Hyrule Warriors: Age Of Imprisonment Review – Link To The Past

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Over the years, the Dynasty Warriors series has spawned many spin-offs, including anime crossovers with popular titles like Gundam, Berserk, and One Piece, and video game collaborations with Persona and Fire Emblem. The Hyrule Warriors games, released in 2014 and its sequel Age of Calamity, have been particularly popular. They successfully combined Dynasty Warriors’ signature fast-paced combat with the beloved characters, settings, and enemies from The Legend of Zelda.

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment blends the worlds of its source material so well that it feels like a fresh Zelda game, not just a typical action-focused spin-off. While it’s not perfect and won’t win over those who dislike this type of game, it’s a significant improvement over previous Hyrule Warriors titles.

The stories of these games are very similar. While Age of Calamity offered a new take on the timeline, Age of Imprisonment is officially part of the Zelda universe, building upon the lore introduced in Tears of the Kingdom. It details the complete history of Hyrule’s creation, Ganondorf’s transformation into the Demon King, and the war that led to his imprisonment. If you’re familiar with Tears of the Kingdom, you’ll recognize most of the key events, as this game revisits and expands on those moments and their consequences.

Age of Imprisonment connects the events of past Zelda games, showing Zelda’s awakening and Ganondorf’s betrayal of Queen Sonia, and ultimately setting the stage for Tears of the Kingdom. While it expands on characters like King Rauru and Mineru, the story itself isn’t particularly captivating. The game is generally enjoyable, featuring an exciting final battle with Hyrule’s army against Ganondorf’s forces and a moving ending that effectively uses the classic Zelda theme. However, even with these strong points, the narrative doesn’t feel essential to the overall story of Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. It wasn’t necessary to explain every detail, but the most impactful moments were already familiar from other games.

The story is a bit limited by the game’s style. A lot of the cutscenes focus on forming alliances and planning battles against Ganondorf, which makes sense since you’ll be fighting alongside those allies for most of the game. This builds on what previous games in the series have done, improving the core gameplay to deliver the most engaging and rewarding combat yet.

Games like Dynasty Warriors let you live out the ultimate power fantasy: taking on hundreds of enemies at once. You’re incredibly strong, easily defeating entire armies with swift, satisfying attacks. Age of Imprisonment’s new characters embrace this feeling, and Zelda is a perfect example. While Link is busy with time travel in the latest Zelda game, Zelda steps up as a well-rounded fighter. She’s traded her summoning tools for a powerful Zonaite sword, letting her slice through enemies with both close-range attacks and long-range magical blasts. Her sword even returns to her hand as it flies through the air, making quick work of Bokoblins, Lizalfros, and other creatures.

Mineru uses a range of unique Zonai devices, inspired by the building system in Tears of the Kingdom. She can ride a huge, spiky motorcycle to crash through enemies, launch large balls at them with a spinning paddle, and reveal enemy weaknesses, summoning spear-armed Constructs to help her fight.

The game features a diverse cast of characters, like Qia, the Zora queen, who controls water to defeat enemies, and Agraston, the Goron chief, who’s a powerful, rolling force that can summon flames. I especially enjoy playing as Calamo, a small Korok who uses Hyrule’s fruits to inflict elemental damage. Each character plays differently, with unique attack combinations, powerful special moves, and wide-area attacks. This variety is key to the game’s classic, fast-paced action, letting you send hordes of enemies flying with every strike.

While not perfect and probably won’t win over those who don’t already enjoy this type of game, Age of Imprisonment is definitely a step up from what came before.

Mineru is unique in her ability to build complicated devices, but all players can use a variety of Zonai devices like flamethrowers, ice emitters, bombs, rockets, and fans. These devices add a layer of strategy to combat, as they run on limited battery power and can be used in many different ways. For example, you can quickly burn enemies with a flamethrower or place a device to deal continuous damage while you move around them. Fans can even bounce enemy attacks back at them. It’s also important to consider enemy weaknesses – using water will wash away protective layers on some foes, and Frost Taluses are especially vulnerable to fire. Certain enemies still have the same weaknesses as in Tears of the Kingdom, making bombs very effective against enemies like Frox due to their exposed throats.

Every character has special skills, like quick dashes and vertical attacks, that you can use at any time to defeat groups of enemies. However, these skills are especially useful against tougher enemies such as Moblins, Hinoxes, and Lynels. For example, if an enemy like the Construct is charging towards you, using your dash can stop their attack and create an opening to strike. Successfully stopping a powerful enemy with a well-timed skill feels great and helps make combat feel more dynamic with your teammates.

Each character has powerful special moves that take time to recharge. However, if an enemy uses a special ability while your character’s is on cooldown, a teammate can jump in and use theirs instead. These team-up moments look great and really make you feel like you’re fighting as a coordinated unit. The game also features new ‘Sync Strikes’ where two characters combine their powers for unique and impressive attacks. For example, Zelda and Qia work together to create water bubbles that Zelda can then burst with her arrows for extra damage. Ardi and Raphica create electrified tornadoes, and Zelda and Rauru fire twin beams of light that each player can control separately.

Okay, so these team attacks look awesome, and honestly, pulling them off is super satisfying. But they don’t really add anything to the gameplay. See, most musou games are about splitting up, taking over bases, and then regrouping when you’re ready for a big push. These Sync Strikes kind of mess with that because it’s way easier to just team up and plow through everything. The problem is, the missions are all pretty much the same, so you never really need to think about where to send your units or change up your strategy. It’s a shame, because the team attacks feel cool, but they don’t make the game any more interesting strategically.

Most missions are completed by defeating the strongest enemies, and the game’s levels are designed for fast-paced progression. While repeating content is common in this type of game, Age of Imprisonment’s campaign loses its satisfying rhythm towards the end, making you replay similar missions excessively.

The game offers a unique twist with its Flight Mode battles. Similar to Tears of the Kingdom, it features both the depths of Hyrule and its Sky Islands, but in a different way than you’d imagine. Instead of landing on the floating islands, you fly between them as a new character called the Mysterious Construct, which can turn into a small plane. These missions are reminiscent of Star Fox, putting you in fast-paced, on-rails dogfights where you dodge attacks and fire rockets.

While Flight Mode is fun and offers a nice break from the main game, it’s a shame the Sky Islands and Depths aren’t used more. There aren’t many missions specifically designed for flying, and very few of the story’s key moments happen underground. The game does a great job creating visually distinct areas – like battling near Death Mountain, using electricity in the Lanayru Wetlands, and exploring the Gerudo Desert – but I was hoping for more focus on the Sky Islands and Depths, especially considering how important they seemed in Tears of the Kingdom.

Age of Imprisonment fixes the performance problems that held back the previous game. Unlike before, the frame rate is consistently smooth, even with lots of enemies on screen. The game runs at a solid 60 frames per second most of the time, and any minor dips in performance are barely noticeable, whether you’re playing handheld or docked. While some enemies still appear suddenly, it’s a significant improvement over other similar games, and a welcome change overall.

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment delivers exciting, smooth combat that remains the game’s biggest strength. New special abilities and team-up attacks add more strategy to the fast-paced action, and ideas from Tears of the Kingdom are cleverly incorporated. While the story might not be enough for dedicated Zelda fans, the game improves on the previous title with better performance and a diverse cast of enjoyable characters, making it the best entry in the series so far.

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2025-11-04 17:12