Hyrule Warriors Legends

A beat ‘em up with the style and flare of one of Nintendo’s best franchises.

Adding another excellent Zelda title to Nintendo's handheld library, Hyrule Warriors Legends is without a doubt the definitive version of an already enjoyable game with plenty of content to keep you busy until the upcoming handheld exclusive DLC arrives.

Even with its technical flaws (it's recommended to play on a New 3DS), Hyrule Warriors: Legends delivers a solid, fun and complete experience on Nintendo's handheld.

Even with quite a lot to improve on its technical side, Hyrule Warriors Legends packs a pretty complete experience mixing the rich Zelda universe with the best Musou mechanics we've seen to date. Includes all the downloadable content from the Wii U version, new modes and new characters, but lacks the multiplayer mode we saw on the original version.

On one hand, this is the best version of the game aside from the visual downgrade. On the other, it’s essentially the same game that came out on Wii U in 2014.

Hyrule Warriors Legends does something a lot of games can’t do: take a console version and improve upon it. Loss of graphical fidelity aside, Legends breathes new life into Hyrule Warriors and offers up a fantastic and deep handheld experience that will have you up at the wee hours of the night saying “just one more battle” until the sun comes up.

Better and more complete than the original Wii U Game. However, we do hope for a bit more Zelda and a bit less Dynasty Warriors for future Hyrule Warriors titles.

If you only have access to an older 3DS model, it's really a hard sell – except if you have incredible patience. But when the game gets plugged into a New Nintendo 3DS or a New 3DS XL, it's a match made in heaven. [Issue #20 – March/April 2016, p.65]

Story woes and Link Twoguns’ ridiculous official name aside, Hyrule Warriors Legends has plenty to offer, whether you’re after carefree hack ’n’ slash combat or something more tactical. Even if it’s just the Zelda dressing that’s got your attention, the Musou series staples at the core of the game, so often written off as “mindless” or “boring”, will have you hooked.

Graphic quality downgrade aside, the additional content makes the 3DS version overall superior to its Wii U counterpart.

Hyrule Warriors Legends isn’t as technically impressive as the original release on the Wii U, but it stands out as a true highlight among portable Warriors games.

With its friendly pick up and play design, Hyrule Warriors Legends is an excellent fit for the Nintendo 3DS. The game is highly entertaining, offers endless replayability, and has enough new content to warrant a double-dip from Wii U owners. If you have a New Nintendo 3DS, Hyrule Warriors Legends is a must-own thanks to its highly entertaining gameplay.

Whether you’re a Zelda fan or a Dynasty Warriors gamer there’s a lot to be happy about in this mash-up title.

This portable version is even more enjoyable than the original title for Wii U. It's better on the New Nintendo 3DS, but it's still a good choice for every action lover who own a 3DS.

Hyrule Warriors: Legends is more than a handheld port. Has more content, new characters and some new and fine mechanics. However, doesn't has a good 3D effect and could be better in terms of visuals.

It doesn’t have the same level of depth or detail a traditional LoZ game employs, but it’s satisfying, and I can see keeping Legends in my system for a long time coming.

Hyrule Warriors Legends is a fantastic game that is not satisfied with being a simple port. Its new features and content, refined gameplay and the inclusion of all the original’s DLC makes this an easy recommendation, if, and only if, you have a New 3DS.

Hyrule Warriors Legends is a good representative of the musou genre, even in the solid library of musou titles available on Nintendo 3DS. If you already played the Wii U version, you'll find enough improvements here to keep you entertained.

An enhanced and very complete porting in terms of contents for a musou that will not please everyone, but that landed on New 3DS in the best possible way.

Quotation forthcoming.

Quotation forthcoming.

I had a blast returning to this alternate take on my favourite franchise; this is a game that I will constantly come back to.

Personally, I don't mind paying for Hyrule Warriors all over again with Legends. I got hundreds of hours of enjoyment out of the Wii U version, and being able to relive that is fine with me. But not everyone is as keen as I am, so if you're not a superfan already, it's a tough sell -- because really, this series deserves to be immortalized on a big screen.

Visual downgrade aside, Hyrule Warriors Legends is a handheld port that earns your utmost respect. [Apr 2016, p.68]

It’s a shame that because of the limited processing power Hyrule Warriors lost much of its visual attractiveness and fluidity, but other than that it’s one of the best games in the series. [05/2016, p.75]

Hyrule Warriors Legends is like a remake of a GOTY edition. It has good additions when it comes to content and gameplay mechanics, but technically speaking Legends is a little disappointing.

Hyrule Warriors Legends is more than a port of the Wii U version. It has a lot more content and offers a lot of fanservice. But it gets repetitive pretty quick. Still, this Musou is worth playing.

Hyrule Warriors: Legends is a solid handheld musou experience only let down by some technical limitations.

Hyrule Warriors Legends is a pretty amazing achievement on the 3DS hardware, but that same hardware imposes some rather glaring limitations. It’s almost feature-complete compared to the Wii U game but a smaller screen and lower resolution hamper the overall experience.

On the New 3DS Hyrule Warriors Legends is a surprisingly entertaining port of the Wii U-game. It misses some detail, but there are new characters and missions to make up for that. The game is still repetitive and on older models the frame rate is very bad, but if you own a New 3DS, this is definitely worth playing.

If you have a New 3DS, I really can’t recommend, Hyrule Warriors Legends enough; it’s gorgeous to look at, runs beautifully and is home to an absolute mountain of content. Yes, its still home to the same core Musou gameplay as always, but it has been refined to within an inch of its life here and the ability to swap between characters on the go really does add an exciting new element to the gameplay. Sadly, if you’ve got a bog standard 3DS/2DS then, well, perhaps you should give this a miss. The content is all there, but it runs poorly and doesn’t look nearly as good.

