YMMV / Hyrule Warriors

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Phantom Ganon's motives in Legends. Was his plan to steal the Triforce of Power an attempt to avenge or resurrect Ganondorf or was it merely a power-grab and an attempt to usurp his former master?
  • Did Zelda simply not realize how much her disappearance would demoralize the Hyrulean Forces, or was she aware of it and deemed it a necessary sacrifice to keep herself under the radar? The former seems out-of-character for someone deemed worthy of the Triforce of Wisdom, hence why the latter interpretation exists. Her given reason for disguising as Sheik is so that the enemy wouldn't find her, but another interpretation can be garnered from her enthusiasm in battle and Impa's insistence that she leave the battlefield ASAP; Zelda wants to battle on the frontline, and knows Impa would refute it unless she did so while disguised.
  • According to Cia, Link and Zelda are stuck in a cycle of Reincarnation Romance. Due to the fact several games have little-to-no onscreen interactions between them, some fans have taken this to instead mean they're destined to be connected in one-way-or-another (be it Platonic Life-Partners, Lady and Knight, romantically, or just Link saving Zelda), rather than automatically romantically involved.
• Americans Hate Tingle: The reaction of occidental fans to the Trope Namer's confirmation as the second Majora's Mask character has been quite negative, as many were hoping Skull Kid would be confirmed. That he was the most-voted for character in a Japanese poll clinches the other requirement of this trope. Tingle's highly unique moveset and the later announcement of fan favorite Skull Kid as a playable character has toned this down for many. He's also been somewhat Rescued from the Scrappy Heap similarly to the Duck Hunt Dog in Super Smash Bros. for 3DS/Wii U; the game itself seems to be partially aware of his reputation as several of his attacks cause him to be given Amusing Injuries, so even players who hate him will have fun.
• Annoying Video Game Helper:
  • Your own allies can become this in Legends, due to the smaller amount of enemies that the 3DS and New 3DS can handle, with the former being particularly bad. It can even get so bad that they can prevent any enemies from spawning because of how many of your own mooks there are!
  • Also, in both the original, and to a (slightly) lesser degree in Legends, the allied forces are almost unable to actually fight back, with the 3DS version adding a simple ability to tell your other playable characters to go deal with that while you get part of the mission done, then switch to them and deal with what they were told to.
  • The allied foot soldiers can also become this. Occasionally swathes of them will go on the move and invade keeps if you're on the winning hand. However unless there's someone with a health bar leading them, like a Raid captain or an NPC, they'll just flood the enemy keep; not attack anyone and decrease the spawning of enemies inside said keep. Which seriously sabotage your efforts if you need that keep captured.
• Awesome Ego: Most of the playable cast has this to some degree, but Ganondorf and Volga are the standout examples. Both of them have planet-sized egos and over half of their battle quotes are them saying how awesome they are and how much their enemies suck. Though considering how insanely strong the both of them are, they have every right to be egotistical.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Cia has gotten backlash from some circles for being far more sexualized than any Zelda character to date (only some versions of the Great Fairies come close, like this game's, and Veran from Oracle of Ages), and for having a motivation as petty as a Villainous Crush. Other fans are more welcoming of her for being one of the few Dark Action Girls in the series and having a different reason for villainy than just lust for power or conquest.
  • Lana, the White Sorceress got a bit of backlash from her reveal trailer alone. Some welcome her as a fresh new addition to fight alongside familiar faces with a unique moveset, while others find her too "anime" for a Legend of Zelda character and think her Spear moves should have gone to Saria instead. Her getting a costume of Skull Kid when many expected the character himself to be playable in the Majora's Mask DLC did not help matters either.
  • Young Link also received several mixed opinions. While many agree that the Fierce Deity's Mask is a plus, others think that not having the rest of his transformation masks is a lot of wasted potential. And pretty much everyone thinks his redesign is way overdone.
  • Agitha, both as a character and as a fighter. Some fans like her for being an adorable, eccentric addition to the cast, and find her penchant of stumbling through the middle of conflicts while being completely oblivious to it to be hilarious. Others feel that she doesn't deserve to be in Warriors, since she was a non-combative side character in her own game, and don't like how irrelevant she is to the overall plot. As a fighter she used to suffer from a terribly slow combo string with little reach, and had moves with long periods of startup or recovery. The 1.4.0 update mitigated the former by buffing her attack speed and range, and she has a variety of excellent launches and juggles, so there's a divide between people as to whether her pros make up for her cons (best exemplified by online tier discussions where she's simultaneously placed in both low- and high- tier). What doesn't help is that she gets some of the hardest missions in Adventure Mode, and her best badges require The Imprisoned materials, which is the hardest of the big bosses to farm unless you're playing Legends or Definitive Edition.
• Best Level Ever:
  • The three levels in Legend Mode where you get to play as the King of Evil and unstoppable tank Ganondorf in his quest to acquire the Triforce and take over the world. But particularly the third one, where you get to slaughter the entire Hyrulean Army en masse, and then defeat Link and Zelda in order to take their Triforce pieces.
  • Ganon Mode, added by the Boss Pack DLC. Although it can be frustrating at times the entire thing is a massive power trip as Ganon can eradicate hundreds of soldiers with a single regular attack, not to mention take down other giant bosses without even having to worry about hitting their weak points. He's just that strong.
  • One level of Adventure Mode has you, as Ganondorf, go up against your own One-Winged Angel form, Ganon, while flanked by King Dodongo and Gohma. It's a surprisingly challenging test of endurance and strategy as you take down three Giant Bosses, one of them being the Final Boss.
  • The Great Sea Map exclusive to Legends gives us a mission where Ganondorf fights Ganon, this time flanked by Phantom Ganon and the Imprisoned. Sure, the existence of these two can give it That One Level status, but since you're fighting your beast form, your phantom double, and your previous incarnation, doing this will make you feel like the true King of Evil.
• Broken Base:
  • Many have dismissed this game as little more than "Dynasty Warriors with a coat of Zelda-Paint" from day one. When the actual game came out, a lot of reviewers pretty much agreed that that was the case. The debate then turned into whether that was a bad thing or not.
  • Fans who are used to Ganondorf's portrayal in Super Smash Bros. often wish that Ganondorf had a Bare-Fisted Monk-based moveset in Hyrule Warriors, believing that it would be an interesting addition to a game filled with weapon-wielders and that it would give him more weapons to choose from. Others who dislike his Smash portrayal are quick to scoff at this and are glad that it isn't in a game meant to celebrate the Zelda series.
  • Linkle's name. Some don't take issue with her name and find it to be a clever name that distinguishes her from Link, while others consider it to be a dumb name even by Zelda naming standards (which, mind you, has had its fair share of ridiculous names over the years), with detractors either wishing she was just called Link (even though Linkle is meant to be her own character), or they went with a different name instead.
• Captain Obvious Reveal: Due to it being one of the most famous twists in videogame history, no player was fooled when Sheik turned out to be Zelda.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • You can play as several side characters and make them shine by defeating hordes of enemies.
  • Cuccoos are actually killable in this game, so you actually can get defeat an enemy that's unkillable in most Zelda games. And if you are skilled enough, you can beat a horde of them. But, above all else, in Linkle's campaign and if you succeed at some escort missions in Adventure Mode, those fearsome foes will fight for you.
