I'm running out of the title screens showing the Forgotten Temple, so it's time to reclaim Hyrule Castle. Or so I thought... Let us dive into chapter 5 here, which is where the Imprisoning War is about to reach its climax.
Difficulty: Very Hard
Scenarios: 22
Challenges: 111
Quests: 295
Into the Fray
Last time I commented on how the Blights kept being resurrected in Age of Calamity, and Ganondorf must have picked up on that. Or he watched the old Zelda cartoon show and got inspired by that Evil Jar, only that his Evil Jar is some gloom pit, where his evil hands have to reach into it.
Gloom just doing gloom things, I guess, no further explanation needed. And they are not for long, because this game is now pushing things towards the finale. When I first saw the preview image for the next battle, presenting you with the Stormwind Ark, I was getting excited. I thought that maybe the fifth chapter was about the different temples, where their power could be needed somehow.
A popular theory was that Ganondorf got sealed at the Temple of Light, where maybe they would need to purify all the temples from evil to increase the sealing there. But instead it's just some random place in the Depths and nothing else needs to be done, only to lure Ganondorf there.
Well, they have used the future Wind Temple in a creative way, at least, where everyone is boarding it to storm Hyrule Castle. You even get another flying level, which is similar to the first one, but still feels more creative than the one that we had in the Depths.
This is primarily due to a top-down section during this mission, where you're getting swarmed by enemies from all side and have to shoot around you. That was very clever. And at the end you're fighting a King Gleeok, so we're skipping right past the Flame and Thunder Gleeoks.
As for the actual battle, you're locked to Rauru and get to pick three other fighters. Naturally, it had to be the three Rito, though I was worried for a moment that they would skip right to Hyrule Castle and drop you off there, where my choice would have been not-so-great. But you do get a single boss battle here, once again against Grimgera.
That Archfiend has overstayed its welcome, so much is clear, where you have to fight it three times in total, which is one more than the others. But I had to beat it again anyway, as Raphica for his last Aside Quests, so this played out perfectly. Though, that roll attack got me hard one time, because I was trying to counter it and didn't have it ready. And the ice slice attack took away about half of my health bar, which is by far the most I have seen in a while.
The Battle of Hyrule Castle
You have to give it to the good guys here – they came to raid Hyrule Castle in style. That sequence how they arrived on the Stormwind Ark and bounced off the sails on the little ships to go on land was epic. I mean, what are you going to do when a bunch of sky vikings arrive at your doorstep? This is how you impress a Demon King.
And I expected this to be the big thing, where Koei Tecmo is going all in with the game. A huge battle with lots of big monsters at once, just like it was falsely advertised in the reveal trailer. And I say "falsely advertised", because that's not what I was getting here. You battle on another piece of random landscape, made out of a series of cramped spaces, being piped from A to B. At the end you battle against Grimtorok and Grimgohma again to check these two off right away... and that's really it.
You don't see much of Hyrule Castle itself. Once you arrive at its door, you are greeted by Ganondorf, who chases you away in a cutscene. Couldn't this have been taken into the throne room at least? Getting to the Great Plateau was a big highlight in Age of Calamity, where you could explore the lower half of it and also enter the Temple of Time. Here you don't even get close to see its Zonai counterpart, only as a background piece in the early game. And you also don't get to experience the castle during gameplay, which is a letdown.
Anyway, the main scenarios in the fifth chapter all play out one after another, but naturally the game is still giving you some breaks between them... But it also unlocks some new Challenges and Quests for you to do, which totally are out of place. Age of Calamity had the same issue, but so far in this game it never has been all that questionable. Up until now.
While they are all running from Ganondorf, they even have the time for some mock battles. You finally get to fight the sages all yourself, where it's a first for both Qia and Raphica. But it's really only them in 2on1 battles, so you don't fight their sidekicks or some Rito and Zora troops, which is something that Age of Calamity made good use of.
Well, these side missions aren't necessarily meant to be chronological, where the bonus conversations are certainly not. You can unlock Rauru's at this point in the game, and not before, but it's a conversation with Sonia, which takes place during the first chapter.
By the way, the hidden Aside Quest requirement, which I had for some characters like Rauru, got unlocked after the Hyrule Castle battle. It was defeating a Phantom Ganon after all and the timing of this was rather curious, because you've fought this boss already once in the middle of chapter 4...
