Hands On: Zelda Plays Very Differently From Link In Hyrule Warriors

If you wanted to fight dozens of Zelda enemies at once, Hyrule Warriors is your game. The Wii U title shows at least 50 units on-screen at once. Like other Warriors games, most of them don’t attack, they stand still until Link strikes them.

The Y button does a weak attack and X does a slower, but more powerful heavy attack. You can do combos like YYYX or simply button mash. B is used to dodge and A is a special attack. Keeping in line with the Zelda series, you have different weapons like bombs and in Hyrule Warriors Link throws a bunch of bombs at once. You can only equip one item to the ZR button like a health bottle or bombs.

The D-pad cycles through items. ZL is used to guard. When you find the bombs, enemies stop attacking and  the game cuts to Link doing his classic treasure finding animation where he holds the bombs to the sky. Zelda has a similar animation, but we’ll talk more about her in a bit.

Link’s spinning sword technique is flashier and knocks enemies up in the air. Link completes the move by slamming enemies to the ground with a downward stab. His special move (aka Musou Attack) is a spinning slash with more reach. Special moves are charged when you attack enemies.

While Link is chopping through hundreds of enemies, Hylian Troops are also fighting and fortunately, they don’t mind if you accidentally hit them in the heat of battle. Impa is in the demo and she gives Link tips. Tutorials also have the classic “hey, listen” line when they pop up.

In the Castle Keep, I found a power up bomb, a one use item with a huge blast radius. Link can also collect Rupees dropped by enemies and glowing hearts to restore his life.

The demo I played at E3 ended with a King Dodongo boss fight who appears at the North Square. King Dodongo breaths a cone of fire Link has to dodge. Like the first Legend of Zelda game, the trick to beating him is throwing bombs in his mouth when he inhales. Then Link can follow up with a combo ending with a fatal downward slash.

Meanwhile, Zelda uses a glowing rapier to fight and has a combo where she darts left and right. Unique to Zelda are three orbs. You can charge these by pressing heavy attack and then use orbs as combo finishers like creating a golden triangle on the ground that damages all of the enemies inside it. She also has a combo, which ends with a barrage of arrows from a golden bow. Zelda’s special move is a charged bow strike that knocks enemies back.

Lizardos was the first enemy with a weak point and if you hit him on the head you’ll knock him down. I suppose that works, but Hyrule Warriors is so hectic I killed him with regular combos before I could exploit his weak point.

Magic jars fill up your Focus Spirit meter. When this is full you can press R to get a speed and attack burst. Your character will glow yellow and  get a new combo too. Zelda can use three elemental magic spells as her Focus Spirit combo.
Similar to the other Warriors games, Hyrule Warriors says “Zelda defeated Moblin” when you knock out a general.