Quick Look: Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity

I don't really have any desire to play this game, but I have to admit it is really fun to watch.

The symbol thing is how you get the clones for Impa. Using a Strong Attack (X button) on an enemy that you placed a symbol on absorbs the symbol. If you use your Special attack (the super attack that you build up the yellow meter and press A to use) it will be more powerful if you have more symbols absorbed.

Some of the other characters in this are pretty crazy in similar ways!

I'm halfway done and having a great time. Normal was kind of mindless, but hard makes you dig into the nuance of the combat a bit more.

At the very least, being back in the BOTW world rules, and I've really enjoyed all the cutscenes so far. It's awesome seeing these characters that you've only see glimpses of in all their glory.

I played the demo of this having never played a dynasty warriors game or any of its ilke and I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed myself, I might even pick it up

One of those "Jason games" huh?

Character swapping and ordering your characters around isn't a new thing, been around for awhile. And you can check out all of the characters moves by pausing, all of your info is right there (pretty sure it tells you when you start the second mission/the first mission that was played here).

Musous are pretty damn varied in what they do so throwing out a blanket "one of those games" is kind of a bummer, but overall loop is battlefield management soo sure? If it's to easy/mashy up the difficulty. If y'all want a really good musou, with a great story check out Samurai Warrior's: Spirit of Sanada.

I'm mostly interested in this to see the Breath of the Wild characters in all their glory. BotW was great, but a lot of the characterization was ambient/through stories/implied. So it's cool to see Mipha, Daruk, Urbosa and Revali (+others) in action. Hopefully they don't botch the ending/story ties to BotW.

Oof, this runs even more rough than I'd imagined.

As far as being "one of those", this is a pretty good one. The characters are varied and the BotW vibes are all very strong. I've enjoyed my time with it thus far.

The only real complaint I have is that the performance is often quite bad - it's bearable for the most part but there are times where the frame rate issues are just impossible to ignore. The load times are also awful.

I get that these games aren’t for everyone. I’m not even interested in the genre unless it’s a really good one of them, but the “oh it’s just another one of these” dismissal raises an eyebrow when the previous segment on the podcast was an hour long discussion on how the kill streaks or whatever have changed in the new CoD.

what is this cartoon network speaking bullshit in a a zelda game

you must defeat ganon

Lol you can say the "ITS ANOTHER one of those" for any game thou. As long as its not revolutionary like super hot or EVERYTHING then the team is gonna be lukewarm on it. Its not as negative as they sound. Like how they say a "Jason" game. They dont mean it in a bad way. That said these games are good for people who enjoy the game they like with this type of flow. ie One piece was brought just cause it stared those characters. Overall it is what it is.

The framerate in this game looks super chunk.

This game is really friggin' good, and the soundtrack has been killer so far. I'm playing on Very Hard and it's a satisfying challenge, and is way more combat focused than the first HW, which was a very strategy focused "have a unit on this part of the map or your boned" kind of Musou. It also helps that Breath of the Wild's art is incredible and visually carries this game. I should note I'm playing on an overclocked Switch, so I can't speak to the framerate per se, but so far it's been solid on the non-grass maps, and kinda okayish on the maps with grass.

I think these games are at their best when it is taking an existing IP with an already established world, and grafting it onto the Musou tree. I've heard great things about Fire Emblem Warriors & Persona 5 Scramble, so it seems like this more recent trend is producing quality stuff.

Like to see an option to drop it down to 720p and lose some fidelity to try to get 60fps.

Does this game have Linkle? I liked playing as her in the last one

I mean, yeah, they sure did slavishly import all the sound effects, UI elements, character models, etc., from Breath of the Wild. Too bad it completely misses the mood of Breath of the Wild, and from what I've read the story is pretty bad.

Yo...

Musou games are good!

Next gen consoles really did spoil me on framerate cause this just looks rough.

This looks like the sort of light mechanical depth I've been looking for from a Musou game. The 4 abilities plus the perfect dodges and air juggles are way more interesting than the ground-only single-button combat of past games. Given, I haven't put any serious time into a Musou game since the late 360 era, but unless the difficulty was pumped way up, they always seemed to be missing something to engage with.

The performance is shiiiiiiiit

Jason, try to remember some of the basics of CQC...

Commencing Musou Mission.. NOW

Moo-soh

I wish someone on the staff would actually get hooked on a muso game because then they could talk about the aspects that please fans. (building the best weapons, the differences between characters , the high challenge of end game, the leveling up, the process of understanding and beating a challenging level) There is a mastery aspect that happens at the harder difficulties, so I don't fault them for not really getting it. If someone bounced off Celeste in the first 2 hours they would not understand the strongest aspects of that game either.

Planning to dive into this after Demon's Souls.

Purah is younger in BOTW because she accidentally made herself age backwards.

Is it me or did this series used to have hundreds of enemies on screen at all times and now only maybe has 50-100 at most? To be fair, it does sound and look quite good and they included most moves you want to see in a BOTW musou.

Lord I'm glad I'm playing this with Japanese voices

What is this, 10 fps? I really hope this runs well on the switch pro.