 Hello. Hi. To start this video, Kim and I both have something really cool. I have designed, with help from Pixel Empire and a really talented artist, a Back to the Future inspired beat-em-ups poster. What did you make, Kim? I might have made a shirt. Kim designed a Christmas t-shirt, or sweater. Oh, it's both. I think. Logie and Siamy, and Logie's decorating Siamy like he's a Christmas tree, and it goes exactly as you would expect it to go. So if you want to buy a Christmas t-shirt and support Kim's art, you can do that. There is a link down below. Or, if you want to buy a really cool poster, you can do that too. Either of these will really help support the channel, and no matter what you buy, as long as you grab it before December 10th, it is guaranteed to get here before Christmas. It would make our Christmas. No pressure. No pressure. Ah, because I'm launching the poster today on Cyber Monday, Pixel Empire is already doing 35% off all their posters if you use code CM2020. 35% off on the first day. Get these while they're hot. In fact, they're so hot that even Kim and I don't have one yet because they only went up today. Buy them. Just buy it. All right, cool. Thanks, bye. Are you going to get up, or what? Really? Because it's been almost two weeks and you still haven't reviewed that new Zelda game. Whatever. I don't really even like Zelda that much anyway. Oh, really? All right, point taken. Oh, Warriors is complicated. It's a prequel to Breath of the Wild, but in a completely different genre of video game. It is canon to the new story of Link and Zelda, but it also completely changes everything we learned in Breath of the Wild. Every Zelda fan worth their salt should absolutely adore the story presented within Age of Calamity. However, I wouldn't blame any hardcore Zelda fan for not enjoying the hack and slash micromanagement style of gameplay we've never seen in the main series before. Now, I'm not counting the 2014 Hyrule Warriors, as that game didn't tie into any canon Zelda story. It was a standalone spin-off that quickly became one of the best-selling games on the Wii U. Are we what? The heck is a Wii U? So it's no surprise that the Breath of the Wild's director approached Koei Tecmo with the idea to make a new Hyrule Warriors about the events of the Great Calamity, which was not shown properly in Breath of the Wild. Koei worked closely with Nintendo on the gameplay, graphics, world, and dialogue, even sharing the original Breath of the Wild assets and art to create a game that felt authentic within the universe, and they did just that. Now, I'm not sure whose idea it was to take an egg, put legs on it, and make it a main character of the game, but, you know, whoever that was, I love you. Good job. Alright, team. This is the first Age of Calamity new character ideas meeting. Excited to be here. Good morning. It's 9pm, Greg, but thank you. Thank you for being here with us. Yeah. Okay, well, first thing on the agenda, everyone. Now, I know you all already know we're all very excited that Nintendo wants us to come up with a new character for the Zelda universe. Okay, this is a big deal. This character is going to be sort of the savior of the world, the other hero of the game, a time traveler, yeah, a pretty cool guy, or gal. So, who has ideas? Hey-o! Yes, yes, Greg? This thing. Yep, that's just an egg. Now, you think Nintendo is going to want the new main hero of their story to be an egg? Yes. Alright, does anyone else have any other ideas? I thought this video would be easy to make spoiler free, because for the most part, we've all already seen how this game ends in Breath of the Wild flashbacks, right? But as it turns out, we're going to be dodging a ton of spoilers here. You know spoilers? I can't... No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm not. I wouldn't... I'll leave! I'll leave right now! If you're doing spoilers, I'll click off the video. Dude! Relax! Every time. I am going to be dodging a ton of spoilers here. If you felt like you didn't have enough story in the first game, worry no more. There is so much here and it's amazing. It's a fairly long game, and before and after every main mission, there's a big, stimulating chunk of the story. Encouraging you to play one more chapter and one more chapter just to see what happens next. Each part is wonderfully animated, structured, voice-acted, and at times, action-packed, with a load of incredibly choreographed fight sequences, heart-stopping twists and the occasional lighthearted fun. All up! If you take just the cutscenes and splice them together, you're looking at what amounts to a two-hour-long Zelda movie, and a good one. Over before, have we had this much backstory and lore in a Zelda series. I would say it's the one thing that's always been missing from Zelda games, not that Zelda has ever needed a huge story to be enjoyable. But oh boy, if it doesn't add so much to an already incredible experience... What about the gameplay? It kinda...it doesn't really look like Zelda, it kinda... Yeah! Yeah! I'm getting to it! Look. In this story, I can't stop fixating on what it means for Breath of the Wild 2, heck, what it means for Zelda as a