2020’s Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity gave us an expanded look on a time in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild’s history only whispered about in a few flashback cutscenes. The new Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment seems to be following this trend by taking us even further back in time to the founding of Hyrule and the imprisoning of Ganondorf, of which only fragments were shown in Tears of the Kingdom. Just as Tears expanded on everything Breath of the Wild had to offer, Age of Imprisonment seems to be equally upping the stakes, both in taking advantage of the Switch 2’s increased horsepower and showing off some new and welcome features to the hack ‘n slash spinoff series.
The demo I played (which is now also available to attendees of the Tokyo Game Show) comprised a 10-minute chunk of an early mission that also sought to capitalize on Tears of the Kingdom’s new discoveries: exploring The Depths. Given that this creepy underground area effectively doubled the size of Hyrule, I’m excited to see where these types of missions can lead, and what horrors we’ll find lurking in the dark (I can’t be the only one hoping we get some acknowledgement of the creepy giant statues). This iteration of Hyrule Warriors seemed to run a lot smoother on the Switch 2 and I couldn’t spot any dips in the framerate while wading into combat, but being in an early enclosed area it’s hard to say if Nintendo’s new console was truly being put through its paces.
I began the mission as Zelda, still adjusting to being thrown backwards in time during the events of Tears of the Kingdom, with the ancient Zonai beings Rauru and Minera escorting her toward sacred sites of power hidden away in the Depths. After equipping myself with a few Zonai devices to use in battle, it wasn’t long before I was mowing through enemies in true Dynasty Warriors “musou” style. This time around, Zelda has put down the sheikah slate in favor of a lightsaber, mixing in more straightforward sword slashes with the ability to shoot light arrows from afar, or recall her sword as it dances around to cut swaths through enemies. It’s a great way to make her less of a technical fighter and more of an easy to pick up all-rounder stand-in for Link (who couldn’t make it on account of the whole time travel thing).
Even though I was only able to play as three different characters during the demo, I have to hand it to Mineru for stealing the show. Her ability to pull out random complex Zonai death contraptions was something I never got tired of. Whether it was driving a giant spiky four-wheeler of destruction through enemies, or simply hopping onto a giant tire to ride side-saddle instead of running, Mineru has so far proven to be the Green Lantern of this universe with her ability to pull out the wildest creations out of nowhere. Many of her crazier constructs – like summoning a spinning paddle to whack giant orbs into enemies like a bowling ball – had me itching to go back to Tears of the Kingdom to see if I could recreate these death traps myself.
Though only Mineru got to summon complex machines, each character was able to gather singular Zonai devices to be used in battle as consumable items, and deployed in a few ways. At first I was whipping out my flame emitter to mow down groups of little Frox enemies, but later I was able to set one down to continuously burn a Construct Captain while I flanked from the side with more direct attacks, making it an effective 1-2 punch combo. All devices will drain your battery, making their deployment a tactical choice unless you’ve stockpiled battery rechargers. I was only able to mess around with a few, but with different characters using devices in various manners, there’s a lot of room to find great times to deploy them – especially on boss fights.
Along with deploying devices, holding R also allows you to activate special unique skills in combat that cover wide areas and blast through the opposition with some bombastic attacks. Each character I got to play had two different abilities, and I was also able to map them alongside Zonai devices for easy use. While they can be used to mow through hordes of grunts, they really shine when facing tougher bosses and captains that stand between you and your objectives. Even the most generic of construct captains can employ strong unblockable attacks that can cover a wide area and do heavy damage, signified by a glowing aura that spreads out from them. Koei Tecmo has seemingly taken a page from another of its action series, Nioh, in presenting the best way to stop an unblockable strike is to overpower it with one of your own. Being able to anticipate, react, and shut down a deadly foe with a trick of my own was immensely satisfying and rewarding (and at least this early on, I was given a pretty generous reaction time before their attack would unleash).
I also appreciate the steps Age of Imprisonment has taken to make your allies feel more tangible, as they are now able to assist you in battle with bigger attacks when you’re running out of skills to deploy. In one instance, a boss readied its charge attack, while both of Zelda’s skills were still on cooldown. Suddenly I was given the option to swap to Rauru waiting on the other side of the arena, and I was able to deploy his unique skill to intercept the boss and save Zelda in a moment that felt truly cinematic.
An even bigger upgrade to making more use of your allies is a new ability – a sync strike that can be triggered when you and your ally have dealt enough damage to fill a meter. This lit up their portraits on the side, and also helpfully showed when I was in range of a character to perform the strike with by highlighting the ground to the person in range. Not only are these moves as dramatic as they are powerful, but they’re also unique to the two characters you sync up, opening up the floor for a lot of possibilities and tactics. Pairing up Zelda and Rauru allowed me to shoot out twin beams of light that I could aim independently with each control stick to focus on two bosses at once, while having Zelda synch up with Mineru for a strike let her ride on the back of the Zonai’s mech to wade into battle alternating powerful slams and magic explosions. Given the nature of some of these attacks, I’m really hoping that co-op play will allow each player to direct their own attacks during these sync strikes, though nothing has been confirmed yet.
Even though my time with the demo was criminally short, I’m already looking forward to seeing how more of its characters fight in sync – especially the tiny korok musketeer and enigmatic looking Zonai construct that looks very similar to a notably absent hero. Luckily I’ll only have just over a month to wait until Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment arrives on November 6th.
