Hyrule Warriors Legends: Network Link Farming

Network Links are something that I now just rediscovered for myself in Hyrule Warriors: Legends. One the Wii U I stopped using them at some point and on the 3DS I had both Network and StreetPass Links turned off the entire time, because they tend to get in the way. Sometimes you just want to do a certain mission, but it's blocked by a sturdy Level 99 Network Link, while it doesn't offer any worthwhile reward.

But now in my grinding phase, where I have all the best weapon tiers unlocked, they seem to be the best way of getting good weapons of the highest tiers right now. I had the same impression, when the Wii U game originally came out - early on it seemed like the best way of getting good tier 3 weapons. The Network Links offer a similar result to the Zelda amiibo, where you are guaranteed to get the highest available tiers of weapons for Link, Toon Link, Zelda, Ganondorf, Sheik and both Midnas, with three stars minimum. However, it doesn't seem like you can get eight slots with these methods, so you have to settle for a 5 star, 7 slot weapon at best.

But since I personally don't care much for Duel or Special Skills, I can settle for 7 slots. It's better than farming on the same missions over and over again, where you have to be really lucky to find a weapon of tiers 4 or even 4+. You need a Weapon Rank II or III mixture, but then getting eight slots is very lucky as well. So, finding a perfect weapon of tier 4+ with 5 stars and 8 slots is too rare for my taste. And this is why I'm back to the beginning, where Network Links seem to be the best solution. (I still would like the abilities to buy stars and slots in the Smithy, because then you could just buy that last slot, even if it probably was very expansive.)

Farming Network Links can also be entertaining for a while, because the Network Link Adventure Battles are somewhat randomly generated based on certain templates. In general Network Links of the same level seem to give the same scenario, only the officers might have been swapped. But these templates seem to be entirely different on each Adventure Map, so there's some variety.

In general you want the Network Links' levels to be as low as possible, because the level doesn't seem to have any effect on the reward. And the higher level Network Links will simply take longer to finish. The problem is that the level is based on your highest Level character in the game. So, if you have someone on Level 150 already, all your Network Links will be on 150 and annoy people. And therefore the randomly offered Network Links tend to get quite high.

Luckily I have two people on my friend list, who just started the game. And Network Links from friends will be favored by the game, so each day I'm getting at least two low level Network Links on every Adventure Map. And while the Network Links of the same friend all have the same level, the mission type is completely different on every map. So, it doesn't get too boring and it's more than enough for my daily grinding sessions.

The Adventure Maps also all seem to keep their own quirks for the Network Link battles. The first Adventure Map usually has a recommended element and lots of enemies weak to that particular element. The Master Quest and Master Wind Waker Map keep their Master Rules. And the Koholint Map occasionally lets you chose a 2nd character. You can even find fairy food, if the underlying battle has fairy food available.

With this you can also notice that each Adventure Map has a different base difficulty. I keep playing Network Links from the same guy on the same level, but the difficulty increases on a noticeable scale with every map. Originally on the Wii U I even had the theory that every Adventure Map followed one the four base difficulties: Easy, Normal, Hard and Hero, where the Twilight Map probably was Hero. But it's not that simple, because on the Twilight Map enemies have a high defense, which can be countered by elemental weakness, which doesn't work as well in Hero Mode. And then the Termina Map might have "Hero" difficulty as well, but with much lower levels for every mission. It would be nice to see the recommended level for every square, because then it would be easier to judge the difficulties of the individual maps and missions. Some transparency with the difficulty in Adventure Mode would be nice, so it's not just always trial and error. Maybe in the next game...

A Link Between Worlds StreetPass Guide Version 1.1

Check it out!

I've teamed up with avengah and Petter1789 from the GameFAQs board (as well as some other people) to bring the StreetPass guide for A Link Between Worlds to the next level! It now includes an exact bounty calculation table, a list of all 20 pre-generated Shadow Links and their data, as well a list of all possible Shadow Link locations and the corresponding arenas. The arena gets chosen based on the Shadow Link's location and it's usually good to know what's coming.

I think the guide now covers absolutely everything about the StreetPass feature and was quite a piece of work. But similar to my Oracle of Ages & Seasons Ring Guide this is a much more complex side activity that is basically its own "Zelda science". Everyone can compile a Piece of Heart list, but these guides are full of extensive research. I'm proud of them and I hope that they will help you in the future.

Cleared all 50 StreetPass Challenges in A Link Between Worlds' Hero Mode

Cleared all StreetPass challenges a second time, this time in Hero Mode. It took me a lot longer, because I wanted to test for my StreetPass Guide, if using the Sand Rod on sand counts for the challenge. However, the sand arena wouldn't show up... it's only availabe in the desert, probably because the game wants to make sure that you bring your Sand Rod.

