Age of Imprisonment – New Battle Mechanics

With the change to Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity Koei Tecmo had streamlined a number of things when compared to the first game. The magic system was removed in favor of more powerful Special Attacks. And the clunky item selection was replaced with holding down either the L and R buttons to quickly trigger the three different elemental rods, healing, or the four Sheikah Slate Runes, which could be accessed by all characters.

Needless to say that the Sheikah Slate abilities won't return here in the same way or at all. Maybe Purah could still use some of them with an enhanced Purah Pad, but that would be limited to one moveset. And the Zonai abilities just wouldn't work so universally for combat, where it's more likely that they will be woven into individual movesets as well.

We can already see this with Recall and Zelda, where all the sages will likely get to use the powers of their Secret Stones in combat. Mineru will probably have "Autobuild" as part of her moveset. Maybe she or another character could even use Ascend in a whacky way... And the Flail weapon from Pulse of the Ancients was essentially a prototype for how Fuse would function in a moveset.

However, Fuse is the only ability here that could work well for everyone and everything, but there probably would be some limitations. Maybe it's mainly used to infuse weapons with elements when you need them, which is where the replacement for the elemental rods come in. There are technically no rods as basic weapons in Tears of the Kingdom anymore, instead they are all the result from fusions. But it would make sense if instead you were given the different types of elemental fruits:

• Fire Fruit
• Ice Fruit
• Shock Fruit
• Splash Fruit
• Dazzlefruit
  

The elements felt somewhat underdeveloped in Age of Calamity, but with the sages they should become a lot more important, where their movesets will give you clear advantages in certain scenarios, e.g. using the Sage of Fire in the icy Hebra Mountains. But in order for the other characters to be still able to do something, you also get the elemental fruits, so you can throw fire on ice enemies and so on.

Potentially there could also be Bomb Flowers, Muddle Buds and the Puff Shrooms, so eight items in total, which could be selected in a basic item wheel. Holding down R lets you select something to throw and holding down L lets you select something to fuse, where your character's main weapon will gain a temporary elemental boost.

Food is not part of this eight-way wheel, because it wouldn't make sense to fuse any healing items, but that is a topic of its own. Food is tremendously overpowered in both Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, so much that it breaks these games. Age of Calamity then went with the extreme opposite, where you only get a bunch of apples that heal only a little. It made the game in its higher difficulties completely unforgiving, where maybe they will find a middle ground this time.

Finally, it also looks like there are going to be new specials, where you can join hands with other characters to do some cool combo attack. This idea really fits the symbolism of hands from Tears of the Kingdom very well and opens up many new possibilities, where it's interesting to experiment with different character combinations. This could work similar to the pairing system from Fire Emblem Warriors, where another character will escort you in battle and together you build up a "Dual Attack" gauge. Alternatively, this could simply be triggered by using your Special Attack close to another character.

Age of Imprisonment – Ancient Hyrule

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment will let us visit the new Hyrule in its founding years, long before the Great Calamity first struck 10,000 years ago. And while there are some concerns about experiencing the same Hyrule for the fourth time, this could be actually quite exciting.

It already was interesting to see the Hyrule from 100 years ago in Age of Calamity, where places like Hyrule Castle, Hyrule Castle Town, various villages or the Great Plateau can be experienced before they get ruined (or while they get ruined), at least to some degree. But it was still the same Hyrule overall, where nothing much else has happened over the 100 years after the Guardians had laid everything to waste.

This will be very different in Age of Imprisonment, where we're looking at the late era of the Zonai and their culture. Hyrule Castle sits in the middle of the Great Plateau, next to a very different Temple of Time in the Garden of Time. And that's where most of the memories in Tears of the Kingdom have taken place. There are also some at the Forgotten Temple and of course the place where the final confrontation takes place, what eventually will become Ganondorf's sealing grounds. According to the Master Works book it is the Temple of Light, a place that never was fully seen in a Zelda game... so far.