• Cliché Storm: If you've played at least a decent chunk of the previous Zelda games, you can pretty much guess where the story will go even going in as blind as possible. That said, some may argue that it's part of the game's charm.
• Common Knowledge: Linkle is seen as a female Link by many fans. However, while she views herself as such in the game, this is ultimately not the case, as she is her own individual character who is only inspired by Link rather than a female incarnation of the hero, with the game making it very clear that she is not The Chosen One (to put it shortly, many fans view her as the Zelda equivalent of the Thirteenth Doctor from Doctor Who, when she is actually more akin to Barbara Gordon/Batgirl from Batman).
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome: There are certain characters and weapons that are easy and fun to grind with, and therefore are the preferred character for most battles.
  • You'll find that Link, who gains an extremely powerful weapon in the Master Sword, and who has a lot of really quick, powerful and easy combos with it, and additionally has at least 3 more good-to-great weapons to choose from to cover any and all types and ranges of missions, climbs in the levels a lot faster than anyone else.
  • Ganondorf comes close to Link, especially after the Termina Map update gave him massive buffs, but for a different reason. His attack power is the strongest in the game, only rivaled by Darunia, except that Ganondorf has quite a bit of speed to go with his power in his weak attack string. And although his combo finishers are generally slow, he is the single best horde killer in the game, with both his C5 and C6 easily killing upwards of a hundred enemies at a time. A fully charged C1 is also one of the strongest moves in the game, with Ganondorf being invulnerable at the start-up of it, while C3 is a great option for smaller groups of enemies or officers. As such, Ganondorf, despite wielding only one weapon in the original release, is an extremely good pick for all kinds of missions, much like Link. And if you're not too keen on the slight slowness of his main weapon, you can instead go for his trident introduced in Legends. It has attack speed and combo options rivaling that of Volga while still having fairly good mob-killing capabilities and a selection of ranged options.
  • With the Master Quest update, Volga has risen to this status. He has insanely fast attack speed and combo options arguably only rivaled by Ganondorf's trident in Legends, with his continuous C2 spam in particular being a very easy infinite. Both his C4 and C5 are incredibly effective mob clearers, and he is completely invincible during the startup of the latter. His only downside is that his Level 2 and 3 weapons are locked behind the Master Quest DLC, but even when that is downloaded, his Level 3 weapon (yes, Level 3) mission comes surprisingly early in the map, and his broken qualities can easily clear it.
  • Sheik's particular moveset makes her a go-to character for many Adventure Mode missions. The water shield from Serenade of Water makes A-Ranking and hunting for Gold Skulltulas with a 'don't sustain four hearts of damage' requirement a much easier fare, particularly for 'Don't Get Hit' missions. It also makes her immune to Gibdo and Redead Knight's ability to freeze a fighter in place. The Song of Storms cyclone makes 'All Attacks Are Devastating' missions a joke, as does Sheik's natural speed and ability to dodge-cancel out of any move. To top it off is her great versatility, with decent attacks for AOE, one-on-one, keep clearing, and bosses, helped along by her Harp's unique ability to procure multiple elemental effects. However, her usefulness begins to taper off as you get to to the harder missions where damage is racked up, her damage output starts to become smaller and smaller, and her Water Shield sustains less hits per use as the enemies naturally become stronger. She (and the Water Shield) is still very good at that point though.
  • Young Link's easily rivals the rest of the ones put down here: It's much easier to fill up his Magic Gauge and, in addition to becoming extremely broken whenever he is in Focus Spirit, he can keep the bonuses gotten from Focus Spirit going for an extremely long time, naturally getting him higher levels, gold materials, and strong weapons easier than with other characters.
• Creepy Cute: Skull Kid, even moreso than in Majora's Mask. Whereas the original game focused more on Skull Kid acting like a Jerkass Woobie to the residents of Termina while under the control of Majora, Legends instead puts emphasis on his childlike personality. So half the time, he'll be mocking enemies as he annihilates them with the dark power of the mask, and then the other half, he'll be bashfully accepting compliments from allies, cheerfully calling out to them that he took a keep, and generally acting like a kid playing a game.
• Critical Dissonance: The reception to this game from most mainstream reviewers, while not entirely negative, is more of a So Okay, It's Average reaction. The fanbase and general gamer reception begs to differ (though to be fair, this is the best expected reaction for any Warriors game from Koei, so this is hardly surprising). Legends takes this a bit further, in that its reviews are slightly worse than the Wii U original but the fandom views it as a superior Polished Port, at least on a New 3DS instead of a base model.
• Cult Classic: The game, while generally forgotten even by hardcore Zelda fans, endured a healthy fanbase for its premise and execution. At the peak of the game's popularity, Lana was one of the most common picks for Smash Bros DLC suggestions. Even after the game officially ran its course with the Definitive Edition on Switch, many are hoping for a sequel or Creator-Driven Successor. Their prayers were answered with Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, which doubles as an Author's Saving Throw for players who were disappointed in the lack of Breath Of The Wild content in the original.
• Demonic Spiders:
  • Moblins and Shield Moblins. They expose their WPG for a surprisingly low amount of time, frequently come in groups, and have surprisingly quick attacks. It doesn't help that their super attack can only be interrupted with bombs, which are difficult to aim at close range and cannot hit them nearly fast enough most of the time. They're also difficult to combo on for a lot of characters due to the fact that they tend to fall like rocks when hit into the air, meaning that combos that work on the other officers usually do not work with these guys.
  • The Lizalfos and Dinolfos are easily the two enemies that exposes its weak point the least on its own. They usually need to be goaded into doing so by forcing them to block and hoping they choose to breathe fire as a counterattack, which has a lot more randomness involved in it than it should, and their position as a late-game Elite Mook usually means they have high defense to prevent being chipped to death. However, whaling on one for a while when its guard is down will cause it to knock the player back and initiate the fire attack, leaving them vulnerable, which is easy once the player learns it but hard to come up with otherwise since it's completely different from other weak point gauge exposure strategies.
  • Gibdos. They have an area of effect freeze attack that will lock you in place, leaving you wide open and unable to attack, along with a ranged scream attack with the same effect. Worse, while this normally exposes their weak point after use, this is sometimes merely a trap and they will quickly use the attack again if you try to move in, leaving little time to escape. They also have a poison area of effect attack that can also knock your character over, again leaving you vulnerable. And to top it all off, they're much more resilient to flinching than most enemies, making it hard to stop them from using these attacks. This is annoying enough by itself, but they also often appear alongside each other or other powerful enemies, making them quite a nightmare to deal with.
  • The bosses easily become this in the body count missions in Adventure Mode, since you only have 10 minutes (about 7 if you want an A-Rank) to get several hundred kills, and stopping to kill each one as they come along wastes plenty of precious time. It usually culminates in having three Gohmas chasing you at high speed across the map while you struggle to scavenge kills at each stop. Even worse, these bosses can kill you very easily if you're not careful, especially if they manage to get a morale boost from an enemy leader (which also take far too long to kill to be worth the trouble). They're toned down considerably in Definitive Edition thanks to the reworked ranking system, which makes it so the time limit is doubled (including the A-Rank time, which is changed to 15 minutes like most missions).