franchise, and the complete inner Zelda nerd needs to get it all off my chest at the end of this video. We're gonna be talking about some spoilers... Ho-hey! No spoilers! Yes! Okay! Alright. Dynasty Warriors. Let's just move along. Dynasty Warriors, a series of games nine instalments long, first released in 1997. For some reason, I don't know why. At some point during the height of their popularity, they started pumping out spin-off titles set in other franchises, but utilising the core Dynasty Warriors gameplay premise of his 10,000 enemies. Good luck. It's kinda like when Pop-Tarts got so popular, they put Master Chief on the box, except actually not like that at all. We saw One Piece, Fire Emblem, even Persona getting their own versions. And now, of course, Zelda. Each mission plays out in a somewhat modified section of the original Breath of the Wild world. You just start wailing on any enemy that gets in your way, racking up hundreds of KO's like Mike Tyson. If Mike Tyson was a little elf boy. You have light and heavy attacks you can string together as well as bombs, Stasis, Magnesis and Freezy Freeze. The best part is that there's like a bazillion playable and unlockable characters, each with extremely different movesets. Literally, no two characters feel the same at all. Each character could perform wickpoint and special attacks for a devastating damage. Link is by far the most versatile character, as you can discover tons of different weapons from swords to spears and boomerangs and more, drastically changing his gameplay style. Everybody has their favorite, my favorite is a spoiler and I can't talk about it. Don't! I won't, okay. At this point, I know what you're thinking, wood, it's getting pretty late. I should probably order Uber Eats before all the restaurants close near me. Also, is that all there is to the gameplay? And to that, I have to say, consider getting wings, because wing restaurants are usually open later than other places. But also, now there's a ton more to the gameplay, look. So again, each mission is set in a different location. And if you glance at your map, you'll usually see multiple mission goals, as well as enemy and friendly bases and more. You need to keep an eye on the battlefield at all times, making sure your allied units don't need any help, or just checking in with where your other characters are, as most of the time you can have up to four playable characters running around the map. The cool part, is that you can switch between them on the fly, instantly gaining control over them wherever they are. You can even micromanage them, telling them where to go on the map if someone needs help, or if you want to move them to the next mission goal ahead of time, or bring them over to you if you need extra help taking down a boss. There's no shame in that, some of them get pretty hard. When you get into the flow of controlling the battlefield, it can be an extremely rewarding experience, and gives you more to think about than just wailing on the next souped up Lionel. Honestly, with this story being what it is, a huge war inside Hyrule. I don't think the traditional Zelda gameplay could really have done the story justice. The ability to have these characters slash through hundreds of enemies on a living, breathing ecosystem of a battlefield really adds something to the story in a way that only a Dynasty Warrior style game could. Alright team, why are we all back here again? Oh yeah, it's an emergency meeting. Oh, what's going on? So I'm writing the script for this video right now, and yeah, I have nothing funny for this part of the video. So we have to think of a funny skit or gag to put...here. No, no, no, no, no, no. This is the skit, this. This isn't funny. Well, I never said it was funny. And look, Greg. I broke my egg. Alright, that was pretty funny. Yeah, I wrote that. So gross. There is one other element to this game that makes it so addicting. Between missions, you find yourself staring at the map of Hyrule. As you play through the story, it will unlock more and more icons on the map for you to interact with. These can range from side missions, character upgrades, shop to buy supplies or parts, recipes to aid you in battle, a blacksmith to upgrade your weapons by merging them with other weapons and so much more. It seems never ending and by end game, this map is lit up like a Christmas tree. But there's something so rewarding about checking these icons off the list and turning them blue. You get rewarded the more you complete with huge supply bonuses, hidden items or levels and even outfits for Link and sometimes a new character. Each icon will need specific parts or supplies to unlock it. So if you want that hot new upgrade for Link, you'll have to figure out what you're missing and then check the missions on the map for their rewards and see if it's what you need. This encourages you to play or replay missions over and over again. I hate to sound like a broken record here, but just judging by the pacing of the video and the fact that you've talked about most of the game, it feels like we're getting close to S.P.O. Yeah, I do need to do this now because it's just it's just too freaking