#Serena Plays: Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity

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Serena Plays: Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity

Just beat Chapter 3: Freeing Korok Forest- and I have *thoughts*

Cut for spoilers- and again this is 95% me talking about my boi Revali. Also this absolutely got away from me and  turned into an essay about ‘Why Revali hates Link in Botw VS Why Revali hates Link in HW:AoC’

So a few random thoughts about this Chapter, and a few other general things I noticed while playing that I love:

Finally got to play as Vah Medoh and YAS!!!! I LOVED IT!

Hestu is adorable.

Revali is sassy and it’s great, “Maybe you could sneak by if you weren’t holding a giant pair of maracas”

Urbosa is such a Mom the way she immediately shushes Revali and goes to tell Hestu they’ll help him.

Fighting the evil clones of the Champions was weird and reminded me in the worse possible way of all the ‘corrupted Champions’ fanart I’ve seen.

Link pulling out the sword was *awesome*

I lol’d at the way the Great Deku tree had like 3 lines and then went straight back to sleep. ‘Saving the world is great and all but I need my beauty sleep’

The way Revali yelps ‘My feathers!” if he gets caught on fire is so cute.

The way Revali says ‘Fine Fine’ when you switch to his character during combat is A+, the delivery/tone is just great.

I notice that Revali has been drinking his respect women juice, because he was throwing a lot of compliments to Urbosa when I played with them both for a mission, for example, ‘You’re always so observant, that saved me today, thank you’. and also a line about her being a worthy comrade?

Now, all that being said- I have some *ISSUES* with Link and Revali’s relationship in this game so far.

So, we all know that in BotW Revali didn’t like Link, and spent a lot of time being rude and talking down to him. However there was (in my opinion) a clear and understandable reason for this. Revali worked tirelessly to become the amazing archer he is and earn his place as a Champion. We see him during a cutscene in the DLC launching himself into the sky over and over to try and master his Gale, heedless of the injuries he occurs in the process, and this gives us an idea of the lengths he’s gone to in order to become the incredible warrior he now is.

In comparison, in his own words, Link became a Champion ‘just because he happened to have that little darkness sealing sword on his back.’. You can understand his anger- it’s not fair that some random guy got to be a Champion just because a sword picked him, when he had to work so very hard to gain the same honor. Now we, the audience, know that Link has also worked very hard and is a Master swordsman in his own right, but Revali doesn’t. Unfortunately Link refusing to respond to Revali’s harsh words and criticisms only serves to anger the Rito further- and again you can understand the thought process of ‘What, I’m not good enough for you to acknowledge?? Just because you have the fancy sword?’ (Again, we as the audience know Link is functionally mute and hides his feelings as a way to cope with the pressure of being the chosen knight- but Revali doesn’t.)

Please note that I am not saying Revali was in the right to act the way he did, I will freely admit he was being an arrogant ass, but I can at least *understand* where his anger was coming from.

Now...cut to HW:AoC. I loved the way Revali and Link met in this game. I actually thought that perhaps they might have a better relationship here, because now Revali has had a chance to meet and battle Link *before* he became ‘The Chosen Knight’, before anger and resentment could cloud his perception.

But then Revali made that comment about Link being a ‘pathetic knight’ after Zelda broke up their fight. Which confused me a little, because by all accounts Revali saw Link mow through scores of Rito Warriors, and then the two of them had a fairly close fight, so why would he think of him as ‘pathetic’ after that? It didn’t seem to make much sense, but I put it down to (pardon the pun) ‘ruffled feathers’.

Then we come to the opening cinematic of Freeing Korok Forest and....wow. Just wow. Revali *lays into* Link. ‘Why is he the leader?’ ‘Why is he even here?’ And then the bit that in my opinion really crossed the line and was totally uncalled for ‘My one comfort is that your reputation will be completely ruined when you fail- the fallen knight’

*WHY* is he acting this way? As far as I can see Link has done nothing to earn this level of spite. Revali is arrogant and cocky sure, but you can’t just have him hate someone with that level of intensity without giving him a reason for it. It would make sense if he treated everyone that way- if he acted like everyone was dirt beneath his feet until they proved otherwise- but he doesn’t! Sure he might roll his eyes or tell them they’re ‘ridiculous’ but with the other Champions he works together with them fine- and even compliments them during fights!

I am holding on to the thought that perhaps later chapters might give us more insight, but at the moment I have this horrible sinking feeling someone decided Revali’s character was ‘the asshole’ and therefore decided to just use him to cause drama, regardless of whether it made sense or not. Revali is my favourite and I just...I really don’t want to see him used like that, when there’s so much more to him. Please don’t do that to my birb Nintendo.

