Hyrule Warriors

HYRULE WARRIORS

Today, we begin our run of . . . more general spinoff games, not including the Tingle or CDi games. Those will come later. These include: Hyrule Warriors, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, Cadence of Hyrule, Link's Crossbow Training, the BS games (I'll cover them together), and the Game & Watch games (also will do a combined post for that one). Please note, that I will not be including Legends or Definitive Edition for today's post, as I'm counting those as ports and will cover them in that section. However, literally every DLC character appeared in all three versions, so we don't have to worry about that.

So, what is Hyrule Warriors? Hyrule Warriors is a crossover of sorts with Koei Tecmo's Dynasty Warriors series, which takes that series' playstyle, playing as various generals and heroes from Japan's history and fighting your way through hordes of enemies on a battlefield as an unstoppable one-man army, and casting Legend of Zelda characters in the various roles. Obviously these are big sweeping moves meant to take out whole groups at once, while Smash has smaller one-on-one based moves and such, so whatever we pull here will require a little tweaking, but I think we can do it.

Now, while we have a roster of roughly thirty-one fighters, many fighters also have different weapons that give them entirely different movesets, so we're going to do our best to filter through them all. First up is Link, who ended up with seven total movesets, utilizing a basic sword, magic rod (Fire Rod actually, but that's what it's called), the Great Fairy (which is actually more of a Great Fairy moveset than anything), the Iron Gauntlets, the Master Sword, Epona, and a spinner from Twilight Princess. Using the sword, he could slash, swipe, perform spin attacks, thrust, pull of a downward spike, and throw sword beams. You know, the basics. The Master Sword is basically the same, just way more powerful.

With the Fire Rod, he could cast a number of magic spells, as well as summon fiery blasts, a flamethrower attack, pillars of flame, and a dragon made of fire. The Great Fairy moveset basically involved the Great Fairy trapping him in a bottle and then proceeding to toy with him, including flying around, stomping with her feet, said bottle, splashing water, creating a magic circle, dropping bombs and energy balls, creating whirlpools, and summoning both Levias and the moon from Majora's Mask. With the gauntlets, he had a ball and chain that he could toss out and swing around, as well as burrow, pick up a boulder, ground pound, and swing a giant pillar. While riding Epona, the horse could swing her head around, leap, charge, kick with her back legs, and stomp the ground. And finally, the Spinner could summon more spinners, stick out spikes, summon lightning and tornadoes, and climb a tower.

Through the DLC, both Young Link and Toon Link made their own appearances in the game. Young Link's moveset was based heavily on Majora's Mask, and he utilized both his sword and the Fierce Deity Mask. He could slash and throw sword beams, spin attack, hover with the Pegasus boots, and transform into the Fierce Deity for a giant slash. Last but not least, he could pull off a large triforce blast.

Toon Link came with two distinct movesets, his Light Sword based on Wind Waker, and his Sand Wand based on Spirit Tracks. In his sword set, he could slash, stab, and spin attack as always, one strong enough to whip up a hurricane, and he could also blow wind with his Deku Leaf. His Sand Wand set could summon blocks of sand, which he could ride, as well as his spirit train, armed with a cannon.

Now we go on to Zelda. Zelda in her standard iconic form comes with three movesets: her rapier (which is mostly her light magic), her baton (the Wind Waker), and the Dominion Rod from Twilight Princess. With the rapier, she could slash and stab, but also charge light magic, throw balls of light, shoot light arrows, float, and perform a triforce blast. With the Wind Waker, she could whip up vortexes and cyclones, call down lightning, and create damaging musical notes. The Dominion Rod let her control a large statue with a hammer or a large cylinder that could roll around.

From here, her variants Sheik, Tetra, and Toon Zelda (Spirit Tracks) all got moves as well. Sheik was equipped with a harp on which she could play the various songs from Ocarina, allowing her to summon whirlwinds and shields of water, meteors, fire circles, waves of lightning, shadow vortexes, and blasts of light. She could also teleport and use kunai as throwing or slashing weapons.

Tetra was armed with her cutlass and blunderbuss as always, allowing her to slash and fire shots of boiling water, as well as fire off a triforce blast given her heritage. Toon Zelda, on the other hand, acted as a spirit inhabiting a Phantom armor. Using the phantom's sword, she could slash and thrust, but she could also stomp, punch and swing her arms around, roll up into a ball, and use her inherent Zelda magic to set off explosions of light.

