An In Depth Critique of Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity

when hyrule warrior's age of calamity was announced back in september of 2020 it caught the entire zelda community by surprise while many of us were waiting patiently for updates on breath of the wild 2 no one expected to hear about much less receive an entirely different zelda game in the interim even more exciting about this news was that this brand new zelda game would be getting within a couple months was going to be a prequel to breath of the wild suffice to say but the hype around this game was pretty big when it was announced we were finally going to be playing through and experiencing a much more epic and dramatic game that many felt was missing in breath of the wild's more somber and lonely atmosphere and after hearing that the zelda team would be working closely with koi tecmo in the story many expected this game to fill in the gaps and answer all the questions left by breath of the wild's minimal story while breath of the wild story wasn't bad almost all of the best and most interesting parts of lock behind memories are simply told to us through diary entries so finally being able to actually see how all of these events unfolded ourselves and actually played through them too made for a very potentially exciting game pairing the story of the great calamity with the warrior style gameplay was an ingenious idea about aeonuma and the zelda team and although this gameplay style differed drastically from breath of the wild it served as a perfect complement to the huge battles that link and the champions face during the great calamity also being able to play as characters other than lake such as zelda and the champions helped sell many who had made been hesitant on this gameplay and added to the hype train because of all this age of calamity had the potential to be an amazing game and many including myself had very high expectations for this game [Music] hey what's going on guys chickens here and in today's video i thought i'd share my opinions on everything within age of calamity i've mainly been focusing on gameplay on this channel but i really wanted to share my thoughts on the rest of the game and talk about all of its other aspects as i have quite a few opinions on them i'll be going in depth on each of aj calamity's different elements like gameplay the story soundtrack and mission design and share what i think they did well as well as things that really didn't work out and probably could have been improved i'll also make sure to leave timestamps in the description to each of the different sections so you guys can easily navigate throughout the review and just watch the parts you mainly care about since i know this is going to be a fairly beefy video so i don't expect most of you to watch through it all the way through the first time as a quick note i've never played the original hybrid warriors so i won't be really comparing agent clampy to it outside of basic stats between the two as well as some small things you already know about that game as a warning for those of you who haven't played the game yet there's going to be spoilers all over this video the gaming has been out for a couple months already so i don't really see this video as a review per se but more as a discussion for people who have already played the game and were interested in what others had to say about it and lastly just remember this is my opinion so don't get mad at me for being critical or not liking a part of the game that you did i'm fine with people disagreeing with me and i actually think it's really cool to read your comments and see why but some of you just take people's opinion on the internet just a little bit too seriously i don't like this thing but i like that thing i like that thing what the [ __ ] i like that thing you know there are people who exist that like that thing we will not be silenced you [ __ ] son of a [ __ ] i like that thing but that's all i had to say before we start so let's see if asia calamity was able to live up to the expectations that many of us including myself had for it [Music] perfecting the gameplay of age of calamity was probably the top priority for the team at kobe tecmo games the previous hybrid warriors game was very detached on the mainline zelda games and was outright announced by nintendo to not be canon so many of the people who may have been attracted to that game were way more open-minded for this type of gameplay style however since age of calamity was directly attached to breath of the wild and was being marketed as a prequel it was going to be attracting a lot more fans of the mainland zelda games who were mainly interested in the story elements it would bring rather than the gameplay this drastic switch to the fast paced hack and slash gameplay style from the more simple and calculated combat and other zelda games was going to be very jarring for many fans and predictably at the time of its reveal many were very interested in the game but were fairly hesitant about this new gameplay style many believe that this kind of gameplay would be very repetitive with little to no strategy outside of a bunch of button matching so okay tecmo had to be able to dispel these worries and make the gameplay switch go over smoothly for these hesitant fans personally i think that koei tecmo absolutely nailed this part of age calamity they found a really good middle ground in terms of gameplay and were able to mix the two different genres of games perfectly they were really able to make this game feel familiar to breath of the wild fans by transferring over things like its art style enemies abilities and weapons which really helped with their transition mixing that with the combat system and mechanics of warriors games really helped this game find the perfect mix and appeal to both the fans of the original hybrid warriors and those who are coming over from breath of the wild we'll dive into the gameplay by first taking a look at age of calamity's combat system as you all know each character attacks through a mix of regular attacks and strong attacks and combining those in the right ways will allow you to pull off different combos usually each character has around 6 different combos with some characters having a little more and some a little less they did a really good job at making each combo feel really varied in their uses and they all work together to help round out a character's toolkit each character is usually outfitted with one or two combos for taking on bosses a couple for crowd control and some for doing damage while on the move almost all of these combos are really satisfying to use and while they're all different they still feel powerful in their own ways this really helps keep the gameplay from getting stale as you will always have a wide variety of powerful attacks to use at any moment that changes with the situation the combo system also de-incentivizes players from just button-mashing their way through every single mission instead it rewards those players who take the time to learn each combo it helps add a little bit of strategy as knowing the best combos to use in different situations will help you get through missions a lot faster in addition to the attack combos each character also has a set of what i like to call basic abilities every character is outfitted with two dash attacks a weak point smash attack a special attack and a unique action in each of their move sets most of these largely serve the same purpose on each character just with a little variety and animations and slight changes and effects for example dash attacks are designed to allow players to attack while on the run special attacks deal huge damage in large areas and weak point smashers do the exact same damage with each character but just have different animations what really switches things up though is the unique actions which you can probably infer from the name is unique to each character all of these unique actions aid each character in combat in a variety of different ways and they really help differentiate their play most of them are really well done and help give each character different quirks and creative ways to take on enemies that only they can do my only complaint about them though is that some of them can be a little boring and uninspired in comparison to others characters like gerbosa yunobo and mifa have amazing unique actions that are not only really useful but really dynamic and change up the way you can play the character verbose's lightning is heavily incorporated throughout all of her attacks but there's also that added element there of trying to manage your lightning gauge the entire time you play as her younobo's entire moveset as a character revolves around his food eating mechanic which comes with a bunch of hidden effects and mastering that mechanic is the key to playing him well and nifa's found serve dual purposes as they both speed up her gameplay and keep her constantly teleporting around the battlefield and are also very useful for support and healing allies but in comparison to these amazing unique actions it feels like some others take a backseat for characters like tebow and riju tabas isn't bad but it's just another attack that doesn't really change up how you play him at all and riju is while useful is pretty much a glorified dash attack even some of the better ones like sidon's the rooks and sword links i think could have used a little work to make them more dynamic in their uses and little less one-dimensional this is a pretty minor complaint though overall but i still think they could have taken a little extra time to make each unique action on par with some of the better ones to round out the combat system each character can also use shaker runes and with that their own set of runes that are exclusive to them when i first played the game i just assumed that all of the runes would be basically the same with minor differences but i was pleasantly surprised to find that every rune from character to character is drastically different from each other this may not seem like that big of a deal on the surface but it just gives us players something else to learn on top of the characters attack combos and abilities you also actually need to know what each room does as well since some of them can act as their own attacks or aid players in clever ways during combat some runes like the cryonis and bomb room can be used to send certain characters mid-air magnesis can disarm and damage weaker enemies and spaces can be used to freeze all enemies in place the runes also end up playing an important role when fighting bosses every single boss in this game will give you short periods to use a certain rune against them to expose your weak point gauge but since this window is pretty short unpredictable it really keeps the combat against bosses really engaging instead of just wailing on them with your combos you now have the option to play a little more strategically around them which really reminds me of the more calculated traditional zelda combat all of these different combat mechanics work together to help keep the gameplay feeling fresh and prevent it from getting overly repetitive you always have something new to learn like a new ruin attack combo or ability and once you master them you can use