Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity

I'm begining my thread with a spoiler warning. I already put out a tweet warning y'all to mute me ahead of time.

I'm not numbering these btw.

Obviously the first cutscene which anyone can see in the demo is the point of divergence from BotW. Lots of fans have mixed feelings because Nintendo marketed the game as a prequel (or rather heavily implied so).

It feels disingenuous but I'm going to put those feelings aside.

Time travel and timeline splitting isn't new. It also means the character roster has more options when you look at it from a development perspective.

Games made this year have a lot of challenges and recycling assets is a way to reduce the work load for the dev team.

So I honestly enjoy this game's story. I have always been a fan of "what if?" scenarios in fiction. Plus it really explores the characters more.

The original Hyrule Warriors was more about the Sorceresses rather than the Zelda cast.

Lana and Cia felt like someone's fanfic OCs playing out their story with Zelda and Link relegated to supporting roles.

Age of Calamity focuses on Zelda, Link and the other Champions in a way that doesn't feel like the new characters (the tiny guardian) are intruding.

Now onto the gameplay.

Pressing Y+Y+Y+X over and over gets pretty stale over time. The addition of elements from BotW like flurry rushes and weak points (shooting or slashing the head of a Moblin shows the weak point gauge go down faster) really made the battles more nuanced.

I think my only issue was assigning the default rune button to the R trigger when it's the L trigger in BotW. It tripped me up a lot.

The original Hyrule Warriors let you customize more but considering how runes and items work that could mess up the control scheme.

(My power went out yesterday evening so i got cut off)

The cameras are a tad wonky and the game had stuff that looked like you could interact with it (due to mirroring botw assets) and launching bomb barrels was not something you could do (learned that after the 50th attempt).

The maps are somewhat abstractions of Botw locations. The scale is tweaked for the benefit of gameplay pacing. Running from the castle town wall to the Central Hyrule Tower is quicker and the immensity of the scale botw let you explore is diminished (this is not a bad thing).

Musou maps can be incredibly exhausting (in a mental sense) when you have to run back to stop the allied base from falling on big maps before continuing the mission. Some folks have expressed disappointment in the changes but if left intact there would be complaints of map size.

There are some changes that retcon BotW canon.

Lake Kolomo in Zelda's Sheikah Slate album looks identical to the lake 100 years later. However in Chapter 2 part 5, "The Yiga Clan Attacks" the Gatepost Town is not in ruins and the island in the lake has this gravestone.

Now, I understand BotW using the same environment for past and present. It's one brief cutscene in a location with no story significance. Building a map for one scene is not a priority in game dev. Meanwhile the ceremony scene establishes a lot about the characters/world.

It's actually an improvement if you ask me. The fact a scene 100 years before you are running around as Link looks identical to its future self was a small detail that slightly annoyed me. 100 years can wear down stone structures that aren't maintained.

Seeing the Gatepost, Outpost and other ruins as bustling civilizations was refreshing and really highlighted what was actually lost to the Calamity in BotW. While the story of AoC is more uplifting and optimistic it's contrast underscores how bad things went in BotW.

Looking at AoC and then to Botw reminds me a lot of my first impressions of the time skip in OoT. I was 6 when it came out and the undead creatures in the game terrified me so I watched my older brother play it.

The atmosphere change in the game after the time skip was jarring.

The first time I saw Adult Link walk out of the Temple of Time after getting the Master Sword really shook me.

Link walking into the Castle Town square only to find redeads gave me a fright and I ran out of the room. I demanded my brother play the Sun Song to stun them.

The duality of worlds has been a common theme in Zelda since ALttP.
Ocarina of Time had the dark future created by Ganondorf's successful coup contrasting the vibrant past of Link's childhood.
The Oracles games played with the imbalance of time and seasons.

Twilight Princess had the regions mired by Twilight that needed cleansing.
Four Swords Adventure played on the dark world from ALttP using moon gates.
Skyward Sword had those trials with phantoms essential to the story.
Link Between Worlds had Lorule contrasting Hyrule.

BotW had only fragments of the "Light World" that once was. It was as if someone had started playing Ocarina of Time starting at the time skip and being unable to go back. Only by pursuing the memory quest could a player begin to understand the cost of Link's failure.

I also want to note that a beautiful reference in the first chapter is Link finding Terrako, the tiny guardian, while a butterfly sits on it's head. A well known time travel trope is the effect of going back and crushing a butterfly causing major changes in the future.

Of course Terrako going back in time in and of itself caused changes. In particular the piece of Calamity Ganon that followed them through the portal affected the past as much as Terrako did. The question though is how long had Terrako been powered down before Link found them?

With this question on my mind I contemplated the difference in circumstances when Zelda set out to recruit the Champions for the Divine Beasts.
Monsters brazenly assault the Rito, Gorons and Zora.
The Yiga clan is more active in their schemes against the Gerudo.

Furthermore, the Korok forest is surrounded by monsters. Link is only discovered to be the fabled hero after the Champions are recruited. The time and order the corresponding events to the Champion's Ballad memories take place is shuffled.

I lost track of things and had some personal stuff to sort but I'm continuing from here.

Anyway Link and Zelda get to know eachother and the other champions before Link obtains the Master Sword. It creates a fundamental difference in their relationship.

Link is no longer a target for Zelda's lashing out over frustration with her own shortcomings.

Watching their friendship form on equal footing was an interesting part of their story changing.

Meanwhile it's clear that the monster attacks lead by Harbinger Ganon (possessed Terrako from the present timeline) had been going up against the Rito for long enough that Revali didn't bother to find out who Link was (as he accompanied Terrako).