Okay, it’s 3am, I’m going to stop now but I needed to get these thoughts down. Maybe I’ll come back tomorrow and edit this if anything else has sprung to mind.

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Serena Plays: Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity

+SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS BELOW THE CUT+

Also this review is 100% about Revali and Rito Village so if you’re not interested in those things this probably isn’t for you.

Okay so- I am the sort of person who likes to save my favorite for last, so I went into this game *fully intending* to only unlock Revali after going through all the other Champions first.

Note the *intending*

What actually happened was I unlocked Mipha, got impatient, and went straight to Revali. (lol)

I was fairly certain from the trailers that I would end up having to fight Revali, but I still remember feeling distinctly jarred that the Rito warriors spotted Link on his own struggling through the snow and immediately launched and all out attack on him. I was sure it was going to be a misunderstanding in the end, but it was still kind of a ‘what the hell?’ and ‘is this not a little overkill for ONE PERSON?’ moment.

Of course, now I’ve finished the chapter I know that what they were alarmed by was not Link but rather Tiny-Egg-Guardian (TEG), who looked very similar to the tiny guardian who had been leading absolute *hordes* of monsters to attack the village for weeks. That makes a lot more sense and kind of justifies the scale of their defense. (Yes I am aware the ‘scale' of it was largely to do with game mechanics- but still).

Fam it’s no secret that I love the Rito tribe - I have a multi-chapter fanfic devoted to exploring their possible culture. So I cannot overstate how much I *hated* having to cut down swathes of Rito Warriors- especially since in the last Chapter I’d been fighting alongside Zora Soldiers so I’d kinda expected to be doing the same thing here.

On the plus side, it *was* cool getting to see all the different Rito fighting styles and village defenses. Having archers up high raining down a barrage of bomb arrows, having lines of archers blocking paths at alternating angles so there was no where you could dodge easily to avoid being shot? That was great. We even got to see Rito Captains fighting as mini-bosses with swords and spears as well as bows. (Still not sure how I feel about the Captains feather hat things thou 0_0).

Also- the background. I always suspected that Rito Village was far more spread out in the past before the Calamity but it was on a completely different scale then I’d imagined. There were huts and buildings *everywhere*, on multiple height levels, and I loved seeing how well developed the village was in the past. I could even see the pillar that will eventually become the Rito Village we know and love in BotW, I almost wouldn’t have recognized it if it hadn’t been for it’s specific heart-shaped hole.

And now my boi Revali.

I actually really loved seeing him leading the other warriors? A lot of people have said in the past, ‘Mipha, Daruk and Urbosa were all leaders of their tribes- how come Revali's the only one who wasn’t?’ So it was nice to see that even if he didn’t have a fancy title, he was still obviously pretty much in charge of leading the warriors and protecting Rito Village.

I cannot understate how much I loved seeing Revali fighting. I mean, we always knew he was skilled ‘the best warrior of all the Rito’ and all, but DAMN. Some of the tricks he pulled with his arrows/gale? Incredible. I loved seeing how he was thinking three steps ahead- using arrows to blink Link’s vision, get rid of his shield, and put himself in prime position to attack. It was amazing to see. I will def be watching that cutscene multiple times.

Final note because I’ve gone on a while now- kinda annoyed that all the other Champions got to use their Divine Beasts in their intro Chapters but Revali didn’t?? I WANNA PILOT MEDOH!!!

[serena-inverse]

Serena Plays: Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity

My copy of Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity arrived around 3pm and I’ve been playing since then till now (7:30pm) when I stopped to get dinner.

INITIAL *SPOILER FREE* REACTIONS

Revali is SO FREAKING COOL. I’m sorry, I know I’m already a die-hard fan of the birb, it was a given I was going to love him but- AHHHHHHH!!! HIS MOVES. THE WAY HE FIGHTS. *SO AWESOME* That little snippet you get to see of him fighting Link in the trailer?? The rest of that scene is AMAZING I was swooning over my boi’s skills.

(After I unlocked Revali I spent an hour leveling him by putting him through battle challenges rather then using the easy level up method available. I also unlocked all his little mini-missions for bonuses straight away. No regrets.)

I really really love Revali’s moves? It’s so fun playing as him swooping around and showering people with arrows and wind attacks. Also I adore the way he turns to face the camera and gives a smug little pose at the end of his stasis attack while basically saying ‘too easy’. ALSO THE NEW RE-MIX OF HIS THEME IS GREAT.

