These Thumbs Were Made For Gaming: Hyrule Warriors

Let's go back roughly one month ago. While playing some League of Legends with some good friends, I was informed about a game called Hyrule Warriors. I went to look it up and ended up watching video after video about it. It looked awesome! It was like Dynasty Warriors but with Zelda characters instead. It also had all my favorite button mashing, room clearing, mindless bullshit that I love.

Now, bring it on back to today. I got a copy and have been glued to it all afternoon. I am a huge fan of the Dynasty Warriors franchise and Zelda isn't too shabby either. Needless to say, I'm really digging this title. It plays like Dynasty Warriors except, dare I say, faster and with more in each map to keep you from going comatose. I'm going to put the disclaimer out there that this game may not be for everyone. It can get monotonous. However they have put in a cool crafting/powerup tree for every character that makes adding more attacks keep things interesting. The other thing I noticed is that in "Story Mode" you play as all the different characters rather than just watching Gan Ning's ass for 7-8 stages. I'm about 13 stages into story mode so far and it doesn't seem like the story is close to an ending yet. The story itself is alright to say the least, but I'm more in it to kill swathes of baddies lone wolf style.

The graphics are pretty good for WiiU and I have yet to experience the good ole' "too many soldiers on the screen" lag or "there's too many people on the screen, I'll just disappear till you kill someone" trickery that Dynasty Warriors players have grown to disdain. I don't expect anyone to pop this in and say "I'm so amped about these graphics that I'm going to wrestle a giant squid;" but they are better than bearable. I think the real showstopper for the Audio/Visual department in this title is the music.

Take all of your favorite Zelda tunes from over the years, call up the studio band that did the rockin' signature Dynasty Warrior soundtracks and WA-BAM! You get one of the most kick-ass Zelda music lineups yet. I'm super pleased with tunes.

All in all, the experience has been pretty damn good. It almost seems like the characters of Hyrule are better suited for this type of game than ancient Chinese men. I can't vouch for replay value as of yet but I'm at least not dreading the purchase. I guess one big downside is that it is on WiiU and that would necessitate buying one; hey, can't win 'em all. If you have the system, like Dynasty Warriors and Zelda then I would ask why you haven't gotten it yet. Otherwise, I wouldn't give you the "Dude, its totally worth buying WiiU for."