Apparently, the Koei game developers are as big fans of Impa as I am, because they give her lots of special treatment in these games, and I love it. This version of Impa comes with two main movesets, one a giant blade, and the other a naginata. With the blade, she can slash, dash, spin jump into the air, stab her blade into the ground, create a big ball of water, and rain kunai from above. With the naginata she can throw it, cause explosions, summon a wall of flames, and call up a large circle of giant naginatas.

Next, we have Ganondorf, who gets two main movesets, plus a giant Beast Ganon form. With his great sword, he can slash, slam the ground, let off a fiery blast, summon a ball of dark magic, summon Beast Ganon, and call down lightning. His trident is much more lightning-based, with which he can strike, thrust, slam into the ground, throw it, spin, and call down lightning again. As Beast Ganon, he can claw, pound the ground, lunge, create shockwaves, and fire red lightning.

From here, a lot of our further additions are grouped by game of origin, first being Darunia and Ruto from Ocarina of Time, largely acting as the Goron and Zora reps of this game. Darunia wields his giant hammer, which he smashes with, swings around, and spins with it, while also stomping, creating lava spouts, rolling up into a ball, butt bashing, throwing a flaming boulder, and attacking with a fire hand. Ruto, on the other hand, slashes with her fins, creates whirlpools and water orbs, dives into pools to teleport, creates a sphere of water, summons tidal waves, and rides small waves to get around.

For Twilight Princess, we got Agitha (of all characters), Midna, and Zant, later getting the Twili form of Midna as DLC. Agitha attacks mainly with her parasol and summoning giant bugs out of light. She can float in the air, ride a giant butterfly, send out a spray of butterflies, summon a giant rhinoceros beetle to gore you with its horn, summon a tornado, and grow butterfly wings of her own. Zant, on the other hand, spins around a lot, stomps like he does, slashes with his scimitars, calls up Zant heads, goes into a berserker rage, grows gigantic and stomps on you, attacks with a giant hand, and throws a giant energy ball.

Midna in her imp form mostly attacks with her hair, slamming, punching, and grabbing you with it. She can also summon a wolf to attack, create portals, whip up a dark whirlwind, and take on her big spidery form from the climax. In her Twili form, she constantly has the Mirror of Twilight circling around her, which can fire off a light beam and throw energy balls, and she can also summon a hand, a giant cannon and a bridge, throw a twilight sphere, call up more wolves, and throw a shattering tear. She can also summon twilight itself whenever.

Next, for Skyward Sword, we got Fi and Ghirahim, the two main sword spirits. Fi could become a sword, naturally, but she also had a number of dancing moves, like a spin kick, a pirouette, and a flying spin. She could also create a flower pattern on the ground, call Din, Nayru, and Farore (the goddesses) to help her, and fire off a triforce blast. Ghirahim was armed with his Demon Blade, with which he could slash, shoot a beam, throw his floating knives, teleport, levitate, bring down a force field ceiling, summon demons, and create a connecting line between himself and one opponent.

Tingle and Skull Kid joined Young Link from Majora's Mask. Tingle could attack with a map and a bag of rupees, inflate the balloon on his back, bounce and roll on the balloon, toss out balloon bombs, and smack you with a trophy of himself. Skull Kid could use Tatl and Tael to attack, perform a spinning rush, summon a puppet with his Ocarina, fire a laser beam from his face, summon cyclones, and meteors, and call down the moon.

Besides Tetra and Toon Link, King Daphnes and Medli also joined us from Wind Waker. King Daphnes used his boat's sail mostly, striking with it in various ways and making it spin around, but he could also take on his boat form, summon up a tidal wave, splash people with his wake, and strike them with his mast, as well as call up a whirlwind. Medli of course could use her sacred harp to fire beams of light and summon the Mark of Din, but she could also fly, using her wings to blow gusts of wind and whip up tornados.

Marin was a rare one from all the way back in Link's Awakening. She was equipped with the bell that acted as one of the instruments to awaken the Wind Fish. She could use it to attack with a bubble, a water spout, or a shockwave of sound, or she could simply summon the Wind Fish himself. Ravio and Yuga also joined us from A Link Between Worlds. Ravio made use of his hammer, as well as a number of other items he sold you, including the giant bomb, the Ice Rod, the Gale Boomerang, and bomb arrows. He could also just attack with his bag. Yuga mainly used his brush and portraits to attack, smacking you with the frames, traveling between portraits, making them explode, and summoning magic circles. He could also use Ganon's trident to summon lightning.

