Infendo Radio Episode 318: Final Smash Predictions

Colin, you’re fired. Holly and Harrison, listen up, because I’m about to sell you (or at least try to sell you) on Hyrule Warriors.

Firstly, an unpleasant truth: the Zelda franchise is stale. Don’t agree? The two most exciting things to happen in 20 years are 1) tranisitioning to 3D (which was amazing, and Nintendo manages to impress with it nearly every time) and playing dungeons in no specific order (sorry, but this isn’t a very big deal, because you get in every dungeon and the puzzles that everyone raves about over the years ARE STILL THE SAME: light these torches, push two switches at the same time, find a way “over there,” et cetera). Basically, the games are the same with minor variations in art, style, or story, but not really in gameplay. This doesn’t detract from the enjoyment of said games, but is pretty true nonetheless.

Now that that is out of the way, lets look at Hyrule Warriors. Now, I haven’t played Hyrule Warriors yet, so I’m going to have to go off general reports and information, and my loads of experience with other Warrios games. Firstly, this is not a Zelda game, but really a Warriors game, and if you’ve never played one, how is that a bad thing? You are getting the chance to play a new game (type/genre of game really) with characters/properties you have a vested interest in. No better jumping on point! But fine, the idea alone is not enough. So what is a Warriors game? They are the personification of every wuxia martial arts movie you’ve ever seen. Thought House of Flying Daggers was fun? Yeah, that’s you. Wanted to be Jet Li in The Hero? Done. The battles are (or at least can be) very dynamic. Picture this: you’re in a fight with hundreds of enemies, but also many allies. Your initial mission is to take out some towers to prevent your allies from getting smashed. Take too long, and you could lose because too many allies died. Complete the mission, and now your allies begin advancing, but the battles not over yet, not by a long shot! Now, you advance with your allies, only to be informed that an unseen squadron of enemies has snuck around your battle lines, and if you don’t get back to your headquarters (FAST!!), they’ll be overwhelmed. So you rush back there and fight off not one, but TWO squadrons of enemies! You know you can’t last forever, so it’s time: make a direct push for the enemy commander to decapitate their forces. You push through, allies all around you, but just as you see the enemy commander, the biggest, baddest force of destruction that battlefields have seen in generations has stepped onto the battlefield, and he probably isn’t friendly. Can you take him? If you break off to engage him, but lose, the battle is lost, OR you can defeat the commander in sight and escape the field of battle. Since heroes can level up in this game, after you gain 20 or 30 levels, you go back to try again: it’s time to take out that major battlefield destroyer! (And in doing so, you might unlock a new level/map, or even a new playable character complete wi unique weapons and fighting style.)

All of this gets mixed with familiar gameplay elements from Zelda: finding treasure chests, minor exploration, simple button type “puzzles,” skulltulas, chickens, et cetera. And, it might launch as less then a traditional retail game?? (BTW, Samurai Warriors Chronicles was my launch 3DS game, and I have over 100 hours in it and STILL haven’t unlocked everything. Warriors Orochi 3 was one of my launch Wii U games, and I still haven’t unlocked everything in that either. Theses games are MASSIVE, and you get more than your money’s worth out of them, ESPECIALLY if you are new to the games so not “burned out.”)

Hope that helped sell you guys!