I finally got a chance to play this game recently and after careful thought and consideration I came to one conclusion, it's just not a good game. Don't get me wrong, I did have fun playing it, but when considering all things such as the story, the playtime, the music, the stages, the characters, and the gameplay, it was disappointing.
The story began rather cool, Link was a knight in training but clearly the top of his class. He is called into action when a mysterious attack on Hyrule Castle begins resulting in the capture of Zelda. From this point on begins Link and Impa's journey to find Zelda while thwarting the armies led by the Dark Sorceress Cia. To skip over a lot of story, the heroes meet up with the "better half" of Cia, named Lana, and defeat the Dark Sorceress while she controls all three pieces of the Triforce. Cia was under the influence of Ganondorf who was using her to resurrect himself so that he can conquer Hyrule (yes this cliche story again). Ganondorf eventually becomes resurrected and defeats Lana who at this point wields the Triforce of Power. With the help of Zant and Ghirahim, Ganondorf sieges Hyrule and defeats both Link and Zelda, taking their respective Triforce pieces of Wisdom and Courge for himself. Link and Zelda then attack the Gerudo Desert to gain momentum before they attempt to retake Hyrule from the omnipotent Ganondorf.
The biggest issues with the story is just how ridiculously quick things happen. In the matter of 3 stages we essentially know Cia's plot. The pace of the game is way too fast, especially towards the end. After defeating Cia, peace is returned to Hyrule for a short period. Immediately after, you begin playing as Ganondorf (awesome!), as he regains his army and power before attacking Lana for the Triforce of Power. (Side note: Ganondorf attacks the Gerudo Desert full of moblins and bokoblins, with an army of stalchildren. Doesn't Ganondorf command moblins and bokoblins and such in other games? And yes, I know this isn't supposed to be canon but I will get to that later). As soon as Ganon gets the Triforce of Power he immediately attacks Hyrule and captures the other pieces of the Triforce. The next level is an attack on the Gerudo Desert led by Zelda and Link, even though their armies were just crushed by Ganon. After defeating Ghirahim and Zant in the Gerudo Desert they return to Hyrule (yes the next level) and do battle with Ganon for the final time. Zelda and Link couldn't stop Ganondorf earlier when they both had pieces of the Triforce to his one, but with a decimated army and no Triforce pieces they are able to defeat him while he has all three. See how fast this all happened? See how ridiculous this is? Not even from a logical video game standpoint does this make any sense. The story seemed like the developers did a quick google search on some Zelda terms and just threw them into a game. Enough with the story, let's move on to the playtime.
This is going to be quick and simple. There are about 18 stages in Hyrule Warriors. I am not an expert gamer and this is my first Dynasty Warriors type of game, but it took me on average about half an hour to beat each stage. Simple math tells us the story took about 9 hours to complete. To me, that is WAY too short. Think about it like this: a normal work day is 8-8:30 hours long. You could pretty much beat this game in a full day of work if you played nonstop. The story is so short (which is why everything was so crammed and why everything happened so quickly). The game should have been double as long as it was. Next up is music.
Not much to say here, if you listen closely on nearly every single level you will get the same tune which is a version of the Fire Temple boss from Ocarina of Time. This is on most levels, the ENTIRE GAME.
Now the stages. There were actually a lot of cool stages on here, I really enjoyed the Hyrule castle stages as well as the ones from Skyward Sword and Twilight Princess. The biggest issue with the stages is that you are forced to repeat the same stages several times. You fight on Hyrule field the first level, the level with Ganondorf, and the very last level. You fight in the Valley of the Seer three times as well. Another major issue was with the characters on some of the levels made no sense. For example, when you play the Water Temple stage, you would naturally expect to see Zoras right? Well you don't, you get Gorons. On the Gerudo Desert stage you would naturally expect to see Gerudo Thieves right? Well you don't, you get Stalchildren and Moblins. It just made no sense. Next up, the characters.
I was under the impression that I would get to play as my "favorite Zelda characters," that's only partially true. Link is obviously the Hero, why would I not want to use him? His moveset is the easiest to pick up he's fun to use his combos are great and it's just enjoyable to play as him. So why bother giving me the options of using Impa when I can use Link who is a better character (in my opinion)? Why would I use Shiek when I can use Link? Etc... Nintendo did say I would get to use my favorite characters, Darunia? Cool but don't care. Ruto? She reminds everyone of the Water Temple from Ocarina, not a popular choice. Agitha? The bug lady who served very little purpose in Twilight Princess? Why? Oh wait, you can't use her or Ruto until you unlock them in adventure mode, but how are we supposed to know that? By exploring in an action beat-em-up game? Oooooookay... Lana is a new character, she's a cool character but I'd rather use Link. Midna is a popular character, I know many people that loved her in Twilight Princess so I will give them that. Fi? Fi?? FI!?!?!? THE MOST HATED CHARACTER IN THE FRANCHISE. THE ONE WHO RUINED SKYWARD SWORD????? THAT'S WHO THEY CHOSE? Why not Groose? Why not Vaati? Why not Skull Kid? Why not Yuga? Why not Agahnim? Such terrible choices. But hey, I do get to use Zant and Ghirahim, for three levels, only if I unlock them in adventure mode..... But I'm getting way too ahead of myself, why would I want to use anyone other than Link? Ever hear of Dominant Strategy? To put it overly basically, if you find a method that works every time, you will always want to do it. Since Link's combos are the best in the game and he's well balanced and easy to use why would I use anyone else? To make it even worse, if you use his spin attack by holding down the X button for half a second to let it charge, he will hit everyone in all directions with a big hit. I would play an entire map using pretty much only that. This is a good segment into my gameplay portion. (Side note: referring back to my statement about not being canon, the game is not supposed to follow the Zelda timeline or any of that as stated by Nintendo. It is a spin off, yet throughout the game they constantly make references to previous events in other games, for example Ganon makes a comment about using "Phantom Doubles" and how he used that trick in the past. He is referring to Phantom Ganon. So I'm confused, the game has Skyward Sword, Ocarina of Time, and Twilight Princess so it clearly follows the child timeline, but at the same time I'm being told it is a spin off and has nothing to do with the Legend of Zelda stories. Which is it Nintendo? Since it is non canon why couldn't Yuga or Agahnim have been in it? Since it did follow the child timeline why couldn't Groose, Vaati, or Skull Kid have been in it? The roster selection was so stupid.)
The gameplay was actually pretty good minus the whole spin attack thing. It felt easy to use the characters responded perfectly and it was easy to break out of combos instead of being stuck swinging at air waiting to finish. I liked fighting the bosses even though they were recycled throughout the game. I felt like I could cut down the hordes of enemies the way I wanted to whether I wanted to use the cheap spin attack technique or by actually fighting normally.
To sum up everything I ranted about, this game is just a bad game. I honestly only like it because it is Zelda themed. If this was just a new game I would have put it down after the first few levels. The Zelda theme is the only reason I gave this game a 4 instead of a 2, because I am a huge fan of the Legend of Zelda series. I cannot excuse this game, it was offensive to the fans. The characters sucked minus two or three, the stages were repeated, the music was overused and repeated, the gameplay fell victim to dominant strategy and the story was garbage. I did have fun playing it which is what really matters, but I cannot ignore the terrible character roster and omission of some loved ones only to be force fed others. It really ruined the game.