Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment Speculation Results!

Or: A blog post where I break down my initial speculations on the new Hyrule Warriors game, outlining everything I got right, everything I got wrong, and all the notable things that surprised me!

First, a bit of context. On April 2nd, shortly after the first trailer released for Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment I started a speculation thread , where I wrote down all my thoughts and predictions based on that initial trailer. I basically was making a bit of a game out of it for myself, with my one rule being that I had to get all my speculation out of the way before the next major bit of news came out. This eventually came to pass right at the end of July when the second trailer dropped, at which point my thread was a hefty 84 posts long!

So with all that said, and in accordance with me making a game out of my speculation, the time has come to count up the score! Kinda. Specifically, I'm going to go through three categories in this post where I will be referencing my original thread and outlining how close or far my prediction was while also sharing my thoughts on the game as a whole. I won't directly quote myself, but I'll try and link to the most relevant part of the thread for anyone who wants the full context of my initial prediction.

For starters, I'll go through everything I got right, or at least right-ish. This is the least exciting category since, by virtue of me predicting it, it was predictable!

After that I'll go over everything I got wrong, fully accepting my clown-fool status as I go. In all seriousness: I find this category more interesting since it highlights things that went against my initial expectations.

And last and certainly not least: Surprises! This is the only category where I won't be quoting my initial thread, and instead I'll talk about the various things the game did that I never even considered based on that first trailer. I won't go over every little thing that didn't get touched on in my thread, of course, and I'll try to keep the subjects categorized and limited as close to the format of the previous two sections as I go.

Also, the order won't be related to the order the thread was in, as that was just me posting each thought as it occurred to me. And keep in mind this will be FULL OF SPOILERS, and is based on version 1.0.1 of the game as it was on launch day. The official Hyrule Warriors Twitter account announced that two free updates will happen... at some point! So it's possible I might be vindicated on some of my Clown-Foolery, but this blog post will not reflect such retroactive vindication.

Alas.

So, without further ado...

My Victory Lap:

And Her Name Was Lenalia : I figured the author of the stone tablets would appear, since she was stated to be close to the royals and Zelda, and lo and behold she appeared! Her design was a big (and welcome) surprise, and I fell in love with her basically right away. She wasn't an incarnation of Impa, though. That would've been a cool bit to call...

Big Big Bosses : I predicted that, partly due to Colgera's size, the TotK bosses would not be making a return in this game and I was right on the money with that... Mostly! The Four Archfiends are all reimagined versions of the TotK bosses, with most of them having a new aesthetic similar to the Blight Ganons! Not sure why Grimgibdo in particular misses out on the red hair, though. So while they're not totally and completely new, I think I can safely give it to myself that they also are NOT the TotK bosses!

So there'll be costumes, right !: So, funny story. I originally posted this in the 'things I got wrong' category because I thought you couldn't change costumes in the game. Actually, Zelda, the Knight Construct, Calamo, and the four masked Sages all do have costume options. I don't know when they got unlocked because there was no message as far as I could tell that it happened? But yeah, every character with an alternate look can wear that alternate look in-game, and it basically lines up with my bare-minimum costume expectations.

I am a mental genius : I predicted that they might bring back item attacks like in the original Hyrule Warriors while keeping refinements from Age of Calamity, and that's basically exactly how Zonai Devices work! They also do bring back unique actions, though a lot of them are ironically a lot less unique now, as they function quite a lot like how runes worked in Age of Calamity. In an interesting twist, several characters get more unique and gimmicky C1 attacks, which is more like how the original Hyrule Warriors handled things! Regardless, I was basically right on the money here!

Team-Up Time : As for something I was a bit less right about, I was expecting that Sync Strikes were actually two different mechanics, one functioning like how they actually do in the final game and one more like Focus Spirit from the original Hyrule Warriors... But! Sync Strikes performed with Zelda, Sonia, or the four remaining Sages not named Mineru all work differently (unless they have a unique move). Instead of a regular team-up attack, the Sage empowers the character, granting them a special set of buffs for a time and allowing you to perform a finisher if you hit the special attack button before it runs out. Which is basically almost exactly what I said! I was close!

My silly idea : Look, sky battles may not have involved Rauru and they looked NOTHING like what I had in my mind, but I said "arcade shooter" and "blasty beam" so I'm counting it as a successful prediction!

My Clown-Fool Shame:

The names of the Sages : I predicted that, similar to Rauru sharing the name of an Ocarina of Time Sage, that the until-now nameless Sages might also be named after Sages from previous games! They weren't. Oh well, their actual names are cool.

Ganondorf is a shoe-in : Welp. At the very least in the base game he's not only not playable, but his pre-Demon King form doesn't even appear outside of cutscenes. In general I was going in expecting a lot more of the build-up to the Imprisoning War to be covered in the game, like in Age of Calamity, but instead the plot was much more focused on the war itself. Also, I won't go over every Ganondorf-related prediction I made, but I'd like to note for the record that I think every single one was wrong. Ouch!

Link as a bonus? So about that : One of the biggest surprises after the first trailer was the reveal of the Mysterious Construct, a strange humanoid construct warrior that is, as it turns out, powered by the shard of the Master Sword that cut Ganondorf's mummified form at the beginning of TotK. I'm not calling myself a clown-fool for not predicting THAT, but... I really was expecting one or two non-story-related characters in the playable cast, but that wasn't the case! In addition to the 9 "main characters" we also got 10 side characters. More ordinary denizens of the world who join in on the fight against the Demon King. They're not all the most exciting (looking at you, Typhan and Quino) but they were a really fun surprise, especially just how many of them there were.

