Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity

Done a few missions so far and enjoying it. Rushing to unlock the characters first then I'll focus on weapon builds.

I'm keeping notes on the mechanics. Already found some stuff with Link that I didn't see in character guides. Will update here once I have enough notes.

Started playing Revali and Great Fairy. Really unique characters.

I'm going to wait until I have all the upgrades before writing any mechanics stuff but I'm still taking notes.

Like the windows where you can get into Link's air slowmo bow shots. I don't have all the hits in his string yet so I'm waiting to get all of those (for him and everyone else) so I don't have to be in and out of the training room. The way you get these upgrades is different from other Musou games. You have to clear these quests on the map. Some are just providing a list of materials but I don't always have them.

Finally close to unlocking everything. Took quite a while. There are many stages where you're forced to play as other characters, many who I hate. They were underleveled but you can level up with just rupees.

Then I realized I could put it on easy mode and breeze through most of them. Once I have everything I'll switch to Apocalyptic which is the DLC difficulty. Currently working through the DLC content now.

Wow. Just realized I've been playing for 116 hours.

A big chunk of that would've been unlocking everything. Since then I've been farming weapons and seals.

> 116 hours
Holy shit.

I assume you still like it then?

Yeah.

I'll probably be building weapons for a while. Then might write some mechanics stuff for the characters I like.

Farming weapons sucks.

The only good thing is it doesn't matter what difficulty you're on.

What sucks is that the base attack and and seals are random. One of the DLC stages has the chance to drop 80+ base attack weapons and is short. You'll usually get more weapons for the character you're playing as and party members if the stage allows them.

Nothing can be done about seals. Seems you'll get more weapons and highest tier seals by playing stages during blood moons or high level stages.

Musou games often have quite a few characters so you see a lot of tier lists posted. Some place Great Fairies low while others in S.

I'd put her high, but not sure if A or S. I've built the weapon I want and playing through the story missions on Apocalyptic (DLC difficulty) to fully test her.

Her weapon is focused on attack speed but not for regular attacks. It's for one of their unique attacks that's a totally broken projectile. Dodge canceling prevents fairy switching. Did first 4 stages and zoned everything out.

Found a weird glitch too. When you fire the projectiles, if you move the camera like say to the left, and enemies will be hit even though nothing touched them. They weren't in its path. I set off an exploding barrel like this.

Her large size is definitely an issue. Some placed her low for this alone which I find to be bullshit. You have perfect dodge, her EX attack is quick to get out (basically Magnet) and that fact you KNOW she's large means you should account for it. You really have to think about positioning because her size means her dodge doesn't go far.

No, it's not just moving the camera. Seems you need to be dodging too. Makes sense since I'm always dodge canceling that move.

I'm in chapter 3 on Apocalyptic. So far it has been easy to destroy enemies from range. Her unique is so good it bypasses the mechanics. I barely use rune counters.

But I've taken a few hits here and there and the damage is extremely high. Later enemies will likely one shot. I'm not using any food buffs either.

Continuing from the Wolong thread:

By mashy and mindless I mostly meant enemies that don't seem to put much of a fight, but judging by what you've said about Hyrule and DQ Heroes where enemies put up a fight I guess I was wrong.

It's just that seeing videos where the players are killing so many enemies at such ease makes it look like it's more of a power fantasy where you don't face much resistance.

>enemies don't put up a fight
Basic mobs don't tend to in most of the ones I've played. They're there to obstruct, hurt your allies, take over your bases. They can hurt you on higher difficulties but don't expect an NG fight. Think of it more like a tide you're pushing back. Some of the games have a morale meter so you're encouraged to take bases to raise your morale and stop the flow of enemy troops. Sadly HW AoC, while having outposts, doesn't do anything with them. There's no gate captains like HW1.

There's usually more than one way to fail in these games that has nothing to do with dying. Time limits, escorts, protecting a target. DQH had quite a few 'tower defense' missions.

