Developer: Koei Tecmo, AAA Games Studio
Publisher: Koei Tecmo, Nintendo
Platform: Switch 2
Tested on: Switch 2
Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment – Review
Back in 2020, we were treated to the second installment in the Hyrule Warriors series, which was a standalone title that was tied to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. The Musou title had an interesting premise, flashy combat, and cool visuals, but struggled a bit with technical issues, pacing, and repetitiveness. Nonetheless, we are avid fans of the genre ourselves, and quite enjoyed what this Zelda spin-off had to offer. Now, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment has been released, which serves as a prequel of sorts to The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. While still somewhat offering the same experience as the last Hyrule Warriors, we did have quite a bit of fun with this one.
Story
In Age of Imprisonment, Zelda is sent back in time after her encounter with Demon King Ganondorf, ending up in the same period as Zonai King Rairu and Queen Sonia, the founders of the kingdom of Hyrule that we have come to love in the last two modern iterations of The Legend of Zelda. Zelda, obviously confused at first, slowly finds her bearings and becomes a trusted member of Rairu and Sonia’s inner court. Together with Rairu’s sister, Mineru, they hope to eventually get Zelda back home, but the chances of that happening easily are not high. When Zelda eventually encounters Ganondorf in this era, she knows things will get even harder, not just for herself but also for Rairu, Sonia, and the rest of Hyrule kingdom.
Surprisingly, for a Warriors title, there is a lot of narrative content. The story is properly fleshed out, but it sometimes interferes with the pacing and flow of the actual game. It will take a while before you actually start playing through missions, as the initial setup is roughly around an hour before you truly start digging into the gameplay. After that, the story segments slow down a bit, and there’s more balance between actually playing and seeing the story unfold.
Graphics
Graphically, Age of Imprisonment is a step up from the previous title, but we were still under the impression that the game wasn’t pushing our Switch 2 to its limit. Nonetheless, the different stages looked quite nice, albeit a bit empty, which is often the case for Warriors games. The character designs were the highlight here, as the creative team went the extra mile when it came to designing many of the playable characters. We didn’t notice many performance issues, but we did notice that the cutscene visuals were a bit muddier and that some hectic scenes experienced a few minor slowdowns.
Sound
Seeing as this is still a Zelda title, the sound design is unsurprisingly very good. The music is captivating and very cinematic, offering the same quality experience as a mainline The Legend of Zelda game. The star of the show here, however, is probably the voice acting, which was great. There are a lot of voiced dialogues in the game, which add to the overall atmosphere and contribute a lot to the narrative qualities of Age of Imprisonment. Rounding things out are the great SFX, which provide great audio feedback and add that bit of extra oomph to all the different attacks and special moves.
Gameplay
Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment is the third Zelda spin-off Musou title, which follows the same formula as most other Dynasty Warriors titles. You’ll play through fairly short levels, beating up hundreds of enemies, taking over small encampments, patching through orders to characters you are not actively controlling, and defeating multiple bigger bosses. You’ll progress through the story quite linearly, as story progress is locked behind certain missions, but there are also side missions and side objectives to clear on the world map. The game can also be tackled with a friend via local co-op. All in all, if you’ve ever played any other Warriors title, you pretty much know what to expect here. Combat is satisfying as a result, and everything does feel rather polished when it comes to gameplay.
The game does have a fairly slow start, as there is a lot of story exposition before you really get going. After that, however, you’ll be treated to a fairly standard Musou experience where you have different characters to choose from that you can level up. The characters do unlock rather slowly here, and if you also tackle side objectives before progressing the story, you’ll only see a few character unlocks every hour or two. Each of the characters feels different thanks to their basic attack moves, but also their special moves. All characters can equip additional abilities or items that are accessible to the entire roster. Outside of character leveling, you can also level weapons, and there are also different weapon options for each character. It’s once again, fairly standard fare, but there are some customization options here. Even though it’s fun leveling your favorite team of characters, some missions require certain characters to be in your team, so you’ll not always be completely free to choose your entire team.
Just like Age of Calamity, Age of Imprisonment also offers a few levels that deviate from the standard Musou experience. We have to pretty much make the same remark as we did back in 2020, where these levels provide a fun change of pace and break up the repetitive gameplay loop. Even so, these stages feel a bit undercooked and basic at times. We do commend the developers for trying something new, adding a bit of extra spice to the overall experience.
Conclusion
Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment is an amusing entry in the Hyrule Warriors series that offers an interesting story, a cool roster of characters, decent combat mechanics, and enough content to keep you entertained for quite a few hours. Sadly, like all games in the genre, repetitiveness does eventually kick in, and as a result, the game is best enjoyed in short bursts. That being said, if you’re a fan of the previous Hyrule Warriors titles or Warriors games in general, you’ll more than likely have a blast with this one as well.
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