Potentially winning awards for the least expected crossover in recent memory (Pokemon Conquest comes close), Hyrule Warriors was announced about a year ago and it’s gone gold recently, so I’m writing about it.

It’s a Secret to No One

Koei’s “Warriors” series has a relatively long history containing games of various qualities. The announcement that a game was going to be made based on the Zelda series was surprising, but it doesn’t make any less sense than One Piece or Fist of the North Star. Trailers showcasing the different characters and weapons have been releasing over the past couple of weeks. Since I’m a fan of both Zelda games and Warriors games, this seems like a game I absolutely want to play.

It’s a Secret to Everyone

The two most common comments I see about the series are about the enemies not attacking and the game being about button mashing, both of which have varying degrees of truth. The games are not actually about killing hundreds of enemies, although that’s certainly a thing that happens. The primary objective in most of these games is territory control, and mass destruction of basic troops is a means to an end. The player character is almost always the strongest force on the field, and figuring out where to apply that force is where the game is interesting. Frequently you will have to react to multiple developing situations at once, and dealing with these situations frequently involves killing one or more enemy officers, who are much more of a threat than the basic troops who are primarily there to extend your combo chain. In higher difficulties the normal enemies do pose more of a threat, but I think this makes the game tedious on the highest difficulty.

Most games in the series add more mechanics to the above framework, and I’m interested in seeing what Hyrule Warriors has in this department. There seems to be a Zelda-like inventory with traditional items in addition to the many weapons pulled from the series. These are used in creative ways, there’s a video of Midna using the hookshot to pull the moon from Majora’s Mask down on enemies. (Yes, it’s that kind of game.) I hope there’s a good game in all of the craziness.

Fiesta Status Check

As a final note, there are now 5 weeks left in the 2014 Final Fantasy 5 Four Job Fiesta. This is still plenty of time to finish the game in, even if you haven’t started yet. I know some of you who have started but not finished, so this is a friendly reminder that the event doesn’t last forever.