them to fight in creative ways due to the nature of this game though the combat system isn't completely immune to getting repetitive but i only really found this to be an issue when i would be grinding for hours on end with a certain character for someone's first playthrough though i don't think repetitiveness should ever be a problem there's just so many mechanics to learn and characters to choose from that really keeps you on your toes which prevents the combat from ever getting stale even now 160-ish hours into the game i'm still enjoying myself and i'm constantly learning new mechanics that i never knew about before which is why i think that the combat is one of the greatest triumphs of this game yeah how could these losers defeat me the enemies and age of calamity are all ripped directly from breath of the wild so the enemy variety problems that plague that game are still found here they were able to get around this problem a little bit by giving bosses different elemental forms like electric fire and ice as well as a malice form these help alleviate the problem somewhat but i do think we still needed more the only real differences between the different forms is that the malice versions are tougher and the elemental forms have a couple new attacks and are weak to certain elemental rods but this doesn't fundamentally change how you fight any of them you can also fight some of the other races throughout hyrule like the hylians soras gorons ritos and grudo warriors but this is mostly held through a few side quests and a couple main missions so they aren't too prevalent in the overall game they also introduced a few new bosses to the mix like suga astor and the hollows each of which have a wide variety of attacks and provides some tough battles which helps break up the monotony of fighting some of the standard bosses i also really liked age of calamity's take on the blight cannons i expected that they would be the exact same as they were in breath of the wild but they made them look way more menacing and they buffed them up with new attacks that actually make them a challenge this time around even with all of these new bosses and small changes though it does start to get repetitive fighting the same enemies over and over again even with all of the elemental types there aren't enough differences that make them any more interesting to fight and once you know how to beat one you know how to pretty much beat all of them it would have been better if they'd given them new abilities or really powerful attacks that would have drastically changed the way you fought them it actually made you implement new strategies for combating each of the types other than the issues with the elemental bosses i can't really dock this game for the lack of enemy variety this was a problem in breath of the wild and since they're trying to stay consistent with it they really couldn't add too many new enemies to help fix this even with the lack of enemy variety the combat is just so fun that i can easily look past this and i find this to be mostly a minor issue that doesn't impact gameplay too much while the enemy variety left me wanting more i think they did an amazing job with the difficulties in this game each of them are noticeably different from each other and i think they all serve their own purpose easy mode makes the game a cakewalk that requires only some basic strategy but i think it's necessary since it does make farming way easier normal is a decent step up from easy and i think it's probably the best difficulty for the more casual player it still provides a decent challenge but it never gets frustrating to play on and it keeps the game fun to play through hard is probably the difficulty i would recommend most players to play on as it requires you to delve a little bit deeper into the game mechanics outside of basic strategies if you want to succeed it can get a little frustrating sometimes if you're not too comfortable with the game yet but i think the trade-off is worth it as will allow you to get a lot more out of the combat than you would if you played on easy or normal very hard which is the difficulty i played on is there for those of us who really want something challenging it requires a player to incorporate all of their game knowledge throughout the entire mission if they want to succeed they need to know the strengths and weaknesses of all their characters on their team all the best strategies in the game for every situation and they have to be able to manage your food and health bars even for more experienced players like myself it still provides a challenge to them and speaking for personal experience even now i still die quite a few times when i'm playing on that difficulty some missions even took me a couple hours to finish since i would completely mismanage my food and be forced to beat the last parts of the mission without taking any damage even if this may seem frustrating it is really refreshing to see since most nintendo games have become super easy and don't really pose much of a challenge anymore you can also switch between any of the difficulties from the very start of the game which is also nice since some other zelda games require you to beat the game first before you can unlock a challenge mode this gives players a lot of freedom to experiment with the difficulty and adjust it to find the one that's perfect for them the only bad thing about the difficulty system is that there's no real incentive to play in any other mode than easy the ruby reward is same across all difficulties and from what i can tell the item and weapon drops don't really change at all there's also no cool armor set or item to acknowledge the players who took the time to beat the game on very hard and i think at the very least they could have given better weapon drops for the higher difficulties that way you'd get a reward for taking on the extra challenge and so farming could have a little more variety to it rather than just speed running missions on easy link he's become so much stronger progression and age of calamity is handled in a couple different ways first is just the standard leveling system for each character the max level is 100 and you get experience through playing each of the missions there isn't really too much to say about this since it is pretty standard and your only reward is you get a heart every few levels however i do really like the inclusion of the military training which allows you to level up characters at the cost of rupees this really helps cut down on a lot of the grind since with this method you only have to get one character to level 100 rather than all 18. it also prevents you from getting stuck with using the same group of characters throughout the entire game since you can easily bring up the weaker characters to be on par with your stronger ones the military training feature was a critical inclusion to the leveling system and it makes it a lot more friendly for every player the second way progression is handled is through the side quests some special side quests allow you to power up your characters by either enhancing their abilities giving them some extra combos or adding a couple hearts to the health bar getting each one of these various upgrades is super exciting and every time i got either another combo to use or enhanced ability i couldn't wait to go into the battle and try them all out i like how these side quests aren't actually playable missions but rather just need materials to complete since it gives materials you've been collecting another purpose outside of just cooking i also think it was a good decision to make these upgrades tied towards the main story and side quest progression rather than something like a leveling system this makes upgrading characters a lot less monotonous since you'll be naturally getting these upgrade options as you make your way through the game's different missions even though they do need materials for them you don't really ever have to farm for them since by the time you unlock the upgrade quest you usually have more than enough to easily complete them right away some upgrades i had to farm with cereals for but even when i did it never took too long but while the first two forms of progression were very well designed i think my favorite was probably the weapon system the weapon system is pretty simple initially but there are quite a few mechanics that players have to learn if they want to make the best weapons possible not only can weapons be leveled up but there's also an entire seal system where you can apply different buffs to your weapons combining these buffs in the right way can provide boost to the buffs themselves as well as increase the damage output of your weapon the seals are also really fun to play around with and it adds another strategic element to the game as you have to be able to plan your weapon builds around the seal system so you can get those boosts as well as how you like to play your character it also opens up players to using a lot more creative strategies since they can design their weapons to take advantage of certain gimmicks or previously mediocre strategies and actually make them viable with the right weapon build characters can really elevate their power level and change their entire playstyle riju for example is pretty bad as a standalone character but with the right seals like dash attack damage and special charge rate she is completely transformed into an actually viable character on most maps the weapon system also takes characters like rivali and teba who are already pretty good and makes them absolutely broken since all of their attacks are in midair if you give them midair attack seals it essentially acts as a permanent damage boost giving both these characters insane damage potential however one thing i don't like was the rng tied to the weapon drops and the seals you got this made it super tedious to farm for your ideal weapons since you have no idea what seals we're going to be getting from mission to mission there's over 25 different seals in total so the chances you get the specific one you're looking for is really low on top of that each of the seals have different strength levels to them like plus and plus plus making it even harder to get the perfect weapon build even with my play time of 160 hours a good majority of which i spent farming weapons i still only have four of my ideal weapon builds actually done i think it would have been a lot better if there were some systems in place to help reduce the rng and allowed you to choose what steel you would be getting they could have added something like a trading system where you could trade multiple weapons in and in return get a steal that you actually needed or maybe they could have assigned certain weapon seal groups to specific missions to help reduce the rng a little bit what i think would have been really cool though would be adding a challenge system where you could get specific seals for completing certain objectives they could have rewarded you as seal for doing things like beating a bunch of enemies really fast or killing a certain amount of enemies mid-air or just using your special attack these are just some basic challenges i came up with but i think adding challenges would have added a lot more depth to weapon farming and helped reduce the