31 replies to this topic

[Crimson Lego]

http://ca.ign.com/ar...hyrule-warriors

 

 

Nintendo has announced Hyrule Warriors, a new title in development by Tecmo Koei headed to Wii U in 2014.

Hyrule Warriors (which is currently a working title and could still change) is not Nintendo's new Zelda game, president Satoru Iwata stressed during a Nintendo Direct broadcast this morning, but instead combines the “tried and true action” of the Warriors series with iconic weapons and enemies from the Zelda franchise.

Items shown in debut footage included a sword, bombs, a fire rod, and a Hylian shield, plus an epic spin attack by Link.

This isn’t the first crossover for the Warriors series, as Dynasty Warriors: Gundam hit PS3 in 2007. The most recent game in the Dynasty Warriors series, Dynasty Warriors 8, was released earlier this year.

 

[Sir Turtlelot]

 

Looks like a fun side game. I wonder if it will feature multiple player characters, like Dynasty Warriors. Playable Zelda anyone?

[Sir Deimos]

And it is literally my favorite bit of gaming news ever.

[DarkJuno]

While I liked Dynasty Warriors 4, I never could get into any of the ones past that. On the flipside, when they made Dynasty Warriors Gundam I ate all three of those up. Adding the Zelda license might be all I need to be interested in mowing down thousands of Moblins. I wonder if there'll be multiple characters playable or if the different weapon loadouts will take place of that.

 

Nice to see the Hyrule Army is just as useful as always. -cough-

[SteveT]

If the take the same approach to the Zelda story as Dynasty Warriors took to Romance of the Three Kingdoms, I really hope that each mission is based on plot points from different Zelda games.  Extra Double Bonus Points if we're finally getting a game set during the Imprisoning War.

[lord-of-shadow]

Lots of interesting stuff. 

 

- It's being devloped by Tecmo Koei as part of their "warriors" series - alognside Samurai Warriors, Dynasty Warriors, GUndam Warriors, etc. Those games are typically a lot of fun, especially in co-op modes. Their biggest problem is that they haven't really changed or evolved since 2001, but they insist on releasing at least one new one every year. It can get old. Luckily, i haven't really played one in several years, so I'm fine with that!

 

- The game is clearly in an early state. I suspect that a lot of what we were seeing and hearing was placeholder, or rough unpolished assets. It probably is indicative of the final tone and style, though. Those guitar riffs in the trailer? We're totally going to get those in the real game, for better or worse. 

 

- These games are typically unpolished. The trailer doesn't give me hope that this will be any different, but Nintendo might demand a higher bar than usual. 

 

- I do not think it is a particularly good use of the Zelda IP: none of the things that set Zelda apart will be expressed in this game, from the looks of it. It will still be a ton of fun though, it just means that it will likely feel like a coat of Zelda paint on top of an otherwise unrelated game. 

 

- A few years ago, I would have been outraged: how dare they dilute and smear the reputation of this sacrosanct franchise by whoring it out to a mediocre action game dev to make a Dynasty Warriors clone! Did Nintendo learn nothing from Metroid: Other M?!?! ... Luckily, I now value having a good time, and this looks like fun. And I have learned that the quality of a spinoff like this really doesn't effect the quality of other titles or past titles, so... what is there to lose? At worst it will be mediocre and we'll pretend it never happened.

[Nevermind]

I came.

[SteveT]

The game is clearly in an early state. I suspect that a lot of what we were seeing and hearing was placeholder, or rough unpolished assets. It probably is indicative of the final tone and style, though. Those guitar riffs in the trailer? We're totally going to get those in the real game, for better or worse. 

It almost has to be placeholders.  Link was the only character model not lifted from some other game.  Seeing Skyward Sword bokoblins next to OoT 3D King Dodongo was a little jarring.

Edited by SteveT, 18 December 2013 - 09:13 PM.

[lord-of-shadow]

Dodongo was the only reason I didn't say "those are clearly 100% placeholder assets" - but that's only because I didn't recognize it because I haven't bothered to play through OoT 3D!

