Things don’t fare any better with multiplayer, with constant dips below 15 FPS. The game will often struggle loading in textures and suffer significant framerate dips on specific levels and/or using certain screen-clearing attacks, and even at its best Age of Calamity is only able to reach 30 FPS, often dropping into the 20s. The decision to reuse the Breath of the Wild engine is one that presumably saved a ton of time bringing over character models and environments, but it becomes clear pretty quickly that it wasn’t designed for fast-paced action. On the other hand, there are some less-than-desirable aesthetic elements that do negatively affect gameplay. It’s a nice little touch that admittedly doesn’t do a whole lot to impact the gameplay, but adds to the immersion factor. Rather than simply displaying missions, shops, and the like through drop-down menus as in previous Warriors titles, Age of Calamity provides an overview map of Hyrule and dots it with various side activities and battles. Right off the bat, there are some really nice aesthetic touches here that make Age of Calamity feel like a prequel to Breath of the Wild rather than just a BotW-themed Warriors game.
Is this mashup of series a match made in heaven, or yet another disastrous calamity to befall Hyrule? Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity fills the role of the former, focusing on events set 100 years before Breath of the Wild, but played through a more traditional Warriors gameplay format. Perhaps nothing solidifies that more than it being the first Zelda title to receive both a direct prequel and sequel. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild has certainly been one of the most influential titles of the past decade.
By Paul Broussard, posted on 04 December 2020 / 4,252 Views