Copyright nintendolife
Hello, fellow Gibdos, Moblins, and Chuchus, and welcome to our Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment guides hub. Koei Tecmo's latest slice of Hyrule-flavoured musou action is out on Switch 2, and given that we awarded it a 9/10 in our glowing review, we've gone ahead and put together guides covering Korok Locations, All Playable Characters, Sync Strike Combos, and amiibo Extras, plus a selection of Beginner Tips & Tricks below. Stuck looking for a collectible item, need to know how combat works, or just fancy looking at a whole bunch of maps for a game you don't own for some reason? This is the place to be! So, let's get started, shall we? Hyrule Warriors: Age Of Imprisonment Guides All Playable Characters There's a big roster of fighters, each with their own special moves and abilities, to get busy unlocking in Age of Imprisonment. So make sure to check out our full guide. All Playable Characters and How to Unlock Korok Locations Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment has lots of cute (kute?) Koroks for you to find across its campaign and challenge maps. They can mostly be found hidden in the dirt — you'll spot the telltale sparkle and/or tiny windmill from a good ways off — but can also be hidden in floating balloons, and in the odd crate. Our guide has maps to help you find them all: Korok Locations guide Sync Strikes Sync Strikes are new to Hyrule Warriors in this latest entry and let you team up with other characters to deal massive damage. So, we've gone ahead and put together a guide, just for you! How Sync Strikes Work and All Possible Combinations Age of Imprisonment - Beginner's Tips & Tricks Now, given that we've already smashed our way across Hyrule in the game's main campaign, we thought we'd take the time out to gift you with a few top tips for beginners getting started. You know, the sort of stuff we kinda discovered was useful to know along the way. Ganondorf and his armies of filth are no pushover, especially on higher difficulties, so here's some helpers! Switch characters lots during battle Now, this one is mostly for Musou newbies, but it's good to remind the diehards, too, that switching up your characters in battle is key to enjoying things to their max. Sometimes you can find yourself totally mainlining a single character, whether it's because they look the coolest or feel best to move around, and Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment lets you do as you please, so bad habits can form. As battles progress and gauges are filled up through attacking, switching around your party at the right moments will ensure you get the lay-ups you need with elemental attacks, as well as guarantee that special attacks and the game's new Sync Strikes are performed at just the right time. Mash buttons, but do it with purpose Mashing buttons. People who like to talk smack about Musou games, love to give it the whole button-mashing bit, and as true as it may be for newcomers (you can mash through these goons on easier difficulties), the space is in knowing your combos, using all of your skills, and putting Zonai devices to use at just the right time. You may be able to get by with mashing until you get to some of the later bosses. However, why just get by, when you max your style, embrace the training arena and perfect your attack patterns, timings, parries and dodges? Equip elemental Zonai Devices to suit boss types Any large enemy type will have its weaknesses signalled on its health bar (once you attack it with something it's weak to), and so using your elemental gadgets and skills is advisable, especially if you're looking to knock some time off a run through a level or challenge. The expected rules apply here: fire emitters will wreak havoc on icy chuchus, fire hates water, so hydrants are great for fights around volcanoes...all that good stuff. Get busy cooking! They've really gone the extra mile in putting lots of aspects of Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom into Age of Imprisonment, and one of these is the signature cooking. It's advisable to make sure you whip up meals at camps to ensure you have any XP, movement speed or cooldown boosts fully maxed out. Yummy ore and monster arm salad for you, sir. Use the Item Menu's slowing of time to defend against surprise attacks This one is hugely useful against pesky flying enemies, or those annoyingly sneaky Octorocks. Some of these things (especially the electric Keese) come at you very quickly and we found they were the one type of mob that consistently got an attack in on us. However! By holding in the 'R' button to bring up your items menu, you slow time on the action at hand without fully pausing the game, so use this to your advantage, prepping and pulling out an attack to counter your foe, and avoiding what would have been a definite hit. Use your special gauge Right. This might sound very obvious, but