It's worth noting that Astor, as the one who brought Harbinger Ganon in contact with the Yiga clan, has some sort of obsession with destroying the royal family. Perhaps he was connected to the seer that foretold Ganon's return? Maybe he lost a position of power before all this?

Hopefully DLC will be available with some elaboration on Astor's past and motives. If he had connections in Hyrule Castle it would explain why Harbinger Ganon was not detected sooner, such as when he first possessed present time Terrako.

I wonder how Terrako's time travel device actually works though. Clearly if we look at previous games (skyward sword specifically) robots that worked near the time gates utilized timeshift stone in their work somehow. The robot designs even have a resemblance to guardians.

The conclusion can be made that the robots in Skyward Sword are precursors to the guardians and based on location they worked with the Sheikah to create the time gates.

But does this mean Harbinger Ganon could time travel as well?

Everytime Terrako activated time travel it was in response to Zelda. Unlocking her sealing power in the BotW timeline powered them on and what appeared to be a precursor to her powers awakening triggered the delayed gates to the future opening.

Dialogue between the future warriors confirms they are from after Link has defeated the Blight Ganons in the BotW timeline.

Timeline splits in the Zelda franchise create alternate worlds so we can assume paradoxes aren't a factor.

And it's really sad to think about them going to their world and finding nothing has changed, especially for Sidon. However these splits can lead to good conclusions, Wind Waker's timeline sees Ganon sealed at the bottom of the Ocean.

I think the whole ambiguity of the BotW timeline and the 10,000 years pre BotW are such abstract concepts (and also why is Hyrule so slow to develop new technology? Does Ganon kill almost all the scientists off every time he returns?).

There is some time that the Sheikah develop the tech of the Divine beasts but they also had robots long before that? At the same time they reasonably don't develop many new things due to the oppression against them that lead to the rise of the Yiga clan.

I can't help but wonder if the tech itself was sent to the future using time gates and the Sheikah 10,000 years prior to BotW received information on how to recreate it. If that's so, perhaps Terrako was involved with that transfer. Maybe Hylia herself sent Terrako as an envoy.

If that theory was true it might explain why Zelda is the trigger for Terrako's time travel. There might be a device only Hylia can activate inside Terrako made of Timeshift stone (side note: I really wish the sound Terrako made when creating gates was the Song of Time).

Overall the actual period of time passing between calamities and such is inconsequential. I have always prefered the vague time gaps but with some games clearly being on one branch of the time tree.

Getting specific large numbers like 10,000 is kinda frustrating.

And don't get me started on Kohga. There is a lot of mixed info regarding if "Master Kohga" is an inherited title, a man who used some esoteric means to unnaturally prolong his life (like the Sheikah monk boss from the Ballad DLC), or a combination of both.

Hyrule Warriors AoC paints Kohga's personality with the same brush as the 100 year later BotW Kohga. It's possible he lived to be over 100 like Impa, Purah and Robbie did but he doesn't exactly look old (not that there is much to go off other than body type).

Then again BotW Kohga is pretty easy compared to the other bosses once you figure out which runes to use against his attacks. This might be an indicator of his aging in itself.

Generally though characters repeating appearances despite relative time and (in the case of Tingle) realities is common in Legend of Zelda games but that's usually implied as a reincarnation thing like with Link and Zelda.

Coming back to this thread again.

I wanna talk about Sooga. If you haven't completed all the post game content 100% you might wanna mute me now until you do get 100%.

Post game playable characters you can unlock are Terrako and Calamity Ganon.

Terrako I can understand, Calamity Ganon was a surprise (I expected either Astor or Sooga to be added to the roster from the antagonist characters).

I really hoped Sooga would be playable. He's a power house, related to existing characters development wise, and more present throughout the story than Calamity Ganon.

Most importantly he is seen in the credits of the true ending (the one with Terrako walking around Hyrule with all the characters drawn as is one canvas like in the loading screen). In the story however, his fate after fighting Astor is ambiguous.

I expected him to be an optional character after the Great Plateau battle.

He would definitely have to have been wounded protecting Kohga if he survived the fight with Astor.

A side mission involving the Shrine of Resurrection to revive Sooga would have made a lot of sense.

"Wouldn't Sooga need a long time to recover?" you may ask.

Probably not, Terrako has been shown to boost the abilities of the Sheikah slate and towers.

They could probably boost the Shrine's tech and Purah would help make the boost super efficient.

I think development had time constraints designing weapons for all the characters.

Terrako and Calamity Ganon have weapons that are internal components but nearly all the weapons are from BotW.

Only Riju, Yunobo, Monk Maz Koshia, the Great Fairies and Impa have new assets.

Maz Koshia and the Great Fairies have two new items each for equipment based on existing assets.

Designing dual swords for Sooga may have been too much before the deadline (honestly they could have done without the Great Fairies or Maz Koshia).

There is evidence of plans to make more characters playable. Data miners found sound files for more characters such as the "baton pass" character switching lines (swapping between Link and Zelda triggers Zelda saying "I'll take over Link" etc.)

I don't have much info on who the sound files were for but likely it includes existing characters like Astor, Sooga, Robbie and Purah.

(If I had time travel tech I'd definitely encourage Nintendo to drop the Grest Fairies and Maz Koshia from the roster).

Fingers crossed for Purah, Robbie, and Sooga DLC (Astor can come too I guess though he is technically part of Calamity Ganon in this game?).