Hyrule Warriors blends the classic Legend of Zelda franchise with Dynasty Warriors style gameplay to give players the action and excitement of epic, large-scale battles while also following a story and playing with their favorite characters.
As I said in our review, you might actually kick more ass with Princess Zelda than you will with Link in this particular adventure as it rests just outside of the series canon. Speaking with Eurogamer, Koei Tecmo says that the Dynasty Warriors or "Musou" series now stretches beyond 40 different games and that it hopes it brings more players into both series.
"Koei Tecmo and Nintendo have been close for a while, and we were talking about what we could do with the Wii U, what kind of new experience could we put out there," Yosuke Hayashi of Team Ninja said.
"Zelda is obviously a huge IP and for us as Japanese gamers, not just developers… well, everyone loves Zelda," Akihiro Suzuki of Koei Tecmo and Omega Force said. "It's at the bottom of our hearts and is part of the roots of our gaming experience."
To that end, Yosuke Hayasahi "We got the direction [from Nintendo] of making it something more in line with our skillset… and in terms of how we could bring the franchise something we're strong with. It was very early in production, at a very early design phase, that those discussions happened. it was more of a collaboration about what we could do with that IP."
Akihiro Suzuki also said that "To start with, when the idea kicked off, the image we had of Zelda was actually implemented in the game—the puzzle solving, RPG approach of a Zelda title. They are the essential parts and we started to implement them" though Nintendo eventually asked the company to change the formula and remain distinct.
"Dynasty Warriors is like a genre, like FPS," Suzuki said and added that it maintains a strong sense of what the game is about. "The actual feel of the game was changed pretty much 180 degrees from what we were doing in our early stages of development as opposed to what we have now."
"If you had played the early stage build you'd say it was much more like an action RPG game rather than any kind of DW game."
For more from Eurogamer's interview with Koei Tecmo on Hyrule Warriors, visit the link below.