tediousness and frustration that comes with a completely rng system the other thing i don't like is how they'll give you the fully upgraded blacksmith at the start of the game while it was a neat idea to make the blacksmith get progressively better as you played throughout the story it left a lot of players in the dark about what exactly the blacksmith could even do when i first played i was absolutely terrified that i would ruin my best weapons like the master sword or champion's weapons since there was no current way to remove the seals off of them so for a good majority of the game none of my best weapons had seals on them and i only started to add them once i unlocked the power to remove seals they probably could have just done away with having to unlock such a basic function like that or they could have at least told you that it exists so you weren't scared to experiment with seals you were unsure about the blacksmith unlocks really don't add too much anyway so having them available from the start wouldn't be that big of a deal to me the only upgrade that i think works is the ability to raise weapon level limit but the other things like removing seals and octopolis should have been there from the beginning but even with these issues i still think the weapon system was very well done it just needed a little bit more tuning and quality of life changes to make it a little bit better than it currently is while age of calamity does offer stellar gameplay it does suffer from a few technical problems one of which is its infamous fps drops this was really prevalent especially in the demo as all the enemies objects and effects absolutely pushed the switch's hardware to the limit thankfully as you played throughout the game fps drops aren't really that big of an issue at least in my opinion and while i still would get them occasionally the worst of it was definitely in the demo i think the reason it was so bad in the demo was probably because the first map had a ton of objects on it and the fact that impa was one of our two playable characters info along with some other characters like teba tend to tank the frame rate from time to time as a lot of their attacks have a lot of stuff going on at the same exact time this is just an occasional problem though and it doesn't make any of these characters unplayable by any means in addition to the fps issues this game has a fair share of bugs and glitches that can sometimes affect the gameplay most of these are actually really good and beneficial overall and knowing some of these glitches actually give some characters more depth and new strategies you can use while playing for example you can keep your bow submit aaron definitely by pressing zr after her attacks you can cancel out of yunobo's combo's mid animation to get a damage boost and you can dodge cancel the great fairy's unique action to prevent them from switching out the only real game breaking one though is the dodge cancelled with the great fairies since you can use it to kill any boss including ganon in less than like 20 seconds it doesn't make them completely overpowered though as it only takes it from being bad to really good when used by the right players these kinds of glitches whether they were intentional or not actually enhance the gameplay experience and help provide a little more depth to some of these characters however there are a few bugs that do harm the gameplay experience and most of these have to do with the camera most of them are minor annoyances though but it would have been nice if they put a little more work in making the camera work a little bit better for the really fast paced characters like rijo and taba the camera can get really wonky and it may be kind of hard to see what's actually going on also taba has this really weird camera glitch in a c6 that causes him to fall through the floor which can get annoying sometimes i play table a lot so this happens pretty frequently to me so i'm really surprised that no one actually caught this when they were testing the game out and while we're on the topic of the camera i think the lock on feature could also use a lot more work especially when there are multiple bosses nearby the log on feature is pretty much useless since it frequently switches between bosses even when you don't want it to i think it would have been a far better option to let players manually switch between the boss they want to target instead of allowing the camera just to do whatever it wants the camera in this game just feels really sloppy to me and it could have used a lot more work to make the gameplay feel a lot smoother all of these again are just minor annoyances and they don't detract from the stellar gameplay loop that age of calamity has to offer you have all that is needed to face whatever destiny awaits the character roster and age of calamity consisted of a total of 18 characters with 14 being unlocked through the main story and four others being unlocked through side quests this is a significant downgrade from the 28 total characters in the first hyrule warriors but there is rumor to be dlc on the horizon which can help round out the roster and add a couple more characters so i can't really knock the game for a smaller roster just yet but from the characters we do have though i can say that each character was expertly crafted like stated earlier each character has their own unique abilities attack combinations and sheikah runes to differentiate their movesets they also have different base traits applied to them like their hitbox movement speed attack speeds and range and their attack power that all vary from character to character some characters even come with hidden mechanics that you aren't told about and are only discovered through experimentation all of these things combine to really keep every character unique and special in their own ways and it keeps you from getting attached to one specific character and incentivizes players to try out the entire roster age of calamity has to offer even with all the different play styles utilized by each of the characters koei tekmo was able to keep all their power levels really balanced with each other obviously there are going to be certain ones that may be better than others but if you're able to master a certain character's move set they can all be viable even on the harder difficulties even with characters i consider bad like hesto and daruk they still feel powerful in their own ways and i had no trouble getting through missions with either of them this really gives a player a ton of freedom to play the game how they want and choose either their favorite characters or ones they think that fit their play style it also gives you the freedom to experiment with every character since choosing one over the other won't bring any huge disadvantages as long as you know what you're doing from what i heard from a few there's this is a huge upgrade over the og hyrule warriors as i said the roster in that game wasn't quite as balanced as the one we have now outside of the elements the character roster brings the gameplay from a fan perspective this roster is absolutely awesome this game is a dream come true for many fans as we are finally getting the opportunity to play as some of our favorite characters from breath of the wild every character is an absolute blast to play as do and they did a wonderful job at bringing each character's distinct personalities to life through both their fighting styles and in-game dialogue i was probably most excited to play as each of the champions and i have to say they did an amazing job with each of the movesets they took each of their signature abilities from breath of the wild and blended it perfectly with each of the movesets and they all pretty much play exactly as you would expect them to leafy uses her small frame and quickness to dice through the battlefield as well as plays a supporting role on her team rivalla uses his gale ability to stay mid-air indefinitely and rain down arrows on his foes and rabosa uses a mix of her excellent swordsmanship combined with her lightning to mow down everything in her path the only champion i think they could have done a better job with is the rook i just feel like the way he plays in game doesn't really reflect his brood strength he is known to have and while they did give him that magma ability it's pretty underwhelming in my opinion i would have much preferred if they made him a slower character but gave him a bunch of raw power to go along with his defensive capabilities coming with the champions is obviously our main character link who is the perfect beginner character his moveset is really reminiscent of breath of the wild and it's easy to learn too which helps new players transition from the combat they know and love to this new combat system and age of calamity all of his attacks are pretty standard and not that crazy like some of the other characters but even with that he's still able to remain one of the best characters from the beginning to the game all the way until the end paired with link are the other two starting characters impa and zelda both of these characters work really well in continuing the transition into warrior style gameplay they are a tad more complicated to use in link and have a few more hidden mechanics but they are great characters to start learning once you master link and feel like you want to switch things up zelda also helps serve another purpose in showing players how integral the runes are to combat since she doesn't have as many attack combinations as lincoln impa it forces players to start to think on how they can use the sheikah runes to aid them in combat this is really beneficial to teach players in the early game as many players may ignore the runes since they weren't that useful in combat and breath of the wild what i really love about zelda though is how they handled her different move sets unlike link her second moveset is locked until you awaken her ceiling power during the main story after this not only does she get the bow of light but all of her mannerisms and in-game dialogue completely changed now instead of being timid and unsure of herself zelda sounds confident and ready to take on any challenge little touches like this really show the time and care they took in meticulously crafting each of these characters and i think it really paid off also i'm not really sure if this was intentional or not but i find her above like move set is almost around the same power level and really similar to link's one-handed moveset i might be reaching a little bit on that but if it was intentional it's just another nice touch they added by showing how far zelda has come through her gameplay now instead of her looking up to link since he had already unlocked his quote unquote power they're now and more of an equal footing with each other making them a true team right around the same time you get beau zelda you can unlock all of the future champions the future champions were a fantastic addition to the roster it is great to see the game feature them more heavily before breath of the wilds we really didn't get to see what they are capable of since their screen time is so limited even in the missions they joined us in they really didn't do too much besides help guide you through the divine beast battles i was