[Review] Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity is a real treat for fans of Breath of the Wild (Spoiler Free)

For a spinoff title, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity is about as close as possible to being a mainline Zelda game without being a mainline Zelda game. While a Hyrule Warriors game at heart, it portrays the world and aesthetics of Breath of the Wild so well that it’s easy to forget that you aren’t playing, for example, another DLC pack for Breath of the Wild. Set 100 years before the events of Breath of the Wild, you’ll see the beginning of Link’s journey as a knight, witness the Champions in their prime, and be part of the epic effort battling against the forces of Calamity Ganon. It’s a blast to play, the story will keep you on the edge of your seat, and there’s no shortage of things to do beyond the main quest. While I absolutely recommend it to anyone impatiently waiting for the sequel to Breath of the Wild, to call it simply a game to “tide you over” doesn’t do it justice. Like Breath of the Wild, Age of Calamity is a journey of adventure and discovery that draws you deep into the experience.

There are no spoilers in this review, so don’t worry about reading on unless you want to go into the game completely blind.

The true definitive version of Hyrule Warriors

Age of Calamity is better than Hyrule Warriors and is a really solid musou game full stop.

If you’re a Hyrule Warriors newbie, fear not: No prior experience is required. The game teaches you how to play as you go along. It frequently shows tips during gameplay (these can be turned off), allows you to refer to characters’ moves at any time, and provides a simple arena with unlimited health and enemies to practice the controls called Meditative Training. There are also optional quests designed to familiarize players with a specific character or mechanic. And finally, you can adjust the difficulty at any time.

Age of Calamity presents a more nuanced and refined set of controls than Hyrule Warriors. The basic concepts are still there: regular and strong attacks, combos, enemy weak-point gauges, and special attacks. Age of Calamity then adds in Breath of the Wild’s runes, a unique action for each character, and items you can use: elemental rods and healing items. The defensive maneuvers, shielding and dodging, have also been given Breath of the Wild buffs. Shield at the right moment to parry, and time your dodge perfectly to execute a flurry rush.

Even though I had played quite a lot of Hyrule Warriors, I found that I still needed a small amount of time to get used to each characters’ moves and familiarize myself with the new mechanics added to Age of Calamity. Overall, I found it easy to learn as I played, and it didn’t take long for the button combinations to become second nature.

For those who may have played Breath of the Wild but not a Warriors or other musou title, you’ll find the gameplay fast and frantic, a contrast to the go-at-your-own-pace style of Breath of the Wild. You’ll be faced with dozens of enemies at a time, but you’ll mostly make easy work of them as you power through with combos of regular and strong attacks. Given that Age of Calamity is all about battling Ganon’s forces, the Warriors style of gameplay works very well.

At times there can be an awful lot happening on-screen to keep track of, but you can pause to look at the map and mission objective(s). I did find that crowded spaces intermixed with large enemies and the heavy special effects from a special attack would cause the frame rate of the game to plummet significantly, especially in two-player mode. This didn’t bother me most of the time; however, very occasionally, it was pretty rubbish (and I’m totally blaming one of my deaths on it, uh huh).

While Age of Calamity is a fast-paced game by nature, you will be rewarded for taking some time out to explore, fitting for a game inspired by Breath of the Wild. I particularly encourage you to look at the map and visit the random niches, alcoves, and dead ends you see – the ones you don’t actually need to go into during the mission – as there are hidden treasure chests and Koroks to be discovered. Also, the game is really pretty, so it’s worth stopping to take it all in, provided there isn’t a time limit of course!

I also want to mention that if you haven’t played Breath of the Wild there’s nothing stopping you from playing and enjoying Age of Calamity. The story is good, but some of the characters, events, and references might not have quite the same impact as they would to someone who has played it.

Getting the band back together

You’ll be able to play as a range of characters, such as Link, Zelda, and the four Champions, and each has a distinct set of moves. I was really impressed at just how uniquely each character played; none of them felt like clones of another character. Some missions require you to play as a specific character, but the rest of the time you’ll be given a choice. I found myself gravitating toward certain characters that suited how I preferred to play. We’ve covered this in more detail in our preview of the Champions’ gameplay.

In addition to choosing from a range of characters, some missions require you to take control of Divine Beasts: four titanic ancient mechanical weapons built to resemble animals. If musou games normally make you feel like a badass when pulling off combos and special attacks, controlling the Divine Beasts will make you feel like a mega badass as you easily obliterate thousands of enemies. Each Divine Beast has roughly the same basic controls, including a blaster, strong attack, special attack, and shield, but they’re all a little different. Vah Medoh, for example, is airborne and has two viewports to shoot from at different angles. Vah Naboris can dash and trample over enemies and structures. As for Vah Ruta and Vah Rudania, and what to expect from the Divine Beast gameplay, you can read our preview which breaks it down in more detail.

Exploring Hyrule all over again

The world map functions as the game’s main menu. Everything that is available to do is marked on the map, and over time it will become more populated as you progress through the game and unlock more tasks and missions. If scrolling around the map isn’t your thing, or if you find the sheer number of things to look at overwhelming, you can use the L and R buttons to view each category of things to do.

The types of tasks contained in Age of Calamity are Chapters, Challenges, Services, and Quests. The Chapters will take you through the main storyline. Challenges are optional sidequests such as training, escorting a character, racing against the clock, or trials where a single hit will kill you. Services are locations such as the Military Training Camp, where you can level up characters; shops; a practice arena; and the blacksmith, where you can level up or sell off your (many, many – no really, endless supply of) weapons. Finally, Quests are basically errands; when you have a required number of items you can turn them in to unlock bonuses like recipes, new combos for characters, and heart containers. The game has a handy tracking system inspired by the Sheikah Sensor for figuring out where to obtain specific items for Quests.