The 'officer' types and large creatures, will assault you constantly. In HW AoC they can drop you in a few hits. Multiple tough types at once are NASTY.

Personally I don't fully agree with the argument that just because something is easy, it has less depth or whatever. Okami is one of my favorite games of all time and it's really easy but has some of the best mechanics and I'm still coming up with stuff this many years later. But you could win with nothing but basic melee and bare minimum brush techniques.

The cool thing about the spinoffs is they're usually co-developed by another dev. So you get all the mechanics from another series combined with the Musou formula.

I've played some of Okami a few years ago (another game in my backlog) and really enjoyed it despite the low difficulty due to its fun and unique mechanics so I agree with you on that part.

I usually never watch more than 5-10 minutes of gameplay before trying games (same thing I did with Ninja Gaiden and God Hand, only watched 5 minutes of gameplay before trying them) so perhaps it led me to some wrong assumptions.

Which Musou game would you recommend to start with in case I'll be interested? Not necessarily a beginner friendly game, just a good game with fun mechanics.

NG and God Hand are probably the only action games where I still worry about the regular enemies.

>which to start with
I guess I'll just recommend the ones I like. DQH1, HW1, HW AoC, Fire Emblem Warriors, Berserk: Band of the Hawk.
I have One Piece Pirate Warriors 4 but haven't played it much. Seems good though.

I don't have a huge amount of time with Berserk. Beat the story once years ago but was playing other stuff. Been meaning to get back to it.

Note that they have RPG stuff.

Finished my Apocalyptic run with Great Fairy. While I haven't tested others under these conditions, I can still say with complete confidence that she should be placed in a high tier. Possibly the highest. Anyone placing her low has no idea what they're talking about.

Her size got me hit a few times and on Apocalyptic you take huge damage from anything. Though these times were totally avoidable. Like I was going up some village path and a group of Octoroks popped out of the ground and shot me. If I had remembered they were there I wouldn't have got hit.

I died once. And this was in a weird situation that had never come up before. So I was moving along another village path and due to Great Fairy's size, there was almost no space on either side of her. Ahead was a group of Bokoblins, your standard enemy type in this game. Sometimes they are in a formation where the one in the middle blows a horn and the rest charge forward with their spears. The groups that will do this look no different from the rest at a distance so I was going to just shoot them. But then I saw the horn blower and decided to just block.

I'd recently taken huge damage from a group of archers so I was being extra careful. So they charge into her guard and they keep going. Her guard pushed them to either side and they grinded between the wall and her body. Then I started taking continuous damage because they'd bypassed my guard. Died before I could process what was happening.

While her size made this possible, it was a situation that could've been avoided with ease. So I don't consider this death to count towards any negative towards her.

In this run I didn't use any food, elemental rods, or change characters. I ran around the field doing everything myself.
I was using a weapon built for attack speed so I could fire her unique much faster.

I mainly spammed the projectile unique, which is pretty broken. Bypasses the weak point mechanics by just doing so much damage when dodge canceled and fired continuously.

If she didn't have this move, she wouldn't be as high on the tier list. I'm not sure where she'd be. But I don't have to worry about that.

I won't be doing runs with every character. They all have unique playstyles but most I have no interest in as they don't suit me. I plan to run Mipha, Revali, Link, Terrako, Battle Tested Guardian, Zelda, Impa and maybe Sidon and Urbosa. One of Teba's arrow attacks could be interesting with the right weapon build but I hate everything else he does.

I'm at 140 hours now. A lot of that is from weapon farming and building though.

Here's some notes on Link's air bow unique attack.

-More arrows are fired when in the air
-Slow effect while aiming.
-Midair attack seals work for bow. Built a weapon like this but it's not great.
-More focused shots the longer you hold it making it better for weak points.


*Air shot attack windows
There are far more windows than any of the guides say. There are many points where Link leaves the ground briefly.

>Back dodge
This is a back flip.

>Cryonis launch.
The block comes from below and boosts Link into the air.

