Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment Reviews

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment successfully marries the button mashing combat of the Warriors formula with the visuals and sounds of Tears of the Kingdom. While the repetitive mission structure can get a little tiring (plan on taking breaks) and the game doesn't push any boundaries, the satisfying combat, impressive technical performance, and faithful recreation of Tears of the Kingdom’s world make this an easy recommendation for Zelda fans that miss the sights and sounds of Hyrule.

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment is another superb entry in this series that does an excellent job at combining some classic Zelda systems with the Musou action we all love.

It feels like everything in Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment comes with an asterisk. The combat is fun and mindless but can get very tedious with how much HP everything has. A constant battle for territory is a neat idea but frustrating in practice. The music is amazing, but very difficult to hear even when set to max volume. There are some cool Star Fox-style rail shooting sections, but they control weird and overstay their welcome. It’s not that this is a bad game, far from it, it’s...

Hyrule Warriors Age Of Imprisonment does a great job of building upon what Age of Calamity did, while also being a true canon story that will make you feel a deeper connection to Rauru, Mineru, Zelda, and the other characters you assist along the way. The level of detail and customization is incredible, and is to be praised, and only certain things hold it back from being as great as its predecessor.

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment is a tight musou game that combines the intriguing world and mechanics of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom with the exciting and addictive combat of the Warriors franchise. The roster is a bit weak, and having to defend territory can mess with the pace a bit, but this is an overall solid Switch 2 hack-and-slash game.

While it suffers from occasional repetition and blandness, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment stands as the best Hyrule Warriors entry to date—and one of the most enjoyable Zelda spinoffs we’ve gotten so far.

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment is an amazing Musou game, and one of the best Switch 2 games available currently.

Age of Imprisonment doesn’t do much of note narratively, but as an action game based on Tears of the Kingdom, it’s pretty darn good.

The Zelda franchise values its narrative, but its importance to defining the series rests behind elements like exploration and puzzle solving. The story of Zelda is, however, important to me, and it is especially personally important when it comes to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Without offering spoilers, the previous Hyrule Warriors, Age of Calamity, did not take Breath of the Wild’s canon seriously. It led to a supremely disappoint...

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment is an action-packed adventure that manages to overcome a disappointing story by providing exhilarating combat.

A clear and cohesive fusing of Tears of the Kingdom’s eons-spanning story and recognisable gameplay with the typical musou trappings means Age of Imprisonment is not just a fantastic Warriors-style game, but a genuinely great The Legend of Zelda title.

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment is the latest in the Zelda spin-off series that puts hack-and-slash combat at the forefront. This is easily the best iteration of Hyrule Warriors, feeling the most feature-complete and enjoyable. Combat is fast-paced, and the performance is spectacular thanks to the new, improved hardware found in the Switch 2. If you've been disappointed by previous Musou-style games in the past, this one won't change your mind. But if you're a Zelda fan looking for a fix until the next mainline entry comes along, Age of Imprisonment is a worthy adventure worth undertaking.

Time has gone very squiffy in Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment. Set during Tears of the Kingdom, and following Zelda’s disappearance into a sinkhole beneath Hyrule Castle, Zelda awakens in a clearing in the forest. This isn’t her Hyrule though, and it soon becomes clear that she’s travelled back in time, all the way to Hyrule’s very beginning. There she meets King Rauru and Queen Sonia, the original founders and rulers of the iconic kingdom, and they take her in, lost as she is.

A few issues hold it back, but Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment marks a high point for the spin-off series, iterating on its riotous hack-and-slash combat with depth and variety.

If you're in the mood for a more action-packed adventure in the Zelda universe then you're sure to love Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment.

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment is a huge improvement over Age of Calamity. It offers more characters with interesting move sets, decent performance, and a story that doesn’t relegate itself to being a meaningless ‘what if’ scenario. Said story here does miss some open goals here and there, and the inevitable Musou repetition can set in during longer sessions. But overall, Age of Imprisonment delivers an incredibly satisfying Warriors experience with delectable Zelda flavor.

I want more exploration, more puzzles, more curiosity. This game's not about that. But it does show me how good a true next-gen Zelda could be on the Switch 2, whenever Nintendo decides to make that happen.

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment’s story may fail to capture the promise of a Tears of the Kingdom prequel, but the gameplay more than makes up for that by wonderfully fusing its source material’s craziest ideas with great 1 vs. 1,000 battles, resulting in the best action of the series yet.

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment’s ability to flesh out the past of the latest branch in the The Legend of Zelda series is immediately noticeable. Being canon in the existing Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom timeline makes Zelda’s journey into the past a worthwhile experience. As much as I liked Age of Calamity, the more I sat with it, the less I liked it, because it’s set in a separate timeline. Giving these characters the space to show their personality ultimately leads you to connect to them better than the other Hyrule Warriors games ever could because we know what happens here is key to the future of this timeline, rather than a what-if situation with no stakes.

Insanely repetitive, horribly shallow, and pointlessly easy – this is the absolute least interesting thing to do with Zelda on the Switch 2 and bad even by the low standards of the Dynasty Warrior franchise.

For me, this game is a perfect fusion of the Zelda games and the Musou genre that I can’t put down. But I also recognize that this is a one-trick pony. You’ve got excellent combat and no second thing. Maybe you want more out of a Zelda game than fighting with a light layer of story on top. That’s totally fine! But the vibes are immaculate and the gameplay is terribly compelling. If you want an intense action game that really highlights the Zelda of it all, then Age of Imprisonment is exactly what you’re looking for.

Koei Tecmo and Nintendo have produced a musou title where Princess Zelda takes the spotlight.

Nintendo and Koei Tecmo have made a fairly loyal fan of me over the course of several Warriors collaborations and spinoffs this last decade and then some. I’ve been particularly enamored with the fact that KT isn’t just strapping fan favorite characters to the Musou formula. Instead, it is augmenting that formula with adaptations of the mechanics from the franchises it is handling. Such was the case with Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity and Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes, and now it’s happened again with Age of Imprisonment. Only this time, Koei Tecmo has utilized the power of the Switch 2 to make an altogether better performing game and a worthy spinoff to the excellence that was Tears of the Kingdom.

Hyrule Warriors returns to form in Age of Imprisonment, borrowing from and enriching Tears of the Kingdom in the process.

What really struck me is how well Age of Imprisonment ​​​​​runs. It runs at a consistent 60 FPS, a huge step up from the inconsistent 30 FPS (or worse) in prior games on their original hardware at launch. It feels like we're finally in the era of Musou games running well on a Nintendo platform. These slick improvements really make a difference, as you feel in control at all times, especially when throwing a giant move out or hitting a well-timed dodge and launching a counterattack.

Zelda's adventure in the ancient past of Hyrule sticks the landing to be the best Hyrule Warriors yet.

Hyrule Warriors has grown from a spinoff to a full-fledged series in its own right relatively quickly, with the soon-to-be-released Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment being the third Zelda-themed Musou game to arrive in roughly a decade. Age of Imprisonment once again serves up a hearty helping of Dynasty-Warriors-style hack ‘n’ slash action while promising to fill in some key details of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom’s backstory.