At the time of writing, the Wii U may be yet to play host to a brand-new, original mainline Zelda title — Breath of the Wild will be one of the lastย retail titles for the system — but it’s home to one of the best spin-offs the series has seen.
Unlike its stablemateย Super Mario,ย Zeldaย actually hasn’t seen all that many spin-offs over the years, with onlyย Link’s Crossbow Trainingย on Wii and the two atrocious CD-i titles springing immediately to mind. This is perhaps becauseย Zeldaย is an inherently more “serious” affair thanย Super Marioย — sure, it has its moments of levity, but it’s always been less focused on cartoon silliness and as such it would be rather strange to see perpetual protagonist Link doing things outside his normal remit such as playing tennis or golf. (That, of course, didn’t stop him making an appearance inย Mario Kart 8,ย but that was something of an outlier.)
That doesn’t mean that there isn’t scope for the series to explore gameplay styles outside the mainline titles’ “explore, dungeon, puzzle, boss” formula, andย Hyrule Warriorsย is a potent proof of concept that demonstrates the ensemble cast the series has built up over the years is more than strong enough to carry a game that doesn’t focus exclusively on Link.
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