cool not to talk about. Here's your warning. Skip to this part of the video if you want to avoid all I know it. I know it. I know it. Yes, spoilers. Go, go, go here. All right, good. He's gone. So I'll hear him, but I'm about to give away the ending of the game. You've been crying about this the whole video. Yeah, I mean, I probably won't even play the game. I'll just watch the cutscenes online or something. You are literally the worst kind of person. OK, all right. So time travel. Look, I'm going to say it. I was right. I think kind of maybe. I've been saying it for years that Breath of the Wild 2 will have a much darker tone. Kind of like how Ocarina of Time was all fun, lighthearted adventure, but then Majora's Mask became super dark. My first indication that I may have been right was when the Breath of the Wild 2 teaser trailer released. It clearly has a very dark tone. But now we're seeing time travel reintroduced into the Zelda franchise, just like in Majora's Mask that primarily dealt with time loops. Coincidence? I think not. So in Breath of the Wild, we weren't told much about what happened during the War of Calamity, but we knew how it ended. They lost. Everyone, including Link, died to protect Zelda. Then the Calamity raged on for 100 years until Link arose from sleepy time. Age of Calamity, a prequel, starts how you would expect. With the incoming threat of Calamity Ganon and Zelda doing her best to stop it. However, curiously, there was a little adorable egg guy, who time travel warps in at the start of the story. And this is our first sign that something different is happening here. Without giving too much away, everything begins to change, with the help of Egbert and more familiar faces who appear from the future in the nick of time. All of this extra help eventually leads to Hyrule becoming free of Ganon. Age of Calamity ends, not with war, but with peace. As our old friends return to their timeline, suddenly the future events that took place within Breath of the Wild seem impossible now, as Link is very much alive and Ganon is not. This, my friends, is where my head starts to spin. Let's assume that Breath of the Wild 2 treats this game as Ganon. That would mean that at the end of the first game, when we see Link and Zelda set out on a new adventure, they must be standing out in hopes of finding a way to stop the Calamity from ever happening in the first place. Which makes sense. Because think about it, sure, we all helped stop Ganon at the end of Breath of the Wild, but that was after 100 long years of corruption. The land of Hyrule had become a barren wasteland of the fallen population with very few survivors. It would make sense that Zelda would want to find a way to change what she had failed at, so Egbert, or Terakko, adorable, and want like a little robot BB-8 version of him, like remote controlled, so Terakko, who we all know was built by Zelda, is sent back in time with the keys to help defeat Ganon, a device that ultimately saves her father, the light that helps restore the divine beasts, and the key to sealing away Ganon, all things they didn't have without Terakko. Also, the friends that Link made on his adventure through Breath of the Wild were sent back to help their ancestors and family, either during the events of Breath of the Wild 2, or in between the two games. Link and Zelda must have succeeded in finding a way to visit the past, restoring Hyrule to its former glory. And here's another reason why that would be a great idea for the sequel. One of the biggest complaints that people had about Breath of the Wild was that the map was barren. Without many people or towns to visit, and a lot of that was due to the Calamity. How do you fix that in a sequel that is set directly after the last game? How do you put in new towns or bring people back to life by stopping the Calamity ever happening in the first place? It would give players a whole new Hyrule to explore. Or maybe Nintendo will just ignore Age of Calamity and do their own thing, who knows? Pfft... Dude, you just blew my freaking mind, right? So Zelda was actually Master Chief all the long? What? No... You weren't listening at all! Oh, Hyrule Warriors Age of Calamity could very well have just changed the Zelda franchise forever. But also changing the way we experience Zelda games. With this huge animated voice-acted cutscenes that expand across two hours of storytelling, I would be surprised at this point if we were to go into Breath of the Wild 2 and only receive snippets of the story like we did in the first. We know these characters now. We know their backstories, their ambitions, their personalities, and we want to learn more. We want to see more. Hyrule Warriors Age of Calamity did something I thought was impossible. It somehow made me even more excited for Zelda. Gameplay-wise, it might not be for every Zelda fan. But story-wise, it's one of the best things us fans have ever been given. Uh, thanks for watching the video. I really appreciate it. Again, if you could check out the new merch, links down below. And then tweet at both of us when you're wearing it or holding it. Show us what you bought. Yeah, yeah, whatever. Thanks!