  • Cuccos, unsurprisingly enough. Especially where you can (hypothetically) avoid fighting them altogether, but sometimes a random cucco appears on the field, follows you around like a lost dog and has the audacity to attack you with an army in a Roaring Rampage of Revenge should you inevitably hit it with one of your ranged attacks. Even if you teleport from one end of the map to the other with the Ocarina, it will still come running to you and seemingly just wait to get hit.
  • Aeralfos and Fiery Aeralfos due to their multitude of long-range attacks, the ability to fly out of range of most of your moves, and an extremely quick aerial charge attack with no real way to tell they're about to use it beforehand. There are characters who have an easier time with them under these circumstances (Ruto in particular can use her Strong Attack move to smash them out of the air), but the player doesn't always have the luxury of using them.
  • In Ganon's Fury, even though giant bosses are disturbingly common, most of them aren't much of a problem once one gets used to them. And then The Imprisoneds appear. They have no trouble at all taking Ganon from full health to zero with their squirming teeth.
  • The Dark Warriors in Ganon's Fury. They're much, much stronger than regular characters, have very high HP, appear in every last mission, and are completely unavoidable. The worst part? Ganon's so huge that you can hardly see them most of the time. Still annoying but considerably less so when playing as Giant Cucco, since, despite his being much weaker than Ganon, the Event-Obscuring Camera is no longer a problem.
  • The Dark counterparts of the Giant Bosses in Boss Mode. They are more vulnerable than their original counterparts, but can't be stunned, and often you will have to fight many of them at once.
• Evil Is Cool:
  • Ganondorf; just look at his trailer. He has great lines, an awesome design, and the levels where you play as him are regarded as some of the best in the game. Especially notable next to the more campy Ghirahim and Zant.
  • Volga would also qualify. He's egotistical, intimidating, has cool armour, can turn into a dragon, and gameplay-wise is one of the best characters in the game. Fans love him for it.
  • The evil armies^note Bokoblins, Moblins, Bulblins, Stalchilds, and their captains^note Stalmasters, Gibdos, Poes, Dinolfos, and Aerolfos seem more competent then their Hylian counterparts in the missions you get to use them.
• Fan-Disliked Explanation: While Nintendo has officially said that Hyrule Warriors is non-canonical to the main Zelda franchise, in light of Breath of the Wild, some prefer the idea that it is canonical. Given that the plot of Hyrule Warriors involves multiple time periods crossing over and characters and locations from them mingling, the events of the game could provide an explanation for how Breath of the Wild references locations, characters, and races from all three branches of the Zelda timeline — the different timelines became aware of each other in Hyrule Warriors. Alternatively, Hyrule Warriors could have been used by Nintendo to call a Cosmic Retcon on the franchise by merging the three separate timelines into one that borrows history from all of them, and then future games could do as they like without having to worry about adhering to the continuity with a specific timeline.
• Fandom-Enraging Misconception: Calling Linkle a "female Link" is a good way to rile up her fans and fans of this game. It completely misses the point of how she is her own character and she only thinks she's a Link but is not The Chosen One.
• Fandom Rivalry: With Super Smash Bros. in terms of representing the Zelda franchise, especially the main villain Ganondorf. Due to Hyrule Warriors' more extensive representation of the whole Zelda series compared to that of Smash, fans of this game sometimes attack it and Masahiro Sakurai for its more limited representation of the series in comparison. Ganondorf's portrayals between the two games is a frequent point of contention, with fans of Hyrule Warriors often attacking Sakurai for not caring about how Ganondorf is portrayed due to his own personal preference^note He was made a Captain Falcon clone in Melee due to him being a late-development addition, but has been kept this way in spite of Ganondorf's use of swords and magic later being established in the Zelda series while praising Koei for making Ganondorf an amalgamation of all his best aspects throughout the Zelda series. Because of this, it's not uncommon for many fans to demand that Smash take more inspiration from Hyrule Warriors for its Zelda-related content, particularly regarding the movesets and character designs of Ganondorf and Zelda.
• Fanfic Fuel: What if Linkle was The Chosen One and a reincarnation of the hero? This has unsurprisingly led to many fanfics depicting this exact scenario, with some even going as far as to replace Link with Linkle in games like The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild via modding. To go along with this, there have been countless pieces of fanart designing Linkle as the various forms Link has taken over the course of the series (e.g., Deku Linkle, Wolf Linkle, etc.).
• Fan Nickname: The game is often called "Harem Warriors" or "Waifu Musou" (and variations thereof) by some gamers, due to the fact that the majority of warriors on the hero's side are female, while Link, who's usually a Chick Magnet in any game he's in, was the only male hero showcased until Darunia's reveal later down the line.
• Fan-Preferred Cut Content: Many fans wish Linkle was kept as Link's younger sister as initially planned instead of the final game's depiction of a Heroic Wannabe who thinks she is a reincarnation of Link, namely because they felt it would've given her a greater connection to Link (by being related to him) and Aryll (who she is heavily inspired by). Because of this, it is not uncommon for fanfics to restore their original relationship.
• Fanon:
  • It's generally assumed that Volga is a reincarnated Volvagia, or his son.
  • Though the concept of Linkle being Link's little sister was eventually scrapped and there is no connection between them in the game, a lot of fans still like to think of her as being related to him, often treating her as Link's long-lost sister.
• Fanon Discontinuity: Non-Zelink shippers (and even those who ship Link and Zelda or specific incarnations of them) would rather ignore the game's implication that Zelda and Link are destined to be together. This is because it destroys every non-Zelink pairing and some found the idea of every incarnation of Link and Zelda being destined lovers to be forced, as some incarnations of them (like the Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess incarnations) don't develop a close bond in their games, much less a romantic one.
• Foe Yay Shipping:
  • Volga/Link, largely due to the backstory of Volvagia in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1999), with many seeing similarities between Volvagia and Volga.
  • Cia/Link, naturally. It helps that it started out as a harmless crush before it became a full-on obsession.
  • Link/Ghirahim, which started in Skyward Sword, is still going strong here.
• Franchise Original Sin: A common complaint with Fire Emblem Warriors was the game only focused on three games from the series. The same thing can be said about Hyrule Warriors, which in the base game, mainly focused on three games. However, Hyrule gave all three games equal representation and had material from other games such as the classic NES design for Gohma and Bow Wow. Then a 3DS version of Hyrule Warriors came out that added in all DLC (including Majora's Mask characters) and added in new Wind Waker plot elements, expanding it to five games. Adding all these characters to the Wii U version (though without the stories and maps) only made the game look better with DLC, especially when DLC for Fire Emblem decided to keep focusing on the three games it was already using.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: It was in the top five best selling games in the UK. Compare that to Japan, where it sold much less than other Dynasty Warrior spin-offs. Then again, this is par for the course with Zelda games, which are substantially a lot more popular in the West than in Japan.
• Game-Breaker: Has its own page here.