really curious to see how each of them held their own in a fight especially table and sidon they made both of them bad ass warriors in this game table is an ace with his bow and sidon is an absolute powerhouse and giving him those double tridents was just awesome however i was also really curious and interested to see just how they were going to make the movesets of riju and unobo work since region was still a child and yunobo was seen as a coward and not a warrior i was wondering just how exactly they would make their move sets comparable to all the other characters they did an amazing job with both of them and they really made their group set suit who they are as characters yunobo is still a powerful gorod and although he can easily take down enemies he's still really awkward and clumsy which you can see through a lot of his attack animations and centering reiju's moveset around her saints with patricia was an absolutely genius move as well not only is attacking with patricia absolutely hilarious but it gives regio a way to hit enemies hard without it being completely unbelievable since she doesn't have any crazy physical attributes or powers there are of course a couple of other silly characters you can unlock like master koga and hestu which find a perfect balance of not taking themselves too seriously yet are still useful in a fight and you can also play as king rome and four other side characters but i'm not going to go into them i don't really have much to say about them outside of what i've already said about the roster in general which is they're pretty much all great and expertly put together [Music] i suppose destiny is at work then the future is fickle as for the actual missions themselves there are 20 main quest missions and an astonishing 162 side quests you can play through we travel all across hyrule from the frigid hebrew region to the burning embers of death mountain to the scorching sands of gerudo desert and all across central hyrule what's disappointing to me however is just how much of the main quest is actually in central hyrule 10 out of the 20 main quest missions and nine if you don't count korok forest are all found here while there's only one mission that takes place in the hebrew and eldon regions le neru and gerudo are a little better as they both have two missions in their area but you're only actually in gorilla desert or zoro's domain in one of them all of these take place super early on in chapter 2 so once you're actually done recruiting all the champions you never revisit any of these areas it just feels like a wasted opportunity to restrict these iconic places to only one main quest mission each while central hyrule gets all the focus i understand that it was necessary to have the focus on the game being central hyrule since that's where a lot of key events take place but it would have been nice to revisit these areas at least one more time later on in the game they had some opportunities to add these missions too since there is a little downtime between link pulling the master sword and the calamity resurfacing so maybe we could have had an extra mission added where we go back to these areas and see what the champions and other races in hyrule are up to or they could have even waited until after the calamity struck and then we go back to these places to see how each of the zora gerudo rito and gorons reacted because after the calamity we exclusively follow the path of the main trio and all we see from the champions is their initial reaction on top of the sheikah tower then the next time we actually see them again they're trapped inside their divine beasts and we have to go save them they could have bridged this gap by giving us missions of each of the champions fighting their way across their respective land towards their divine beasts these type of missions would have been a nice change at pace too and would help flesh out the world a little since we get to see the champions and their people in action and not just the hylians if you're wondering just how exactly these missions would work i think they could have taken a similar form to the road home besiege from chapter 3 were you restricted to just one character which would be one of the champions in this case and have to fight your way to the end of the map restricting the character here may seem like an annoyance since some people obviously have their mains they like to play but it would have been a nice switch up and a little challenge for those who aren't really too familiar with some of these characters it would be important though that these missions aren't too long since they may get repetitive since there would be four of them all played in succession but i think something like this would have been a welcome addition to the main quest but you do get to visit each of these regions several times in age of calamities 162 different side quests most of these side quests if i'm being honest are pretty garbage and really boring to play through 80 to 90 of these just boil down to killing x amount of enemies or mini bosses and then you're done almost none of them introduce any interesting objectives or provide any new challenges that will change up how you play the game the only side quests that did this were the hair with trials which were actually pretty interesting and gave the players the challenge of beating them without being hit outside of that the only other side quests i found to be interesting were the ones tied to the great fairy and monk mask koshiya since they actually had a cool ward at the end and also some of the late game ones where you just fight previous bosses like zugo or ashdore or even some of the other heroes you could argue that the gameplay in the main quest is essentially the same thing which is kind of true but there's just so much more to see and do in the main quest missions with different branching paths you can take that allow you to try new strategies out each time you play there's also a lot more going on during the main quest since you'll run through a variety of objectives and scenarios each of which have some sort of implication on the story which helps heighten the tension and keep you intrigued none of this is present in the side quests though as most of them are on such small and restrictive maps with nothing else interesting to see or do than the basic objective a good chunk of them also lasts 1-2 minutes each which is another problem since you spend around that same amount of time in the loading screen getting in and out of that side quest i think the game would have been better off if around half of these side quests were just completely cut and instead that time and effort went towards adding more main quest missions the main quest has seven chapters but only 20 missions so a lot of chapters feel super short in comparison to others especially choppers 1 3 and 6 since they have only 2 missions each while all the others have 3 and chapter 2 s5 chapter 1 i'm ok with being short since it's an introductory chapter so it makes sense but chapter 3 and 6 desperately need at least one more mission or two i would even like an extra mission in chapter 4 and chapter 5 to help flesh out the main quest a bit and i think this would solve some of the pacing issues a story has but i'll be going into that a little bit later one aspect of the main quest i think they did nail though was the map design although agent calamity is far more restrictive with the world being experienced through a series of disconnected sections it was still very important for a lot of players that they were able to keep the world consistent with breath of the wild this game was also a prequel too so on top of that they had the additional task of having to restore all the ruins we saw in an interesting and believable way they did an outstanding job at both and each map really makes the past kingdom of hyrule feel truly alive one standout for me was the map in the eagle clan attacks this map takes place in some sort of a village military complex hybrid near the great plateau and when you run through here everywhere you look there would be houses marketplaces farms or military buildings on top of that the size of the map is huge which made this place actually feel like a proper town and not just some small settlement like many of the towns and breath of the wild felt like to me it was also a real treat for me and other hardcore breath of the wild fans to finally see and be able to explore more notable places like the great plateau ocala tower and castle town before they were destroyed by the great calamity in addition to restoring all the ruins they also expanded a little on some previously explorable and undestroyed places like the yiga clan hideout before it had a pretty simple design with a linear path and a few hidden rooms you could discover but now in asia calamity the yiga clan hideout is gigantic it's way more lambrinthian and it feels more like an actual hideout of a huge evil clan rather than just a collection of rooms this new hideout includes more things like a storage room where they keep all their bananas a huge prison a dock and booby traps all over the floor this was just such a nice natural expansion of an area we were already able to explore thoroughly and it also did a good job of not completely negating the things we saw in breath of the wild let's get right to it then i can't wait included in some of the main quest missions as well in some side quests are special divine beast sections where you can take control over a divine beast while these divine beast missions are pretty cool in concept and an awesome sight to see i actually found these missions to be pretty lackluster after around the first time i played with each of the different divine beasts i had no real desire to actually return to it and do it again while the attacks and abilities of each of them differ a little bit most of these missions just boil down to holding down whatever the fire button is and just walking around and killing things with very minimal strategy the divine beasts are also really clunky and slow to play as and in comparison with the fast paced and engaging combat in the regular missions this type of combat just feels really boring to me i also felt that these divine beast missions overstayed their welcome just a little bit too while there are only two missions for each of them there are four different beasts which makes the total amount of missions they ate they also introduced them way too early on in the game in my opinion and it really kills any mystery at the sheer power and capabilities that these machines hold i think it would have been better if they cut out all the early missions and left only the ones after the calamity appeared not only would this make these missions more novel and help cut down on the repetitiveness i think it would have helped add to the climax of the game it would have been way more awesome of a moment to finally see each of the champions unleash the respective powers of their divine beast but only during the battles that ensued after calamity gained and reappeared there would actually be a buildup and a little mystery to the divine beast's power this time and finally being able to control them while he mowed down hordes at enemies would have been such a nice payoff this does create