The Demon King, Ensnared
There was only one good explanation for this Aside Quest behavior with Phantom Ganon: they didn't want you to go at this before this next story scenario. In "Purging the Shadows" you only get to fight one Phantom Ganon and you have to repeat the whole scenario for it. Well, I had to do it once anyway for a missing treasure chest, where Lago could score his Phantom Ganon kill. But I expected the next battle to feature multiple Phantom Ganons chasing you, so I brought everyone who was still in need: Zelda, Rauru, Mineru and Ardi...
And for once I didn't get disappointed. Well, there weren't enough for all of them. And Mineru is greedy for some reason, where she wants to kill two. But later I also got the same Aside Quest for Pinnec and Sholani for some reason and I was missing another treasure chest on this tenth iteration of Hyrule Field, one that was way off in the sidelines for some reason... So, I had to repeat this battle anyway.
It was still a bit excessive with how many characters were gunning for the same boss in their Aside Quests. I can get behind Lago, because he wants revenge for his fallen king, but why in the world would Pinnec and Sholani want a slice of Ganondorf?
Maybe there is an easier way later in the game, though, because fighting three Phantom Ganons at once is as evil as it sounds. It mainly gets bad when they all switch into their spear mode and start spamming those charge attacks. But luckily you're not alone, so you can return the favor and spam Sync Strikes.
But THIS is now meant to be the point in the story, where Ganondorf rides into battle on his demon horse with his huge army behind him. It plays the exact same cutscene. I always thought that this happened right after he became the Demon King, because the memories in Tears of the Kingdom are ordered chronologically in this way. The scene where the sages receive their Secret Stones happened afterwards.
Age of Imprisonment changes that, which isn't necessarily a huge deal, but it seems like they didn't know what to do with Ganondorf in this game, so they just parked him at Hyrule Castle until the very end. Which should sound familiar to any good Zelda fan...
Here you don't get a break, but it automatically goes into the next battle. While Rauru and the sages head into the Depths with Ganondorf at their tail, Team Calamo has the mission to fight off any more monsters, so that they don't get overrun down below. It's where the nobodies have their moment of fame in this game and it's well written. They do the heroic work that you didn't get to see in Tears of the Kingdom, fighting til the last man to protect their leaders from the many incoming monsters. It's a tough battle.
And THAT's exactly what I wanted the territory defense battles to be. If I remember correctly, Age of Calamity also featured the same mechanic, where you have the enemy forces represented as a bar. And your goal is defeat enough monsters to deplete that bar. It's very much a horde mode, only that you can't really lose to monsters reaching a certain point here. You just have to survive it all.
Which might be easier said than done. It doesn't carry over any encampment effects from the last battle, so no free regen for you. You get the Knight Construct and Calamo, but from the rest it seems to pick the two with highest levels. In my case those were Braton and Ronza, but I don't even like playing as Ronza all that much.
Finally, there is one Archfiend still alive to ruin the day, the grim Grimgibdo. And that battle was very similar to the first Archfiend encounter with Grimgera, pretty much in the same spot if I'm not mistaken. It even made me retry once, where I was getting a bit tired (and impatient), because I wanted to play the next story mission in the evening, but didn't anticipate for it to draw out this long... But I was able to best it on my second try. At least I can't complain here that it was too easy.
And this is where the drama takes place. The Grimgibdo takes one last shot and the Knight Construct sacrifices itself to save Calamo. Oh, no... any of the others, but not bud! It's not as big as a tear-jerker as Terrako in Age of Calamity, but it will certainly be more final and the friendship between the Korok and the Construct is heartfelt.
Curiously, you can still play as the latter right afterwards in any Challenge, where it gets a new scorched look:
The same is also true for Calamo. And that's a nice detail, but I expect the game to give you an outfit / appearance option at the end, just like Age of Calamity did.
Before heading into the final battle, I have focused on doing most open Quests and Aside Quests, replaying certain main and side missions. Now I'm only left with Mineru and her second Phantom Ganon, as well as some more stuff for Ardi. But the rest is all done, so now I won't have to focus any longer on who should do what.
Off to the finale...
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