• Goddamned Boss:
  • Three of the giant bosses in Adventure Mode (King Dodongo, Gohma, and Manhandla) work on a frustrating A.I. Roulette where only certain attacks out of a pool of six or seven possible attacks make them vulnerable (unless a Magic Jar transport guard shows up, then you can use the Focus Spirit special attack to do it instantly); it's not uncommon to see them repeat the same move constantly, which can mean the difference between being able to A-rank the mission or being locked out of it. In a lot of the timed "Defeat all Giant Bosses" missions, they'll put you up against two of them at the same time, compounding the problem. Even more frustratingly, the creators gave the same roulette to Argorok, but managed to do it right, because his chances of using attacks that render him vulnerable are much higher and he leaves his weak point accessible after most of his attacks.
    • King Dodongo's vulnerable attack is much more likely to happen if you're in front of him after he breathes fire, but the fact remains that he only has one attack that triggers it at all, making him an absolute hell on timed missions. He can get stuck roaring, stomping the ground in front of him with his right claw, or rolling around for minutes at a time, all the while capturing a keep. To add more insult to injury, while his fire breath is usually followed by his vulnerable attack, it also has a fake-out variant in which he immediately closes his mouth.
    • In missions where you have to defeat a certain number of enemies to win, Gohma is the most annoying giant boss by far thanks to its high speed. While the others are slow enough to avoid for a while, Gohma can easily keep up with the player, and its Eye Beams cover a huge range, made especially problematic since the player is usually looking away from Gohma during these levels.
    • Manhandla is probably the worst out of the three, as its vulnerability period is by far the shortest, the attacks that cause it generally have hard-to-spot tells and are hard to avoid, and even when you manage to hit it in time with the right weapon, it's extremely likely that you'll still miss one of the heads and need to wait for it to use another such attack. The attacks that don't leave it open are even harder to avoid and used even more often when it's under 50% HP. That being said, it exposes its weak point much more frequently than King Dodongo or Gohma, so once you get its pattern down, it becomes much more manageable than the RNG-fests that are King Dodongo and Gohma.
  • The Imprisoned is annoying for a different reason: his foot stomps consistently generate shockwaves and you have to attack his toes to make him vulnerable. Also, you can only deplete half of his weakness gauge each time he falls: he will automatically counterattack when you reach half of the gauge, making him the only monster who has a weakness gauge which can't be depleted in one go. Once he's back to being invulnerable, he'll stay on the ground and slide around a bit, which, thanks to his size and deceptive speed (and being able to turn on a dime if you dodge him) lets him clock some cheap damage on you. Finally, when he gets up and regenerate his toes, he is invincible for another 5 to 10 seconds. Get him down to half health, and those same shockwaves suddenly do way more damage and cover more range. All this, combined with usually fighting him in relatively small arenas, makes him rather frustrating. Unlike the other bosses, he doesn't take chip damage. Legends made him slightly easier by making it so that you can deplete his weakness gauge in one turn, but the rest still applies.
  • Phantom Ganon, introduced in Legends, can be an absolute nightmare. The first phase of Tennis Boss is fairly tolerable, but it's his second phase that makes the difficulty skyrocket: he pulls out a second sword, and foregoes the Tennis Boss pattern to ravaging your warriors with hard strikes that can break your block and send you flying. Plus, he doesn't appear to have any surefire way to expose his Weak Point Gauge, so all you can do is try everything until something works.^note The secret is actually to wail on him from behind until he staggers, but this is in no way obvious. But it's almost certain to deplete a considerable portion of your character's HP before then.
• Good Bad Bugs:
  • There was a glitch which caused characters to have the weapons and movesets of other characters. The effects ranged from extremely ridiculous to pretty awesome. This was later patched, and instead became an actual feature of some of the later Adventure Mode missions.
  • Triggering an enemy character's intro cutscene while performing Zant's spin causes him to have an infinite spin attack.
  • Occasionally, you won't need to stun all four of Manhandla's heads. Depending on how nice the game feels like being, you can get away with only three, or sometimes even just two.
  • If you're using a weapon with a Rupees+ skill and kill a giant boss without triggering a Weak Point Smash (which causes a brief slowdown effect like when you kill any Elite Mook or playable character that doesn't happen when a giant boss is killed with a WPS), while also killing some normal enemies during the slowdown effect or at the same time as the giant boss, there's a chance that you'll instantly gain a random number of rupees when the giant boss explodes, which can somehow end up underflowing, potentially giving you a negative amount of Rupees: if the amount of Rupees you have at this time is lower than the negative amount, the underflow ends up maxing out the total number of Rupees you can carry, meaning you have 9,999,999 of them to spend on anything you like as soon as you finish the level. This doesn't work in Legends, sadly.
  • Legends has a bit of a... memory leak error if the game is played for a little too long consecutively. While not too harmful, they can cause some weird lighting issues, ground draw oddness, and some victory animations and boss intro screens get very entertainingly bizarre.
  • Due to the way the game handles offscreen enemies, switching back and forth between far apart characters will cancel certain attacks. Most notably, this can be used to skip The Imprisoned's long get-up animation.
• He's Just Hiding: Volga gets some amount of this. His final appearance in Legend Mode has him finally overcome Cia's mind control, but he chooses to keep fighting anyway, with it implied that his fate was something along the lines of Dying as Yourself. It doesn't outright say that this happened, though, so the audience is free to assume he returned to his life of isolation in the Eldin Caves after the battle instead.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Lana is this game's tritagonist, uses a book as a magic weapon, can summon series bosses to attack enemies, and is Cia's good side made human after being corrupted. This won't be the last time a hack and slash game uses all of these elements for a playable character.
  • Cia's entire plot is founded on the idea that Link/Zelda as the Official Couple is baked into the Zelda universe as a fundamental pillar of reality. But in the comic adaptation of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, this idea is proven false. The comic has it that despite a mutual attraction, Link and Zelda choose duty over each other.
• I Knew It!:
  • Among the pre-order bonuses for the game included DLC costumes of the incarnations of Zelda and Link from the three Zelda titles featured in the game, titled "Wisdom" and "Courage", with one also titled "Power", leading people to suspect Ganondorf would be a playable character. He is.
  • Many guessed Zant and Ghirahim would be playable, as it's tradition for villains to be playable in Dynasty Warriors games. They are.
  • When pics of Lana were first shown without her being explicitly named, many theorized that she was Cia before becoming corrupted. After more details of Lana were revealed, one of the theories about the true relationship between Lana and Cia involved them probably being two halves of the same person. Turns out Lana is actually the good half of Cia that split when she was corrupted.
  • One of the prospective characters for the first game was a crossbow-wielding female version of Link named Linkle, though she was not included in the original game. When a crossbow was briefly shown in the trailer for Hyrule Warriors Legends, fans speculated that Linkle would be included. On November 12, 2015, she was announced as a playable character.
  • When all of the future Legends DLC characters were leaked via portrait file names, some fans correctly predicted that Toon Zelda would be based on her ghost form and Phantom armor from Spirit Tracks.
  • When the Nintendo NX was announced, Fans had expectations for a "Complete Edition" of the game, only for Fire Emblem Warriors to be announced instead. Fast forward several months, and to January 2018, and Koei Tecmo announced the literal "Definitive Edition", effectively restoring all the cut content to the 3DS version and then further enhancing the exclusive content.
