Elementally, this is the same game as the Wii U edition. Everything from the original is here, including all of the DLC bundled in. The extras are a great little touch, adding the option to change characters while you play, as well as a Wind Waker setting and characters to go with that. There’s also a new star, Linkle, who is essentially a female Link, and carries her own side-story and path to become a hero.The baseline game which this is built from presents a cheerful carousel of fine fan service.
Cynics will say it’s merely a few sundry
bonuses added to an old game, that nothing is fundamentally altered by
their inclusion. That’s true to a point, but the new characters do add
some strategic variance to gameplay, and the option to transfer your
characters to the Wii U version is a nice touch. Also the baseline game
which this is built from, lest we forget, presents a cheerful carousel
of fine fan service. It’s the characters, the locales, the tinkling of a
jingle you’ve known for 30 years that resonates here, and it’s all done
with a knowledge and reverence for Zelda’s lineage that you can't help
but admire.
There are some welcome changes nevertheless,
with a new focus on objective-led missions. Gone is the primitive goal
to wipe the map of all adversaries, as was the case in the Dynasty
Warriors series that this Nintendo spin-off was built upon. More than
ever, Link and co’s adventure focuses on an ever-changing array of
smaller tasks. Take this fort, stop this enemy, protect this person,
feed this flying whale.
It
makes for a much more appealing game in the long term, compared to
Warriors’ non-objective-based approach, and it means you must pay close
attention to what’s going on at any given time in order to avoid failing
miserably. Battlefield management is a key factor, and you’ll have to
be juggling different fronts, watching out for different forces and
making sure both your home base and other main characters aren’t at risk
of being taken over or defeated. If they are, that’s an instant fail.
While
the first few levels ease you in nicely, it can soon become
overwhelming for the less experienced. Failure will frustrate often and
suddenly if your focus strays. (Word of advice, if a character says your
home base is about to fall, don’t assume you have any time to spare).
This mild element of strategy, which has been present throughout the
Warriors series, has become far more pronounced in Hyrule Warriors
Legends. You are forced to understand your surroundings, to become
fluent with the ebb and flow of enemy spawns, and to pay attention to
the points of interest on your map. It’s nothing particularly deep or
taxing once you’re used to it, but there is an initial rush to the
proceedings.
It’s hardly perfect, however. Hyrule
Warriors Legends isn’t free from criticisms made of its forbearers,
insofar as it’s absurdly repetitive. Wading through hundreds of enemies
in a single level might sound like the ultimate power trip fantasy, but
in reality it soon becomes pedestrian, to the extent that the next
deployment of minions evokes a distinct feeling of irritation.
There are also moments where the game seems unwilling to play fair. When, for example, an AI teammate flees battle because your silver-bullet maneuver against a boss doesn’t pay off, thus triggering a mission failure notice. This is fundamentally irritating, but even more so after 30 minutes of busywork slashing through hordes of foes. It’s not uncommon either. It will likely happen to you.Hyrule Warriors Legends isn’t free from criticisms made of its forbearers, insofar as it’s absurdly repetitive.
Then there’s the lock-on functionality, the boon of any such game wherein you’re wading through enemies by the ton. It allows you to pick out the important, powerful baddies in a crowd so that you can focus your attack on them. Except of course when the game chooses not to, for reasons unexplained, and instead targets the wrong enemy. Sometimes Hyrule Warriors Legends’ lock-on likes to play jazz with the rules; sometimes it will lock onto your intended target and switch that at the last moment. Targeting is key to success, and the distrust it builds between yourself and the game can be devastating.
Legends’
optional stereoscopy, meanwhile, at times dropped the frame rate by
half. Sometimes more so, depending on how busy the action became. This
isn’t a dealbreaker, partly because this feature is exclusive to the New
3DS models, and primarily because it’s so hard to care about 3D
effects. For those who still do, switching on this visual effect will
disrupt the flow of the action, and it’s hard to think of many 3DS games
that require a constant frame rate as much as Hyrule Warriors Legends.
Assessed
solely as a Zelda game, Hyrule Warriors probably isn’t good enough to
lure in non-Dynasty Warriors fans, but it is passable enough to offer
Musou lovers something different to play between their usual battles for
dynastic superiority. Stereoscopy notwithstanding, it’s technically
impressive. And while age-old criticisms of Warriors' repetitiveness
still applies, that burden is eased somewhat thanks to the option to
play this handheld edition in bursts. Now nearly twenty years since the
birth of the Warriors series, here we have a convincing argument that
this franchise is best suited to handhelds.