Ready your Zonai Devices! Yesterday I was able to finish Chapter 3, where the rest of the chapter initiated a first visit to Death Mountain and the Lost Woods. But there is also Agraston and another new fighter to talk about...
Difficulty: Very Hard
Scenarios: 13
Challenges: 40
Quests: 76
Crisis on Death Mountain
So far all of the battlefields have been completely new when compared to Age of Calamity, but this isn't the case any longer with the introduction of Death Mountain. It's not the exact same thing, where it's not as widespread and you have different paths, but especially in the beginning it looks very similar.
Sadly, it can't make up for it with its music. The Champion Daruk theme was an absolute blast, but here you're getting a remix of the Goron City theme from Breath of the Wild. It's not bad, but it isn't great either. And this is a general point of criticism about this game, maybe the biggest one so far: the soundtrack feels very uninspired. It absolutely pales in comparison to Age of Calamity, which offered one of the best scores in the Zelda franchise.
For some reason they have swapped all composers and even though the new team is led by prestigious Keiichi Okabe, who is known for Tekken and NieR, this hasn't worked out at all. This soundtrack is completely unable to match the work of Kumi Tanioka and her team, which is a huge problem, because the music always has been a massive drive behind these Hyrule Warriors games. No matter how repetitive the gameplay could get, the music has always carried it. Always! Well, to be fair, there is still some good stuff in here, but it feels more like a Tears of the Kingdom remix album than its own thing. And it certainly lacks the sheer power of the tracks in Age of Calamity.
Back to Death Mountain, I can't deny how good it feels to be using these hot springs. What a treat! And I needed that, because I was playing absolutely terrible on that evening. Must be awesome to have camps that actually heal your team every now and then, but I will never know...
As for Agraston, it's the same thing as with Qia, really. I like his design and personality, but gameplay-wise he is a Discount Daruk. He plays similarly to him, but lacks all the interesting mechanics, like Daruk's Protection and the actual boulder breaking with the Boulder Breaker. He can unleash the fire element, but again it only does so with specifics combos (at least he has two of them and not just once), where it's not as useful as it could be and makes you use the same move over and over again.
I hope you can actually upgrade the sages to unleash their primary element with more attacks. You can enhance more of Zelda's moves with her Recall powers, which is awesome. And you can enhance both Mineru's and the Link Construct's combos with Zonai Devices, potentially also giving them elemental effects. So, it would make sense to have something like this for all the Sages.
But even then you don't get the same utility as healing via Special Attacks or shielding yourself from elemental attacks. Not that you would necessarily need these here, as proven by the end of this scenario...
You're faced with not only one, but two Fire Lynels. And fighting two Lynels of any kind at once was one of the biggest nightmares in Age of Calamity from what I remember. But in Age of Imprisonment this seemed rather effortless, even on the hardest difficulty... When you can constantly bombard them with Frost Emitters, Unique Skills, Special Attacks, and Sync Strikes in a team of four, they don't really stand a chance.
Well, Age of Calamity also had a number of bad habits with its Challenges. You often ended up alone, with no items, and a time limit. So far only the time limits have returned, but all the other stuff is making those easy enough. Because the Sync Strikes and Zonai devices are the cool new thing, they want you to be using them, so you usually have a second character available in the Challenges, if not more, and they don't take away your equipment. But let's see what will come later, because I have already crowed too soon with this game once before.
Speaking of your equipment, you can unlock Balloons afterwards, which you can use to teleport to any captured outpost. This is amazing! It's something I've always wanted, ever since the first Hyrule Warriors on Wii U. They have added the Ocarina with the 3DS version, but even there you still needed to activate Owl Statues in addition. This is so much more convenient, while giving you a proper incentive to go after (all) outposts. And it only took them three games to realize this...
Some of the Zonai devices are unlocked as part of the main scenarios, usually the once you need for something critical, but the rest can be unlocked via Zonai device dispensers on the map. You have to insert a specific amount of materials, but I like to think that this is simply the amount they needed in order to play Gacha long enough for them to find something new.
In one of the Voice Memories in Tears of the Kingdom Rauru even muses why these things were designed by the ancient Zonai in this inefficient manner...
Under Cover of Mist
We're getting closer to the point where Team Rauru and Team Calamo will finally meet each other. Both were headed to the Lost Woods after their heroics at Death Mountain, but Zelda's group arrived there much later.
A top-down view of the area will show you something important: there is no Great Deku Tree yet. Well, I suppose you could already tell this from studying the landscape shots earlier in the game, but I wasn't paying as close attention, mostly distracted by the big rings of clouds around Death Mountain, reminiscent of Ocarina of Time.
But this only supports the idea that Calamo may actually become the Great Deku Tree in his eternal quest of setting roots. If what he had found at the very beginning of the game is a shard of the Master Sword, which is currently powering his Construct bud, then maybe he will watch over it, while it's regrowing into an actual sword. This would mean that the Master Sword got broken and lost before the founding of this new Hyrule, explaining why it couldn't be used in the Imprisoning War.