So yes, if that's a straight rip from OoT 3D, then... yep. Placeholder assets.

[SteveT]

Exhibit A:

 

[Egann]

Well of course they're using place-holder assets. This is clearly a concept-check with the fan-base.

 

Personally? Meh. As a game I'm not particularly excited. It's a one-note melee brawler, which isn't my cup of tea. As assets for future Zelda games, however...that's a different story. I'm willing to wager incarnations of the engine could be folded into future Zelda installments. A Zelda with a battle sequence like this--dozens of friends and enemies in an open melee--scripted into the main story? That has real potential.

 

That said, even there I'm tempering my expectations. Nintendo typically undershoots the number of novel combat sequences they need in a game. Twilight Princess had PHENOMENAL horseback combat, but it only saw use four times in the game, and only the first was actually hard enough to feel climactic. There really needed to be a couple of optional quests with horseback combat with harsh difficulty to make up for the main-quest's lack of a difficulty curve.

 

I expect in the same way, even if this combat style is folded into a future Zelda game we will only see it a couple of times because it's complicated to write for.

[Masamune]

Remember in Twilight Princess and you're suddenly faced with a bridge FILLED with enemies and you're like, "OH MY GOD BEST FIGHT EVER"

 

And then the resistance blows them up like they're doing you a friggin' favor. And you're just like, "DAMMIT I WANTED TO FIGHT THEM."

 

This is Nintendo's apology for that.

[SteveT]

Remember in Twilight Princess and you're suddenly faced with a bridge FILLED with enemies and you're like, "OH MY GOD BEST FIGHT EVER"

 

And then the resistance blows them up like they're doing you a friggin' favor. And you're just like, "DAMMIT I WANTED TO FIGHT THEM."

 

This is Nintendo's apology for that.

 

It's fitting that they used Skyward Sword Bokoblins.  Fighting an army of Bokoblins on the way to the final Ghirahim fight was one of the highlights only good parts of the game.

[JRPomazon]

If what I'm seeing is correct, we might get a game explaining Skyward Sword's backstory. If so, this game is not going to have a happy ending.

[lord-of-shadow]

I suspect this will be a full-throttle fanservice game with no canonical story and characters pulled from across the series. More Smash Bros than anything. If there's one thing Tecmo has proven, it's that they don't know how to deviate from the rigid Dynasty Warriors formula to save their lives. Every Warriors game they've released in the last ten years has been exactly like the one before it. 

So I feel safe in assuming that:

 

A: This will feature a large roster of characters, and they'd be shooting themselves in the foot if they stuck to original characters, or just characters from one part of the timeline. 

B: The story will be nonsensical no matter how good it's inspiration is. 
C: Battles will involve wading through large numbers of enemies, defeating officers comprised of the other playabale characters, and involve either killing a specific target or disabling spawn points. 

D: You'll have allied troops on your side that mostly exist to take up space and create the illusion of stuff happening all around you.
E: It will be kind of shallow and 1-dimensional, but very fun for the first 8-10 hours. Then we'll start imagining all the ways it could have been far better, but never will be.

 

 

Note that despite all this, I'm fairly excited, because 8-10 hours of fun fanservice is still pretty great.

 

 

As assets for future Zelda games, however...that's a different story. I'm willing to wager incarnations of the engine could be folded into future Zelda installments. A Zelda with a battle sequence like this--dozens of friends and enemies in an open melee--scripted into the main story? That has real potential.

Remember, this is being developed by Tecmo Koei, probably in their existing Warriors engine. If so, Nintendo probably won't have the rights to the engine, so even if they wanted to and pieces of the codebase were compatible with NIntendo's own tech (which it likely wouldn't be), they probably wouldn't legally be able to fold anything from that engine into their own. 

They might still learn something that they want to apply to the main series, but it won't be anything technical. 