What's also a mystery is pretty much everything else. The Goron, the Zora, the Rito, the Gerudo... we have yet to see how their homes have looked like in the ancient past. And just like Hyrule Castle, it's certain that these places will have looked very differently, offering you an entirely new experience. The overall geography of the map might be the same, but what can be found in this version could all be completely new. The team working on this game has a lot of creative freedom, simply because we have seen so little.

On top of that (or more on bottom) we also have the Depths, which were this huge mystery in Tears of the Kingdom that never really led anywhere. Maybe there will be some remediation to that, showing us more of the mining operations down there and maybe shining some light on what this place used to be. For example, we could learn more about the Bargainers. And maybe such insights may not be restricted to cutscenes this time...

If you watch the trailer closely, you will certainly notice one particular moment that stands out. It's where Zelda is following Queen Sonia and King Rauru through the Garden of Time, after she was found by the both of them. This is not a cutscene, so you're actively following them as the player. But this isn't your typical Warriors fighting scenario either.

It's too early to say and we have to wait for more material, but it's possible that this game will offer "interludes" in various places, where you can walk around and talk with people, just how the modern Fire Emblem games like to do it. You probably won't be able to freely explore the ancient in Hyrule in its entirety, but there could be a number of places that act as a "base", where you can interact with your allies in different ways – first and foremost the Great Plateau with the ancient Hyrule Castle and Temple of Time. But it's likely that such a thing will be also possible in Zora's Domain, for example, or the Forgotten Temple.

And if this was the case, then this would already offer a huge selling point over Age of Calamity. Imagine if you could have done this in that game. If you could walk around Hyrule Castle as Link, talk to Zelda and her father, and so on. This would have been amazing. Well, let's not jump to conclusions here, but it would certainly be interesting to look at the ancient Hyrule in other ways than just cutscenes and battle scenarios.

Age of Imprisonment – Potential Fighters

A new Hyrule Warriors game is currently in development, this time taking place during the Imprisoning War from Tears of the Kingdom. It's again a whole spin-off title dedicated to a single Zelda game, but we know from Age of Calamity that this isn't a hindrance, at least not with an open world Zelda of this scale, where at the end we had 21 slots filled with different playable fighters. And we already know of three to boot with:

• Zelda
• Rauru
• Mineru
  

Rest assured that they won't be alone, where there is plenty to work with. It is mainly an opportunity to shine some light on characters that we didn't really get to see much during the memories. The younger incarnations of Purah and Robbie, for example, got first made for Age of Calamity. And they also came up with a number of original characters, like Terrako and Sooga. Well, in case of Age of Imprisonment it's quite obvious who should be fleshed out: the rest of the sages.

We've never learned their names and never got to see their faces, which most likely will change here. And at least with their names we can make some educated guesses, because they are wearing masks resembling the future Divine Beasts, meaning that they are likely the sages these machines got named after. Though, the original intent was probably to name those after the corresponding sages in Ocarina of Time and The Wind Waker, which got retconned with Tears of the Kingdom. And since Rauru is named Rauru, it's likely that the other sages got named after their classic counterparts as well:

• Darunia
• Ruto
• Nabooru
• Medlo (?)
  

Well, in case of Medli and Vah Medoh we can only guess how the Sage of Wind will be truly called, since their genders don't align. But I'm certain that the other sages will be named like in Ocarina of Time for the fan service alone.

Given that we strictly follow the events of the Imprisoning War, there isn't much else to work with, however. Queen Sonia's role in the story makes it difficult for her to become a playable character. Maybe we could have the Great Fairies as a support again, where it would be amazing to see them as younger versions, potentially.

It would also be interesting if this time we could play as the dragons, since they are quite important to the Zonai mythology – Dinraal, Naydra and Farosh. However, these would probably become this game's equivalent to the Divine Beasts, where you only get to play as them in select stages, which offer a larger scaled battlefield to traverse with them.

