Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, our tips for getting started

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, our tips for getting started
If you have read our review of Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, then you will know that we liked the Nintendo title a lot, net of the technical problems that affect especially the unstable frame rate. Koei Tecmo's experiment has managed to rejuvenate a controversial genre with the important oversight of Eiji Aonuma and the inspiration of Breath of the Wild, which has had a huge impact on gameplay and art direction. Sure, it's a fully action-packed The Legend of Zelda, and that might make purists turn their noses up, but as a spin-off it's probably one of the most curated and funniest in the Switch library. Although it is a musou, that is an immediate title by nature and tradition, Hyrule Warriors has more extravagant and complex dynamics than usual: having played it at least 55 hours, we have decided to share our knowledge with us through some tips or tricks that could help you to save Hyrule from the Ganon Calamity.

The best structures

Hyrule Warriors: The era of calamity has a very interesting micro-management component, represented by the map of Hyrule in which numerous icons will begin to flock right away. Some are main and secondary missions playable directly on the battlefield, others are tasks that are solved by pressing a button to deliver some items, and still others are structures that you can use to customize the game and the characters. At some point you will have to choose which assignments to give priority to because you will probably not be enough materials in your possession and you will have to get more. In this sense, the most useful are certainly the stables - which allow you to occasionally purchase rare materials and ingredients - and the upgrades of the structures. Here is our tip number 1: immediately unlock the ones that guarantee you the discounts on goods and level ups, because the rupees in Hyrule Warriors are never enough, and wasting them to recolor the costumes of Link to Tinte d'Ori is not exactly the best strategy of all.

Weapons, brands and mergers

You will find tons of weapons in chests and at the end of missions. In most cases, the weapons you will find will be suitable for the characters you are playing, so keep this detail in mind already. In general, you will spend a lot of time in the blacksmith's workshop combining different weapons through fusion: you basically choose one as a base and consume up to five others to increase its power. Depending on the level of the weapons consumed, the basic weapon will gain more or less experience and will increase in level in turn, for a maximum - at least initially - of 20 levels. If you have a lot of weapons at your disposal of a lower level than the base one, combine them with each other, because the result will make the weapon you want to upgrade much more experience. The fusion serves not only to improve the attack value of a weapon, but also to give it new marks, passive bonuses that appear randomly in the weapons you find.

You can make several tests and evaluate the result before melt one or more weapons, but always keep in mind that at some point in the game you will unlock upgrades for the blacksmith that will allow you to remove one or more marks from a weapon. This will allow you to customize weapons: for example, you could forge one that increases the finding of monstrous materials and ancestral materials for your farming sessions. In general, try to exploit the strengths of the characters. For example, Impa uses strong attack a lot to absorb symbols and enhance his special attack: try to forge a weapon with marks that at least increase the damage dealt by his strong attack, that dealt by his special attack and maybe even the regeneration of the special attack indicator. You can easily complete Hyrule Warriors without spending too much time on this aspect of the game, but the brands will give you an edge in the most challenging stages.

Strategic kitchen

Once the farming cooperative is unlocked from Mabe, make sure you stock up on eggs every time you return from a field mission - they're cheap and particularly useful as you need 3 to make a Boiled Egg. This dish grants + 3% experience points in the next mission you play, and we advise you to always prepare it to avoid spending too many rupees in the boot camp when some characters will inevitably lag behind the others. By completing the cooking tasks you will learn new recipes, for example the Omelette that grants 10% more experience points. Also, there are some power-ups that will allow you to cook up to three different dishes before starting a mission. This means that you could combine your experience point bonuses to get up to an additional 20% total. However, some dishes will allow you to also increase the number of rupees collected, so there are different combinations to experiment that will satisfy your needs.

The secondary characters

As you have understood, you will have to do a lot pay attention to the levels of the characters, especially if you play on difficulty above Normal. The main missions of the campaign will often force you to use one or more predefined heroes, so some will lag behind with experience points and you will have to resort to the training camp or side missions to increase their level. In this sense, there are some characters that you can overlook because during the campaign you will play them little or you will not play them at all. The first is Castonne: although it unlocks in the third chapter, you will be forced to play this funny little tree armed with maracas for only a couple of missions.

There are two other fully optional characters that you can unlock before the credits roll. The Radiant Fairies will join you after defeating them in the four corresponding side missions: they are actually four characters in one, as the personal action changes the Radiant Fairy in the field. The other character is the monk Myz Kyoshia, which is obtained by completing three assignments and then the combat mission in which you will face him face to face. As they are optional, these two characters will never be mandatory during campaign missions, so you can neglect them a little more than the others.

Magic Wands

There are four in Hyrule Warriors consumable tools that you can use during missions: one is the apple, which regenerates hearts, and the other three are magic wands. You will find the latter by defeating the Shamanx or some elemental-type enemies: the wands, in fact, will allow you to cast simple spells in area of ​​fire, ice and lightning. At some point in the game, you will also discover an assignment that increases the number of times you can use each wand. Don't underestimate them and, indeed, make sure you always defeat the Shamanx to charge the wands. In addition to interacting with the environment (fire rods hit larger areas by propagating with grass, electric ones do so with water, and so on) the rods immediately crack the armor - i.e. the hexagonal icon representing the "resistance" of minibosses - of enemies of the opposite element. They are therefore very convenient to interrupt, stun and easily defeat the most dangerous monsters such as the Hinox, the Lynel or the Sassorok.

Explore the maps

The maps of Hyrule Warriors are extrapolated from the world we have explored in Breath of the Wild, albeit covering much smaller dimensions. Despite this, most of them, especially those in which the main missions of the story take place, hide several secrets. Break every chest or vase to find materials and rupees, and if you have enough time, dedicate it to exploring the map. Korogu and chests lurk in the most unthinkable corners and luckily at some point you'll unlock an upgrade that will tell you exactly how many chests or Korogu there are in a map and how many you have found. Often you will have to resort to the Sheikah runes to solve some simple environmental puzzles: use Stasys to paralyze balloons and destroy them, radio-controlled bombs to disintegrate rocks and cracked walls that hide the rewards, Calamitron to extract buried chests from the ground or destroy the containers that maybe cover a Korogu's lair. You will need the forest goblins to upgrade Castonne ... but not only.

Exterminate everything!

One of the materials that you will have to spend a lot to complete tasks and get various upgrades is called Certificate . There is one for each type of monster and if you do as we did at the beginning of the game, you will find yourself running out of certificates in time of need. Certificates, in fact, are automatically received by defeating enemies. That's all. That's why some assignments will ask you for hundreds of certificates from grublin, lizalfos, boblin, and so on - it's the generic enemies that haunt the maps. They are also the dumbest enemies that will rarely attack you and that you can easily get around while running towards the main objective of the mission: this means that you will always have the certificates of the minibosses - after all, you will have to defeat them to continue! - but for the others you will actually have to stop and defeat platoons of minor enemies. Luckily, Hyrule Warriors is a musou, and all it takes is a combo or two to take out dozens of monsters and set aside as many certificates. Always check the portraits that suggest the type of enemies you are about to face to understand if you need their certificates or not.







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