[Sir Deimos]

Koei is definitely my biggest gaming guilty pleasure. God the games are so bad, but I get waaaay more than 10 hours of fun out of them. Samurai Warriors and Samurai Warriors Xtreme Legends on the PS2? I logged 300+. Easy.

[lord-of-shadow]

You have more endurance than I do, hah. 

[Sir Deimos]

They're fantastic for stress release. And with Dynasty and Samurai Warriors, the games let you learn about the history. The archives were fantastic if you were legitimately interested in the time period.

[DarkJuno]

Geez. I spent maybe that much time spread out across all three Gundam games and I thought I was playing them too much. It is totally a guilty pleasure and I do want to play this though. Same sentiments, I know they're not great games at all, especially that third one which was kind of a big step backwards for that trio of games, but just wading through hundreds of hapless Zaku or Devil Dark Army Mobile Suits with the God Burning Gundam and just mowing them down with so much hot bloodedness and terribly corny but awesome one liners is a guilty pleasure. King Dodongo makes me wonder though - do the regular DW games have the giant enemies? I liked fighting the Mobile Armors and the Devil/Dark Gundam a lot as boss fights and I'd like to see the Zelda version of that, though I always was curious if there was anything like that in the series proper.

[Nevermind]

I never got hugely into the warriors series except for Gundams but I loved the N3 games. I will buy a Wii-U solely for this game. And it better have co-op.

[Sir Deimos]

Not in any of the games I've played, DJ. It should be noted I do not buy/play every DW title though so it may have popped up somewhere, but I doubt the Romance of the Three Kingdoms era had very many things that would serve that purpose.

[SteveT]

And with Dynasty and Samurai Warriors, the games let you learn about the history. The archives were fantastic if you were legitimately interested in the time period.

It's true.  I read Romance of the Three Kingdoms solely because Dynasty Warriors was so sweet.  Also, Dian Wei was such a badass in the game that I sided with Cao Cao even though I'm pretty sure he was supposed to be the villain.

[lord-of-shadow]

I still fear Lu Bu to this day. 

[JRPomazon]

I still fear Lu Bu to this day.

 

Many sane people do as well.

 

So it's going to be a shallow Zelda game, perhaps? I think Nintendo might be able to spruce things up enough to keep me intrigued.

Edited by JRPomazon, 29 December 2013 - 03:37 AM.

[Masamune]

I'm personally hoping it'll be loosely based on the Skyward Sword manga, which would fit this type of game very well. It'll also give it the freedom to be a very different kind of Zelda game. The whole scarf design seems to lend that some credit and I would be quite alright if this was a canon Zelda game with a story.

[Nevermind]

Yeah I agree. The warriors style combat would be perfect for the enemy encounters in that story. Not to mention the Link matches that Links design. Mowing through enemies as the original badass is something Id like to look forward to.

[Masamune]

Bringing this post back from the dead.

 

I finished the story mode in Hyrule Warriors Legends. The extra chapters didn't do much for me, but I can certainly say the gameplay is much improved here. Switching between characters fixes a lot of major problems in the game where you were just trying to race the clock to cross the entire map. The experience is just improved all in all. I'm actually looking forward to going through Adventure Mode this time around just because of how much things have been improved. 

[SteveT]

The switching looks like a huge improvement, but I just can't commit to another round of it.

 

How are the new characters?  Do you get to pick who you deploy on each map, or do you only get to choose one person?

[Masamune]

In Legends mode, more than half the map let you choose your hero then you will have up to three more you can switch between.

 

Except for particular challenges, most adventure mode maps will let you pick multiple characters for a map. So if you're trying to get an item for a character, you can usually just select them and one of your mains and play it with your preferred character. 

But I feel you. I really wasn't sure if I wanted to go through it again. Fortunately I'm enjoying it regardless.

[DarkJuno]

I really like the character switching, but are you on an original 3DS or a New 3DS? I have my XL but it's rough trying to play. I can usually ignore chugging frame rates and slowdown but it's distracting as I try to get to at least Linkle's story. While I never use it, I apparently can't use 3-D either on my older model, which is weird.