Otherwise we would already get in the territory of creating new characters, where there could be a new Korok, for example. Or they could dive into some other mysteries, like the Bargainers in the Depths or even the Ancient Hero as some bonus character. But that's pretty much it, unless... this Hyrule Warriors will allow you to be the villain again.

One of the most fun twists about the original Hyrule Warriors was that it allowed you to play as Ganondorf and take over Hyrule in the middle of the story, even if this part was only brief. Age of Calamity didn't have this, where all of the villain characters that you can play, like the two Yiga, eventually joined the forces of good in order to become playable. Koei Tecmo did get away with this, since the central villain of Breath of the Wild is this abstract force of evil, the Calamity Ganon. But they won't get away with not having a villain campaign when there's the fan favorite Ganondorf back, looking better than ever. It's an absolute must.

Well, Age of Calamity also introduced a new system, where the story chapters and side missions are all part of the same map, making it so that everything you do contributes to the same goal. But that could be easily solved by having two versions of the same map, one for good and one for evil. And this would add a number of possibilities:

• Ganondorf
• Phantom Ganon
• Twinrova
• Some unique Lynel
  

There is the question how they will handle Ganondorf's transformation into the Demon King, but maybe they could make this part of his moveset, similar to how Rhoam changes from a hobo to a king, or as a second weapon type, like with the Bow of Light for Zelda in Age of Calamity. In any case, it would not make sense to have two separate characters, except for Phantom Ganon, which is some remote entity that Ganondorf is able to create... as many times he wants. Of course with this character you want to be able to turn into the Gloom Spawn.

And that epic unicorn from hell has to be playable as well, though Hyrule Warriors has a history of not doing much with horses. Epona was only playable as one of Link's many weapon types in the first game, where she didn't see much utilization. And Age of Calamity had completely ignored horses altogether, even though they were quite important in Breath of the Wild and often seen in the memories.

Ideally, a horse or similar mounts is something that certain characters can summon at will. We also see Mineru riding on a Zonai wheel, though that's probably just her default "running" animation, but she could also summon something more sophisticated to move around even faster. Mounts could potentially also let you attack while you're speeding over the battlefield.

Anyway, as for Twinrova, you can actually see them in two of the memories, standing behind Ganondorf. They are adding to the list of masked characters, where we have yet to see their faces, but their golden masks have a gemstone on them, in their respective element's color, blue and red. Their outfits even have their names written on them in Hylian, Koume and Kotake, so that's yet another throwback to Ocarina of Time. If they are playable, they will probably be a duo character, similar to Robbie & Purah, where they can fuse into Twinrova at will.

One thing that people already wanted from Age of Calamity was a playable Lynel, and in a villain campaign this could become a reality. However, it should not be just any Lynel, just how Sooga was not just any Yiga Blademaster. It would have to be a special, named Lynel. This isn't a new idea, where I had called him "Lionel" in the past, but maybe this idea will finally become a reality.

With these additions, we're looking at around 13 characters in total, which isn't bad. That's the number of fighters the original Hyrule Warriors launched with. But it's still not on the same level as Age of Calamity and we will be kidding ourselves if we believe that this game won't include anyone from the future. That's just not going to happen.

The question is how it will happen. I've already gave an outline in my previous post, which does respect the events of the Imprisoning War and let's you play them as they happened in Tears of the Kingdom during the first half of the game. But then Zelda and her friends will mess up the timeline even more by going back into the past after the epilogue from Tears of the Kingdom. Alternatively, there could be projections of the heroes from the future that become playable, similar to the Vows, just more livelier. No matter how they do it, this will add – in the least – the following:

• Link
• Purah
• Sidon
• Riju
• Tulin
• Yunobo
• Mineru's Construct
  

One thing of importance here is that all these characters will get new movesets. While many of them were already playable in Age of Calamity, they can't just copy and paste them over. For example, Sidon will now fight with the actual Lightscale Trident and not with a pair of cheap Ceremonial Tridents. Or Riju will have two Scimitars of the Seven, instead of relying on Patricia (though, she could still be her mount if mounts are a thing).