But having a second 3DS really came in handy with clearing all challenges, which makes me feel not as bad about buying the second Zelda bundle. It does have its use. :D

The fights in Hero Mode cause quadruple damage on you as well. So, the fights against Gramps are four times as difficult. It's a good challenge, but you have to handle them differently. The time limit is the best example. In normal mode it usually comes to your favor, but it here it does not. He does four times the damage and that counts, so he will win at the time limit. He also LOVES to use the Purple Potion, which gives him eight hearts of a head start. And you have to be very careful with Great Spins, since they can cause eight hearts of damage as well.

Of course you only cause normal damage. One strike from him costs you two hearts, one strike from you costs him half a heart. So, you have to hit him four times as often to win the match!

Usually I love to use the Hookshot in the fights to counter him, but this technique turned out to be too slow and inaccurate. Also, if he simply blocks and doesn't do anything, you can't hookshot. It's very difficult to defeat him in Hero Mode and it took me a couple of tries. You might also want to bring a blue potion, which further limits your possibilities in battle... Your best chance is probably in the ice arena, because this is the place, where the AI constantly hurts itself.

My new weapon of choice here is probably the Nice Sand Rod. The Nice Hookshot is better at stunning, because you will be drawn to your opponent and it also damages him per stun, which is nice. However, the Nice Sand Rod is easier to use. Also, you can counter Great Spins by releasing your own Great Spin about a split second later, which is a good opportunity to damage him.

It's a really good challenge, which I enjoyed (unlike some other Cucco game....), but also a very cheap one.

But because of that I like that I cleared all challenges in both normal and Hero Mode. I like the challenge in Hero Mode, but the fights are more fun in normal mode, because they are fair and balanced. They have the better replay value and offer the feeling of playing against another player. So, I can only advise everyone to clear all challenges first in a normal game and then later do the same in Hero Mode. Even if it takes a long time to do so.

A Link Between Worlds – StreetPass Review

This review was originally published on ZeldaChronicles (formerly known as ZeldaEurope) and got translated for this blog in 2021 by the same author.

Last week's review of The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds didn't cover a big, new feature of the game: the StreetPass battles. Now, that there was the opportunity to dive more into this, it's time to share some impressions. Let the Shadow Link battles begin!

 

The Basics

With the game's StreetPass system you can receive Shadow Links from other players, which you might meet on the go, while your system is in Sleep Mode. You can also create your own Shadow Link based on your current gear, where you can select two of the X and Y items, which he will take in battle.

The Shadow Link then will have a bounty based on the equipment, which ranges from 50 to 999 Rupees. If you meet a Shadow Link in your game, you'll see the name of its player and the bounty, where you now can decide whether to take him on or not. If you win, you'll receive the bounty.

And if you lose... well, there is nothing really to lose here. Lost games aren't counted and your hearts will be refilled after the battle. If you use Potions, other things in bottles or the Foul Fruit, then those will be regained after the battle as well. And if you are defeated, this won't count for the total times defeated at the end of the game either. So, you can just take on the Shadow Links without having to worry about anything.

You'll meet the Shadow Links all over Hyrule and Lorule, but the starting point is the "StreetPass Meadow" in Kakariko, where a mysterious old man, who is just called "Gramps", does the setup for you. There are signs for every Shadow Link available, which tell your their bounties and where to find them. Up to 20 Shadow Links and their signs can appear at the same time, but if you happen to meet more people, then don't worry, they'll get queued up and simply appear, once you've defeated some Shadow Links to make space.

That is, if you're able to even meet that many people with a Nintendo 3DS... And that's probably the main issue with all of this. Unless you live in a big city or happen to have a second Nintendo 3DS around, it's actually super tedious to get into this.

The game will generate some Shadow Links for you, where you can recognize them by the name "Shade" (or "Kage" in certain languages, based on the Japanese word for "shadow"). But these are extremely rare, where you'll only get one after playing the game for five hours. And considering that it might only take you between 10 and 20 hours to beat this game, that's way too long.

Ideally, you would be able to spend your Nintendo 3DS Play Coins at the StreetPass Meadow to make them appear, because after all this is exactly what those Play Coins are normally used for in other games... To give you access to StreetPass content. But for some reason Nintendo decided to use the Play Coins for the Hint Ghosts instead.

 

The Battles

As for battling the Shadow Links themselves, there are two things of note. One would be the fantastic music, which is a remix of the Temple theme from Zelda II - The Adventure of Link, which is also quite prominent in the Super Smash Bros. series. There is truly no better track to inspire the fighting spirit of Zelda fans.

The other thing is that the CPU enemy is actually quite good, at least when compared to other enemies in the game. It's a whole other level. The Shadow Link parries, blocks, dodges and circles around you, while he also makes good use of the items (except for the Net) to put you under pressure. The CPU has its issues with certain environments, however, where this happens mainly in the ice arena, where the Shadow Link keeps falling through the crumbling ice floors. But overall this is the most versatile and toughest enemy in the entire game.