From here, we have a set of brand new characters created specifically for this game. The most important of these are the young mage Lana and our new villain Cia. We eventually learn that Cia and Lana were once the same person, a sage that kept the history of Hyrule throughout the ages. She ended up falling in love with the recurring hero Link, despite his intertwined destiny with Zelda. A sealed Ganondorf used this frustration to twist her heart and corrupt her. Cia cast all the goodness from her heart, which then became Lana, and worked to break apart Link and Zelda's destiny.

Lana comes with three movesets: her spellbook, her spear (basically nature magic and a moveset I really think was originally intended for Saria), and a summoning gate that she can use to bring monsters onto the field. With her spellbook, she was mostly a barrier maiden, summoning protective walls that she could ride on as a cube and hop between, but she could also summon whirlwinds and lightning, and throw out a flurry of pages. With her spear, she could sprout trees, including the Great Deku Tree and the baby Deku Tree, use a Deku Leaf and shoot Deku Seeds from a slingshot, and use water, ice, and wind here and there. With her summoning gate, she could call in King Dodongo, Manhandla, Gohma, and Argorok (most of which do most of the basics you expect from them).

Cia acts as our main villain for the first half of the game until Ganondorf takes over (surprise, surprise). She also has two minions, Volga and Wizzro, and I can't help shake the feeling that they were originally supposed to be Veran, Onox, and Vaati. There's a lot of similarities, but I couldn't tell you what happened. I know Capcom helped with those, maybe there were licensing issues? Anyway, Cia has a scepter and a whip, and she can summon tornadoes and waves of dark energy, throw energy balls, summon Dark Links, use a summoning gate, and create a grid where explosions go off.

Her minions Volga and Wizzro at least seem to generally represent draconic and spooky monster-type enemies respectively. Volga has a human and dragon form, the human form armed with a sword. He can breathe fire, fly with his wings, change just his arm to slash, create an eruption of flame, and splash flames around himself. Wizzro, on the other hand, can fire ghostly orbs and a horizontal beam, move through pools of shadow, grab you with Wallmaster hands, call of demonic shadow beasts to attack you, and create dark explosions.

Last, but not least, the Legends DLC gave us one more brand-new fighter: basically, Link as a girl. Though, strictly in canon, they are not the same person. Linkle is a ditzy girl from a nearby village who'd been raised by her grandmother to think she was the legendary hero, and when Cia's plan started, she set off on an adventure of her own. She gained two movesets, based on crossbows and Pegasus boots respectively. With the crossbows, she could fire off regular bolts in multiple directions, as well as bomb arrows, and she could perform rising kicks, fiery kicks, dive kicks. With the Pegasus Boots, she could perform a roundhouse kick, a somersault, diving kicks, running knee hits, backflips, forward kicks, lightning kicks, and spin kicks. If you couldn't guess, she's VERY leggy. She also uses a Cucco to hover.

And that's really it. There is also a giant Cucco you can play as, but it's basically a joke character, and you can only really peck and flutter around with it. From there, Hylian Soldiers and Gorons make up the bulk of your allies, while Bokoblins, Moblins, Lizalfos, Stalfos, Poes, Bulblins, Deku Babas, Gibdoes, Aeralfos, Darknuts, Beamos, ReDeads, and Dinolfos make up the enemy armies and King Dodongo, Gohma, Manhandla, Argorok, and the Imprisoned act as bosses.

It's actually kind of stupidly difficult to find a good listing of the different battlefields in this game, despite there being very clear and distinct maps. Here's what I did manage to figure out though. We have Hyrule Castle, Hyrule Field, Eldin Caves, Faron Woods, the Valley of Seers (where Cia hangs out), Skyloft, the Sealed Grounds, Death Mountain, the Water Temple, Twilight Field, the Palace of Twilight, the Temple of the Sacred Sword, the Temple of Souls, Gerudo Desert, and Ganon's Tower. The Forsaken Fortress and the Wind and Earth Temples from Wind Waker were also added as DLC. I . . . think that's all of them.

And now, I think we're good. Yes? Yes. Here's what we've got so far:

Characters:

Link: Sword, slash, swipe, spin attack, thrust, spike, sword beams, Master Sword, Fire Rod, magic spells, fiery blasts, flamethrower, pillars of flame, dragon, Gauntlets, ball and chain, burrow, boulder, ground pound, pillar, Spinner, more spinners, spikes, lightning, tornado, tower

Great Fairy: bottle, fly, stomp, splash, magic circle, bombs, energy balls, whirlpools, Levias, moon

Epona: swing her head, leap, charge, kick, stomp

Young Link: sword, slash, sword beams, spin attack, Pegasus boots, Fierce Deity, giant slash, Triforce blast