Link might be the only one where he could play and behave mostly the same as in Age of Calamity, with the same three basic weapon types, but maybe they will mix things up as well, because it would be lame if everyone got new movesets except for the hero of Hyrule. And naturally Purah won't just be Robbie's sidekick this time, she has earned this much and her new design makes the fanbase go wild.

As for Mineru's Construct, the one we saw her using in the trailer for a special move was actually what will become the Seized Construct, not the one that Link later assembles. And it's likely that some Construct will be playable on its own, since the Constructs are somewhat important to the story. Age of Calamity had two playable Guardians, after all. And here it makes sense to use the most prominent one, which was already playable to a degree. It's even still there in the present, just dormant.

Of course, there are also other characters from the present that could make the cut. They could include Teba again, for example, or bring back Hestu, given that he didn't already exist tens of thousands of years ago. But if we're time traveling again, then this should only involve the main team, because it would have to be done on purpose. (Though, Tulin also somehow sneaked into the past together with his father the last time, but he wasn't playable.) The time travel would allow, however, to also let Queen Sonia join the cast, because her fate then wouldn't be sealed any longer. And maybe Master Kohga will also find his way into the past, so he can join the villains this time.

But with these characters from the present, we already have enough to easily compete with the amount of content Age of Calamity had in the end. And that's including the DLC characters, where ideally Age of Imprisonment will follow the example of its source material and be completely finished from the beginning. To be fair, it's not like the DLC for Age of Calamity was actually planned, it only came to be because of demand. But how they didn't anticipate the demand for Robbie, Purah and Sooga is still beyond me. So, let's hope that they won't repeat such mistakes and introduce Twinrova as some badass fighter, only to not have them playable at the end. Don't let anyone join Astor's club this time!

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment Announced

Let's finally talk about what's one of the biggest surprises from the Nintendo Switch 2 Direct last Wednesday, even though it probably doesn't qualify as news at this point any longer... But I wanted to save the most important topic on this blog for last – the upcoming Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment.

As you may know, I've always been enjoying the Hyrule Warriors games, where it's already been over a decade since the first title on the Wii U. And while playing Tears of the Kingdom it became apparent very quickly that what they had done with Breath of the Wild and Age of Calamity could be easily repeated here. Again, you have a major conflict that unfolds in the distant past, where you only catch glimpses of it via memories. And this conflict is none other than the Imprisoning War, though it's technically not the Imprisoning War we know from A Link to the Past, but something very reminiscent in the rich history of the latest Hyrule. Still, it is a very important historic battle, taking place long before the events of the first Calamity from 10,000 years ago.

There's the one memory, called "The Demon King's Army", which plays in the late game and shows Ganondorf on a fierce horse, leading hundreds and thousands of his monsters into battle. And this was effectively just a commercial for the next Hyrule Warriors – they already knew when they were making this particular cutscene what it would convey. That this is something that the fans want to experience for themselves. So, it made all the sense to follow up on Tears of the Kingdom with this and here we are:

In my predictions about the Future of Zelda from early 2024 this was big on my list, where I expected this around 2026, which may even become true. Though, I honestly did not anticipate this to be revealed already, as one of the first exclusive games to come to the Nintendo Switch 2 within its first year.

But Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity was the game that made me finally buy a Nintendo Switch back in 2020 (after years of waiting for a Zelda edition of the console), so it's only poetic that its successor will likely get me to buy the Nintendo Switch 2. At least this will be happening much sooner this time, because I honestly regret having waited that long with the Switch.

That being said... it looks like the game is running like garbage again. The only aspect of the gameplay in the trailer that tells me that this is in fact a Nintendo Switch 2 game is the sheer amount of enemies. This goes far beyond anything what Age of Calamity was able to pull off and it's very impressive how they were able to translate the tremendous mass of monsters we saw in the Demon's King Army memory into a Warriors game. But I probably would have prioritized performance, because the biggest point of criticism about Age of Calamity was its poor frame rate, where Age of Imprisonment doesn't seem to run any better.

