Remember when Nintendo had a strong year with their first-party lineup on the Wii U? When they released really awesome games like "Bayonetta 2," "Mario Kart 8," "Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze," and "Super Smash Bros. for Wii U?" And when they ended the year with the underrated gem "Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker?" Yeah, those were some good times...oh, and they released "Hyrule Warriors," too. Yeah, that game was seen as the black sheep of Nintendo's 2014 Wii U lineup, although I will admit that I enjoyed my time with it. Now did my enjoyment of the game lead me to believe that six years after its initial release, Nintendo would surprise announce a sequel to it for the Switch, complete with ties to the latest mainline entry in the "Zelda" series, "The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild?" Not in the slightest, no, though...given how 2020 was a year where nothing made sense, I guess this wasn't off the table. Nevertheless, from the jump, "Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity" actually looked pretty good to me, and I was interested in giving it a go. Even with my excitement, I was definitely not expecting it to be such an improvement over the first game.
"Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity" retains quite a few things that made the original game so great; most notably, the combat remains as strong and smooth as ever, with a wide amount of options to make fighting an absolute blast. The "Breath of the Wild" coat of paint also pays dividends to the gameplay, as it provides some great new additions to make for a much better experience. The story moments are well told (even if they are a bit wonky at points), and the visuals are absolutely stunning, which is to be expected given that the game uses the beautiful "Breath of the Wild" art style. The game also features plenty of content to look into and try out, and it's honestly worth doing it: while this could've been a very repetitive game, it actually has plenty of variety to it, and it's especially awesome discovering how each character plays.
I will admit that yes, it does at times feel like it is just "more" of the original "Hyrule Warriors." There are some nice improvements to the formula to make it better, but there were moments that could feel like just more of the same. Also, performance issues can be a bit pertinent, even when playing with the Nintendo Switch docked. I, of course, want to cut slack to developers who released games during COVID-19, because I know working through these conditions could not have been easy, but the frame-rate drops can often make the game feel a tad unpolished.
Overall, "Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity" is actually a surprising improvement over the original "Hyrule Warriors." Even with my pre-release excitement for it, I wasn't sure if I expected this game to be leaps and bounds better than the predecessor. As it turns out, it surpassed the first game by quite a bit. If you're a "Zelda" fan and enjoy Musou games, this definitely comes highly recommended.
Final rating: 8 out of 10 "Great"