Hyrule Warriors isn't a traditional Legend of Zelda-style adventure, but it manages to work well as a Zelda-themed power trip. This all-action spin-off ditches the traditional dungeons and puzzles in favor of big, Dynasty Warriors-style battles, but the layers of Zelda fanservice managed to keep my attention for its 10-hour adventure.

Aside from its basic but entertainingly indulgent story that ties three Zelda games together with an interdimensional crossover, Hyrule Warriors is all about fighting. The process of killing your way through enemy armies is mostly simple and repetitive, but what keeps it from getting too boring too fast are devastating special attacks that launch enemies into the air. This was especially fun whenever a lot of enemies would appear on screen. It’s genuinely satisfying to make them fly and watch the number of simultaneous KOs flash on screen.

It should be noted that few enemies on these vast battlefields ever stood toe-to-toe with me for more than a few seconds. But as with the Dynasty Warriors games, that’s the point: You play the role of a hero with the power to single-handedly turn the tide of a conflict between lesser soldiers. It genuinely feels great to be stronger than 80 percent of the enemies on screen, and to watch the battle change based on which skirmishes you choose to fight. Whether capturing enemy bases or fighting tougher mid-bosses, I always felt like there was something I needed to do or needed to slay, even if the actual act of slaying is pretty much the same time and time again.

The other big thing Hyrule Warriors has going for it is a diverse playable roster of 13 familiar Zelda characters including Link, Princess Zelda, Ganondorf, and more. Each has unique weapons and abilities - a heavy-hitter like Ocarina of Time’s Darunia swings a mighty hammer to crush foes on the field; Sheik, on the other hand, uses a mix of quick strikes and a harp with elemental properties. Unlocking and switching between characters keeps the action interesting a little longer.

Some surprising depth materializes out of the crafting system, but you have to dig for it a little. By replaying stages and farming materials, I could build useful equipment to augment character combos, weapons, and special abilities as the in game Bazaar. Creating special badges makes a character more resilient. You can also synthesize cool new weapons at the Smithy and carry over handy traits that add strength or magic properties. It’s handy that you can spend rupees to level up weaker characters, because I felt encouraged to experiment without needing to grind each one for experience.

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Boss monsters are the main area of Hyrule Warriors fan-service-fueled trip that doesn’t translate well to the Dynasty Warriors framework. They do offer an impressive bit of scale, and in keeping with the Zelda series, each boss has an exploitable weakness. But these oversized foes feel like weak homages to their Zelda inspiration. In the Legend of Zelda series, a big part of the epic boss fight design is their smartly laid out maps, which require some situational awareness. The battle against King Dodongo in Ocarina of Time, for example, takes place in a closed-off chamber with a pool of lava in the center, forcing you to use a narrow dry path to avoid getting run over by the beast or fried by the lava. Dropped into the wide-open battlefields of Hyrule Warriors, Dodongo and the other bosses come across as generic damage sponges.

Overall, Hyrule Warriors just isn’t much of a challenge, and even turning up the difficulty doesn’t do anything for it. On higher settings, the average mini-boss just inflicts more damage and requires double the hits to vanquish, but doesn’t change up his attack pattern. It becomes a monotonous chore to finish one off.

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After I completed the campaign, I got a few more hours of entertainment out of the clever Adventure mode, which repurposes a detailed recreation of the original Legend of Zelda’s map for a clever item hunt. Most of the secrets littered throughout this 8-bit map all tie to existing ones from the NES original game, so I had to reach back to my memories of the original game to find them (a handy compass will unveil secrets if you can’t remember). Using items like bombs or candle flames unlocks a cool new prize, and claimed by engaging in a standard Hyrule Warriors battle on that tile. Since completing missions in either mode will unlock more secret weapons, characters, and styles of combat to enjoy, it gave me a good reason to stick with Hyrule Warriors a little longer.

However, the local-only multiplayer mode is a huge disappointment because of very noticeable performance problems. Extending a second player’s perspective to the GamePad means the resolution takes an awful hit, creating jaggy visuals that would look at home on Wii. Even so, things intermittently slow down a lot when lots of enemies join the mix.