To be fair, the footage was in 4k and there will probably be a performance mode to target a higher frame rate. Maybe things will even get somewhat optimized in the next months, before the game is released. And hopefully they will also update Age of Calamity while they are it, so you can finally enjoy playing it with stable 60FPS.

There is another valid concern and that is how the story will unfold, which is the other problem many people had with Age of Calamity. In its early marketing it looked like we were going to experience a bold new Warriors game that dared to explore one of Hyrule's darkest chapters, the Great Calamity, where the kingdom will ultimately fall to ruin. But that was not what we were getting, instead the game used time travel to unfold an alternate turn of events.

And while it was disappointing, it was also understandable to a degree. They probably didn't want to make a game where all your efforts are in vain, where you lose your fighters and everything ends in a disaster. And naturally they also wanted to make the descendants of the Champions playable – especially Sidon and Riju were big fan favorites that you couldn't just leave out in a Warriors game all about Breath of the Wild. And to be fair, the roster of 21 playable characters (technically even 25) left very little to desire at the end. You have to give them that.

Now, with Age of Imprisonment they are dealing with a backstory that actually ends on a win. The Imprisoning War ends with Rauru and his Sages successfully sealing Ganondorf. And this leads into the events of Tears of the Kingdom. From a story perspective there is really no need to alter the events with even more time traveling...

However, this would cut the roster quite short. We have seen three playable characters so far with Zelda, Rauru and Mineru. The other sages will certainly become playable as well, so that's seven in total, only a third of what Age of Calamity had to offer. Sonia is sadly out of question if they respect the canonical events. Maybe Ganondorf and some of his minions (like Twinrova) will become playable this time in a villain campaign. Maybe they will bring back both the Great Fairies and Hestu, because they have been around for eternities. That would add some more, but it still couldn't compete with the previous title.

But like with Age of Calamity they won't dismiss the descendants. Sidon, Riju, Yunobo and Tulin will most likely become playable as well. They are even getting new amiibo this year, so there is no way that they are going to leave them out of this game. And Link, of course. As much as everyone enjoys the recent spotlight on Princess Zelda, where this will be another big chance for her to shine, Link has to join the fun eventually. The question is how they will pull it off, while respecting the events of the Imprisoning War...

One idea would be to pick up from the epilogue of Tears of the Kingdom, where Princess Zelda asks Link, Purah and the sage descendants to stand with her in order to keep the peace in Hyrule for all time. Well, she probably didn't mean it so literally, but maybe they will find a way to use her time powers to go back into the past and support Rauru in his battle. Well, this would create yet another alternate timeline, but who's counting at this point? (It's three. Three timelines, just like the classic Hyrule.)

So, the game would start with Zelda arriving in the past. Then you would play the events of the Imprisoning War as you know them from Tears of the Kingdom. But after the finale the game's second half unfolds, where Zelda and her team return to the past and alter the timeline, which unlocks many more characters to play as (potentially even Sonia).

I think that this would be the best approach. And overall there is a lot of potential with the ancient Hyrule, because there is so much we have yet to see there, where this will be very exciting. But let's talk more about that in upcoming posts...

Breath of the Wild – Improvements Needed from Tears of the Kingdom

On June 5th both Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom will receive major updates that allow them to be played with nicer graphics, better performance and additional features on the Nintendo Switch 2 (see here). In case of Breath of the Wild we will be looking at version 1.7.0.

Well, we're talking about Nintendo here, where it's rare that they are fixing their games once they are released, unless we're dealing with critical issues. But they do it from time to time, so there are the occasional updates for your quality of life needs... And the Nintendo Switch 2 Edition is a great chance to bring over a number of such improvements that were introduced with Tears of the Kingdom, where they had learned from their mistakes in Breath of the Wild.

