Review: Hyrule Warriors – Age of Imprisonment

A Musou Zelda mash-up, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment kicks off Nintendo’s festive offering with a fun interpretation of the celebrated franchise’s lore.

A Musou game is an action genre built around large-scale battles where you clear hundreds of enemies at a time using simple, fast combo chains. Instead of one-on-one encounters, the focus is on sweeping through crowds, managing elite opponents and responding to constant objectives across big, active battlefields.

Originating from Koei Tecmo’s Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors series, the term “Musou” means “unmatched”, capturing the power fantasy of taking down entire armies on your own. My first taste of this genre was Dynasty Warriors 3 on my PS2 over 20 years ago and I haven’t actually played any on subsequent platforms.

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment is exclusive to the Nintendo Switch 2 and is a canonical prequel to Tears of the Kingdom, asking you to trade open-world exploration for large-scale battlefield encounters where Zelda is central, not incidental. This is not Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom in structure, but it is still rooted in that world and familiar enough for fans who want more story without the pressure of full open-world design.

Tears of the Kingdom is one of my favourite games of all time, so I was pretty excited to jump into this. There were two earlier entries in the franchise (not counting all the remasters and ports) but this is the first time I’m reviewing one of the Hyrule Warriors games.

Hyrule Warriors Gameplay

If you come from Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom, expect familiar faces, abilities and items, but the pacing shifts to Musou-style action.

Combat is built around fast combos, crowd clearing and objective-driven maps. You control multiple characters, each with their own rhythm, and the game teaches you quickly when to use crowd control, when to break guard and when to trigger strong attacks for elite enemies. Sync Strikes add a bit of cinematic flair without getting in the way of the loop.

New Zonai mechanics give you field manipulation tools that change encounters, and constructs play a more active role in shaping each mission.

The game also includes split-screen co-op and gameshare co-op, and these are well implemented. Co-op is the most enjoyable way to play because it changes the way objective chains unfold. Missions become more tactical when two players are moving across the map in sync.

It was such a thrill to play through the game with my kid so you might need to minus a point from my score if you don’t have a little gaming buddy. Not every mission lends itself well to co-op though but it’s more hit than miss.

A special shout-out to the magical Tears of the Kingdom soundtrack that plays throughout this game. It’s been a while since I’ve finished Tears of the Kingdom so hearing that iconic theme when starting this game unleashed endorphins by the jojo tank in my brain.

Graphics and Performance

The game benefits from Nintendo’s new hardware as textures are sharper, draw distance holds up better and the game can put far more enemies on screen without sinking the frame-rate.

It’s still a Musou game, so the camera can get busy, but the overall presentation is much cleaner than past entries. It is not aiming for the visual polish of Tears of the Kingdom, yet it still manages to tie back stylistically to that world with enough fidelity to feel consistent.

Boss encounters feel less cluttered, particle effects stand out more clearly and the game generally handles the chaos without breaking immersion. In handheld mode the resolution holds up well, making it one of the better-looking large-scale action titles on the system.

It’s not perfect by any means. Some stages feel padded through enemy scaling rather than new mechanics and the narrative leans more on spectacle.

Value for money

Value depends on what you expect. If you want the openness and discovery of Breath of the Wild, this will not give you that. If you want extended Zelda lore, large battles and a long list of missions, side challenges and character upgrades, it delivers a solid amount of content.

Most players will get about 30 hours from the main path, with more if they want to complete every challenge and experiment with multiple characters.

The game retails for R1 799.

Context for BotW and ToTK fans

As someone who loved Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom but never played the earlier Hyrule Warriors titles, this entry works as an accessible starting point. It rewards familiarity with characters and locations and the story beats serve as connective tissue between games rather than standalone lore, and the tone remains consistent enough to feel like part of the wider Zelda narrative.

If you haven’t played Breath of the Wild or Tears, please buy those first. This is a non-negotiable and my opinion of this game is heavily biased to having played those two stellar titles. Both have Switch 2 upgrades so if you haven’t played them yet, now’s the time.