So, at the end of this war / game you would actually have two Master Swords, which both are regenerating over time until they are needed again. This would be quite poetic and I love the idea of seeing both the Great Deku Tree and the Master Sword in a very different form here, where they have created a deep friendship. However – and I apologize about the mid-game theorizing – this idea also raises two big questions:
- Why is it called the "Great Deku Tree" again? There are no Dekus in the Breath of the Wild Hyrule. And if it truly grew from a Korok, why isn't it called the "Great Korok Tree" or even better... the "Great Calamo"?
- Why is the Mysterious Construct acting and looking like Link? Shouldn't it be figure-skating all over the place and remind everyone when their Zonai batteries are empty? If this is truly just a piece of the Master Sword inside the Construct, then this will be out of character.
I'm looking forward to finding out! They will give explanations to all of this, right? Right...? Ahem...
Moving on into the Lost Woods, this stage was truly just reused from Age of Calamity, with some changes here and there. The whole area with the Great Deku Tree and the Master Sword isn't there yet, of course, but big parts of the map layout were identical, especially around the south. And this was fully intentional, I can imagine, giving the place an eerie sense of eternity.
And it has a new mechanic, where you can activate hidden shortcuts through the mouths of trees, which I found clever, because there is one shortcut like this in Breath of the Wild, which lets you return to the entrance of the Lost Woods from Korok Forest. You can even use these hidden tunnels to sneak up on enemies and do a full break of their weak point gauge, as this game's version of the Sneakstrike. I don't remember this being a thing in Age of Calamity, so this may actually be new. But usually enemies always face you when you enter an area.
Also, the Lost Woods are where you potentially have to deal with electric enemies for the first time... And their weak point gauges are mantled in electricity, where so far this was always an indicator that there is something to counter it. Fire works on ice and ice works on fire. Water washes away sludge and bombs break stone. But like in Breath of the Wild and everything after there doesn't seem to be a weakness to electricity. This could have been the chance for the water element to truly shine, though it probably wouldn't make much sense for Electric Lizalfos, who swim in water... But in theory water and electricity could have had the same dynamic as fire and ice, where they cancel each other out.
One thing I had ignored so far are the camp services, which may actually a reason to go for camps on Very Hard after all. There are these temporary "aside quests" during the main missions, which are basically like your stupid daily challenges / quests in many free-to-play games, but limited to a single battle. It's simple stuff like "use Special Attacks as Zelda two times" or "defeat 10 Bokoblins", but these will earn you tickets and you can trade them for additional temporary effects.
One of them even lets a fighter get the full Bottled Fairy treatment, being healed up after a death. You can also reveal the positions of missing chests and Koroks, which is nice, and get other very helpful effects that can help you in battle. On the lower difficulties these will probably be completely uninteresting, but in my case they should be worth a try.
However, the "Fully Restore Health Once Upon Defeat" really only works once, where it may not be worth the high cost. But it made me more confident going into the Grimgera rematch:
Knowing who the boss will be from the very start of the mission, I brought full batteries this time, which made the battle much easier. It's quick recovery time is still very annoying, however. And I think you're fighting it at the exact spot where later the Master Sword will reside, at least judging from the map.
This ends the third chapter and Zelda's next goal is meeting with the Mysterious Construct, who has moved on to the Gerudo Desert. I can't wait to see this happen! Well, actually I can, or else I wouldn't be writing this... and there were some more Challenges to complete before, where I always try to clear these immediately. But I'm truly excited to see her reaction.
And so far the Challenges haven't been giving me any trouble. There was even a new one that throws all tiers of Captain Constructs at you already, at once... It felt like something for the later game, really, but it was manageable. And I'm not complaining. While I've made the decision to play this game also on "Very Hard" from start to finish, like I did with Age of Calamity, this wasn't an easy decision, because this journey could be excruciating in the predecessor.
But as proven by the double Fire Lynels earlier, all the new mechanics make this game actually much, much easier. I also believe that you're taking less damage here, but that's just a gut feeling and I haven't made any direct comparisons. However, that there is no way of replenishing your rations has been a big pain point, but only in the main scenarios that have ended on some big boss, like Grimgera.
One of the new Challenges also let you unlock another companion for the Calamo & Construct Club:
Pinnec, was it? And I don't think I was ever less excited about getting a new character in a Hyrule Warriors game than with this guy... What a waste of a slot! The novelty of these support characters has worn off quickly. And he feels very similar to Vence in play style, just with a spear.
My biggest gripe with this group of characters is the lack of female fighters, however. There will be two more Gerudo girls, I'm sure, but it's not like they had any choice with them. But they had a choice with the rest and for some reason they decided to make them all male.
Yes, having male warriors in a war scenario is more realistic, but I'm not playing Hyrule Warriors for realism. And these games always understood to make their heroines (and villainesses) shine. But this game doesn't have many of them. So far it's only Zelda, Mineru and Qia...
And I've always wanted a female Rito amongst the ranks of the Champions and Sages, which was not to be. We had Medli in The Wind Waker, but now it's all Revalis, and Tebas, and Tulins... and I can't stand any of them. Maybe it's supposed to be a cultural thing that the female Ritos stay at home in their nests, while the men go to battle, but I don't care. They didn't have a choice with Raphica, but they could have given us a female Rito here as one of his guards. And this would have been a much more exciting addition.
To hell with Pinnec!
No comments:
Post a Comment