Toon Link: sword, slash, stab, spin attack, hurricane, Deku Leaf, Sand Wand, ride sand block, spirit train, cannon

Zelda: rapier, slash, stab, light magic, balls of light, light arrows, float, triforce blast, Wind Waker, vortex, cyclone, lightning, musical notes, Dominion Rod, large statue with a hammer, large cylinder

Sheik: harp, whirlwind, shield of water, meteor, fire circle, wave of lightning, shadow vortex, blast of light, teleport, kunai

Tetra: cutlass, blunderbuss, slash, boiling water, triforce blast

Toon Zelda: spirit, Phantom armor, slash, thrust, stomp, punch, swing her arms around, roll up into a ball, explosions of light

Impa: giant blade, slash, dash, spin jump, stab into the ground, big ball of water, rain kunai, naginata, throw it, explosions, wall of flames, circle of giant naginatas

Ganondorf: great sword, slash, slam, fiery blast, ball of dark magic, Beast Ganon, lightning, trident, strike, thrust, slam, throw it, spin

Beast Ganon: claw, pound the ground, lunge, shockwaves, red lightning

Darunia: giant hammer, smash, swing around, spin, stomp, lava spout, roll into a ball, butt bash, flaming boulder, fire hand

Ruto: slash with her fins, whirlpools, water orbs, dive into pools to teleport, sphere of water, tidal waves, ride small waves

Agitha: parasol, float, giant butterfly, spray of butterflies, giant rhinoceros beetle, tornado, grow butterfly wings

Zant: spin, stomp, slash with scimitars, Zant heads, berserker rage, grow gigantic, giant hand, energy ball

Midna: hair, slam, punch, grab, wolf, portals, dark whirlwind, spidery form

Twili Midna: Mirror of Twilight, light beam, energy balls, hand, cannon, bridge, twilight sphere, wolves, shattering tear, summon twilight

Fi: become a sword, spin kick, pirouette, flying spin, flower pattern, Din, Nayru, and Farore, triforce blast

Ghirahim: Demon Blade, slash, shoot beam, floating knives, teleport, levitate, force field ceiling, summon demons, connecting line

Tingle: map, bag of rupees, balloon, bounce, roll, balloon bombs, trophy

Skull Kid: Tatl and Tael, spinning rush, puppet, laser beam from his face, cyclones, meteors, call down the moon.

King Daphnes: boat's sail, making it spin, boat form, tidal wave, splash, mast, whirlwind

Medli: sacred harp, beams of light, Mark of Din, fly, gusts of wind, tornados.

Marin: bell, bubble, water spout, shockwave of sound, Wind Fish

Ravio: hammer, giant bomb, Ice Rod, Gale Boomerang, bomb arrows, bag

Yuga: brush, portraits, frames, travel between portraits, explode, magic circles, Ganon's trident, lightning

Lana: spellbook, protective walls, ride on a cube, hop between walls, whirlwinds, lightning, flurry of pages, spear, sprout trees, Great Deku Tree, baby Deku Tree, Deku Leaf, Deku Seeds, water, ice, wind, summoning gate

Cia: scepter, whip, tornadoes, waves of dark energy, energy balls, Dark Links, summoning gate, grid of explosions

Volga: human form, dragon form, sword, fire, fly, dragon arm, eruption of flame, splash flames

Wizzro: ghostly orbs, horizontal beam, move through pools of shadow, Wallmaster hands, demonic shadow beasts, dark explosions

Linkle: crossbows, regular bolts, bomb arrows, rising kicks, fiery kicks, dive kicks, Pegasus Boots, roundhouse kick, somersault, diving kicks, running knee hits, backflips, forward kicks, lightning kicks, spin kicks, Cucco

Cucco: peck, flutter

Hylian Soldier

Goron

Bokoblin

Moblin

Lizalfos

Stalfos

Poe

Bulblin

Deku Baba

Gibdo

Aeralfos

Darknut

ReDead

Dinolfos

King Dodongo

Gohma

Manhandla

Argorok

Bosses:

King Dodongo

Gohma

Manhandla

Argorok

The Imprisoned

Giant Cucco

Beast Ganon

Stages:

Hyrule Castle

Hyrule Field

Eldin Caves

Faron Woods

Valley of Seers

Skyloft

Sealed Grounds

Death Mountain

Water Temple

Twilight Field

Palace of Twilight

Temple of the Sacred Sword

Temple of Souls

Gerudo Desert

Ganon's Tower

Forsaken Fortress

Wind and Earth Temples

Thanks for reading! That took forever to write. Tomorrow, we do it all again with Age of Calamity!