Nintendo happily place Mario and chums in all sorts of spin-off franchises, but they are far more protective when it comes to their other intellectual property. That is why Hyrule Warriors, a Zelda game in the style of Dynasty Warriors, was a shock announcement to all. Nintendo named the game without any intent to mislead. 'Hyrule' shows where the game is set, but the 'Warriors' shows that it is a Dynasty Warriors game at heart.
In addition to many playable primary and secondary characters, there are many details such as Rupees, treasure chests, heart pieces, Skulltulas and Great Fairies, meaning the game at least looks familiar to anyone who has ever played a traditional Zelda game.
There are no puzzles, dungeons, and over-world. Instead, large-scale battles occur over Hyrule locales. Enormous armies consisting of weak fodder led by stronger generals battle against an army led by Link, his friends and many allied soldiers.
Possessed by Ganondorf, a sorceress called Cia opens up three portals to different eras where Ganondorf's soul fragments reside. Large armies are amassed and led by Wizzro and Volga to attack the Hyruleian army with the intention of completing the Triforce and conquering Hyrule. You could argue the time portals was an excuse to cram many Zelda references together, but it should be pleasing to fans to experience the worlds of Skyward Sword, Ocarina of Time, and Twilight Princess.
The maps are filled with keeps and outposts which act as spawn points. The battle strategy is to work towards capturing these landmarks to lower enemy numbers and to complete your objectives. In order to capture the outposts, you simply kill the several enemies that are guarding it. The keeps are larger walled areas, and you need to kill a large quantity of enemies which reduces an on-screen gauge. Once depleted, the Keep Boss spawns. Defeat him and the keep is captured and is refilled with ally reinforcements.
Moving around the map to take control of these positions, and then subsequently defend them keeps the player occupied throughout the mission. Allies may request aid when being overrun in their position, and allowing them to fall is often a condition for defeat.
Since the quantity of enemies is on a ridiculous scale, the game is mainly a mindless hack-and-slash affair. Most enemies are very passive, but the stronger enemies need various tactics to take down. With the stronger enemies, you will usually have to be more defensive until they can be countered. When their defences are down, you can deal significantly more damage to them. There are also huge Zelda dungeon style bosses which often appear in the final moments of a mission. During the earlier missions, you may need to take a small detour to collect a typical Zelda weapon such as the bomb, bow, or boomerang first in order to take them down.
The amount of content is pleasing; the main story with its adjustable difficulty levels and collectibles already provides many hours of game-play, but then there is Free, Challenge and Adventure modes. In Adventure Mode, the player is presented with a grid-like map in the style of the original Legend of Zelda game. Each square presents a different mission which may take a few minutes or may be a longer battle like the main story mode.
Although it is pleasing to plough through so many enemies, it's hard to play more than two missions in a play session without boredom setting in. There's quite a lot of playable characters that have distinct weapons and animations to make them feel different, but the attacks use the same combination of button presses, and your objectives and tactics remain the same. You can upgrade the weapons by merging abilities, and upgrade your character's skill trees (offensive, defensive, and assist) that are unlocked by the gathering materials dropped by enemies.
Hyrule Warriors is entertaining in short spells, but unfortunately, it doesn't really have much to offer; each mission essentially plays the same, it just varies in enemy and locale design.