a small problem though and that players wouldn't have the experience with the divine beast to play through these later missions effectively but this can be easily solved by creating some mandatory side quests where players can practice with each of them in preparation for the future battle it would make sense too since in breath of the wild it was stated multiple times that each of the champions had to practice in order to fully be able to control and master their divine beasts these sections can be somewhat challenging on hard or very hard and you will definitely die a couple of times if you're not paying attention but there are no real strategies to help make them easier to complete other than just blocking occasionally and targeting the enemies who are doing damage to you they honestly just feel a lot like the syquest to me and that's a problem when they could have been so much greater and a real highlight of this game oh me i am the one who brings song and dance to corey [Music] age of calamity soundtrack [ __ ] slaps and i love how they were able to reimagine the toned down and lacks music from breath of the wild and completely transformed them into bombastic and epic battle themes they also didn't completely change them beyond recognition as they kept a lot of the most recognizable parts and instead just added a few instruments and sped up the tempo to help match the speed of this game this really shines through each of the champions battle themes all of which are great but i think my favorite example of this was the changes made to zelda's awakening both of the different versions of this theme are centered around the same idea of zelda finally awakening your power but the circumstances in which this happens is totally different between the two games in breath of the wild link and zelda are on their final stand all their friends are dead they know they've failed the kingdom isn't ruined and link pretty much basically dies so naturally the music heard during this moment is pretty somber and depressing in age of calamity their circumstances have changed a little bit zelda's actually able to save link this time and she knows there's still a glimmer of hope that they could still save the kingdom the way they were able to use the same piano and violin from the first theme heard in breath of the wild and completely turned it on its head to fit this totally different scenario is freaking beautiful now instead of the music centering around despair and defeat the theme is now more a beat and triumphant reflecting how the tide of the battle might be finally turning awesome changes to previous themes like this all over age of calamity soundtrack although most aren't impactful is this they all help strengthen that connection between the two games while still acknowledging age of calamity as its own thing the soundtrack isn't held exclusively to breath of the wild remixes as angel calamity adds a good amount of new music of its own these new songs along with the rest of the soundtrack really help establish the atmosphere and are perfectly suited for the fast paced gameplay some of the more dramatic and foreboding themes also really help create a sense of urgency in the player and make you feel just how dangerous of a situation the protagonists are in i also appreciate how a lot of battle themes evolve depending on some of the different situations you're in which a lot of games do nowadays but it's always still nice to hear those little details overall though 10 out of 10 soundtrack and i recommend you go listen to this outside of the game on youtube or something else like that since it allows you to hear a lot more of the little details and appreciate it just a tad bit [Music] more now on to the story which will probably be the biggest part of this video and i have a lot of mixed feelings and different opinions about this i don't think i'm alone in saying this but most of my initial interest surrounding this game was mostly because of the potential story i thought we were going to be getting i really loved the story that was in breath of the wild and while it was pretty bare bones i think it set up a lot of interesting lore introduce some awesome new characters but again that story was just way too short and with only 40 minutes and cutscenes to work with they made the decision to center the entire story around lincoln zelda i actually really like this decision since they actually gave them a dynamic relationship this time and it was really cute to see them both start to finally open up to each other and form a real bond but that decision ended up leaving all of the new characters they introduced like the champions really underdeveloped with each of them only having a few cutscenes where they're the main focus most of their backstories were left almost completely untold too with only some bits and pieces of it being told to us through diary entries and npc dialogue and with them fading away at the end of breath of the wild i thought that's all we were ever going to get from them but with age of calamity we finally had a second chance to see these characters in action learn a little bit more about them and finally get answers to some of the questions left by breath of the wild this idea got me super excited and i thought we were finally going to be getting a really good and well told zelda story because let's be honest even though we love all the zelda games it's painfully obvious that nintendo prioritizes gameplay over storytelling which is fine but has led to a lot of zelda stories nothing particularly amazing but now i thought was finally going to be their chance they already had an entire event characters and worlds previously established that they could create a story around and all they had to do was fill in some of those gaps left by breath of the wild's memories they also didn't even have to create the gameplay of the game from scratch too since they had a previous formula to already work with and tweak to fit this game and while it still takes a really good amount of time to develop the gameplay and it really shows the time they put into it by how good it turned out i thought that they would still turn a good amount of the focus towards creating a really good story about an event that many zelda fans were heavily interested in the moment terrico jumped through that portal though i knew this wasn't going to be the story i was expecting we're not gonna lie after seeing that and the tapestry changed after the first cut scene my heart sank just a little bit i thought they had a wonderful opportunity to revisit breath of the wild's backstory and flesh it out but instead they decided to go in a completely different direction this was a little disappointing to me but i could understand why they'd want to go in this direction as they may have felt it would have been too restrictive to craft their story and gameplay without contradicting the things we saw in breath of the wild but the timeline of the exact events in that game was pretty ambiguous and i think they could have easily crafted a story that was still fresh yet coherent with the events told in that game i'm also not too fond of creating an entirely new timeline that further complicates established lore and blurs the line between what things are and aren't actually canon and for those of you who argue that messy complicated timelines aren't exactly new to the zelda series i didn't really mind it as much before since all the games in the main timeline are pretty disconnected from each other besides some basic recurring zelda elements and small references to each other there's also huge time gaps in between some of these games which makes these changes and retcons a little bit more believable to me but since age of calamity is a direct prequel there's only 100 years between the two games so some of the retcons and story changes seem way more jarring but while i was apprehensive to the apparent story direction they seemed to be going in i still tried to play through the game with an open mind as long as we got a good believable story that didn't stray too far from the original one and got a little more development for some of the side characters like the champions i would have been happy unfortunately though i don't think they quite succeeded in either of those i'm not gonna outright say the story is terrible but it's not that great either and it sucks because it feels like they wasted a wonderful opportunity which means we've got ourselves a brand new never before witnessed we'll start my analysis by going over some of the things i thought the story actually did quite well first off the voice acting in asia calamity is a huge step up in breath of the wild i'm not sure if this is due to either some of the voice actors being a little more comfortable with the roles or just better voice directing but the voice acting in this game is just so much better while breath of the wild's voice acting gets a lot of criticism i actually don't think it was that bad but there were definitely a lot of awkward lines where the delivery just felt a little bit off there are still a couple of awkward lines here and there in age of calamity but i mostly chalked that up to the writing rather than the actual performances every voice actor returned to which was good since it kept some continuity and all of them were able to improve on their past performance i really want to give props to both mifa and zelda's voice actresses who probably got most of the criticism from zelda fans in breath of the wild but here i think they both did amazing mipha no longer talks in that constant whisper like she did before and while her voice sounds slightly different it still retains that soft smokiness that is essential to her character zelda also sounds a lot more natural in this game too i felt that in breath of the wild some of her lines are a little bit over delivered and she would sound a little too over dramatic at times which i mostly chalked up to poor directing but in this game i think her va did a wonderful job her performance really helped sell zelda's character growth throughout the story and you really can hear just from her voice acting how zelda goes from being insecure about her abilities and feeling like a burden to finally being confident in herself and ready to lead her people now after hearing her in both of these games i don't think i could ever imagine another voice for this version of zelda and i think her va needs a lot more credit for bringing her character to life as far as the other returning characters i don't think they improved as drastically but they were definitely more consistent with their delivery and overall performances coming with the returning cast 2 there were also a couple of old characters that finally got a voice they mostly played a minor role in the overall story but in scenes they were in they absolutely stole the show robbie and master kogi were probably two of my personal favorite characters in the entire story and most of the reason why was due to their incredible voice acting their voices are perfect for them and the over-the-top wacky delivery really helps keep the game feel more lighthearted and serves as a nice contrast to the more serious voice acting for the other my best characters in that case i will protect you even if it cost me my