Game:

Hyrule Warriors (2014)

Duration: 48:28

32 views

1

Oh boy... here's a big one... and not just because of the fact that you're trying to unlock something significant... I mean... jeez. I apologize to those of you who were probably enjoying the fact that even Adventure Battles in Adventure Mode were pretty short and to the point, especially compared to all that highly-scripted Legend Mode stuff... (I especially apologize to me, because it was SO much easier to review and describe things that didn't take so long to watch for details I can't let escape.)

I'm beginning to get suspicious of all the treasure chests marked for each stage which increasingly seem to require Darunia's presence... he's not exactly my go-to guy, although having to have him do all my heavy lifting on what feels like an unusually high concentration of occasions does rather force you to understand how he works a little better. (Though I'm not willing to suggest that THIS particular point in time is indicative of such.)

---

Adventure Battle:
Defeat enemies while collecting treasure! Yay!

"Yay!"? ...no! Not "Yay!"... not "Yay!" at all! Have you SEEN how long this one's going to take?! (There are REASONS for that, none of them "Yay!"-worthy!)

I mean, technically, sure, there's ONE very specific enemy in this one that will drop TWO pieces of loot instead of just one.... but... every enemy worth a life bar will do half of that, so... no, that's not special enough. Especially since we've got far bigger problems to worry about... (assuming I'm even prepared to notice everything that's going on at once yet... which I really wasn't at the time... you've been warned!)

You see... what the map gleefully fails to acknowledge is that THIS scenario is of a very particular kind... one of the most dangerous general molds of missions that Adventure can throw your way, which I'm personally mortified to realize came so (relatively) "early" in the Adventure map and with so little fanfare or warning... because I can safely say that they rear their ugly heads quite often as you're finding your way to some of the highest-grade loot in the land. (But don't tell the unlockable character in question that, we don't need any further inflated egos!)

To stop dancing around the issue... this mission... is actually a dual-army mission! You know how there's always the red faction that's opposed to your blue faction? And sometimes there's a yellow "faction" that's present for special event forces that tend to help you out and even sometimes become full-fledged extra blue units and throw themselves meaninglessly as a distraction for the red forces? Yeah, this isn't one of those... both the Enemy Forces and Rogue Forces are your enemies, complete with their own Keeps, Captains, and Commanders. (And don't think just because one side gets Ghirahim and the other one has "Icy Big Poe" that the Rogue Forces will just roll over and die for you... remember that Warriors is all about scalability and that commander-grade Poe will be suitably souped-up in its basic stats.)

While they're techically not aligned directly against you (which would rather defeat the purpose of not having them be the SAME army fighting you on two fronts), any resistance they'll provide one another will be token at best and all their tactical gambits will revolve around sending all their troops straight at YOU... speaking of, in dual-army missions, you'll always have a central position approachable from at least two (but usually three or four) different directions to provide a truly divided effort.

But okay, we've fought through maps more crowded than this before, and those had solid masses of all one faction of forces, so what's the big deal? The crux of the matter is that both enemy factions are scripted semi-autonomously and don't particularly care what the other army is up to and won't check to see if now's a good time for them to assault your forces, or more commonly, your mission-critical home base. I say semi-autonomous, because while they'll be running their own basic strategies independently... they'll also be keeping tabs on one another and have some scripted triggers that will make things much more problematic for you.

What I mean is, if you defeat any above-grunt-grade foe... the opposing faction will gain a morale boost. Try to put that faction back in its place? The OTHER faction will notice and gain a morale boost. Basically, there's no way to de-escalate the thing once you start beating up stuff, which is really your only option... you are a Hyrule Warrior... you hit things! Hit them until they stop moving!

Dual-army missions offer way more potential for analysis than I can offer in just ONE description, but let me leave you with the general rule that the things the player does will drastically alter the flow of battle, often in disproportionate ways that don't make immediate sense. See if you can spot some causes and effects of such this time around and we'll talk more in-depth about how these things work next time! (Such a tease!)

Other Statistics