When it comes to Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment, one of the biggest issues the game has is just how unfinished it all feels. Okay, the main story is pretty fun, and the story with Calamo and the Knight Construct is amazing…
But that’s about all the interesting stuff the game has in it. Yes, it’s competent on a mechanical level, and yes, it’s okay in terms of characters and content.
However, it just feels like an incomplete game overall. Ganondorf and the Forbidden Construct aren’t playable in the postgame, despite Calamity Ganon’s role in Age of Calamity. The postgame doesn’t have much in the way of interesting missions, since the majority just feel like bland extensions of the main game.
And the new characters are a mixed bag. Yeah, they’re newcomers to the series, and yes, they definitely made the sages more interesting than before…
How many of these guys do you remember the names of?
But the majority of them just feel so uninteresting. They’re random soldiers you never even heard of in Tears of the Kingdom, with abilities that match that description to a tee.
It’s a weird title, and it’s one I’ve also struggled to review because of it. I just flit between thinking the game is the best in the series due to Calamo and the game’s mechanics, and that it’s the worst Zelda spinoff ever made due to how little it does with its premise.
Give credit where credit is due; this guy is great
So, do the game’s free updates fix this? Do they actually make the game into the classic it was really meant to be?
Uh, not really.
They do add a few interesting things for sure. There’s now a Phantom Ganon Appearance mechanic, where Gloom Spawn and Phantom Ganon randomly appear in a story level and hunt the characters down until defeated. There’s now a Forbidden mode which is tougher than Very Hard mode, and provides new rewards when levels are cleared on it.
Plus, there are some interesting new levels and challenges to test players here. Like the Struggle for Ash Swamp or the Fateful Clash with the Forbidden.
So, if you really liked Age of Imprisonment, the game is technically even better now. It’s got more content, and that content works well.
But we can’t help but ask ourselves “wait, is that it?”
Because while these new levels and challenges are nice and all, they still don’t really fix any of the game’s issues. There are no new characters or playstyles, not even for obvious additions like Sonia or Ganondorf. The new levels are all mostly ‘canon’ extras to the story, with the new Forbidden fight being the closest to an alternate universe what if scenario. And the level of variety in scenery hasn’t improved at all here. All levels take place in the same few settings as the main game, leaving most of Hyrule unused and unexplored in the process.
Unfortunately, I kinda expected this. Since well, Nintendo seems very reluctant to ‘fix’ a game via DLC or updates.
Presumably, the attitude from the higher ups is that any game should stick to its original design philosophy without question, no matter how flawed that philosophy might actually be. So, the DLC for Breath of the Wild is just more Breath of the Wild, the DLC for Age of Calamity is just more Age of Calamity and the DLC for Age of Imprisonment is… well you get the picture.
The idea of actually fixing anything people disliked in updates or DLC is seen as something of a bad move by them.
Still, the updates are free here, so we can’t really complain too much. They’re a plaster on a game that probably needed major surgery to fix its issues, but they’re at least a free plaster that you don’t spend half your salary on. So, they’re worth getting if you have the game. Just don’t expect anything too interesting or game changing to be included here.
6/10