We have told many of our friends how much we loved The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. It’s our favorite game of all time. So when they announced that there was going to be a Hyrule Warriors game telling the story of the calamity (which sets the scene for Breath of the Wild), we got excited.

I played the Dynasty Warriors games as a kid, but I never played the Hyrule Warriors spinoff game on the Wii U. Nor did I pick it up when it got ported to Switch. But I knew enough about Warriors style gameplay from my youthful days to have an idea of what to expect from the series. 

Like lots of folks, we downloaded the Age of Calamity demo that appeared on the Nintendo eshop last week. It was a promising demo, and we wanted to share some of our initial impressions in anticipation of the full release later in November.

A Time-Traveling Robot? Cool!

We don’t know all of the details of the story for Age of Calamity. We do know it is supposed to tell the story of the . . . well, you know, the Calamity so frequently alluded to in Breath of the Wild. But already in the demo, we’ve been surprised by the addition of a time-traveling guardian.

Time travel is definitely not new to the Zelda franchise. Usually it’s the protagonist who’s doing the timey-wimey, wibbly-wobbly bit. So this is kind of a cool thing already to have someone else jumping through time for a change. 

It seems like the game starts before the champions have even been called. All Hyrule knows so far is that there’s a prophesied rise of Calamity Ganon and that Princess Zelda needs to hurry up and awaken her powers and save everyone.

In fact, the story begins early enough that Link is just a regular ol’ knight in the first battle. Granted, he’s the only knight who’s not required to wear his helmet. But that’s understandable. How is a hero supposed to distinguish himself if he has to wear the same Halloween costume as everybody else at the party? No, that simply would not do.

Demo-lishing These Bokoblins, Amirite?

The demo lets you complete the first chapter of the game (and, fortunately, your save data will transfer from the demo to the full game if you decide to buy the full thing). This basically amounts to two  battles and a bunch of smaller side-quest type things.

First, the battles. If you’ve never played a Warriors game before, be prepared for a unique experience. Unlike a traditional Zelda title, you’re on the battlefield. You control a few core people (in the demo it’s just Link, Impa, and Zelda) and lay waste to an army of  bokoblins, moblins, lizalfos, etc. You run around an enclosed battlefield map destroying as many of them as you can.

Each character has a set of combos that they can perform using strong attacks, light attacks, and special attacks. From the trailers, it looks like they’ll get multiple sets of weapons, too, which will shake up the combat even more.

As far as demo combat went, I was pleased. I mean, I had no idea what I was doing, even by the end. But I had a lot of fun not knowing what I was doing and just mashing buttons. I think the easiest one to enjoy (but the hardest one to understand) was Impa. I would start to think I knew which combos I was going to get, and then all of a sudden, she would do something completely new. And I never complained about it once because it usually turned out better than what I thought she should have done.

Impa has this strange ability to create bluish dopplegangers that follow her around and attack bokoblins in sync with her own attacks. If you create and then absorb certain symbols, her attack powers amplify. It looks really cool. But I still have no idea how to control all of it.

Link is a little easier to control and figure out. In the demo, he just has a simple sword and shield combo. It’s a tried and true system, and he rocks it. Zelda’s combat was a bit clunky, but I think that’s intentional. Zelda isn’t a fighter, and she tells you in the game that she’s trying to improvise using her Sheikah Slate to get the job done.

Speaking of the Sheikah Slate, I thought the team did a good job of implementing the runes from Breath of the Wild into the Warriors style combat. Each rune makes a return and has at least one use in battle, though they probably have many more as the game evolves. Other little details, like the way you can eat apples to restore health, the ability to use wizrobes’ dropped weapons against your enemies, and the dodge flurry attacks struck a good balance between innovative combat and fidelity to the source material.

The connection to Breath of the Wild is one key element I think this game will have going for it, but it’s also one of its major pitfalls. I’m so excited to see what happened in the Calamity and to finally have that story told. Link’s memories of that time were some of the things I loved seeing the most in Breath of the Wild. So seeing it all first hand is going to be thrilling.

But I couldn’t help but say to myself that what I really wanted to be playing right now was Breath of the Wild, not necessarily Hyrule Warriors. The art for the demo used the same models and textures and things from Breath of the Wild, but it all looked downgraded to say the least. Now, I grant that this is a demo. I imagine the final product will look much better. And I hope it does. Even if it doesn’t, I still think it looks really good. But it wasn’t as shiny as the art in Breath of the Wild.

More than that, the sense of exploration is missing. Breath of the Wild thrived on the fact that you could go anywhere, do anything, and then get sniped by a Guardian before you realized that you weren’t supposed to be in that part of town alone at night. The cramped, tunnel-like maps are certainly more conducive to the bokoblin-slashing gameplay that Hyrule Warriors focuses on, so I don’t blame them for that. 

The developers seem like they’ve tried their hardest to make the maps as explorable and full of things to do as possible (even including Koroks!). And I genuinely think the demo was enjoyable, and the full game will likely be even better. It looks like it will even open up to allow players to complete tasks in various orders, just like Breath of the Wild. All the same, I did find myself wanting more Breath of the Wild after playing the demo. Perhaps that’s where I will turn next while I wait for that elusive sequel.

In the meantime, though, I am as excited for Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity as ever. If you played the demo, let us know what you thought in the comments below. 

You can also preorder the game over on Amazon.