Of course, we would have heard of such improvements by now if there were any, since Nintendo invited the press to play many of the upcoming Nintendo Switch 2 games. So, this is likely another missed opportunity to do one or more of the following:

• When using the quick select you can now sort and drop your weapons, bows and shields
  
• Whenever you can't take an item out of a treasure chest, because your inventory is full, it displays the quick select to let drop something and make room.
• The Travel Medaillon can now be upgraded at the Hateno Ancient Tech Lab, so that you may place up to three of them at the same time.
• The armor inventory limit has been increased to 150.
• The Sheikah Sensor now has a height pitch, making it easier to track things in a vertical space.
• There are no glitched treasure chests any longer that cannot be accessed.
  
• When you touch the ground after gliding, riding, swimming or boating for a longer period of time, randomly spawning foes won't appear instantly any longer.
• Not all Lynels will evolve into the silver / golden tier, so you can still get all their pictures and weapon tiers at the end.
  

This is all some minor stuff, really, but it made Tears of the Kingdom more enjoyable overall, where it would be a shame if Breath of the Wild never saw the same level of polishing.

 

There are also some bigger things that they could change or add, but this is really entering true remaster territory. It starts with the main menu, where the vertical inventories allow for a much quicker navigation.

And they should also add Sticky Frogs, Sticky Elixirs and the Froggy Armor, which always has been one of the most-wanted features for the game. Climbing in the rain wasn't the big game changer in Tears of the Kingdom, because the Zonai vehicle stuff lets you traverse terrain easily, but this addition would see a lot of use in Breath of the Wild. Another much desired feature was the Recipe Book, giving you a nice overview of everything you can cook and also an incentive to really try out all the different ingredients.

There also could be the more sophisticated sky diving mechanic, even though you wouldn't be able to utilize it as much. And finally, a remaster should add some additional shrines to offer more warp points. The Rito Stable, Kara Kara Bazaar and Deplian Badlands immediately come to mind here, where all of these areas got shrines in Tears of the Kingdom.

Tears of the Kingdom – Sages amiibo Announced

Also amongst all the news last week was the reveal that they will be making more amiibo for Tears of the Kingdom, which are also going to be released on June 5th, together with the Nintendo Switch 2 and the Nintendo Switch 2 Edition of the game. There will be four new amiibo at once, of the four Sages Riju, Sidon, Tulin and Yunobo.

This is very reminiscent of when they had released the four Champion amiibo for Breath of the Wild, about a month before the Champions' Ballad DLC pack. Only that this is happening much later. But Tears of the Kingdom never got such a DLC phase, where it returned to the spotlight, so I suppose the Nintendo Switch 2 upgrade is that DLC phase, where they use the chance to market the game even further.

The amiibo will unlock new paraglider fabrics, like all others before them. And I'm certain that they will also work with the upcoming Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment in some form. In addition, an amiibo of Mineru's Construct is planned for a later date, where I suppose this will be a bigger one and maybe you can even bend the arms, like with the Guardian amiibo.

So, at the end Tears of the Kingdom will have eight amiibo in total, which is almost as much as the nine for Breath of the Wild. They made sure that the game is in no way treated inferior to its popular predecessor... Except for the lack of a Master Mode.

Correction on the Nintendo Switch 2 Editions

Yesterday I've made some posts about the upcoming Nintendo Switch 2 Edition games, claiming that the upgrade packs will only be included as download codes. This apparently came from the UK customer service and I instantly believed it, because this sounded like a Nintendo thing to do in the current economics. But there is actually some conflicting information about this (see NintendoLife), where we have yet to get some clarification.

The other answer, also coming from Nintendo Support, states that the upgrade pack contents are indeed included on the card, but you will still be able to play these Nintendo Switch 2 Editions on a Nintendo Switch, just without the enhancements.

If the upgrade packs were to be included on the cards and ideally also the latest version of the games, then owning the physical Nintendo Switch 2 Editions would be quite desirable in the long run. I prefer to have as much on cartridge as possible to not be dependent on the eShop and downloads.

I have updated the previous posts accordingly. Sorry for the misleading information!