life this leads in perfectly into the next thing i really liked about this story which was all the quote unquote new characters some of them are technically new as they were all in breath of the wild but just older but they feel new to me since they all have new designs and were finally given a voice like i said i really loved both robbie and master koga i just wish that robbie was given a slightly bigger role in the overall story and got more screen time to make him a part of pura pirate was pretty cool i just don't find her to be quite as interesting as robbie probably because most of the time her dialogue was her just explaining things to move the story along but even so pio was still pretty charming like she usually is unlike piro and robbie our last d aged chica impa plays a pretty substantial role since she joins the mantria with link and zelda from the very start she gets a ton of screen time and although she may not be super important to the overall plot she was still a very welcome addition without her a lot of the cutscenes would have been a lot more awkward and most of them would have been just zelda monologuing to link or her talking to another character while link stairs in the background but with impiver i think a lot of these cutscenes and conversations between characters flow a lot more naturally and it helps draw attention away from link's refusal to talk i also like the role they gave her as zelda's friend and it was really endearing to see the moments where empowered try to cheer her up whenever she got down or was being too hard on herself however i do think that her constant presence in the story does harm the relationship between link and zelda just a little in breath of the wild they had a super strong bond with each other which you could obviously see through all the memories but with impa being here i think that bond that is supposed to be there between link and zelda is a little less believable i think it would have been nice if they didn't rely on her as much and maybe gave us some shorter moments between link and zelda to show how that bond started to form but i understand why the developers needed to lean on her so much especially in these longer cut scenes since nintendo refuses to give link a voice which i think is pretty dumb but that's another video for another day to combat the shika trio joining our heroes we also have a couple of brand new villains like suga and astor both of them are really great although i think astler is a little one-dimensional we really don't understand why he's serving ganon or how he got all these weird powers and he seems like one of those villains that are evil for the sake of being evil but still i thought he was a pretty cool villain and i loved his design and voice but he could have used a little bit more development suga suffers from similar problems as astor and he mainly is here just to feel that badass villain role but i do think he was done a little better i freaking love his design and giving him that crack yiga mask with the double wing cleavers that he can swing with ease makes him an intimidating character that she shouldn't take lightly his presence also completely transforms the giga clan from being a complete joke to an actual threat who could easily take out our heroes if they aren't careful i also like how suga and master koga play off of each other with koga being goofy and in over his head and suga being the one people actually take seriously while he is this super badass villain suga still has a little more depth to him than astor does he's super loyal to master koka and is always there to rescue him even though he could easily just let him die or get captured and take the ego clamper himself this just really shows that there's an actual person behind that mask with his own set of values and isn't just evil for seemingly no reason like aster it also helps explain why suga and koga have no issue switching sides near the end of the story as they are actual people with emotions and seeing their soldiers being murdered in cold blood made them infuriated enough to finally put aside their differences with the heroes and fight for a common goal it does suck though that we don't see suga after his fight with astor i think they're trying to infer he died defending master koga which is kind of depressing but i do hope we get to see more of him and even play him if there is a future dlc you may think you're good but i'm better suga also played a huge role in a lot of fight scenes in this game which leads me to the last thing i really liked about this story which were all of the good moments it had there were quite a few fight scenes in age of calamity story which was a really nice change as breath of the wild literally had zero and mainly just focused on character interactions in more relaxed environments we got a ton of amazing action moments from suga taking on both arosa and link by himself to then him almost [ __ ] murdering zelda a little bit later who was only saved in the nick of time by link much to the test of tarika it was also hilarious to see tarako get pissed at link for taking the spotlight away from him and that little embarrassed look link is zelda is super cute we also finally got to see that matchup between lincoln and rivalli and i love how they made rivali masterfully mix his aerial combat skills with clever battle tactics could fuse link so he could get the upper hand unfortunately this fight was cut a little short by zelda but it was still a very wonderful sequence overall but the thing i wanted to see most was probably the fights between the champions and the blights within their divine beasts we knew nothing about how any of these went down and the only thing we were told is that each of them lost pretty quickly but now we were finally going to be shown how these battles went down and how each of these powerful champions with crazy abilities were seemingly defeated so easily these battles but doubt how i pretty much expected them to with the blights easily countering the champion's signature abilities and each of these cutscenes as well as the entire story in general were all beautifully animated outside of purely just battle scenes i also enjoyed some of the more emotional moments like link pulling the master sword zelda awakening her power zelda and roman's reunion which really helped redeem rhodes character a little bit for me and zelda leading the hylian army near the end of the game oh and i also thought this moment between linc and beefu was really cute too so that i can fight alongside oh no uh it was just um enough i can't believe it the calamity is here but while age of calamity had a lot of good moments that i genuinely enjoyed i don't think that necessarily led to making an actually good story and i think that the story suffers from a few issues that really hold it back the first issue i think it has is the pacing it feels like there's literally no second act to the story there's just one huge first act and then all of a sudden we're at the third act and leading up to the climax the cutscenes have around a 2 hour run time even without all the narration bits at the beginning which is plenty of time to tell a well told story for the sake of simplicity i'm going to consider everything up to the champion ceremony to be act one of the story since all those cutscenes serve as a semi-origin story showing us how all the champions actually came together and i'm also going to be considering everything after ganon awakens to be part 3 since that's obviously the main conflict that the entire story was leading up to if you time these sections out they're 50 minutes each which means that both the beginning and the end took up around 40 of the total story each this leaves only 20-ish minutes for an act 2 which kind of throws the pacing of the entire story off this isn't a thing i noticed retrospectively while watching the cutscenes either during my first playthrough of the game i was actually genuinely surprised again and re-awakened so quickly i think this story would have been way better if they restructured it just a bit by moving the fire and water and air lightning missions to chapter 6 and then moving ganon's reawakening to either the end of chapter 5 or the very beginning of chapter 6. then you can feel the empty space left by this restructuring by adding a couple of missions to chapter 4 and 5 to help fill out act 2 so it's at least a similar length to the first act and the third act if you're wondering what exactly they could do in this space i think this would have been a wonderful opportunity for some down time but they could have fleshed out all the characters especially the champions a little bit more earlier i mentioned that it was a shame that we never revisit the champions home region after we recruit them so i think that having a couple missions in this act that's dedicated to each of the different champions would have been really nice to see they already did this with herbosa as she has an entire mission where she takes on the yiga clan but there are none for the rest of the champions which was a shame so having a little down time in some lower stakes missions where we focus mainly on the characters rather than the action would have helped flesh out the story a bit more i know that ganon's reawakening was supposed to catch us by surprise but in my opinion i think it just happened way too quickly and it didn't give the story proper time to breathe which ended up hurting it in the long run about this pathetic night in your service are you sure he's got what it takes asia calamity also took a huge step back from breath of the wild in terms of their characters and how they portray them a lot of characters feel really dumbed down and all nuances and subtleties in their personalities are almost completely gone it feels like the writers just saw their most basic traits that they had in breath of the wild and literally just made them only that one of the worst examples of this for me was rivali while he still was an [ __ ] in breath of the wild you could kind of understand why he worked all of his life to be the best warrior possible and being told he would be playing support to some random night was a big blow to his ego so it would make sense why he was very skeptical and harsh towards link initially he also seems to be a little insecure with himself which is why he seemingly puts up this act of never ending confidence when he's around other people he's not always like this either because if you re-watch his champion's ballad cutscene before he realizes zelda is watching him train he is heavily critical about himself but the moment he notices her there he immediately starts to put up this act again and even interrupts her in the middle of her sentence just to show off his abilities but now in age of calamity he's kind of just a dick for no reason he hates link immediately from the get-go even though he doesn't have the master sword yet so it makes zero sense for ravali to actually hate him already i would even think that he might actually have at least a little respect for him too since it seemed that they were pretty evenly matched as they were both a split second away from killing each other but from the moment he starts talking revali is just flat out disrespectful in this game as he goes from