>Dropping from Cryonis block.
After launch you can just land on top of it. Dropping off counts as in the air.
Doesn't seem to be any other places you can drop from like this.

There are two similar cases but you aren't free to just walk off. First is when getting on a Talus. After stunning them and they fall you get a prompt to jump up. After a certain amount of time passes they'll get up and you'll kind of slide off and drop. You can pull out the bow while falling from here.

Second is really high ledges with a button prompt to jump down. Link will jump off and drop, and pull out the paraglider before hitting the ground. From here it's the normal paraglider rules.

>Wall jump
>Paraglider
>C2 launcher
>After or canceling any air attacks.

>Third normal slash on single hand swords.
He does a little jumping flip forward while slashing. You can wait until the attack connects and still have air time to pull out the bow.

>C3, when he flips before Shield Surf.

>C4 extra charge.
At any point his feet leave the ground. This move ends with you in the air but it boosts forward and rises, so you can use the bow at any point.

What I mean by 'extra charge' is a property unique to Link. After any of his strong attacks, you can keep holding the button to get an extra strong attack. Each strong ender has its own.

>C5. He spins up into the air.
>Dashing heavy attack (which is also Shield Surf).

>Last hit of basic combo string.
For this last attack he jumps and does a helmbreaker.

That's all for Link at present. Not going to write huge guides at the moment. Just things I don't see mentioned anywhere.

Some Great Fairy stuff.
https://twitter.com/Birdman96813752/status/1538336501410385922?t=E5xfGZb_87CcOe8bEBkRhg&s=19

Still working on weapon builds. Getting really boring repeating the same few stages.

>I guess I'll just recommend the ones I like. DQH1, HW1, HW AoC, Fire Emblem Warriors, Berserk: Band of the Hawk.
I have One Piece Pirate Warriors 4 but haven't played it much. Seems good though.

Remove HW1 and Fire Emblem Warriors (including Three Hopes). Put in some time and didn't like them at all. That doesn't mean they're bad or someone else won't like them.

>Doesn't seem to be any other places you can drop from like this.
I mentioned the Talus and the ledges you can paraglide from. Found another. There's a stage that has a small swamp with little pieces of raised land and short bridges only just above the water. This isn't deep water. You can walk over it.
The tiny drop from some of those bridges is enough that you're in the air for like half a second and can pull out the bow.

Link shield surf stuff for those not on Twitter.
https://twitter.com/Birdman96813752/status/1540485544928346113?t=8WUyiH1wyfkRI_pOmFMBOw&s=19

Working on Impa now. Her unique and certain moves put a symbol on enemies. Killing or using strong attacks absorbs it. You can hold three. These give her clones. Each copies anything she does and change some of her strong attacks. They also affect her super. The more clones you have the more damage it does. With clones out you can build meter super fast. I'm working on weapons for her on and off. One will be all special damage and another will be special charge rate.

In addition to working on mechanics notes I'm always looking for skips/glitches that would be useful in speedrunning. No skips have been found yet.

Looks like the devs have really taken precautions here. The invisible walls are higher than Link's Cryonis launch, and any ledges you can jump from with a prompt and paraglide down take away your control. At least that may hint that the walls aren't infinitely high. Or maybe they are and the devs just didn't want us flying over large areas.

I had an idea of stacking Cryonis by getting two characters who have the type they can get on top of. Only ones I know of are Link, Great Fairy and Impa. Ruled out Great Fairy because she takes up all the space on her block.

The idea was to use a block under the other character to get both up then switch characters and use the other's block and hope it stacks.

Didn't work because when you switch characters the block vanishes instantly. It doesn't even shatter or run out of time. It's just gone. Also, it seems very difficult to get the block under another character. I managed to once but it was near a wall. Usually they just get pushed aside. Then when I switched and the block vanished so it didn't matter.

There used to be a trick with Urbosa where you could infinitely stay in the air by repeatedly doing her heavy attack. All you had to do was wall jump to get some air (her only way of launching herself). They patched it out along with Great Fairy's infinitely stacking defense down debuff.