The Nintendo Switch is home to so many 1st party games and loads of excellent ports from previous systems. The Wii U, while it had an excellent library of games, was a total flop and I’m so glad Nintendo decided to port a lot of its games to Switch. One of the games I probably put the most hours into was Hyrule Warriors. It was my first introduction to the whole Warriors series and it’s probably one of my favourite crossovers between that series and a Nintendo franchise. The Fire Emblem Warriors games were also excellent, but the first lacked a bit in the originality department, while Three Hopes was an excellent addition to the series, but that’s mostly because it could borrow from the excellent lore of Three Houses. Back to this game, though. It’s quite a lot to unpack, really.

Story Mode

First of all, there’s the story mode of Hyrule Warriors, which introduces us to a couple of new characters like Lana, Cia, Volga and Linkle (a female version of Link). It features a grand total of 29 playable characters! Most of which are unlocked during the extensive Story Mode.

The story is quite good, even thought it plays safe, but manages to blend all the different Zelda universes together quite well, because of its story and how several orbs are hidden in each of the different iterations of Hyrule. The heroes need to stop Ganondorf from being summoned back into the world. One of the cool things about the story mode is that it doesn’t just focus on the good guys, but also features a lot of missions you play as the baddies, so you know what they are up to and how everything comes together.

Ready for the real Adventure?

The Story Mode is just the start of the game, however. Hyrule Warriors is packed to the brim with content. For me personally the Adventure mode is where it’s at. With 10 different maps there’s a lot to be done here. The first map is an exact copy of the original NES Zelda map and each tile represents a mission. You can earn special battle cards and ranks that will help you to unlock even more items, weapons, characters, costumes and puzzle pieces. Some of these missions need to be done several times to unlock all the rewards, which can get quite tedious after a while. For instance, some missions feature Golden Skultula’s you can find after meeting certain criteria (e.g. defeat 1000 enemies). But then to get the second one, you have to meet harder criteria like finishing the first mission without getting more than 40% damage, or defeating enemies with special moves.

One of the best things about Adventure Mode and why I keep coming back for more, is that it feels very rewarding. Some missions reward item cards that can be used on the map to unlock extra rewards, pathways to other tiles of the map, remove harder mission rules, etc. And as a completionist, getting 100% for a map feels great. So far I’ve finished three and I’m almost done with the Master Great Sea Map. After that I’m going to put the game back on the backlog for a bit. The game is enjoyed best in shorter bursts as the gameplay gets repetitive very fast and although the gameplay loop is great, it does get old fast, even with all the various types of missions you are still trying to defeat the enemy on each map.

Challenges, galleries and more

As if the Story Mode and Adventure Mode aren’t enough, the game also features a Challenge Mode and an extensive gallery where you can review all the in game movies, listen to the songs, view character models and… view the medal list, which is basically an achievement list and this is one game I still want to earn all medals from, because it is such a massive endeavour and I’d just love to add that to my list of 100% completed games (just like I one day hope to complete The Binding of Isaac on at least one save file).

The gallery is a very nice addition to the game and overall you can just tell that Team Ninja lovingly crafted this game. It’s such a fun spin-off from the normal Zelda formula, but still manages to incorporate several gimmicks we know and love from the series.

Soundtrack

When it comes to the game’s soundtrack, well, I’ve got a bit to say about it. The soundtrack does a whole lot of things right re-imaging familiar themes and adding a few of its own to the mix. What I really like about it is the fact that many of the songs feature heavy guitars and manage to bring a sort of “metal” feel to the overall soundtrack.

As Hyrule Warriors draws from pretty much the entire franchise up to Sykward Sword there’s plenty of bangers in the soundtrack. Even some really cool 8-bit remixes, to fully orchestrated pieces. It’s all there and makes this game even better than it has a right to be, to be honest.

Conclusion

What I really love about this game is how it’s a love letter to the entire series, featuring elements from all the games and the way the bosses are handled too. All of them have specific weak spots, just like in the mainline series and although they’re really easy to figure out, defeating them always feels rewarding. All of the Adventure Maps have the original 8-bit Zelda look and the loading screens also feature the first iteration of Link. You can even earn costumes based on the original designs, which is a really nice touch.

With most battles lasting somewhere between a couple of minutes to a max of one hour, Hyrule Warriors can be enjoyed in short bursts, as well as longer ones. I choose to play this game every now and then and focus on completing an entire Adventure map, to not get too bored with the gameplay, because it does tend to become tedious before too long. But one day, I will get that elusive “Get all other medals” – Medal!

The good news is that you can easily get your hands on a copy cheap, as the game has been out for ages (it originally launched on Wii U) and it’s been out for a couple of years on Switch as well. I rate Hyrule Warriors Definitive Edition for Nintendo Switch with a 9/10!

Happy gaming!

Jeffrey