Hyrule Warriors Age of Calamity (Switch) First Impressions

As a teenager, I really enjoyed playing the Dynasty Warriors games in the Musou genre. I hadn’t played one since the Xbox 360, however, I received Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity as a gift a year or two ago for Christmas. Looking through my backlog, and having loved Breath of the Wild so much, I decided to sit down with it and give a first impressions article a go. This isn’t a full review, because I think I’d want a bit more time with it for that, and I maybe have 10 hours in at most. However, I feel confident that I can at least give my thoughts on the first 10 hours.

For the uninitiated, Age of Calamity takes place in an alternate timeline, where a benevolent “mini-guardian” traveled back in time before Calamity Ganon attacked, to prevent the events that led to Breath of the Wild. As a result, you get to see the story that is touched upon in the original Breath of the Wild plot but altered somewhat. You also get to play characters such as Impa, Zelda, Urbosa, Mipha, Daruk, and Revali.

As you play through the levels, you unlock side challenges that can give you materials and help you level up your characters. On top of that, by doing various tasks on the world map (by turning in materials) you can raise the happiness/reputation of the region which gets you various rewards. Doing side content also gives you access to better combos for your heroes, as well as other passive buffs and bonuses. Before each mission, you can also cook a dish that will give all your characters a passive buff for the duration of the battle.

This could be something as simple as a flat XP increase, or a damage reduction buff. It could also be elemental damage decreased, or increasing the amount of damage your characters do by a percentage. You can also use the blacksmith to combine various weapons and strengthen your characters’ weapons. Link in particular has several playstyles depending on the weapons he uses, but I haven’t found other characters that have that capability yet. I also don’t have the DLC, so I’d be curious to see what changes.

One thing that I do find interesting, is that each character can use the Sheikah Slate along with Magnesis, Stasis, Cryonis, and Remote Bomb to perform different moves and counters to enemy attacks. Bombs can be used to blow up things in the environment, and Magnesis can be used to unearth buried chests as well. Hidden in each level are multiple Korok seeds too, which I find really fun to explore and find.

The actual gameplay is what you’d expect from a Musou title. You play as one character, fighting hordes of enemies. The rank and file enemies go down quickly, but the captains and generals are tougher. However, claiming each outpost gets you rewards, and the more enemies you kill in a level, the more rupees you get at the end.

I haven’t run into too many issues with the game so far, though there are some characters I find more difficult to play than others. Each character has their own playstyle, as well as their own special abilities. Additionally, there are Divine Beast segments where you can pilot the Divine Beasts, which is pretty fun and adds some elements that make you feel powerful.

Overall, I really like Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity. It makes me want to pick up Fire Emblem Warriors in time to check out Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes when it launches. I think in terms of story, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity really has some interesting ideas though. I hope that Breath of the Wild’s sequel chooses to lean into some of those ideas, instead of shying away from them because Age of Calamity isn’t canon.