Mipha is so sweet and her move set is really fun. Some of her attacks look so beautiful and elegant but they are utterly devastating on the enemy which is just A+. I will admit I giggle-snorted when I first saw her ‘running’ animation though XD

Daruk is amazing as a character (I loved his intro at the start of his chapter) but unfortunately he’s the Champion I have the most trouble actually playing/using? That’s not to say his move set is bad or anything, because it’s not, I’m just terrible at using ‘tank’ characters since I prefer swift-nimble fighters. Hopefully I’ll get better with practice!

Can’t say anything about Urbosa yet because I haven’t unlocked her- that’s what I’ll be doing after I’ve finished eating and typing this up! *EDIT* I’ve now unlocked Urbosa! She is *so* much fun to play as, she’s rapidly becoming my second fav to play after Revali. And as usual she is an absolute Queen. I really liked her story intro!

General game thoughts so far:

Pros: Love the fighting mechanics, love getting to see Hyrule in it’s hay-day, it’s extremely fun to mow down hordes of enemies and the music is great. I LOVE PLAYING AS THE CHAMPIONS.

Biggest annoyance so far: Getting lost, generally because the map isn’t easy enough to read. The number of times I’ve been squinting trying to work out if something is an actual pathway or not or if I’m even going the right way is ridiculous. In one Chapter I had to reach a designated point, which seemed simple from the map, and only once I got there did I discover the area’s only accessible from one direction, so I had to loop the entire way back around the map.

[serena-inverse]

Serena Plays: Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity

Completed “The Road Home, Besieged” and “Akkala Tower” Chapters today. My thoughts below the cut so people can avoid spoilers!

(Today is not 90% Revali focused for once...but only because he didn’t have much of a part in these two Chapters XD)

The Road Home, Besieged

Opening cutscene: TINY EGG GUARDIAN (TEG) IS SINGING ZELDA’S LULLABY? I actually had to look the song up on Youtube because I was like ‘Is that-?’ And yes it is!’

Zelda is the one having flashbacks now, instead of Link, which is a nice change of pace. She knew TEG when she was a kid? Oh that’s kind of interesting!

I know Revali didn’t even have speaking lines in the opening cut scene, but it was so nice that they animated him separately flying up into the air and reading his bow- he looked so cool!!!! (They could have so easily just put him down with everyone else)

Gameplay: It honestly felt kind of strange to be locked down to one character after being able to switch around freely for so long? That said I find Link very easy to use so I had to issue with being stuck with him.

End cutscene: I’m kinda sad we didn’t get to see the Champions going through the ceremony to become Champions again, or the group photo, but I can see why they would choose to skip those scenes as we already saw them in the main BotW game. (I will have all the Champions content thank you- I don’t mind the same scene but from a different perspective!)

Impa chasing around after TEG was adorable and made me laugh. Her voice actor nailed that performance- she sounded so irritated!

I loved seeing Revali trapped in the middle as Impa tried to get to TEG while TEG used him as a Rito-shield. That was just great!

Revali deciding to fly away from their nonsense was such a him thing to do- and him calling back over his shoulder and saying ‘That’s so Asanine?’ BRO. They *had* to have put that in because they know we all loved the way Revali used that word in BotW. They must have- right?

Akkala Tower

That was a long opening cut scene. Actually it was like 3 cut scenes back to back. You know how I know it was long? I put my controller down when I started watching and the screen dulled into ‘power saving’ mode before it finished! XD

Game play was fine- got a little ‘fetch questy’ with the ‘protect the 5 Ancient Furnaces’ and then ‘Now you’re on the opposite side of the map, please go *back* and activate them’.

Getting to actually see Akkala Citadel was rad.

Not much really to say about this Chapter, it was fine (could have used more Rito XD)

I spent quite a bit of time doing the ‘in-between’ mini games to power up my characters. I don’t know about everyone else, but I find that whatever the ‘recommended level’ is for a Chapter/Mini Game, I have to add like at least 5 levels on top of that or I’ll find myself just *barely* scraping through.

Side note: I’m sure that in one of the live-play demo’s for the game they said each character has a favourite food and they’ll react to it? (Maybe I just dreamed it up?) If so I need to find out what Revali’s is because so far everything I feed him he scoffs at and then basically says it was ‘passable’ when he actually eats it. What if your fav food Revali- I will find out. (I checked and it’s not the boiled egg- I did wonder if they would make that his fav for the lols)

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I finished the main storyline of Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity tonight. It was really nice actually, my family all ended up watching me beat the final chapter, it was super nice to have them cheering me on and commenting as I went through. There's post game stuff to do now, but this was a really nice way to start my Christmas vacation.