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Zelda, Link, and Lana - Image from Zelda.com/HyruleWarriors

Late last night, there was a Nintendo Direct for Hyrule Warriors—the upcoming Zelda and Dynasty Warriors mash-up. I was pretty pleased with the information revealed. The presentation was short, a very fast 26 minutes, but full of goodness. There were character reveals, features unveiled, play modes explained, and more. So let's jump in.

The presentation started with Yosuke Hayashi, producer at Team Ninja, explaining battle progression. When you start a stage, you will have objectives and a victory condition. Just like in Dynasty Warriors, completing objectives will give you favor in battle—for example, defeating a keep guard will create a new spawn point for allies to appear. Your victory condition, on the other hand, is a task that must be fulfilled to complete the stage. As you move across the map to complete your objectives, you will be beating down hordes of enemies using signature moves of each character. In doing so, objectives and victory conditions can change.

True to form in Zelda games, you will come across chests on the map where you can possibly find

King Dodongo - Image from Zelda.Wikia.com

usable items. In the demo, Link finds the bombs. These bombs can not only be used to blow away enemies, but they can also be used to clear away obstacles such as boulders. These items also play a pivotal part in boss fights. In the onscreen demo, Link faces off against a fire breathing dino named King Dodongo. Using normal attacks versus bosses yields little damage, however, by tossing the bomb into the enemy's mouth, Link was able to perform a cinematic attack which yield significant damage. The same happens with he fights a ghoma (giant eye with legs) boss, and he shoots it in the eye with the bow and arrow to create an opening. Other items revealed during the presentation were: the bow and arrow, hook shot, and boomerang.

The screen then swaps to Eiji Aonuma, group manager for Nintendo EAD. In this segment he speaks of the cuccoo (chicken) and how when you smack it enough times in past games, it would get pissed off and you'd get ambushed by it and its friends. Same concept exists in Hyrule Warriors. From the video, it seems they can randomly be there amongst enemies, so you'd have to be careful when you attack or bait your enemies and have the cuccoos do your bidding.

Yosuke Hayashi comes back for some character confirmations and reveals. It's a no brainer that Link would be there with his one handed sword and shield. As usual, he has some nice combos, decent speed, and defense—a well rounded character. Then, we have Zelda whose actually going to cast away that damsel in distress act and slice up some enemies with her rapier. She can also shoot her arrows of light.

Other recent character reveals were shown as well. Impa, the Sheikah advisor to Zelda, joins the fray with a giant sword with wide sweeping attacks. This rendition of her has samurai influence in both design and mannerisms. Sheik, the quick and mysterious, plays a dirge for her opponents with her harp before she takes them out with her deadly marital arts. Midna, the twilight princess, whips her hair back and forth to dominate the battlefield. Agatha, self-proclaimed princess of the insect kingdom, calls upon the power of her critter friends to creep out foes. Darunia, patriarch of the Goron, bashes through enemies with his giant hammer.

Impa - Image from Zelda.com/HyruleWarriors

Fi, the Goddess Blade, dances over the corpses of her enemies and transforms into a sword to all those who stand in her way. Ruto, Princess of the Zora, uses the power of water keep foes at bay. Unique to Hyrule Warriors, Lana, the white sorceress, uses her book of sorcery to construct objects made of light to crush her enemies or to use as explosives.

Fi - Image from Zelda.Wikia.com

 
In addition to these heroes, it was revealed that some enemies would be playable as well. Demon Lord Ghirahim with his demon blade was confirmed to be playable. Alongside him, players will be able to control Zant to brutally swing his scimitars and summon horrific things.

Ghirahim - Image from Zelda.Wikia.com

After these awesome character reveals, it was explained that characters will be able to gain new weapons which will significantly change their play style. We've already seen videos of Link and the magic rod and gauntlet, Zelda and wind breaker and Impa with the Naginata. But, also revealed was a spear with the power of the Deku Tree (video below) and a summoning gate for Lana. I'm not certain if it's an exclusive weapon or a usable item but, there was a clip of Link flailing Chainchomp around in battle too!


The video enters the final stretch by talking about some pretty nice features. Combat-wise, there's level progression. Each character begins with certain stats. By attacking enemies you level up and gain access to slots that can be filled with badges. Badges can be crafted by picking up materials dropped by defeated enemies. These badges can increase stats, increase potion usage and even add attacks to combo strings. Speaking of stats and crafting, similar to other Koei warriors games, weapons can come with stat boosts or abilities and can be combined to strengthen them. Hyrule Warriors will also have an adventure mode. It starts out looking like one of the 2D games on a grid assembled map. Each cell is an area and has its own victory conditions. Once a cell is selected, you will be brought into the 3D game to battle and win the cell. This will unlock adjacent cells and has the chance to get you prizes. In this mode, you can unlock characters and some weapons can only be gained here. Another cool feature is that like Ocarina of Time, there will be skulltulas (spiders with a skill on their abdomen). Collecting these also yields unlocks. In the demo, an illustration piece was unlocked. Finally, we were told about the local two-player coop. The WiiU hardware will be utilized so that screen splitting will not be necessary. Though resolution drops slightly to accommodate the strain, first player will use the game pad to view the screen while the second player will use the television. As the presentation was seeming coming to an end, there was one last surprise—a character reveal! None other than the Great King of Evil rides in on a horse with a glorious mane. By mane, I'm not talking about the horse. Ganondorf's new design sports a long Dragon Ball Z Super Saiyan 3 looking hairstyle wielding not one but two great swords and his signature evil magic.


Following the character reveal were pre-order bonus reveals which are costume packs from Ocarina of Time, Twilight Princess, and Skyward Sword. Those who register the game with Nintendo club also get a Demon King costume for Ganondorf.

I was hype for this game before this Nintendo Direct but now this game is a must have. Were you going to get the game before the direct? Have these new reveals made you want the game more? Let me know in the comments below.