For perhaps the first and maybe only time in it’s storied history a musou title becomes apart of a licensed property’s canon with the release of Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity. Taking place prior to the events of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, the game unfolds the events that occurred before the awakening of Calamity Ganon and Link in the midst of the destruction of Hyrule.

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity is a 2020 hack and slash game, it is developed by Omega Force and published by Nintendo & Koei Tecmo. It is available exclusively on the Nintendo Switch.

Editor’s Note: Near complete to complete spoilers for Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity may be present within this review. Slight spoilers for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild may be present within this review.

The Great Champions of Hyrule are back in Breath of the Wild’s past.

In the original Hyrule Warriors you played just as you would in any other musou adaptation of a famous IP. Most, if not all of your favorite characters would be playable with unique moves kicking all kinds of ass on a battlefield full of literally hundreds upon thousands of enemies. This is more or less the same in ‘Age of Calamity’, but Nintendo once again shocked the world by revealing not only a sequel to a third party title featuring one of their licenses, but also the fact that it’s 100% canon to said IP’s most recent entry.

A handful of heroes take on a battlefield of hundreds in Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity.

THE GOOD: Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity on the surface level feels like any other musou game. You fight thousands of enemies on a semi-open map and use unique abilities & weaponry to pull off big combos and attacks to dispel the enemy army. Koei Tecmo and it’s developer Omega Force got to a point where the musou games became a big enough deal to where entertainment entities trusted them with their IP to skin over the musou formula. Over the years we’ve gotten Gundam, perhaps the most famous being One Piece, Berserk, Attack on Titan (kind of), and even The Legend of Zelda at a prior place in time. The original Hyrule Warriors while it had an original story of sorts was more or less just about playing as a large roster of Zelda characters killing nearly everything that moved. Because it’s such a rarity, it’s always a beautiful thing seeing Nintendo allow its IP to spread their wings onto different genres and even more rarer with different game developers. Age of Calamity should be considered an eye opener for Nintendo and possibly even Sony and Microsoft in regards to what the potential of lending their in-house IP to different developers outside of their own can do. Story wise the game takes place prior to that of ‘Breath of the Wild’. The Great Calamity has begun and Ganon’s forces have attacked Hyrule nearly bringing it to complete destruction. As Link, Zelda, and the soldiers of Hyrule make one last attempt at defending the last remnants of Hyrule a miniature Guardian awakens and a time portal opens. Guardians siege Hyrule castle with one attacking the mini Guardian as it enters the time portal with the other Guardians following.

A near mirror image perfect replica of it’s predecessor is Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity.

The portal sends the mini Guardian to the past prior to the start of the Calamity where it meets Link, Zelda, and a young Impa who uses her Sheikah Slate to raise the Sheikah Towers & talk to Purah and Robbie who reveals that the mini Guardian came from the future. Link and Zelda go off to meet the four Champions destined to control the Divine Beasts; Mipha, Daruk, Urbosa, and Revali. King Rhoam has the new group search for someone who can possess the Master Sword, who naturally ends up being Link. Having previously encountered a follower of Calamity Ganon named Astor, they find the Master Sword in Korok Forest. Purah reveals that Calamity Ganon will be revived on Princess Zelda’s birthday, Link and the others search for the other Sheikah towers as Zelda goes off to train in her sealing magic. The Champions prepare the Divine Beasts for Ganon’s return and Purah & Robbie are captured by the Yiga clan after completing their research on the mini Guardian who escapes with the Sheikah Slate to Zelda as Calamity Ganon awakens. The Champions are about to be killed by Ganon’s Blight as his forces nearly corners Hyrule’s, but a time portal opens from present day Hyrule revealing current Champions Sidon, Yunobo, Riju and Teba who defeat the Blights. Desperate, Astor kills several Yiga to give their life force to Calamity Ganon so he can awaken faster. Seeking revenge Yiga leader Master Kohga and his clan defect to Hyrule and give them an edge against Ganon’s forces. Zelda unleashes her magic and she & the others prepare for the final battle. As Astor attempts to summon Calamity Ganon he is consumed by it who corrupts the mini Guardian forcing Link to fight and defeat it. Zelda recalls the name she gave the Guardian as a child Terrako. As Terrako slowly dies it regains its original self and sacrifices itself for Zelda and the others to deliver the killing blow to Calamity Ganon. Zelda seals Calamity Ganon and the current Champions return home. In a post-credits scene Purah and Robbie repair Terrako.

‘Age of Calamity’ becomes the first canonical musou adaptation.

As a musou adaption of a famous video game Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity is absolutely fantastic. My personal favorite are the One Piece musou for much of the same reasons ‘Age of Calamity’ has usurped it. It’s such a complete love letter to its source that if you had told me you thought this was simply a new Zelda game I’d have honestly believed you. There are times when Omega Force really bring their A game using nearly every ounce of the assets available to them and it’s dedication like this that keeps ‘Age of Calamity from feeling like “just another spinoff”. Going so far as to even mimic the use of the Sheikah Slate was a bit of a surprise. Granted they could have done a bit more with that mimicry, but to even include it at all was a bit of a sight. Yes, I’m well aware that the Sheikah Slate is a central element of the first ‘Breath of the Wild’s’ story. But there were obvious ways to work around it’s use here Omega Force simply opted not to. The typical button mashing is here, but Omega Force also included some ‘Breath of the Wild’ mechanics such as the bombs, magnetize, and freezing Sheikah mechanics in the source. Every character feels spaced out play wise with multiple styles and move animations. I loved playing as Impa who has a fast attack system with AOE like attacks that can quickly take out large groups the animations are also pretty sweet being inspired by ninja lore. The story is pretty well stitched together to connect it to the ‘Breath of the Wild’s’ and it can be inferred that it directly leads to the start of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2. The leveling system is like a typical RPG where your characters experience increases which can lead to leveling up said characters with quests and battles. You can also forge more powerful weapons by fusing them through the blacksmith. There’s also side quests of sorts such as practicing character techniques and ridding an area of enemies.

‘Age of Calamity’ while another redundant time travel story at it’s core is a great Zelda adventure that further advances the story of an upcoming title.

THE BAD: Like with most musou games there is a strand of repetitiveness, but effort taken to dwindle the average amount of it in any other musou game is felt heavily here. Omega Force went above and beyond to present ‘Age of Calamity’ as not only an authentic musou experience, but also an as authentic as humanly possible Legend of Zelda experience. At least as far as the Breath of the Wild series goes anyways. The weapons breaking system is the one thing that’s absent from ‘Breath of the Wild’ but all things considered this can be forgiven due to the type of game that ‘Age of Calamity’ actually is.

Connect the pieces of the past and present of the Calamity in Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity.

OVERALL THOUGHTS: Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity is more than a “copy and paste” musou game. It’s a 100% dedicated love letter to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and The Legend of Zelda franchise as a whole. Far be it from me to say that Omega Force doesn’t put their heart and soul into every musou, but when they’re major fans of the series in question it really shows. One Piece Musou and ‘Age of Calamity’ are examples of this on high. There’s honestly no telling where the musou franchise could go if it’s given more licenses outside of the anime realm, Nintendo is the only one to make the first move so and it’ll hopefully be the door opener to the refresher the franchise desperately needed.