While the Challenges, Services, and Quests are all optional, they’re worth investing in because they’ll ultimately make your characters stronger. Otherwise, you might find your party is under-levelled for the next mission in the main story, most of which tend to be levelled significantly higher than where previous story missions leave you. I wanted to complete as much as possible in between main story missions. In part, I wanted to improve my characters. But it was also satisfying to mark things off on the map (and really, I was just having fun beating enemies up). I will admit that sometimes I was tempted to jump straight from one main story mission into the next, but that was because the story was compelling, and I was eager to know what happened next.

Many of the areas you’ll play through are taken directly from, or heavily inspired by, locations in Breath of the Wild. As the game occurs 100 years in the past, you’ll be able to see parts of the world before they were ruined by the Great Calamity. The moment when you recognize an (unruined) location is pretty magical. Virtually all of Hyrule’s main areas are visited throughout the course of the game: Korok Forest, Gerudo Desert, Akkala Citadel, Hyrule Castle, and Death Mountain to name a few.

Overall, the game environments are larger and more complex than those in Hyrule Warriors. Unlike Breath of the Wild where you can simply climb over any obstacle, Age of Calamity doesn’t give you complete freedom of movement, at times forcing you to take specific paths to reach some areas. (I’ll admit that in my first few minutes with Age of Calamity, I found it disconcerting that I couldn’t climb!) Pressing the left stick will zoom in the on-screen minimap, and I often made use of this to help navigate my way around because sometimes the zoomed-out map made it hard to see dead ends or narrow connections between rooms.

You are now ready to hear what happened 100 years ago

If Breath of the Wild was about piecing together what happened in the past, Age of Calamity is about filling in the gaps. For someone like me, who found Breath of the Wild a little light on story (don’t get me wrong, the flashbacks and diary entries worked well for the type of game it was, but I wanted more!), it was a real treat to play a game set during this time period. In fact, I now feel spoiled for having spent so much extra time with my favorite characters from Breath of the Wild.

The next time I play Breath of the Wild, it’s going to take on a whole new meaning. I’ll be remembering interactions between the characters in the past. I’ll remember how places, such as Castle Town, looked before their destruction. When I visit the elderly Impa in Kakariko Village, I’ll think about her younger version. (And as for Purah, I’ll think about her older version!)

Age of Calamity isn’t just about evoking nostalgia for Breath of the Wild, however. It has its own story which draws you in and packs a punch.

It starts at the beginning of Link’s journey before he’s probably even met Princess Zelda. A promising young solider in the ranks of Hyrule’s army, he takes part in a battle against Calamity Ganon’s monsters, where his outstanding performance sees him assigned to the role of Zelda’s personal knight. The kingdom of Hyrule is doing all it can to hold off the impending return of Calamity Ganon. King Rhoam and Zelda know that Sheikah technology will play a big role in Hyrule’s defenses, particularly the Divine Beasts, so Zelda, Link, and royal advisor Impa set out to recruit pilots for each Divine Beast. At the same time, Hyrule’s armies are fending off multiple attacks from Ganon’s hordes.

There are familiar moments from Breath of the Wild that you’ll expect to see. However, don’t expect Age of Calamity to follow some sort of set script. There are plenty of surprises that will subvert your expectations. In fact, the surprises start as early as five minutes into the game, leaving you constantly wondering where the story will go next. I won’t go into further detail about that because much of the fun of this game is discovering it as you go along. I will say that it’s a good story that kept me guessing. It balances serious subject matter with lighthearted moments and humor. There are a couple of moments that might leave you scratching your head, but overall, it’s satisfying.

Teamwork leads to success

In Age of Calamity, Link and Zelda would be lost without their allies, and having an ally in real life helps too! There’s a local two-player mode that’s just as much fun as playing solo.

In two-player mode the screen is split horizontally during missions. This does sometimes limit your vertical view, particularly in stages with slopes or while fighting some of the more epic boss battles. I played with my husband, and we both found ourselves adjusting the camera far more often in two-player mode. I mentioned earlier that Age of Calamity is prone to suffering framerate drops when a lot is happening on screen, and one might say this becomes far more noticeable with two players.

However, a second player makes the game easier. In single-player mode, I focused on ordering the members of my party around the battlefield but found that they didn’t do a whole lot of damage when controlled by the AI. Instead, ordering them around made it convenient to switch between characters and tackle objectives more efficiently. With a second player, you can split up to clear multiple areas a lot faster, then team up to take down harder enemies and bosses. We didn’t die or fail missions as often as we did playing individually, so you might want to consider increasing the difficulty if you find you’re breezing through everything.

You will have to take turns with the Divine Beast battles though, as these are single-player only.

A brilliant blend of two distinct genres

One of the things I love most about Age of Calamity is how self-aware the game is. The writers have clearly had a lot of fun working in details and references to Breath of the Wild that give it an extra layer of depth and humor. This game has some serious meme potential!

And while I may have laughed out loud at times, Age of Calamity played on a spectrum of emotions. Nostalgia from Breath of the Wild was intermingled with serious feels as the characters – and Hyrule – dealt with the mounting pressure of Calamity Ganon’s impending return. At other times, I felt like a (divine?) beast as I took out scores of enemies with powerful moves. And, in typical musou style, a few moments were so silly they required a suspension of disbelief. But overall, this game is memorable and ticks most of the right boxes.

If you’ve been longing to return to the world of Breath of the Wild, or if Hyrule Warriors is your jam, I highly recommend that you play Age of Calamity. It blends the two games perfectly, making the experience an absolute delight.

Also, the game’s music totally slaps. This is the Breath of the Wild soundtrack you can rock out to in your car as you cruise down the highway. Can we have it on an album please Nintendo?

SCORE: 9/10