade for some heavy hitting.
Later on, the team can also recruit Lago, a veteran Zora, in the same way. And there are generally lots of "rescue the soldier" missions among the Challenges, where you need to defeat a bunch of enemies before they defeat your allies. But the trick is to simply not leave them alone, which makes them stop losing health, where I think this was the same in Age of Calamity (it's been a while).
But all these Challenges were totally soothing after the harsh Grimgera battle. Outside of the main scenarios, the Very Hard difficulty just feels quite right. It is tough and you want to make good use of the Zonai Devices to tear down the weak points, but it is fair. The time limits so far were all keeping it tight, but were very much doable. And most importantly, fighting a Lynel truly feels like fighting a Lynel in Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom, and not like some pushover. Of course, enemies like the Captain Constructs or Moblins are overtuned compared to their originals, but I rather have it this way.
By the way, I also believe that they've actually redone all the enemies from the ground up, so they didn't just copy what they had made for Age of Calamity and slammed some horns onto them. Though, I could be wrong about this. Certain actions and attacks are the same, but they might appear to be very different, because you react with different moves to them, e.g. using a Zonai Fan instead of Magnesis to throw something back.
Generally, I do enjoy this new counter system quite a lot and I'm amazed by the many options thanks to the Zonai Devices. I'm also beginning to understand now why they didn't separate the unique skills from them, as I had suggested before. It's because there is a Zonai Device equivalent to every counter. You can use the Cannon to counter aerials, Rockets against dash attacks, and Time Bombs against blocking. Likewise, some characters do have unique skills for throwing something back, as an alternative to the Fan.
And not every character may have a unique skill for everything. The Mysterious Construct, for example, lacks a dash counter when fighting with sword or spear. But for now you can simply use Rockets instead, where I like to keep them assigned to the Y button for muscle memory reasons, because that's where you have the dash counter equipped by default.
Of course, you could still follow the same principle if the ZR button also gave a selection. But then you would have to think about what trigger you need to use and by now I tend to instinctively hold down R whenever I need to counter something, where I can completely screw myself by altering the assigned buttons too much.
What I absolutely love about the counters, though, are the brute, loud sound effects when they land, combined with this bit of slowdown. That never gets old. Boom!
Anyway, at this point you have the choice between two scenarios, one for each team. One let's you meet the Rito and the other the Zora, which makes sense, because we've already seen the Gorons and Gerudo earlier in the game. So, it's time to reveal the other two sages first.
What doesn't make much sense in this is how these teams go past each other's camps. Team Calamo heads to Tabantha, beyond the Tanagar Canyon, where Rauru's group took shelter. Meanwhile, Rauru's group goes into the Lanayru Wetlands, which isn't far off from the part of Hyrule Field where their old comrades were joining the Calamo & Construct Foundation. So, their priorities don't make much sense geographically and this was purely done for story reasons.
I went to play "Lanayru Defiled" first, where Rauru and Zelda are joining forces with Queen Qia of the Zora to fight against sludge monsters. And that is quite the annoying mechanic, because the sludge effectively brings you to a halt, making you an easy target. This cost me quite a lot of health early, when fighting these guys:
Sludge Likes! It is silly, but because this was a one-time boss in Tears of the Kingdom, which couldn't be repeated elsewhere, having multiples of these (in repeatable missions) feels special. Not that this allowed me to take new compendium pictures of them, but still...
The boss at the end of the stage was Grimtorok, the Archfiend of Grime. Actually, it's some weird sorcerer or sorceress, who uses the sludge to create a large Octorok-like body. And design-wise I'm liking these bosses a bit more than the ones in Tears of the Kingdom, but they really are testing me at the end of their scenarios. First they wear you down with a number of battles, including a Hinox, and then you still have to fight a tricky boss at the end. Sure, there is a camp nearby, but that's not doing me any favors currently.
Everyone except for Qia was low on health when I had arrived at the boss. And I really needed to suppress the urge to throw my remaining rations onto them, because the game still has that safety net mechanic, where you are left on a quarter heart, no matter how much damage an attack does. That's when you want to use a ration to heal up. However, the game also still doesn't give you any invulnerability frames. So, if you get hit by two quick attacks in a row, then you will die and you possibly can't react with a heal. There is an auto-heal option, but the rations then might just get literally swallowed, where you lose all the gained health right away from consecutive hits.
So, this was rather tricky, but I persevered and didn't restart the scenario this time. At least I had all battery recharges left, so I could make effective use of the Hydrant. Qia also lets you wash away the mud, but there is only one specific combo to do so, which made this trickier than it probably should be... If all her attacks had some cleansing effect, then this would be much more manageable.
About Qia herself, that is quite the design she got there with that horn, which she hid under that mask. It makes me feel a bit sorry about her future husband, who has to worry about not getting one of his eyes poked out whenever he wants to kiss her... And she is quite the tough personality, very different from Mipha, instantly demanding to be called Queen by her people after her father's demise.
Imagine the concept of a princess becoming the queen as the rightful heir to the throne...! Zelda must be totally confused about that. She even introduces herself to Sonia and Rauru as "the daughter of King Rhoam of Hyrule", leaving out that he's been dead for 100 years.
Mipha was my favorite character to play as in Age of Calamity. And sadly, Qia can't really compete with that, mainly because she doesn't have the same healing ability. Also, the water element is probably the least useful out of them all, but I haven't been to Death Mountain yet, so maybe I'll change my mind there.