the special attack gauge — that's the big yellow one at the top left of your screen that fills as you attack — doesn't get much of a mention in the early game, and as a result we barely used our biggest attacks for a few hours before remembering to activate them. It's really easy to get 100% focused on the loop of building up your Sync Strikes and then rubbishing enemies with those, along with follow-up and weak-spot attacks. So please, remember that the special gauge is there. Old Save File data nets you free weapons If you have old Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity save data, the game will find it and you'll be rewarded with a High Guard's Claymore. Save data from The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, on the other hand, nets you a shiny new High Guard's Sword. Sync Strikes are powerful additions, so keep your comrades close We traditionally like to send our party members out solo around the map in these games (see next tip!) to get stuff done more quickly. Here, though, Sync Strikes are so cool, and they can be such a tide-turner in tight scraps, that you'll need to consider keeping some allies together for when their gauges max out. This really comes into its own more on higher difficulties, too, as on Normal or below, you should have no issue besting most bosses solo. On tougher modes, these decisions become more crucial. Direct your allies via the Map Screen You should also remember to move units around and ensure they are joining you where required, as they can sometimes end up stood around doing nothing. Simply jump into the map screen and select whether you want to direct one or all members to a specific spot on your map. Zonai Balloons make fast travel across maps a breeze Another thing that's easy to forget is that you don't need to run across entire levels ad nauseam, mates. No, once you unlock a control point, you can then use a Zonai Balloon from your device menu to instantly transport yourself nearer to where you've got to be. Auto-Use Rations and Auto-Use Batteries FTW! We find the constant pausing to hit our quick menu for batteries and health snacks a bit of a pain, so instead we recommend nipping into the game's settings and activating Auto-Use on both rations and batteries. Now, we get that you might want to switch this off for tight control of these things on higher difficulties, but for the most part, and up to Normal at least, you won't need to sweat this stuff too much. Perfect your dodge and parry techniques Two ways to counter in style and slow the action right down to get sneaky hits in. It's easy, especially with the parrying, to forget it's even there, but work on your timings and these two skills will see you out of most tight spots - whilst also making you look effortlessly cool as you beast Moblins with flurry attacks. Upgrade your favourite weapons to unlock new attack traits Weapons in Age of Imprisonment can be levelled up through collectible parts that you beat out of your foes. Once again, this aspect of the game is left entirely up to you after the initial tutorial, so make sure to take the time out to get into this a little, as otherwise you'll fail to unlock lots of nice boons and boosts for your weapons of choice! Spend bonus tickets to reveal Korok locations and Treasure Chests Once you unlock the option at camps in the game, you can spend bonus tickets — which you'll earn through completing on-the-fly challenges — to reveal all Korok and treasure chest locations on your map. Auto-loot saves you needing to open every chest or run to gather drops There are so many enemies and so many loot drops in this game that you'd go daft trying to gather them all manually. Luckily you don't even need to stress, as any loot that drops from foes or from chests will automatically find its way to your inventory. No need to stop the killing. Not even for a second. Do Service and Battle Aside Missions for cool extra functions Check out missions in the game's menus and you'll note that some are both character and tech-specific. So, make sure to do all the support and tech missions as soon as they appear, thus levelling up and improving your sensor and any other useful bits and bobs. Tap amiibo for extra goodies Age of Imprisonment has amiibo support for The Legend of Zelda and non-Zelda figures. Scanning amiibos nets you random materials for use in the game, and you have a limit of one scan per day per amiibo, for up to five amiibo. Zelda universe-specific amiibo give out slightly more items than regular unaffiliated ones, but so far we haven't spotted any rewards more notable than regular ingredients and stuff you'll find plenty of in-game anyway. And that's all our Age of Imprisonment tips and tricks for now! Finding our guides helpful? Make sure to let us know in the comments. And if you somehow missed it, check out our full 9/10 review of this latest instalment in the Hyrule Warriors series.