• It's the Same, So It Sucks:
  • The Definitive Edition is commonly criticized for being a simple port of the other two, without adding any extra content besides Breath Of The Wild based costumes for Link and Zelda. Pretty much everyone agreed that the Definitive Edition isn't worth the money if one didn't play the other two first, they could've at least added new weapons and costumes based on the Champíons for Darunia, Ruto, Medli and Ganondorf.
  • Many fans were disappointed to see that, unlike the DLC characters from the original Wii U game (Young Link, Tingle and Twili Midna) the DLC characters from Legends (Medli, Marin, Toon Zelda, Ravio and Yuga) never received any costumes whatsoever in Definitive Edition, despite getting new Level 4+ weapons. All of their unlockable heart containers and weapons still being restricted to the Adventure Mode map they originally came with (which was something that was changed for the Wii U DLC characters in Legends) hasn't been well-received either, with many people arguing it makes them feel sidelined from the other characters. Medli's case is particularly jarring, since, much like Cia, Volga and Wizzro in the original Wii U game, she was originally added to Legends in a free update and even appears as an NPC in later maps, but unlike Cia, Volga and Wizzro, she never received a single costume.
• It Was His Sled:
  • Probably the second (or third) most well-known spoiler in a video game is that Sheik is Zelda. What's strange is that the game wavers between whether it thinks you'll know. On the one hand, this design for Sheik has more obvious elements of Zelda and looking like a woman. On the other hand, they avoid using gendered pronouns (or use male pronouns in the original Japanese version) and the heroes don't guess until Zelda chooses to reveal herself, despite some pretty obvious indications. It could be possible that the game was trying to throw off some players into positing that this Sheik may not be Zelda.
  • For the game itself, few people nowadays are unaware that Cia and Lana used to be the same person, until Ganondorf's influence split Cia's good parts into the being that became Lana. Considering how popular both of them are, it was only a matter of time until this became common knowledge.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Cia in spades, especially in the Master Quest DLC. By the time you're done playing, you'll want to give the girl a hug after everything she's been through. It's shown best in the last story mission of the Master Quest DLC, during her Villainous Breakdown. The fight with Ganondorf is not going well and most of her allies are abandoning her. Half dead and growing delusional from using her life force to bolster her dark magic, she summons Dark Link in a desperate attempt to aid her against the enemy, and starts to believe that he is the actual Hero of Hyrule. Eventually, she starts repeating to herself "The hero is still by my side", and she honestly seems to believe it. It's not even the end of it. In the Wind Waker campaign in Legends, it's revealed Cia is alive but she is possessed by Phantom Ganon, and even after she's freed, her magic is still in his clutches, meaning Cia is very weak and on the verge of dying. Only after Link and Lana team up with Tetra and King Daphnes to defeat Phantom Ganon for good does Cia finally know peace once more.
  • Volga may be an arrogant jerkass, but he was also mind-controlled into fighting in a war he wanted no part of. By the end of the campaign against Cia, she also attempts to force him to violate his own code of honor, and it’s not confirmed whether he survives the battle.
• Just Here for Godzilla:
  • The game sells itself on this. Despite misgivings about the repetitive nature of Koei's Warriors games, people have bought the game anyway just to play as Zelda characters kicking vast amounts of ass.
  • Many longtime Zelda fans bought the game just to see their favorite otherwise One Shot Characters like Midna, Ghirahim, Medli, and Marin once more.
  • Some fans who are displeased by Ganondorf's controversial portrayal in Super Smash Bros. came to Hyrule Warriors just to play as him, as while his portrayal in the former series is a Kung-Fu Wizard semi-Moveset Clone of unrelated character Captain Falcon^note A portrayal, which while not entirely unfounded in the Zelda series, exaggerates the amount of punching and kicking he sometimes does in his home series, his portrayal in the latter game incorporates Dual Wielding giant swords combined with Black Magic, incorporating moves that he (as well as his preincarnation Demise) does in various boss fights in the Zelda series. Even still, those who are unsatisfied with his sword wielding in the original release are flocking to the 3DS Legends release (or buying the Legends DLC pack on the Wii U version) just for the chance to use his classic trident weapon.
• Low-Tier Letdown:
  • Despite having been somewhat buffed in the 1.4.0 update, Agitha used to get a lot of flak for having a quite ineffectual moveset. She was slow, weak, and her combos had embarrassingly short range. Hell, she is the only character in the entire game who doesn't start out with a 5-part combo. That's right, folks. You have to buy her 5-part combo. 1.4.0 tried to fix some of these issues, but many people aren't convinced that the good outweighs the bad yet. What doesn't help is that you need to farm The Imprisoned for her badge materials, and Adventure Mode loves to stick her in missions that are downright frustrating thanks to her gameplay.
  • Tetra is below average all around, but struggles with regular officers moreso than most characters as they are immune to her boiling water trap's effect (character officers take a small amount of damage and fall over on the ground, leaving Tetra with enough time to get off one of her combo finishers on them, but regular enemy officers only take the damage part, meaning the move is essentially useless on them), and her C2 does not help in this regard because it applies the water effect which completely ruins any potential that move had for starting combos. As enemy officers is the most reoccuring enemy, this gives Tetra a big problem as she needs to go much farther into her string to find moves that she can use against them. In addition, before a game update, she used to be extremely bad at taking down the WP Gs of any boss other than King Dodongo. It was so bad that she was for a time indubitably considered the worst character in the game.
  • While many players are ambivalent to Tingle in this game, he does have some detractors for reasons other than Americans Hate Tingle. His standard attacks and C2 have unimpressive range (even fans of his moveset won’t deny that), and while his C3, C4, and C5 are all capable of doing damage, they’re also slow, and his C3’s hitbox is rather wonky while his C4’s is narrow, leaving his C5 as his only attack with no disadvantages other than its speed. As for his C1 mechanic, while it can be used effectively, it is also difficult to use reliably and does nothing that couldn’t be accomplished more easily with his combos. The fact that he always makes annoying sounds when running definitely doesn't help. He’s not exactly unusable, but it becomes a question of whether the disadvantages are too major to make him worth using.
• Memetic Loser: The Hylian Captain. It's not uncommon on sites such as GameFAQs to discuss how all he does is ask for help or get killed, or to devise incredibly lame movesets for him if he were playable. Of course, sometimes it comes full circle for his counterpart, the Hylian Raid Captain◊.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Link's scarf. ^ExplanationLink's Scarf of Asskicking has become very popular with the fan base, so much so that a lot of fans are asking for it to be part of Link's canon design from here on out. Nintendo is aware of how this little piece of clothing has taken the fan base by storm, since they gave a replica in the Collector's Edition.
  • Groose or Riot. ^explanationThe request for Groose from Skyward Sword to be playable. The phrase is very popular on Hyrule Warriors Direct.
  • Ganondorf and hair-care products. ^explanationGanondorf's new long hair has prompted a lot of jokes about how dedicated the Demon King is to maintaining it. It got to the point that Nintendo of Europe got in on it.
  • "I think we all know who deserves to be in Hyrule Warriors." ^ExplanationFollowed by an image of a random supporting character, such as Link's Grandma from Wind Waker, or Navi.