Hyrule Warriors Legends feels rough in several areas, and most of it is likely due to the hardware constraints of Nintendo’s handheld. There is simply too much going on at a time for the little system to keep things in order.

On the whole Hyrule Warriors Legends is a solid game built upon the strong foundation of its predecessor. However it suffers greatly from its existence on a less powerful machine.

Hyrule Warriors Legends is a worthy adaptation of the original game. It has a nice amount of content and features beloved characters from the Zelda series; however, the performance issues hinder the overall experience. It may be a repetitive game but all Dynasty Warriors games are like this, so you should not be surprised by this particular trait.

All in all, Hyrule Warrriors Legends is the definitive version of the game, wrapping up some of the issues and storyline features from the original with additional content, refined controls and even more playable characters.

If you don’t own a New 3DS, stay away from this, since the old-gen 3DS-systems can’t cope with the technical requirements. If you are the owner of a new system though, you’ll get the same musou fun in Hyrule as on the Wii U.

If you didn't have the chance to play Hyrule Warriors and if you love musou games, then go for this 3DS version. It gathers everything that worked on Wii U and even adds new features and new content. You will need a New 3DS to enjoy it fully though.

Hyrule Warriors: Legends is a good conversion from the Wii U's Zelda-inspired fighting game and it brings an enormous amount of content and gameplay that can easily go into one hundred hours. It's difficult to understand, however, why there is no multiplayer in this version and the lack of a cross save feature will frustrate many who have already gone through the Wii U original.

Assessed solely as a Zelda game, Hyrule Warriors probably isn’t good enough to lure in non-Dynasty Warriors fans, but it is passable enough to offer Musou lovers something different to play between their usual battles for dynastic superiority.

For the most part, Hyrule Warriors Legends is exactly what you'd expect from a 3DS port. The visuals are downgraded and the co-op and challenge modes are absent, but otherwise this is a close match in terms of pure gameplay; it's actually surprising how well the core mechanics have been transferred over to Nintendo's handheld despite the yawning technical abyss which exists between it and the Wii U. In that respect, Hyrule Warriors Legends can be considered a success; it faithfully replicates its domestic parent on weaker - but more portable - hardware.

On the whole, Hyrule Warriors Legends is an ok experience for New 3DS owners. Despite adding five awesome characters and some smart control-swapping and fast-travel options, the performance problems and shabby-looking graphics make it difficult to appreciate all the fanservice that’s packed in here. The poorly downgraded textures, hideous menus, and pop-in are all real eyesores. And stay away from 3D if you prefer a stable framerate.

Hyrule Warriors Legends is a really strange experiment. On the one hand Koei Tecmo, achieved its goal of implementing almost all of the elements of the core Wii U game into a portable version and present them in a practical way. You can be sure that you will find here all of that action packaged gameplay and extensive fanservice in the palm of your hands. Having said that, this game fails in achieving the most desirable experience because of its many flaws, the most noticeable related with its graphics and resolution. It is a recommended only for the fans of the home console version or those who have been waiting to try it and have a lot of tolerance to really slow framerate.

Hyrule Warriors Legends tries really hard to offer an attractive package with lots of new content, but the technical limits of the hardware are simply too much relevant.

Hyrule Warriors Legends lacks the visuals of it’s Wii U counterpart but instead offers a lot more content. However, it’s rather unplayable on a normal Nintendo 3DS and should have been released as a New Nintendo 3DS exclusive.

If you like this type of game, and happen to own a New Nintendo 3DS, then you can't really go wrong with Hyrule Warriors Legends. It somehow manages to be more fun than its console peer, and packs a ton of content into its small game cart.

Hyrule Warriors Legends should have been made a new 3DS exclusive, as the performance issues on the older system make the game nearly unplayable. However, the new characters, and the ability to swap fluidly between playable characters, make the game feel more fresh than a standard port.

Hyrule Warriors Legends is still a solid action game featuring Zelda characters and worlds, and the added mechanics, levels, and characters for 3DS are fun and worthy additions. Unfortunately, the game’s technical performance drags it down significantly.

Hyrule Warriors Legends is a worthy port of the original The Legend of Zelda spin-off, allowing fans to take the game with them on the go – with a few noteworthy additions.

This 3DS version of Hyrule Warriors offers exactly the same experience as its Wii U counterpart (except a logical graphical downgrade) but it adds new characters and missions, and especially an interesting new fairy mode. The result is still the same: Zelda fans will love it or not depending on their judgement about the repetitiveness of the Dynasty Warriors formula.

Have you played Hyrule Warriors on Wii U? Do you own a Wii U? If the answer to either of those questions is "Yes" then you shouldn't bother with Hyrule Warriors Legends.

Nintendo 3DS has a lot of problems to run Hyrule Warriors Legends. The game adds a lot of content to the original Wii U version, but it's low performance and some design decisions make it less fun in all ways.

If you play this game on a classic 3DS, and not the upgraded version, you are going to be utterly disappointed.

Passable, certainly, but not the stuff of legend.

Hyrule Warriors Legends is a repetitive and shallow experience without any kind of depth in the game's story, characters or gameplay.

As long as you don’t turn on 3D mode this is almost as good as the original Wii U game, the only problem being the Wii U version wasn’t very good at all.

Hyrule Warriors Legends is a game too big for the 3DS. What should be a fun and simple brawler gets bogged down by glaring technical flaws, terrible framerate and blurry, downgraded graphics.