And my other character hopes : Sonia was indeed, as I feared, left out. ...But given the obvious hole in the character select screen, I get the feeling one of those two free updates is gonna change that. What almost certainly WON'T be changed, though, is Twinrova. The Koume and Kotake characters not only weren't playable, they don't even get named! They disappear from the story as soon as the war begins too, so I guess we're just supposed to think they and all Ganondorf's loyal Gerudo supporters got fed to a Hinox or something? I put a lot of hopes on them being more significant but that just didn't pan out.

Zero babies or nameless heroes mentioned : Not a huge surprise for this, given they decided not to touch on it in TotK, but there continues to be no specific explanation of how the Hyrulean royal line survived both the king and queen perishing in the war. Even less surprising is that we didn't get details of the Ancient Hero from the mural in Breath of the Wild. Probably never gonna know what that Link/Ganon/Zonai-looking guy's deal is.

More what-if content? What about none : Again, there are updates coming, but the base game surprised me by having absolutely zero what-if content as far as I could tell. Unlike Age of Calamity, every single Challenge mission is treated as a canonical part of the war, often justifying itself as a flashback to earlier in the story than it was unlocked, with some even having dialogue and such to further make them a part of the overall story. Even the post-game rematch mission against the Four Archfiends is set up as being image training, rather than an actual round 3 against them. Even though I specifically said I wanted more what-if content though, I enjoyed this approach. But I'll still happily welcome any what-if stuff in the coming updates, should that occur!

Walking around a bit less than anticipated :I had thought the walk-around non-combat gameplay might indicate that you could walk around the castle or other base camps, but ultimately that wasn't the case. Also no exploration or puzzles, but I wasn't expecting that so much as hoping. I do like the map system from Age of Calamity so I'm fine having it back. Still, I do want us to get a walk-around base in a Hyrule Warriors one of these days, should we get another...

Moving onto enemies :I actually did a bunch of enemy speculation, and some of it was even correct! Buuuut I was only really right on pretty obvious points, so I'm highlighting what I got wrong. Constructs in particular I didn;t get right AT ALL. Several constructs attack the Hyrulean forces simply because they don't register us as friendlies for one reason or another, while others get possessed by shades and turned against us. A Flux Construct even ends up a very early boss, much to the contrary of me wondering if they'd show up at all! And then there's Horriblins and Gibdos. While they are both rarer enemies, they're also basic troops. And while gibdos have super armor unless you hit them with elemental attacks, like in TotK, that kind of gimmick isn't what I was talking about in my thread. Also, while I didn't specifically mention Gleeoks, I had been imagining them as enemies to be fought normally, but just two appear and only in flight battles. A bonus wrong prediction!

Pizza? : No pizza.

Sir Prizes:

The Knight Construct: Might as well start with the big one. I doubt anyone was predicting something even close to this. The Knight Construct's existence as not only a remnant of what destroyed the Zonai, but also being an ancient automaton powered by a shard of the Master Sword that greatly resembles the hero? When this guy was teased at the end of the second trailer speculation was rampant, but the full vision was something else entirely. The Knight Construct is basically your playable Link for this game. The one-handed moveset is nearly identical in a lot of areas, he uses a lot of Link's animations verbatim, and his whole vibe is just... SO Link. I started referring to him as Link-Bot before the game came out, but by the end of it me and my partner were more often just calling him Link, with no qualifiers.

Calamo: And right alongside our Link is his best bud. While Calamo's existence wasn't a huge surprise to me when he was revealed, more of a mild "oh that's neat", what really shocked me was how much I grew to care about him and his relationship with the Knight Construct throughout the game. The final battle between the two of them and the Forbidden Construct was amazing and I was so happy to experience it in two-player mode alongside my partner. Speaking of...

So who had 'DBZ Fight' on their bingo card?: I don't think I ever posted this, but I joked about Rauru and Demon King Ganondorf having a big Dragon Ball-esque fight and that'd show the Dueling Peaks getting split. So suffice it to say I was GIDDY when the Knight Construct grabbed his evil counterpart by the face and shoved him through multiple layers of sky island. That whole battle was a fantastic culmination of everything the game had been doing up to that point, and I was really satisfied with how Calamo and his bud's story ended.

Okay but seriously, Flight Battles: My joke in the victory lap aside, I really didn't expect a Star Fox-esque minigame to happen! Flight Battles are reminiscent to me of the Vah Medoh levels in Age of Calamity, which were my favorite Divine Beast battles, but definitely more fun! Honestly I just wish there were more featured in challenge missions like how there were optional Divine Beast battles in Age of Calamity. They're mostly flashy setpieces (not that I'm really complaining), so some more challenging levels would have been appreciated.

Regular people of Hyrule meeting the moment: I brought them up earlier, but one thing I really didn't expect was that half of the playable cast would be ordinary people without special powers or abilities. I haven't seen too many reactions on the game from people, but I have seen some grumblings about this and I get the feeling it's a fairly contentious move. Personally? I love it. Giving names and faces to more of the people of this era and showing how even those who aren't Sages or kings joined in the fight really makes it all feel more real to me. I may not be a fan of all of them, but the ones that clicked with me REALLY clicked, and I found myself just wanting more opportunities to play as them (even as I felt like they got some very good moments already). I'll probably do another blog post later talking about each of them in a bit more detail, because this post is already plenty long as-is!

Honestly I could probably go on for even longer. I've at this point beaten the game twice (once as my partner's player 2, once on my own solo file) and logged over 95 hours onto the game according to my Nintendo Account's play data, so I could bore you all with minutia and useless trivia for hours! But this blog post is niche enough as it is, so I'm wrapping things up here! Will definitely write again about this game is the future, and probably other Zelda games too because I think about 'em a lot.

Byeeeeeeeeee