Speaking of arenas, there are only five of them. There is the default arena, which is just a platform in the sky without anything on it (see the screenshot above). There is a forest area with an apple tree at the center and some water puddles. One arena takes place on a grate above lava, where some fire pillars are shooting up, while another takes place on sand. And finally, there is the aforementioned ice arena with crumbling floors and bumpers. Each of them have their own unique elements, which keeps things interesting, but overall there could have been more of them for the sake of variety.

No matter the arena, the battles can be rather unbalanced, depending on the bounty and your own progress, especially in the early in game. If you meet a Shadow Link there with a higher bounty, then it will be incredibly difficult to win this fight. And if you happen to run into an early Shadow Link in the late game, you might defeat him with single strike. (This does have its use, however.)

But if your equipment is on the same level, the fights are perfectly balanced and can be a lot of fun, especially if you take on those Shadow Links with bounties above 900 Rupees in the late game. And this is when you'll notice that the combat is actually rather good.

That's mainly due to the different items – even those that you may haven't used much throughout the game, thanks to the way of how the items interact with each. A great example is fighting the Fire Rod with a Hookshot. You'd normally expect that the enemy shooting giant flame pillars has the advantage here, but you can use the Hookshot to pull yourself right through the fire to your enemy as a counter move. The Hookshot will even shortly stun the Shadow Link for a guaranteed hit afterwards.

It's quite ingenious, where this lets you use the items in ways you would have never imagined during the main game. And you can't just mindlessly spam them either, where this has actually quite some depth to it, especially since you can bring two items into the battle. It's nowhere near any Beat 'Em Up, but certainly quite good for a Zelda game.

And this raises the question why Nintendo didn't turn this into a real multiplayer mode, where you fight against other people locally or online. The battles are really fun, but fighting against the CPU gets old fast, where you might wish that you could test your skills against other players. With online multiplayer this could have connected Zelda fans all around the world... But sadly, this isn't the case. Maybe in the next game?

The Challenges

Rupees alone aren't exactly the biggest incentive to keep fighting Shadow Links over and over again, which is why there are also 50 medals to collect, which act as Challenges for this mode. Those can be simple things, like "Win 5 times!" or "Use the Fire Rod to deal the final blow!", but also more tricky tasks, like "Win without taking a single step!" ...

Every item in the game gets some love here, where you get motivated to try everything at least once, instead of just using your favorite items all the item. You also don't have to worry about missing anything here, where doing a Challenge for an upgraded item will also score you the same Challenge for the normal variant. So, if you use the nice hammer to defeat an enemy, it will also count for the hammer. Everything can still be achieved at the end of A Link Between Worlds, where you can just beat the game without worrying about StreetPass at first.

And this is even some really good post-game content, where you might return to the game, even long after you've already beaten it in normal and Hero Mode. (The Shadow Links also do quadruple damage in Hero Mode, by the way, which can be really tough.)

There is also a nice reward for clearing all Challenges, where this lets you battle against a CPU with the highest bounty at any time, without the need for finding Shadow Links.

 

The Conclusion

StreetPass in A Link Between Worlds is a really good extension for the game, where the battles against Shadow Links can be a lot of fun and the Challenges will engage you for a while, even after having beaten the game.

The major downside is that you can't summon Shadow Links using Play Coins, which would have been very helpful. And overall this feels more like something that would have been a lot better as a battle mode against other players...

 

The Good:

• Fun battles with some depth against a decent CPU
• Zelda II music
• 50 Challenges to complete (without missables)
• Makes good use of items
• No penalties for losing

 

The Bad:

• No use of Play Coins to summon Shadow Links
• Only five arenas
• It's no Battle Mode
  

StreetPass Guide FAQ

 

My StreetPass Guide on GameFAQs just got released! Check it out. It contains all info about clearing all StreetPass challenges, battling Shadow Links, etc.

Actually I made guides for absolutely everything in German for ZeldaEurope: Heart Pieces, Maiamais, bottles, items, Master Ore, minidungeons, minigames, Hero Mode ... I've written many guides for ZeldaEurope already.

Sometimes I also release guides in English, but then it has to be something special. Something not everyone can do like my 64 Ring Guide for Oracles or the TotoK Speed Guide for Phantom Hourglass. I felt like the StreetPass functionality was special enough to make fledged out guide for it. It's funny how it's the first guide there, even before Pieces of Hearts or Maiamais... but I let someone else have "fun" with those.

Cleared all 50 StreetPass Challenges in A Link Between Worlds!

 

 

Now I only need the stupid Cucco to 100% the game...

