Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment is a tight musou game that combines the intriguing world and mechanics of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom with the exciting and addictive combat of the Warriors franchise. The roster is a bit weak, and having to defend territory can mess with the pace a bit, but this is an overall solid Switch 2 hack-and-slash game.
Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment
Developer: Koei Tecmo, AAA Games Studio
Price: $100 CAD, $70 USD
Platform: Nintendo Switch 2
MonsterVine was supplied with a Switch 2 code for review.
Though the story wasn’t the main draw for me, I liked a lot of things about The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. I also dig musou games, so combining the two through Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment sounded like a fun prospect. In some ways, it definitely is, though there are a couple of areas that could be improved upon.
I was rather impressed by how Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment adapts many of the key mechanics from Tears of the Kingdom into the musou format. Zelda’s moveset utilizes time manipulation in a creative and satisfying way, while the Mysterious Construct and Mineru use constructs and tools to supplement their combos. This really helps the game stand out from other musou titles and makes it feel firmly like a proper Zelda spin-off, as it adapts ideas and gameplay gimmicks from Tears of the Kingdom to this entirely different genre with great success.
And of course, the main gameplay loop of Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment is as much of a blast as any other musou game. There’s something so wonderfully pleasant about plowing through huge mobs of scrubs while using enormous, flashy slashes and hits, and this remains as true here as it is in any other Warriors game. The ability to use elements like fire, ice, and electricity to stun hordes and bosses makes combat a little more strategic, and the different special moves being able to cancel enemy versions make for some exciting moments while taking bases and fighting bosses.
Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment has a shaky roster.
On the other hand, there’s a noticeable lack of memorable characters to play as. Outside of Zelda and the leaders of the different regions, a large chunk of the roster is just fairly generic soldiers from each area. I get that there’s a somewhat limited number of memorable characters present in this prequel’s time period, and I think Mysterious Construct was a fantastic way to have a Link-like character present within the constraints of the narrative, but a good chunk of the playable warriors are just forgettable.
A large section of the game has you taking on missions to take back sections of Hyrule that have fallen to Ganondorf’s darkness. It’s certainly satisfying to claim parts of the large map with each battle, but I don’t love that you occasionally have to do shorter missions to defend these areas from evil. I wouldn’t mind it if there wasn’t a time limit, but you only have so many battles before the section falls and has to be reclaimed, which can mess with the pacing of story missions a bit.
“The voice acting is well done, too, with performances that lend a bit of gravitas to some of the story’s bigger moments.“
The story of Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment can be both neat and a bit silly. Seeing Zelda herself at the forefront of a narrative is refreshing, and seeing more of the other characters’ personalities that were less emphasized in Tears of the Kingdom is great. At the same time, I found some parts of the story a bit goofy. Without going into spoilers, I understand that time travel to the past can complicate discussions of the future, as the game points out, but it felt a bit ridiculous for many of the heroes to seem to have little qualms about trusting Ganondorf. You can imagine how this plays out, and while you can sort of understand the motivation, it seems a little ridiculous, given Zelda’s presence at this time.
I didn’t run into any technical issues or frame rate drops in Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment, which is impressive given the number of characters and effects on screen at any given time. The characters and world of Tears of the Kingdom look sharper here than ever, while the remixes of iconic Zelda tracks that pop up in stages are excellent. The voice acting is well done, too, with performances that lend a bit of gravitas to some of the story’s bigger moments.
The Final Word
Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment does plenty of things well, making for an exciting and enjoyable musou game. I wish it had a couple more memorable characters and a bit of a stronger story, but pretty much everything else about the game is excellent and worth experiencing if you dig Tears of the Kingdom.
MonsterVine Rating: 4 out of 5 – Good