  • "Hyrule Harem" or "Link's Harem" ^ExplanationBarring Darunia, Link is the only playable male character of the main Hyrulean Forces alongside eight females, two of which are confirmed to have crushes on him (Zelda and Lana, three if you count Sheik), one that was technically engaged to him in another game (Ruto), and one that left Link speechless (kind of) due to her beauty at the end of the game she appeared in (Midna). That's not even counting Cia.
  • "Postman Link"◊ ^ExplanationThe minute the DLC for the Twilight Princess pack was revealed, this costume became very, very popular. The reason should be obvious.
  • "Tingle's rape face is ready!" started popping up after his announcement and seeing his design.
  • With the reveal of Linkle, a pseudo Distaff Counterpart to Link, being a playable character in Legends, the "What if Zelda was a girl?" meme has experienced a major resurgence.
  • As a bit of crossover meming, Marin will occasionally announce that she is "really feeling it".
• Moe:
  • Lana is a Genki Girl with a cute voice and gestures... Or at least, she acts like one. Her Summoning Gate weapon even has her dancing around and singing like an Idol Singer.
  • Agitha is a little girl who dresses up like a princess, also has a cute voice, and is ditzy enough to follow butterflies right into the middle of a warzone without realising it.
  • Linkle is a ditzy Heroic Wannabe with an upbeat attitude and a courageous heart. On top of that, she's a Friend to All Living Things, especially Cuccos.
  • The DLC gives us Medli, Marin, and Toon Zelda. Medli is still her well-meaning but ditzy self, best exemplified where she still gets dizzy after slamming her head into the ground with her special. Marin's singing and prancing can give Lana's idol persona a run for her money. Toon Zelda is in her Cute Ghost Girl form the entire time and wearing the Phantom armor, and she's still afraid of mice.
• Narm:
  • At several points during cutscenes, Link is ambushed by dismally puny numbers of enemies that he apparently needs to be saved from. This is especially bizarre when it's used to top off his character arc, where his arrogance apparently gets him in trouble... when the player has likely wiped the floor with the Shadow Links and will go on to casually destroying crowds of hundreds afterwards.
  • The Voice Grunting can be a bit much at times, with characters making gasping and groaning sounds constantly during their dialogue.
• Polished Port:
  • Legends is quite the technical marvel, considering it's able to run on the 3DS. This is on top of the additional content it brings to the table. That being said, it's much better to play it on the New 3DS as opposed to the original model, thanks to a gulf of performance between the two (much better frame rate and a bigger number of enemies onscreen being the main benefits).
  • Definitive Edition for Switch was hailed as such from its announcement, as it includes all of the content from both prior versions, maintains the portability of Legends, and even enjoys a performance upgrade from the Wii U original thanks to the hardware. In short, calling it the "definitive edition" is pretty accurate.
• Porting Disaster: Legends on the original 3DS, while still playable, has a very noticeable downgrade in performance, with choppy framerate and a reduced number of enemies on screen at a time. The ability to play with 3D on is also disabled.
• One True Threesome: Link, Zelda and Lana has been shipped together by many fans. Lana being a heroic wielder of the Triforce of Power and being canonically attracted to Link especially invites this.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • Fi has been much better received here than in her debut game, thanks to no longer being a Captain Obvious with Annoying Video Game Helper tendencies (any time she is, it's clearly being Played for Laughs), being one of the best characters at fighting groups of enemies, and having some Not So Stoic moments that flesh her out.
  • Zant to a lesser extent. While he was a fairly popular character in Twilight Princess, the main criticism was that The Reveal of his Psychopathic Manchild nature came completely out of nowhere and undermined his previous badassery. In here, his Psychopathic Manchild traits are prominent from the start but shown mostly through his awesome gameplay, while in the story proper, he is portrayed as a slightly eccentric, but cunning villain. Thus, he is far less polarizing. It also helps that the 1.5.0 update gave him some much needed buffs to his moveset and also that the boss fight with him is more challenging than the one in his home game.
  • Tingle, for some; though many in America (of course) were dismayed that he was chosen over Skull Kid, the hate died down when the latter was announced for Legends. It also helps that his moveset is actually quite reliable for taking on groups of enemies, not to mention his balloon is apparently fire-elemental. And for those who haven't gotten over his inclusion in the game, it's still funny to see him get hurt during his attacks, not to mention there are some levels in Legends where he's an enemy captain that you can defeat in open combat, including a mission where you can go Fierce Deity Link on him.
• Rooting for the Empire: Even before release, Ganondorf was the most popular character in the game, so it's no surprise people wanted them to win. That said, Ganon actually wins at a point, to the rejoicing of his fans.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • Any level where a Cucco will appear and follow the player around. While neutral at first, If it's attacked enough times it will become hostile and send hordes of Cuccos against the player. The event seems to exist solely to discourage the use of wide attacks, or, for that matter, any attacks if you don't know exactly where the chicken last moved to, since they're programmed to dart around randomly when idle. The general consensus is that it's not a matter of if you'll hit it enough to trigger its rage, but when. Some of the other Cucco events (guiding a baby Cucco to its mother, defeating a Golden Cucco before it grows too powerful, and two Cuccos fighting in a keep) are also hated, but the one that follows the player is particularly disliked. Something that makes it both better and worse is when you're playing as a character like Fi, whose attacks are all-range even when combos aren't a factor. On one hand, it's pretty much impossible not to hit the Cucco, so you're bound to piss it off sooner or later. On the other hand, her combos are more than enough to take them out in the higher levels, so it becomes less of a matter of avoiding the Cucco so much as it is getting your revenge on this mechanic in every way possible, along with bolstering your KO count to make an A-Rank easier.
  • Escort missions are worse than usual since the characters you're protecting often suffer from bad programming and will stop moving even if there are no enemies near them, or prioritize fighting every single enemy in their way. Meaning you can't progress at all until they become unstuck. Extremely frustrating, particularly during timed stages.
  • The missions that don't have an Element Affinity, as it means all the defense badges you've grinded for are now completely useless (making getting an A-Rank all that more difficult). It would've made more sense for the Badges to passively reduce the damage of certain attacks that have an element instead.
  • During co-op play, enemy groups are severely cut to make up for the strain of having two characters in the same mission. This can make racking up KOs exceptionally difficult due to enemies not spawning fast enough; in fact, you could be only halfway through claiming a keep and have it completely devoid of enemies for several seconds. However, this may have been an intentional design flaw, since it discourages players from abusing co-op mode to A-Rank a mission with a character other than who the mission was intended for (although it also discourages playing the game with friends as well).
  • Some Ganon's Fury missions have Zant and Ghirahim show up and then get attacked, prompting you to save them. While the consequences of not saving them aren't particularly dire, this is made annoying by how Ganon's size is so vast that it's nearly impossible to make contact with their green circles to restore their health without pushing them into a wall first.
  • Manhandla Stalks sprout up and either a) pelt your Allied Base with seeds so you're in danger of losing it and automatically failing the mission; b) pelt you with seeds (which have no markers in Legends) while you're running, so you'll end up running straight into them and possibly losing your A-Rank or second Skulltula; or c) target multiple areas so pretty much nobody is safe. They also appear in different keeps throughout the map, forcing you to run to the other side just to take them out. And while they're typically easy to take out (just use the boomerang on them), it's still a huge pain running clear across the map to deal with them, especially if it is one of the bigger maps such as Twilight Field.