calling link pathetic to telling him to his face that he was rooting for his failure he did still hate link in breath of the wild but he never went out of the way to disrespect him to this degree he only talks bad about him behind his back to the others like when at the ceremony in the first memory or he just simply expresses his displeasure by letting out a little smug exhale when link is told to take on ganon by daruk the one time we do see him confront link face to face he mostly uses the time to play up his signature ability and his skill in aerial combat he only briefly expresses his displeasure that he'd be forced to play support and then quickly challenges link to a one-on-one he does still come off as a cocky [ __ ] in this situation but he isn't just for raiding link for no reason at all i feel like his actions in this situation are a lot more in line with his character as while he does hate link they're both still two of the best warriors in the kingdom so wally probably has some respect for him he just thinks he's better he even eventually comes to terms with link being superior after he defeats wimbledight and while he still puts up that charade of confidence in talking to him after the fight he finally acknowledges that link really is the hero and the superior warrior and he even gives him his life's work with wally's gail to help him in his quest this really gave some nuance and growth to rafale's character and took it from being just a cocky bird to probably the most interesting champion with a complex personality i was waiting for maybe a similar moment to this in age of calamity after you save him from windblight but even after you do he still talks down to link and doesn't even properly thank him this even catches table by surprise and he was probably about to say what most of us are thinking before urbosa interrupts him i don't know if maybe rivali had to actually die for him to get some growth as a character but the way they handled him in this game just makes him seem really one-dimensional it's a shame too because i love rivalry's voice actor and i was really excited to see what he'd bring to this performance his performance was still great in this game but i don't think he had the chance to shine like he did in breath of the wild since revoli never changes throughout the entire story zelda also unfortunately suffers from the same issue and i think hers is a little more noticeable since she is a huge focus of the story they took her main inner conflict she had which was her worry about not being able to unlock her powers and just made it seemingly the only thing she could ever be about they absolutely beat you over the head with it and in a lot of scenes she's in she's either monologuing about awakening her power or looking down dejectedly at her hand i thought i may have been exaggerating at first because when i first watched through all the cutscenes i noticed this a lot but just to make sure i went through all of them a second time and i counted a total of nine different times she either directly mentions her powers her burden or looks at her hand if i don't succeed at sealing the calamity as princess of hyrule i too will carry out my sworn duty little bird he thinks that the reason my ability hasn't awakened is because i haven't worked hard enough [Music] and you princess [Music] how can i if i am unable to awaken my inner power there isn't much time [Music] and still no sign of my power awakening little bird [Music] all of the research into the relics if i cannot awaken to my power we'll have been in vain everyone else so many are awaiting my inner power believing in me i get that this is her main struggle as a character so it should take center stage in the story but it feels like they just constantly tell you about it rather than show you how it's affecting her i think they tried to show us how it was affecting her by making her look at her hand so often but they made it so painfully obvious each time she does it with zero subtlety that she might as well be directly telling us in contrast in breath of the wild she only looks at her hand once in that first memory and it's super subtle so you probably won't even notice it if you're not paying attention throughout the rest of the memories she only tells us how she truly feels once at the spring of power and then she briefly mentions it in the mount lenayru memory but to be honest i can't really even count the mount linear one just because she only briefly mentions it and she's also talking about it in more of a hopeful tone so it's a little bit different than the other ones outside of that the only other times you really hear about it is indirectly through rabosa instead it manifested itself in subtle ways and while zelda tries not to show it we can see it through things like her initial coldness to link body language and tone of voice in some scenes this could be due to the short length of the memories so they didn't have the opportunity to keep telling us about it but i just feel this part of her character was executed way better in breath of the wild awakening her power was a huge part of her character but it's not the only thing she was seemingly about either the memories really tried to emphasize her intelligence as a character and around half of them tried to show off just how interested she was in her research this not only added another element to her character to keep her from being one dimensional but also played back into her internal conflict she used her love of research to help keep her mind off of the burden on her shoulders and so she could feel like she was contributing even though she hadn't gotten her powers yet you can tell just how important this is to her too since in the scenes where she's talking about it's a link she seems way more carefree and is just acting like herself instead of being forced into someone she isn't that sets up that whole research versus training element present throughout the memories and it makes you feel for her when king brown forces her to spend all of her time training rather than doing something she's passionate about this element to her character is kind of there in age of calamity but it doesn't play that big of role to our character and it's only mentioned a couple times throughout the story we never actually see it manifest itself in any meaningful way all of that is handled by puro and robbie mostly pura who do things like activate all the shika towers and figure out how to mass teleport people i think it would have been nice to see zelda work with pira and robbie to figure these things out so she could contribute towards her eventual victory in other meaningful ways which would make her more than just a princess with sacred powers and help separate her from the other zeldas in the series however it is revealed that she was the one who actually built terraco when she was a child but throughout most of the story she doesn't even remember him and were only shown that near the end in a flashback so it doesn't have the same effect as it would if her intelligence was on display throughout the entire main story also if she was able to build tarika who could [ __ ] travel through time as a child i don't see why she couldn't be able to help figure out some of these other issues that the chica researchers had i also really hate how they changed her relationship with link and again it just feels really dumbed down all of the complexities in the relationship were completely thrown out and now zelda just seemingly likes him straight from the start she has a small moment where she starts to grow a little animosity towards link but her bosses just talks to her for like 20 seconds and then she just forgets about it this may not seem like that big of a deal on the surface but they really don't do anything else to help establish that same strong bond between link and zelda in this game besides having link save her a couple of times while these do make for really good moments i think they rely on this trope a little too much and it takes away the impact that events like these should have this only happens once in breath of the wild during that yiga clan memory and the impact of this moment is huge it signifies the complete turnaround of their entire relationship and although nothing really extraordinary happens afterwards we can see through zelda's body language how she's beginning to trust him then through the next few memories we see them start to actually bond with each other and become really close and it's told to us through zelda's diary that they're the only ones that can understand what the other is going through so when zelda awakens her power because of her love for link it's a lot more believable since we saw these characters grow with each other and bond throughout the entire story the same moment happens in age of calamity and is a little bit different but while it's still a really good moment it doesn't have that same impact the relationship just felt a lot more real in breath of the wild with its own little complexities and it's a shame we got such a simple version of it i know i've been really critical on how they handled zelda but don't take this as me hating her as a character the reason i'm so critical is because she's easily my favorite zelda in the series and it just hurts to see her stripped of some of her complexities as a character but if you like her in this game i can see why it was really cool to see her finally gain her confidence after awakening her power and growing into a leader in the fight against ganon i just think that they botched some key elements of her character before this moment so that's why i didn't enjoy her as much in this game the other characters also suffer from similar issues though not to the same degree they really never took the time to develop any of these characters beyond their most basic traits and they never show us anything new about them or explore any of the things we were vaguely told about them in breath of the wild i was really hoping to see some new things out of these characters like maybe for example how are boasts of leather people since she was such a revered leader and we kind of got to see this in that mission where he raided the eagle clan hideout but she just goes in there beats them open and leaves we only see her in that beginning cutscene 2 and all she does is talk to her divine beast by herself and nothing really happens there to develop her character any further i also really wanted to learn a bit more about mifa i was really curious if we were going to get more information about just how the relationship between her and link worked when they were young or maybe we could have seen how mifa reacted to link and zelda becoming close she briefly mentions this in her diary but all she says is that they'll be spending much time together so we never get to know her actual reaction was she initially jealous or did she accept the fact that link may have chosen zelda over her also what about that brotherly bond between the rook and link all we get to see is a few scenes of him and daruk eating rocks and while again they are funny moments in a vacuum it doesn't really add anything to either of their characters things like this i just really wanted to see explored maybe not in this exact way but at least give us some