I don’t often by warriors games but I am a big fan of the series when they do titles based off of some of my favorite franchises. So naturally I was quick to get the new Hyrule Warriors game after loving the previous two. In this one our story takes place when Zelda was sent back in time during the events of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. There we see the story of what happened during the war between the first king of Hyrule, Rauru and Ganondorf.

Starting with the story I was actually pretty surprised. Most of the surprises were great but one flaw. I had pretty standard expectations going into the game regarding the story and for the most part my expectations were correct. Each story map is a battle and the cut scenes serve to set up the current fight. Nothing really out of the ordinary, but the ending was amazing. Without spoiling the details I did love how bitter sweet it was. It perfectly sets up the events of Tears of the Kingdom and I was really shocked at how much of an emotional impact it had on me as I was playing it. It was exciting, bit sad, and at times rather wholesome. This is one of the reasons I opt to play games to the credits before doing reviews because really the story is a means to an end to set up the combat and offers little else until those final moments. Though the final moments are done incredibly well.

Now for the downside. The trailers gave me a pretty strong impression that Zelda was a star of this game. Where Link’s not in it I really thought she would have a pretty prominent role. The problem is she doesn’t. Really the stars are Rauru and an unnamed construct that looks a lot like Link. At the start of the story they are each leading their own groups and doing their own things until they converge and as this all takes place Zelda is sort of just there. She rarely impacts the story and I was pretty sad to see that. I feel like more could have been done to elevate her as a character.

Speaking of characters we have a pretty mixed bag of good and bad here too. The main roster is entertaining and the construct is a cool idea. Plus he travels with easily the most entertaining character in the game a Korok, Calamo. This pair is nonstop fun to watch which is surprising considering the construct never talks. Plus I love how they connected Calamo, an original character to the game, to Tears of the Kingdom. Again spoilers so that’s as far as I’m going with that. Rauru, Zelda, and the sages introduced in Tears of the Kingdom which now have their own names and personalities are also entertaining to watch. Not nearly as much but I still enjoyed it. The problem here is the game pads the playable character list with more original characters that are very forgettable. Out of the 19 playable characters there’s eight that I honestly can’t remember anything about. Where the previous Hyrule Warriors games featured mainly characters from the series I already had a connection to them and it made the few new characters stand out. Here where most of the characters are new, very few of them stand out as they do very little with them outside of a couple.

The gameplay is the heart and soul of the game. Lets face it, if you’re familiar with a warriors game you know you’re playing it to hit the attack button over and over again until the enemy doesn’t get back up. It’s a hack and slash game where you mow down hundreds of enemies and you have attacks based on mechanics from Tears of the Kingdom. These mechanics are quick attacks you can use offensively or to target weaknesses in enemy attacks to deal extra damage. It’s a lot of fun, definitely repetitive so I could only play it in spurts, but fun.

Outside of main story missions you play side quests to get items, unlock areas of the map, get new characters and more. These are quick missions that take a few minutes so it makes the game fun to pick up for a little while and put down.

So Age of Imprisonment has a shockingly well done ending to an otherwise standard story for a game in this franchise. The characters are on the extreme as some are very likable while others are entirely forgettable. The gameplay is standard for a Warriors game and won’t change your mind whether you enjoy it or find it insufferable. It’s a really fun game, but going forward I do think if we are to get another Warriors game where the character pool is limited then I’d rather have a smaller list of playable characters than a roster where almost half of them mean nothing to me.