Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity demo impressions

It’s fair to say that Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity is probably the most anticipated Switch game this Fall. Who doesn’t want more Zelda? Well, a demo dropped this week, so we finally have a taste of what to expect come late November. Really, there’s a lot to love here for both Zelda fans and those of the hack-and-slash genre.

I was aware of the Warriors franchise going into this. Though this is the first one I’ve ever personally played. It’s premise looks pretty straight forward, but there’s a lot more to the meta game than appears on the surface. Most of the time you’ll be brawling through massive hoards of enemies and fighting big bosses. However, there are also real-time-strategy and RPG elements at play here as well. Directing resources, setting up allies, conquering enemy bases, equipping and leveling up your party. There’s a lot to fiddle around with in Warriors if you’re looking at something meatier than just mindless action.

Age of Calamity is just more of that, set in the Breath of the Wild universe.

Now, if you’re one of the three people who’s actually been reading my articles for some time now, you’ll know I’m not a terribly huge fan of BOTW. Mostly due to its questionable mechanical choices. Yet from a story standpoint, it seemed to have even less to offer. Sure, it teased a rich and intriguing world, but never really delivered on that. A lot of questions were left unanswered. Age of Calamity seeks to resolve that by acting as a sort of prequel, maybe. There may be some alternate universe stuff going on here too, but it’s hard to tell just based on the demo alone. What really matters is we finally get to see how the war played out, as well as what Hyrule was like before Ganon destroyed it.

The demo offers three playable characters to try out: Link, Impa, and Zelda. Each have their own unique move sets. Multiple characters can take part in the same battle, and you can switch between them on the fly. You get two basic attacks: light and heavy. You can also can block, and dodge. Fairly standard stuff for hack-and-slash games. The runes from BOTW make a return though, allowing you to pull off special moves like blocking charging enemies with ice, or locking them down with stasis so you can whale away on them.

I’ve heard Warriors games being sold as the ultimate power fantasy. Indeed the combat here is very satisfying, which is something that cannot be said for Breath of the Wild. Your attacks send dozens of enemies flying with little effort as you plow through the hoards. Like most brawlers, the really challenge is always crowd control. Though like BOTW, you will encounter stronger colour coded enemies over the course of the game. Thankfully your weapons don’t break this time. And yes, you can actually upgrade them too at a blacksmith.

Of the few boss fights featured in the demo, this is one area I did find lacking. The Moblin commanders aren’t difficult to take down, but they are damage sponges. While this is mitigated by having a lot of mook enemies surrounding them to keep the action up, one-on-one fights can feel longer than necessary. The hits don’t feel quite as big as they should either. Which if you compare it to something like the recent Yakuza games, or even any other brawler, is something Omega Force could definitely work on. The way a hit “feels” when it connects with you or the enemy is a big part of what makes these games work. Here they just fall a bit flat.

Defeated enemies will drop items that can be used for cooking or trading. Cooked food can be used to give status buffs during battle. There’s also a reputation system that allows you to trade items to help the residents of Hyrule. I’m not sure how this will play out in the full game, but it’s an interesting mechanic none the less. While it’s not going to have nearly as much content as BOTW does, there’s still a heck of a lot of stuff here to sink your teeth into.

As for performance, this is where things do tend to fall apart. The original port of Hyrule Warriors for the Switch targeted 60fps varying to as low as 40 in benchmark tests. Age of Calamity has been reduced to a 30fps cap. However, I did notice some slowdowns during the two big battles while in docked mode. Not enough to really ruin the gameplay, but the lag is there none the less. Image quality looks a tad soft too, so I’m guessing there’s liberal use of dynamic resolution as well.

I didn’t try it in handheld mode, so I can’t judge performance there. However, I’m guessing the slowdowns are due to the underclocked CPU rather than the GPU. Any game that has a lot of interactive objects on screen is going to tax the processor. It’s a Switch exclusive though. With only one system to optimize for, these performance issues are always a bit baffling.

Overall, Age of Calamity is shaping up to be a solid game despite occasional performance hiccoughs. If you’re a Zelda fan, or even just looking for a decent hack-and-shash title on the Switch, this is one that’s worth picking up. It releases worldwide on November 20th.

Screenshots courtesy of Nintendo