After the mission you're faced with special Challenges, where the Demon King's Army threatens to reclaim territory. This will happen after a number of battles, unless you complete the Challenge in question. I suppose, it won't make much of a difference if you ignore those... You will simply reclaim the territory once the Challenge gets cleared, but there are also pristine Zonaite Steels waiting as a reward for when you do it in time. Those can be used on any weapon type to upgrade them.
Now, these Challenges were nothing to speak of, so far at least. That big threat to your territory turned out to be a pair of Moblins and some Boss Bokoblin or whatever. It's a joke and this would have been a great opportunity to do some sort of horde mode, where you have to defend an outpost from waves of incoming enemies.
Overall, I have one big point of criticism about this game so far: the scale of the conflicts. This was also a complaint I had about Age of Calamity, where the battlefields were usually quite small and the focus was mostly on 1v1 battles. And this doesn't seem to be any different here – in fact there isn't even anything coming close to the previous Hyrule Field in terms of size.
The reveal trailer has shown us differently and maybe Age of Imprisonment starts out small and gradually increases the scope of the battles, which would be great. But so far there has been nothing to truly justify the Nintendo Switch 2 purchase. Sure, this game would run and look bad on a Nintendo Switch, much like Age of Calamity did, but it would have been nice to have the option. After all, they let you play the original Hyrule Warriors on a Nintendo 3DS, despite the terrible performance.
Next scenario, "Shadows in the Snow", was pretty cool (pun intended). Well, Raphica looks like someone slapped a pompadour onto Teba and called it a day, where design-wise he is probably the least outstanding out of the original Sages. But I liked how he was friends with Calamo for the funny scenes and their shared hairstyles. The way the Mysterious Construct makes big eyes when Calamo tells the Rito that it dragged him here is priceless. "Excuuuuse meee, bud!"
The Rito Village battlefield is even a good example of how cramped and funneled everything is again, with lots of winding ways. And it's okay for one battlefield to be like this... I'm just hoping that there will also be some big, open areas filled with monsters from top to bottom.
At least the battle itself was rather chill (another intended pun). It ended on an Ice Lynel and I was afraid about a rematch of Grimgera afterwards, but luckily this wasn't the case and I could finish this mission without much struggling. That was certainly nice after the last couple of scenarios.
And things get even nicer afterwards. You unlock the Tabantha Training Camp, led by one of Raphica's Rito comrades, Vence. This lets you finally level up your characters for a fee. And Vence can even train himself, because he joins Calamo's group and becomes playable as well, fighting with a blade. He has a crazy move, where he stabs as fast as a gatling gun, but otherwise there isn't much to say about him... I like his hat, I guess.
Well, I'm not overly excited about these characters. Typhan, Quino, Lago, and now Vence... There is also another Rito warrior named Pinnec, who fights with a spear, where it looks like each tribe is having two of these assist characters. And this would mean that half of the entire roster is made out of them, where this game might as well be called "Hyrule Nobodies".
But it looks like their main purpose is to have a large group of characters who share the same weapon pool. Rauru, Zelda, Mineru and the other sages all have their own unique weapons, which aren't used by anyone else, such as the Spear of Light. But you also have the typical weaponry from the Breath of the Wild saga games, like a Tree Branch or the Feathered Edge. Or there are the two save data bonus weapons, the High Guard's Sword and Claymore, which unlock at the start of Chapter 3 (see above), as well as similar new weapons from this Zonai era.
Those can be all used by the Mysterious Construct, who – exactly like Link in Age of Calamity – has three movesets by default, based on the three main weapon types: one-handed, two-handed and spears. So, you can swap its Zonaite Sword for a High Guard's Claymore, for example. (Its two-handed moveset is insane, by the way. Spin Attacks for the win.)
Now, in Age of Calamity this was a complete waste. Link got a ton of different weapons to play with, but there was little reason to utilize (and upgrade) any of them besides the Master Sword. But the Mysterious Construct has a number of allies which it has to share these weapons with. And each weapon can only be assigned to one combatant at time, though it looks like you can get duplicates of some of them. But it's not as excessive as it was in the previous Hyrule Warriors games, where you got drowned in weapons after each battle and constantly kept fusing them into each other.
And this is the first time that weapons can be shared between characters, which is long overdue and a much welcomed change. Given, besides the Mysterious Construct, all these characters only have one moveset and the weapons themselves are more of a cosmetic change, but you can upgrade them all independently and maybe apply different weapon seals for different situations. And there is a lot more incentive to do this when you don't just have a single character using them.
Next goal is Death Mountain and you get another Star Fox (or should I say "Sky Korok"?) level here with "The Behemoth in the Crater". I've also replayed the previous mission and it truly was more fun without all the tutorials constantly popping up. Here you can fight Moragia again, another one-time boss from Tears of the Kingdom and probably one of the most forgettable things about the game, but this was the perfect scenario for another one of these rail shooter sections. I'm enjoying these a lot more than the Divine Beast levels, which were spectacular, but also quite clunky.
Completing that scenario gives you access to Death Mountain, but also some additional Challenges in the sky islands above... Which actually don't exist in Tears of the Kingdom, but they look like all the others, so maybe they just moved a bit over the thousands of years. The visuals here were really nice, where the bright stones and golden trees against the blue skies are certainly soothing after all the dreary landscapes.
I also hadn't noticed this until now, but when you complete a Challenge, then the characters will do a variety of different post-battle / idle animations. Quino, for example, rams his claymore into the ground and does some stretches. Those are some cool, little details that make the characters appear more alive.
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