Hyrule Warriors Direct Recap

These Nintendo Directs seem to air at the most random of times. Tonight’s late night Direct was for Nintendo’s next focus title: Hyrule Warriors. This spinoff is a collaboration between Nintendo and Koei Tecmo’s Omega Force and Team Ninja. Hosting the Direct was the producer of the game: Koei Tecmo’s Yosuke Hayashi.
How Hyrule Warriors Works

The game will work like a Dynasty Warriors title with some Zelda gameplay sprinkled in. You start off in a stage dominated by the enemy and you’re usually tasked to defeat captains of garrisons (or “keeps” as they describe them in Hyrule Warriors). This will allow team morale and reinforcements consistently flow and the stage to progress.
However, interruptions will most likely occur and your main task will consistently change. Sometimes an ally will need help or new enemies will spawn, so staying quick will prevent tragedy or defeat.
Items

There will be treasure chests that you’ll be encountering, and in traditional Zelda fashion contain a unique item, like bombs, boomerang and the bow, that’ll help you throughout your quest. Furthermore, those items will be used to defeat particular enemies and complete particular tasks. And yes, the Zelda jingles are intact and will make you smile.
There are also chests that contain new weapons with different stats, and better ones will show up in harder difficulties, so equipping new weapons will happen often in the game.
Characters
Nintendo and Koei Tecmo have been flooding their video channels with trailers on Hyrule Warriors showing off the various characters. So far we knew that Link, Zelda, Impa, Shiek, Darunia, Ruto, Fi, Midna, Agitha and the newcomer Lana were all confirmed to be playable.
We were teased in the July trailer that we’ll be encountering Twilight Princess’ Zant and Skyward Sword’s Giraphim, but now we know in Warriors fashion, they will be playable as well. Zant has the Scimitar and Giraphim has his Demon Blade.

Weapons

Also announced was that instead of flooding the game with different characters like in many Warriors games (some can have over 80 of them), Hyrule Warriors will have characters wield completely different weapons, changing their gameplay entirely. Link can also use the Magic Rod and Gauntlets w/ Ball and Chain, Zelda has the Wind Waker, Impa has Naginata, Lana has the Deku Stick and Summoning Gate, and we’ll most likely see more later.
Special Attack

In Warriors games, you build a secondary Musou gauge with each time you slash an enemy and get hit. Once filled, you gain the ability to attack wildly for a few seconds followed by a special attack. Hyrule Warriors has it too, but it was renamed the Magic Meter (from many Zelda games) and the attacks are called Focus Spirit. This is how you perform those big attacks you see in the trailers, like Links crazy big spin attack or Zelda’s more focused Light Arrow shots.
Stages
Skyloft, Lake Hylia and Twilight’s Hyrule Field are all confirmed to be in the game, and more from Ocarina, Twilight and Skyward. There’s an original Hyrule Field that you start off from too.
Character Progression

Characters can level up and increase their ability like in RPGs and other Warriors titles. Though in Hyrule Warriors, you can find items on fields or on enemies’ possession, and they can be used to craft enhancements to a character’s abilities. These will increase the amount of attacks you can do in a single combo, increase magic meters, increase focus attacks, add new ones or enhance certain effects.

When you snag weapons in Warriors games, they may have certain stats attached to them, and you can either upgrade those stats or add new ones by fusing weapons if the have a free slot. Hyrule Warriors has it too, and will remain unchained.
Adventure Mode

Adventure Mode has the player complete certain challenges, and if you complete it you’ll be ranked. It’s actually pretty in-depth because it uses the map from the original Legend of Zelda as its menu. Completing challenges unlocks the areas around the map, and you can unlock, areas of the map, items and in-game weapons by searching through the 8-bit map, though battling in the game will be needed to unlock them. Some of the stronger weapons are unlocked in this mode only.

2 Player Co-op

Call of Duty and Warriors Orochi 3: Hyper already did this concept on Wii U, but Hyrule Warriors will do it too. When playing with a friend, one player plays on the GamePad and the other can play on TV with a Wii Remote and Nunchuk or a Pro Controller (and possibly the Wii Classic Controller). The screen resolution is reduced if playing co-op however.
The game supports Off-TV play too!
That was all from Hayashi, but Zelda producer Eiji Aonuma popped in during the Direct sparingly and announced some random Zelda elements you’ll see in action in Hyrule Warriors.
Cuccos

Cuccos will return in Hyrule Warriors, and of course you’re best to not piss them off by hitting them. Doing so will result in a chicken army out to kill you.
However, it’s a two-way street. You play nice with them and allow an enemy to hit them, you all of a sudden gain hundreds of allies.
Grass Cutting
Yes, there’s grass that you can cut just like in Zelda games! They also contain hearts and items to help you out too!
Apparently there was a stage where all you do is cut grass, but it was sadly cut.
Bombchu

Bombchus return in Hyrule Warriors, but are huge! They are used to blow up certain objects to complete an objective.
Chain Chomps

The Mario villain made a cameo appearance in Link’s Awakening. It returns in Hyrule Warriors as, funny enough, one of Link’s Ball and Chains. When you find one, equip it!
The Moon
The Moon from Majora’s Mask returns and will be a part of the combo for the Hookshot.
Gold Skulltulas

Like in Ocarina of Time, 100 Gold Skulltulas lurk in the land of Hyrule Warriors. They only appear in certain times in certain stages, and can be seen on the map. Defeating them unlock illustrations.
New Character

Shown off for the first time in Hyrule Warriors was a playable Ganondorf. Like Link and Zelda, he sports a unique look, much like many Warriors characters (Nobunaga Oda and Keiji Meada from Samurai Warriors or Cao Cao and Lu Bu in Dynasty Warriors come to mind). He wields the Great Sword like he did in Ocarina of Time in Ganon form.
DLC
Lastly before the Direct ended, Nintendo of America announced that the game would have a preorder bonus. Players will get the Ocarina of Time, Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword forms of Link and Zelda.
Also, if you redeem the Club Nintendo code inside Hyrule Warriors during its first month on shelves will get a never-before-seen DLC of Ocarina and Twilight’s Ganondorf.

And that’s it! Hope you check out Hyrule Warriors, it seems to be a very unique game and seems to scream fan service. It’ll launch in North America on September 26th.