  • The Hylian Ghost event. A Hylian Captain will suddenly appear on the battlefield, often behind enemy lines, and be just as competent as you would expect. When he gets in trouble, he has to retreat to the allied base in order to escape. If he dies before then, he becomes a ghost that curses your army and causes a huge chunk of your allies to flee, leaving you wide open for an attack. It's a minor inconvenience if the mission only has one playable warrior slot, but it's an absolute emergency otherwise, because the ghost can make your other playable warriors flee. So expect to have to take time out of your busy schedule to escort the Hylian Captain to the base before things go From Bad to Worse. It doesn't help much that the Hylian Captain, being as bright as he is, is highly likely to stop and fight every single enemy he encounters along the way, dragging things on for longer than they should and wasting your time in the process, potentially locking you out of an A-rank if you exceed the time limit required (15 minutes in original Wii U version and Definitive Edition, 20 minutes in Legends). If that wasn't enough, unlike other events that have you helping potential allies, this Hylian Captain gives the player absolutely no rewards for successfully helping him retreat. All of this causes the event to come off as huge time waster that not only has no benefits attached to it, but that severely punishes you if you dare to ignore it. Hope you weren't planning on A-ranking the mission...
  • Killing enemy officers will result in a camera slow down, which will lead to Camera Screw if you are close up. It becomes a major problem during One Hit Wonder missions. ]
  • On some stages, once the enemy base is open, the allied commander will make a beeline to fight the enemy commander. This does not magically make them better in combat, and you always lose if the allied commander dies, so you've got to protect them from themselves and defeat the enemy commander first. If you'd been planning on waiting to go treasure hunting, or still need KOs for an A-Rank or skulltula... well, too bad.
• Sequel Difficulty Spike: Well, Updated Re-release Difficulty Spike, anyways.
  • Legends and Definitive Edition have several Adventure Mode-style objectives in every scenario in Legend Mode, including those returning from the Wii U version. Nominally, this is meant to prevent the new character-switch mechanic and the added ocarina from making things 'too easy', but it mostly just comes across as Fake Difficulty due to having at least two objectives running at any given time (worsened by the fact that not all scenarios have the availability of the character-switch or owl statues for the ocarina in the first place)
  • Legends also shifts all Lv. 2 or higher weapon types to later Adventure Mode Maps, and makes all Lv. 1 weapons A-Rank unlocks rather than Stage Clear unlocks. Not only does this limit the Lv. 2 weapons that can be taken to the Dark Ruler mission to those which are found in Legend Mode, but it makes acquiring different weapon types that much harder as well. Definitive Edition, despite maintaining the practice, averts this aspect of the trope by making the gameplay of Adventure Mode itself much easier.
• Ships That Pass in the Night: Linkle being a Distaff Counterpart to Link (at least, in her mind) has led some Yuri fans to ship her with Princess Zelda, despite the two not interacting in any of the story campaigns.
• Special Effect Failure:
  • Link's Gauntlet Special Attack, where he throws the entire planet, is conveyed entirely with the camera. If you activate it in such a way that the camera doesn't follow him or a second player watches, it will look like Link simply jumps in the air and enemies die for no apparent reason.
  • Even the New 3DS can't handle Lana's Summoning Gate, so, in Legends, all of her summons are portrayed as glowing balls of light.
• Squick:
  • Cia has Young Link and Wolf Link as part of her Stalker Shrine.
  • Every enemy and boss drops one or two collectible materials that are unique to them when slain, such as clothing, armor, and weapons. But you can also collect their body parts, even from some of the more sapient enemies, such as bones from Stalmasters or wings from Aeralfos (thankfully, you don't collect body parts from enemy Hylian soldiers). One of the materials that can be collected from Moblins is a 'flank', which looks red and round. Yep, you're cutting off the butt cheeks of dead Moblins for resources (and for some extra gross factor, the Moblins used in this game are the Skyward Sword versions). "Gohma's Lens" is even worse; you're not even taking the whole eyeball.
• Strangled by the Red String: A common criticism of the story is how the heavily inconsistent Reincarnation Romance angle of Link and Zelda's dynamic is suddenly blown up to a guaranteed thing between them, despite the fact that there are multiple titles in the series where Link and Zelda meet and barely form a relationship (nevermind a romantic one), and even here, they have maybe two or three interactions tops that push the Implied Love Interest label on them. A possible explanation for this is that the only people who comment on their "fated union" are Cia and Lana, whom both have story reasons to invest in that idea; Cia uses it as an excuse to lash out in jealousy and seduce Link over to her side, while Lana plays it up as a reason to cajole herself to stop pining for Link and start focusing on her duties again before she too has her affections turn toxic and used against her. Though that line of reasoning does bring up the question of why Lana would even need to maintain the mantra in the first place if she still had a chance with Link.
• That One Attack:
  • Manhandla's Bullet Seed attack. The tell for the attack looks quite similar to the one that would normally leave it open, but don't try to move in to attack. If you do, Mandandla will attack with a barrage of seeds that takes off huge chunks of your health. It doesn't matter how much you try to dodge or block this attack, because if you're hit by it at all, you are stunlocked until the attack completes and cannot shield or dodge whatsoever. Ganon can use this attack, too, and you have to get him to use it at least twice to move onto phase two. Rolling into the space between the four heads whenever this attack is starting is the best you can do against it.
  • Darunia's C5 as an enemy. The pool of lava he creates covers quite a good circle around him, which is a pain when you're trying to get in close and rush him down. Unfortunately, if you're caught in the lava, you're knocked down and unable to move for quite a bit, and nothing's stopping Darunia or other enemies from getting a cheap shot on you. And this is one of his attacks that exposes his weak point, but the attack's hitbox lasts so long that it's easy to get knocked down while you're trying to close in for the weak point right when the lava fades.
  • Cia has an even worse version of the above as her own C5. She creates shadow pools around her in a very wide area, and if you try to rush her when that happens you'll just get stunned for your troubles with nothing stopping her from viciously retaliating. God help you during the Disc-One Final Boss fight against the four Cias if all of them decide to use this attack.
  • Skull Kid has one of these in the form of, you guessed it, his C5. Tatl and Tael will circle around him and deal tons of damage in what feels like seconds. It's fast, it hits from all angles, and there's barely any hinting aside from a subtle animation. Most attacks have some form of hint that tells you to get out of the way; with Skull Kid, not so much. Sure, you can guard against this move, making it much less effective, but if you're on an Adventure Square that makes you unable to guard, then Hylia have mercy on you. And woe be those who tackle the "Divisive Plan" mission in Master Wind Waker that has you dealing with three of them, later up to twelve if you're careless.
  • The Imprisoned wouldn't be a Goddamned Boss if he didn't have one of these. In this case, if you get too far from him, he'll activate a red electrical field that zaps anything inside it after a certain time passes, taking a huge chunk of their health in the process. It's not such a big deal most of the time, but in levels where you're trapped in an enclosed space, it can get annoying when you suddenly have to avoid getting zapped; either find a spot that's not too far, or dodge at just the right moment so the lightning only barely misses. The frustration can be mitigated by attacking his toes, which does stop the attack or at least help you No-Sell it. Whether you get the chance depends on any surrounding enemies.
