Demo of Upcoming Addition to Zelda Franchise Enthralls Players

The pandemic has not stopped Nintendo from scheduling the new addition to the Zelda series for the Nintendo Switch. Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity is scheduled to be released on November 20, 2020.

Link attacking enemies with special power. (Courtesy of Gamespot)

History

The Legend of Zelda series is a high-fantasy video game franchise published by a Japanese video game developing company, Nintendo. The Legend of Zelda series is designed by Shigeru Miyamoto, and stories written by Takashi Tezuka. The first game in The Legend of Zelda series, also named The Legend of Zelda, debuted in Japan in 1986. Players of The Legend of Zelda manipulate Link, an elfin who lives in Hyrule. Link’s main mission is to collect eight fragments of an artifact, called the Triforce of Wisdom, and rescue Princess Zelda from the antagonist, Ganon.

A complete timeline of Hyrule and the correspondent games of The Legend of Zelda Series. (Made by Randy P, Source: The official home of The Legend of Zelda)

The Legend of Zelda turned out to be a huge success in Japan and all over the world. Nintendo expanded the original The Legend of Zelda into a 19-entry franchise that is based on a parallel timeline, where Link reincarnates various times in different individual storylines and tries to save Hyrule from the invasion of Ganon. Aside from publishing the Zelda series on the Nintendo gaming system, Nintendo also did various spin-offs to other gaming consoles or entertainment systems, including Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance.

Age of Calamity Gameplay

A mixture of puzzle-solving, exploration, and battle gameplay modalities has been The Legend of Zelda series’ feature. However, The Age of Calamity integrates the aforementioned genres with the hack-and-slash gameplay modality. That is to say, aside from gathering in-game collectibles, crafting objects, and completing objectives, players will fight against enemies in large-scale battles.

The Age of Calamity also inherits many features from its predecessor, The Breath of the Wild. For example, the players will be able to use Sheikah slate, a multipurpose tablet device that enables players to access maps, additional stories (Hyrule Compendium), special abilities, and photo albums. The players will also solve puzzles by interacting with the environment in order to progress. Other features similar to The Breath of the Wild include the map, making various foodstuffs as buffers, gathering Runes as special abilities, and crafting weapons.

Despite the similarity between the two games, The Age of Calamity differs from The Breath of the Wild in terms of playable characters and weapon mechanism. In The Breath of the Wild, players can only control Link, whereas in The Age of Calamity, the playable characters include Link, The Four Champions, Urbosa, and Impa. Furthermore, the weapons in The Age of Calamity are indestructible. The blend of previous features with new gaming mechanisms received overall good response from the players.

The official version of Hyrule Warriors: The Age of Calamity is expected to be released on November 20, 2020, and the game will be available as Nintendo Switch game cartridges or downloadable digital version. The price of the game is 59.99 USD (for both digital and physical versions).

The demo reveals the in-game fights to be fast-paced, with a lot happening in a short timespan (Courtesy of Millenium).

Demo Reviews

Despite the fact that the demo is the only thing that allows consumers to get a taste of any tidbit of gameplay, the reviews are generally positive, with the reviewers praising the demo for its gameplay, graphics, and range of characters. For a demo, it offers quite a lot of gameplay; ScreenRant estimates the average play time of the demo to be around 1.5 to 3 hours. The gameplay of the demo in question has been compared to the first installation of the Hyrule Warriors series, whereas the graphics have been compared to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Regarding both aspects, the demo does not seem to disappoint (it’s a new game, after all). Another perk of the gameplay is that if one happens to get the full game after it’s out, the progress of the demo will overwrite the clean slate in the new game so that players can keep their progress. Finally, gamers also praise the game for including female characters of the franchise as playable characters.

References:

Gamespot. “Map To Zelda: Breath Of The Wild's

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity looks far more like a true Zelda game than we were anticipating.” https://www.gamespot.com/articles/hyrule-warriors-age-of-calamity-has-very-similar-map-to-zelda-breath-of-the-wilds/1100-6483047/

Official home for The Legend of Zelda. https://www.zelda.com/

Screen Rant. “How Long Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity's Demo Takes To Beat” https://screenrant.com/hyrule-warriors-age-calamity-demo-length-beat-time/