Nintendo Dream published a wide-ranging interview with Koei Tecmo producer Yosuke Hayashi regarding the action-packed Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity.
Mr. Hayashi talked about the The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild musou prequel, a number of things including making the four playable Champions playable, along with working with the Zelda: Breath of the Wild development team.
Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity development highlights
- Hayashi wanted players to enjoy playing through the story, as AoC is the first Musou game with an emphasis on story
- For creating the concepts of the 4 Champions, the team listed concepts for the Zelda team
- None of these concepts were shot down.
- The fighting style of the Champions was inspired by some of their battle scenes in Breath of the Wild
- Revali’s playstyle was inspired by the weapons they left Link
- The diaries/memories in BoTW also helped guide the team in creating the concepts
- The Zelda team was helpful in adjusting Koei Tecmo’s concepts and getting the feeling of the Champions right
- Daruk was originally slower, as it’s common to have a heavy character in Musou games
- This didn’t feel right for the character though, so they decided to add the Magma attacks mid-development
- The Paraglider for Daruk was difficult to get right
- Each character originally used the same paraglider, but they changed this to make things better suited to each person
- With Mipha, the team started off with her weapon as a base, and then added her special abilities to it
- The team wanted the 4 Champions to be easy to pick up and play
- For the Trident, Mipha was made before Link’s Trident move set
- It was important to make every character true to the source materia
- The concept for Revali was flight, and it took the team several times to get this right
- The Sheikah items can be used in mid-air as well, and is different than using it on the ground
- Urbosa’s special action is being able to charge lightning, and the team jokes it like charging a smartphone
- Impa’s feeling was “Tricky”, Zelda was “Magician”, and both Link and Urbosa were “Orthodox”
- Urbosa’s playstyle is probably the most straight forward of the 4 Champions
- Urbosa is very popular in North Americ
- Hestu was one of the first characters decided and the whole team was for his inclusion
- The theme was for Hestu to use Koroks and to dance
- The team had issues with Hestu’s size, which is why they decided to make his head semitransparent to aid the player
- Maz Koshia was decided at the very start of development to represent the 120 Monks in BoTW
- Since Maz Koshia was the final boss of the DLC, the team felt he would be the most memorable
- The team felt that Hestu and Maz Koshia would appear naturally during the events 100 years prior to BoTW
- For Maz Koshia’s moveset, the team used the idea of having the gimmicks inside the shrines as his basis
- Getting the voice for Maz Koshia was tough, and they worked closely with the Zelda team to ensure he was still mysterious