new things we could take away from these characters none of this makes any sense but oh well we have bigger rocks to roast they even retconned a few things from breath of the wild's backstory so now i don't even think the rook knows link from the beginning i'm not necessarily opposed to small retcons like this but i don't think any of the changes they made really helped improve the story and instead just created more questions there was one record i did like though and that was the one surrounding how link got the master sword in breath of the wild he just always kind of had it and it was explained in creating a champion that he pulled it when he was around the age of 12. i always thought it was kind of a strange choice to make the story of such a big event like pulling the master sword pretty boring and left completely unexplained in the main story but now getting the master sword is actually a really dramatic moment and i really love the parallel it created with link and zelda both unlocking their powers to save each other but outside of that i'm not really too fond of all these other retcons i found it really strange how the champions had a complete mastery of their divine beasts from the moment they stepped inside all of them only had experience with standard weapons like swords bows spears or shields and they were now being tasked to pilot these gigantic war machines composed completely of ancient technology that only few people had an understanding of even with terrico being there it's still really strange to me and you would think they need at least a little bit of practice before going into battle i already talked about this a little bit earlier when i was talking about the mission design but i think it would have been a way better option to save the divine beast battles until the late game being used so early completely ruins the aura behind these machines as there's no longer that mystery about what they're actually capable of instead they actually build up to the moment you get to use them it would have really elevated the climax of the story and make the champions piloting the divine beast in battle feel like a huge event rather than just some gameplay gimmick there were also a couple of smaller recons that were kind of strange to me like amifa says link hasn't changed even though in her diary she says he went from being an energetic kid to quiet and serious these aren't really too big of a deal but i just don't understand what was the point of even changing them in the first place since they don't really do anything except make me question things more my final issue has nothing to do with the characters and rather the story itself i just think that the story completely falls apart after the calamity reawakens this is partly due to act 2 being so short so it feels like we were rushed into this conclusion but even ignoring that the third act of the story is pretty messy a bunch of things happen for plot convenience reasons and they're not really explained or vaguely hinted how they actually happen and i'm not one to be super nitpicky or hyper critical about the plot points and i could let a convenience or two slide but it just gets really noticeable when they keep happening over and over terraco is kind of the epitome of this as he can pretty much do anything that the plot needs him to and i was fine with this for the most part but the things he can do get really bizarre near the end of the story like somehow zelda's tier can activate this crazy power in terrico that allows him to open up multiple time portals in the exact right places this just brings up so many questions like how exactly does this even work how did zelda build this crazy ass machine when she was an infant and how did tarako even know who the future champions were and how did he time this so perfectly that each of them jumped in at the exact right time to save the champions at the very last minute pura also does this a lot too as she always somehow conveniently figures things out like reactivating all the towers right when the heroes need to use them or how she teleported thousands of people and entire divine beasts to hyrule field i also felt that the future champions were kind of shoehorned into this plot at the very last minute and i think it just made everything a little bit more messy as they never had to incorporate four extra characters it was nice to get to see them more since we knew such little about them especially teba and i definitely think their presence in the story led to some good moments like urbosa being riju's mentor and side on reuniting with mifa while i think in the grand scheme of things while it was good fan service and i initially enjoyed it i think it would have been better off if they just cut them from the story as it was a little too much to be juggling all these characters i'd rather have all the focus just be on the original champions as this was their fight and i wanted to see what they'd do with a second chance i do think including the future champions could have worked if they fleshed out the original ones a little more and lengthened the story but since the champions are already really underdeveloped until this point it would have been better if they were given a bigger role in the fight against ganon when i reflect back on the entirety of age of calamity i just think about what could have been maybe i just had my expectations too high but i think this game could have been amazing the gameplay while not completely flawless is absolutely stunning the combat system is fun and exciting with tons of moves abilities and hidden tactics you can learn from each character it can get a little repetitive at times as that's the nature of these games but the core gameplay loop is just so much fun to me i rarely feel burnt out while playing this game progression is handled pretty well too as it was always exciting to get a new powerful ability combo or crafty perfect weapon it could have used some slight optimization especially the weapon system as the rg of weapon drops made it really tedious to form for certain weapon seals but overall it's still a pretty good system with its own unique quirks to learn the character roster might be the most well done element of this game every character feels super unique their powers feel true to who they are and they're all incredibly well balanced to where you can beat the game even using some of the not so good characters all the missions are well designed the maps look stunning and the soundtrack slaps but this game starts to really unravel for me when we get to the story while i don't oppose switching things up and straying away from the original timeline i think they got a little too ambitious with all the time travel shenanigans and bizarre plot points which ended up leading to a pretty lackluster story i think the story would have been much better off if they instead stuck to the original timeline and retold the events of the great calamity but in better detail i wanted to see all the questions i had answered as well as get more insight as to who the champions were as people and see link and zelda start to open up to each other sticking within this timeline also had some promising gameplay elements in my eyes too and i would have absolutely loved to play through things like the champion's last stand link's defeat at 4heteno and zelda facing ganon alone playing through events like these combined with the already stellar gameplay they delivered would have made for absolutely amazing moments although you wouldn't be able to technically win in this timeline i think the emotional impact of playing through tragic events like this would have made more of an impression on me rather than the generic the heroes win and everybody lives we got an age of calamity age of calamity story just feels like a huge step down and although it is action-packed and exciting with tons of good moments i just personally prefer the subtlety and nuance that was present within breath of the wild's memories this doesn't mean age of calamity is a bad game though the core gameplay is so strong that i'd still recommend this game if you haven't gotten it already even if you aren't too excited over the gameplay you've seen i recommend at least giving the demo a shot to see if it's for you i didn't think i'd like it as much as i did but even now like 160-ish hours into the game i'm still really enjoying it but if you're a breath of the wild fan who really loved that story and its characters and are looking for solely a well told story surrounding the events of the great calamity i don't think this game is for you if you already tried out the gameplay and don't really like it i just recommend watching the cutscenes on youtube there are still a lot of great fan service moments throughout the story but most of the plot comes off as poorly written fan fiction and as a really hardcore breath of the wild fan this really hurts a lot it feels like they threw away a golden opportunity to make an unforgettable prequel to one of the greatest games of all time but that's just my opinion feel free to disagree with me in the comments i try to respond to most of them and i like discussing these types of things with you guys but again this is just my take on the game so don't get offended and dislike the video just because i have a different opinion i know like 99 of you aren't like that but there's always that occasional person that takes what i said a little bit too seriously if you were able to watch this entire thing you're a legend hey vsauce massive legend here but i know most of you probably didn't since this video is so long and y'all probably got better things to do i really hope you guys enjoyed this video and i know this style is pretty new to my channel as i've been mainly focusing on gameplay tutorials but i had a lot of thoughts on age of calamity that i really wanted to share with you guys if this ends up getting a good reception i'm considering making a similar video like this about breath of the wild since i love that game so much so just leave me a comment if you'd ever be interested in something like that also feel free to share any feedback too on how i can improve i know i talk fast i'm trying to work on it and i hope i did a better job of slowing down but that's pretty much all i had to say before we close so if you guys enjoyed the video please make sure to leave me a like i've been working on this video for probably about a month now so it would be very much appreciated as it helps out the channel a lot also make sure to subscribe to the channel for more zelda content and uh yeah i'll see you guys later [Music] peace [Music] you

Channel: Chickenz

Views: 4,094

Rating: 4.7042804 out of 5

Keywords: Hyrule Warriors, Age Of Calamity, Age of Calamity retrospective, age of calamity review, age of calamity story review, age of calamity story thoughts, age of calamity gameplay review, Chickenz, age of calamity discussion, soundtrack, zelda retrospective, breath of the wild prequel, retrospective, game review, age of calamity story explained, the legend of zelda, zelda video essay, age of calamity critique, age of calamity story analysis, analysis, story, zelink, discussion, characters

Id: zd_AjONT1mM

Length: 78min 18sec (4698 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 12 2021