Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment Review

Hyrule Warriors: Confinement Era Review

Warrior games (musou) are extremely simple. Just a series of intense battles against giant hordes of enemies, plus a bit of story. Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment does not contradict this trend. Instead, you get an improved version of a successful formula. An iteration, if you will. Between this and Age of Calamity, I realized that the key to an amazing Musou game is the setting. Destroying endless monsters with colossal attacks is cool enough, but you need perfect showmanship for it to really stick. The Legend of Zelda franchise is a fantastic environment for this kind of gratuitous violence, perhaps the best I've ever experienced. But I'm a huge Zelda fan, so obviously my opinion is terribly biased.

While Age of Calamity felt like sublime fan fiction, Age of Imprisonment's story feels more like a full-fledged plot. Sort of like a prequel: you know the final ending (assuming you've played Tears of the Kingdom), but you don't know how we'll get there. This is a story that I truly wanted to bring back when I played TotK. What has Zelda been doing all this time? Who did she meet and what did she go through? And now you can find out! It's a fascinating narrative that I'll obviously say very little about in order to preserve your own experience. Just know that I appreciated the subtlety of this story structure, going beyond the perfectly decent plot of the previous Hyrule Warriors game.

There are plenty of fresh new faces

On the one hand, there are far fewer familiar faces in this game. Since we are stuck in such a disjointed period of time, it is mostly fresh talent and unknown newcomers. The only people you recognize are Zelda, Sonya, and Rauru. But this means you'll always be surprised by cool new characters with impressive skills. There's a good chance that a random Gerudo or Hylian will become your new favorite. This time I'm fixated on some unusual fighters. Who knew Corox had such impressive moves?

The combat mechanics are very similar to AoC, but there are a few key improvements. For example, there's a great system where you get a whole window of slow motion meter for certain powerful attacks. It's only a couple of seconds, but you'll have plenty of time to choose a response and deflect the nasty damage. You also have much more team skills. Other party members can either jump in and help, or the two of you can unleash a devastating combo. You add them to shield-breaking moves, special attacks, and barrages, and suddenly combat becomes pure excitement. There are so many ways to prevent fights from becoming pointless button mashing.

Battles until the very end

But to be clear, it's all a struggle. Your map is filled with many small activities. Although this is an illusion. Each action involves combat or turning in quests you completed in combat. So you need to do two things that are essentially one thing. And yet! I couldn't put “Age of Confinement” down. I also couldn't stop doing these side missions even though they just involve more fighting. Why are you already doing so much! And yet somehow it works. Combat is such an exciting pastime that there is practically no second act in the game. To be honest, I don't really need it. There are more than enough fights.

While the combat is great, upgrading weapons is still grueling work. At least on standard difficulty settings, you won't notice a significant difference between a Tier 1 weapon and a Tier 6 weapon. It requires a ton of resources, you have so many weapons to upgrade and it's boring to do it too. I would really like to see the whole system removed in favor of something more simplified. It turns out that anything that stops you from fighting in these games is a huge obstacle. Who knew?

After each battle you receive a ton of random items. But like the main Zelda games, they're actually useful. Not only will they help you complete the endless quest markers on the world map, but they will also convert them into bonuses for battle. Age of Imprisonment uses a camp system where you use items to gain movement speed, experience, and special charge speeds. Suddenly all that junk weighing down your inventory screen is worth its weight in gold. Plus, you can quickly boost up any lagging party members without spending all your gold in training camps. This single mechanic makes the entire item economy more thoughtful.

Just like I imagined

When I was a kid, I had a poster of Nintendo Power from Ocarina of Time on my wall. The sky was blood red as Link and Sheikah fought against a horde of menacing monsters. This scene was about a thousand times cooler than any fight that is actually in the game. Somehow, Age of Imprisonment implements this particular battle at the start of the campaign. This is a great example of how the music and visuals capture the Zelda aesthetic. Not only about games, but also about what their developers always wanted them to be. This is simply wonderful.

For me, this game is the perfect combination of Zelda games and the Musou genre that I can't put down. But I also understand that this is a one-trick pony. You have a great fight and nothing superfluous. Perhaps you want more from a Zelda game than just story-light combat. This is completely normal! But the atmosphere is impeccable and the gameplay is terribly addictive. If you're looking for a tense action game that really highlights what Zelda is all about, then Age of Imprisonment is exactly what you're looking for.

***Nintendo Switch 2 code provided by the publisher***