But it's really nice. If you clear all 50 challenges, you are able to battle Gramps whenever you want. He will have the best possible gear and two random items to provide a nice challenge. The battles are really fun, I wish you could play this mode with other people online. The fighting system with the energy gauge is really great and I could see this working in multiplayer just fine.

How did I get all 50 medals in just three days? Well, I used the golden 3DS XL and my second copy of the game to set up three dummy savegames with weak Shadow Links. It's easy to kill them and score the more difficult challenges. Yes, I cheated, but I wanted to know what the reward will be.

Shadow Links also appear randomly after a certain amount of play time for anyone, who doesn't get StreetPass hits. But that is taking way too long, where the game should offer you the possibility to buy Shadow Links with Play Coins from Gramps. That's what Play Coins are meant for after all.

I'll also submitted a StreetPass Guide to GameFAQs with all medals, arenas, strategies, etc. Should be online tomorrow, unless someone beat me to it.

A Link Between Worlds: StreetPass Shadow Links

Earlier this year I've speculated about Shadow Battles and StreetPass in A Link Between Worlds, where it looks like Nintendo has decided to combine both. In their recent Nintendo Direct they go over certain characters, which includes "Gramps" and Shadow Links for the StreetPass feature.

So, there really is no multiplayer mode, only battles against an AI, but this still could be fun and interesting. I've already had the chance to try this for myself, where I will share more on this once the game has been released...

A Link Between Worlds and Multiplayer: Shadow Battles and StreetPass?

So, in my previous post I talked about how a new Four Swords game could essentially spawn from A Link Between Worlds. But of course A Link Between Worlds itself could already feature some sort of multiplayer. I doubt it will be an entire Four Swords game, because then Nintendo would have announced something by now, but there's still room for something small.

Both Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks came with their own Battle Modes. Both very different. Phantom Hourglass offered a very strategic 1on1 online battle mode, while Spirit Tracks had a local multiplayer four player Last Man Standing game. And both failed to deliver. While the mode in Phantom Hourglass can be played online, it's not very Zelda or fun. And the mode in Spirit Tracks, while it's not that bad, can't be played online. So, unless you had a friend with the game, you probably haven't played it yet. And it also wasn't that much fun to be honest.

You know, what was fun? Shadow Battle! The little deathmatch mode in Four Swords Adventures:



It's a small game, but a lot of fun to play. You can use all the Zelda weapons, you can slash Cuccos to make Cucco waves appear, activate traps and more. Perfect. And so much better than the Battle Modes on the Nintendo DS. And A Link Between Worlds has everything to reimplement that and make it even better! The game has the Dark World, so you could have Dark World levels again. And the Item Meter is perfect for the Four Swords item system. Adding Shadow Battles would work nicely.

Of course it should be online. Because otherwise it gets just ignored, much as the multiplayer in Spirit Tracks. And it would be so much fun! Imagine all the match making in Zelda communities. I would play this forever. It could really keep the game alive.

Another possibility would be the Monster Hunting from the Tingle Tower minigames in Four Swords Adventures also. There you were basically playing together against waves of enemies, but the player with the most kills in the end wins.



Another topic would be StreetPass. In Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks you had the Tag/Contact Mode, which was some sort of predecessor of StreetPass basically. It's purpose was to share Ship Parts and Treasures with other people. Well, you had to do it manually, but with StreetPass you could automate the process. Put your duplicate treasures up for "sale" and automatically receive treasures from others when StreetPassing them.

However, the trading idea came with a big bad downside: randomized collectibles. And without the trading it could take you forever to complete your Ship and Train Part collections. I hated that mechanic, where certain treasures would be super rare for you, just so it encourages you to trade. But what to do, when you have noone to trade with? If that's what StreetPass leads to, I'm against it. Or at least add the possibility to buy treasures with Play Coins. But generally I prefer it, when every item has its fixed spot in the game. So, I'm not a fan of this idea. It's still something that could happen nonetheless.

GREZZO made StreetPass Garden

Today there's an update for the StreetPass Mii Plaza, that potentially kills the application and also SELLS you four new StreetPass games. I personally haven't bothered with StreetPass until after the Symphony of the Goddesses concert, where I had to learn that you can only collect 10 people at max... So, it's all pretty new for me and four games being added seems a little deterrend for me personally. Especially since they cost money.

What striked me was the fact that one of the four new games, StreetPass Garden, was made by GREZZO (source). You know, the guys who made Ocarina of Time 3D and the Four Swords Anniversary Edition.

This is sad news. I thought that Nintendo had them made the Zelda remakes, so they would gather experience with Zelda to potentially work on future Zelda side projects. I thought they might be helping with A Link Between Worlds.

But instead of let's say... pimping the Oracle games, Nintendo made them develop a gay garden "simulator". What a waste.

This also means less man power for Zelda. Hopefully they will return to Zelda now and start working on Majora's Mask 3D.