• That One Boss:
  • Zant in the second Twilight Princess chapter has a lot more health than most other bosses, and doesn't expose his weak point nearly as often. Most boss characters expose their weak point after flashy-looking attacks, but Zant doesn't work the same way as the others. Any of his special attacks can cause him to flinch, but for that, he has to overuse it (the game applies the same rules to him as a NPC as when you are playing him). The only way to do that is to stay at range when he is attacking, and block his attacks (while the player is used to evading attacks), so that he will keep attacking and exhaust himself. Thankfully, the game remembers how many times he used his special attacks before, so if you didn't succeed in making him dizzy the first time, chances are he will be when he initiates the next one. Still, as long as you don't understand how his weak point mechanism works, you are stuck against a boss who just never exposes his weak point if you fight him like the others. Legends changed him so that his attacks are harder to dodge, but two of them will expose his weak point even if he doesn't tire himself out.
  • Volga, being a bit of a Lu Bu Expy, is rightfully difficult. His weak point gauge only shows up for a split second, meaning you have to be right next to him in order to lower it. Problem is, he has a lot of fast attacks that break your guard, stunning your character long enough for the gauge to disappear. His attacks are more powerful than most officers, he has a ton of health, and he often transforms into his dragon form, during which he is completely invincible and has very difficult-to-avoid attacks. Oh yeah, and the first time you can fight him is in the first level. He only gets harder later on in the second time in the Valley of Seers where he gains an insane boost in attack.
  • The first visit to Gerudo Desert pits you against King Dodongo, Gohma, and Manhandla at the same time. When — and it is more likely to be a case of when, not if — two of them team up, you have to deal with both of their attacks, and the third will probably be nearby and ready to pick you off from behind.
  • Surprisingly, Marin becomes this due to her plethora of multi-hitting attacks that can shave off your health way too fast for you to react. And may the Wind Fish have mercy on you if you get caught in her singing attack; it holds you in place, it breaks your guard, and if she happens to have a morale boost, you can pretty much say goodbye to a hard-earned A-Rank.
  • While several of the Giant Bosses can easily qualify, many dread Phantom Ganon of Legends in particular. Yes, his first phase of Tennis Boss is relatively tolerable, but to a point. The tennis mechanic in this game is much more difficult then in any other game, mostly because of the generally Always Over the Shoulder camera angle. His multi-shot attack is even worse, even though countering it will instantly stun him, because there's a high chance the game won't register you hitting every energy ball, causing you to take damage anyway. And then you have the second phase. Dear Lord, the second phase. Phantom Ganon pulls a second sword out and ditches the Tennis Boss stereotype. He's fast and hits very hard. If you get caught in his spin attack, say goodbye to half of your health bar. In order to do anything to him, you need to get behind him and strike his back until he falls, something that is not obvious in the slightest. Well, either that, or just spam Focus Spirit if you don't feel like using the Internet.
• That One Level: Has its own page here.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Young Link's redesign was not met with a positive response. Many feel that the developers tried too hard to make him a Kid-Appeal Character, to the point where his younger and cuter appearance looks off, especially when compared to the more mature and determined-looking Majora's Mask incarnation he was based off of. The Broken Base arguing over him stealing a character slot from the Skull Kid (now rectified, thanks to Legends) or the Happy Mask Salesman (whom Young Link gets a costume based on in the Great Sea map) didn't help either.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • In a case of not using mechanics within the game, story mode shows that the monster armies are perfectly capable of being the player's main army. Yet in Adventure mode, with a few exceptions, the player's army is only ever composed of Hylians or Gorons, even if it makes no sense such as Zant leading an Army of Hylians to face Zelda's army of Bokoblins. Alternative armies at most being rogue forces you can recruit. This was probably done just to reduce the need for the player to adjust to monsters not being the enemies or having to fight a good-guy army.
  • In a case of wasted potential with Cia and Lana: since they were the same person all along, why couldn't they have merged back together into a new version of their old self with Character Development stemming from their failed attempt to win Link's heart?
  • If they wanted to make Young Link one of the representatives of Majora's Mask, then they wasted his potential by giving him only two masks: one being purely aesthetic with no effect on gameplay, the other being a powerful reskin of Adult Link. Imagine if Young Link instead had the ability to switch between the movesets of Lana (Deku Spear), Darunia, and Ruto at will on the battlefield by equipping the Deku, Goron, or Zora masks. In addition, many feel that the Fierce Deity would have been better as a character in his own right rather than a temporary power-up for Young Link.
  • Despite the presence of three Links in the game (Warriors Link, Young Link from Majora's Mask, and Wind Waker's Toon Link) and three Zeldas (Warriors Zelda/Sheik, Wind Waker's Tetra and Spirit Tracks' Toon Zelda. Arguably four if one considers Marin to be the Wind Fish's interpretation of Zelda), none of them ever encounter each other.
  • Toon Link has no involvement in what happens in the Wind Waker chapters.
  • Despite Tingle and Young Link now being in the base game and with Skull Kid added as a playable character, there is still no stage from Majora's Mask in Legends.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Cia's obsession with Link isn't expanded upon outside of being her motivation. In fact, in the two cutscenes where she directly speaks to him, she doesn't try to seduce him or pull a We Can Rule Together on him. Even in Legends, where they even stand next to each other, the two don't have any moment where she talks to him.
  • The inclusion of Twili Midna from the start in Legends was a prime opportunity to correct the plot hole of Cia being the one to transform Midna into her imp form as she claims, but the relevant story mode stage leaves her as an imp.
  • Skull Kid appearing in Linkle's Tale receives no explanation or follow up (especially considering that it happens before Cia opens up portals to other eras); he shows up, gives her trouble, then gets beaten and runs away.
  • Cia opening portals to different points in the series history. Many settings and characters from previous Zelda titles could have appeared, but ultimately only three are focused on - Ocarina of Time, Twilight Princess, and Skyward Sword - and only for two chapters each at that.
  • In addition to that, there is only one moment in the game when any character acknowledges that these intervening eras are from their own past or future. And it's only so Sheik can recognize Ruto's name. No characters seem interested in their world's history or future. Fi aids Link in obtaining the Master Sword, but never points out that it is her future self. This is the only Zelda game in which a Sheikah and Twili can interact, yet we never learn if they're connected or not. As far as the game is concerned, they might as well be crossing dimensions.
  • By maintaining that the game is not part of the official Zelda canon, Nintendo is missing out on an opportunity to do some key Canon Welding connecting the Three Timelines to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, as MatPat elaborates in this video.
  • Anyone hoping to see multiple Links to interact with each other in the story will be disappointed to learn that only Warriors Link features in the plot. Most of the "Eras" are ambiguous in when their battles occur, enough so that their native Link being MIA is justifiable. The only case where this isn't excusable is the extra Wind Waker arc from Legends, where Tetra and King Daphnes appear and you'd expect Toon Link to not be far behind them - he doesn't show up at all (though the game tries to justify it by saying Tetra was separated from her crew, which very likely includes Toon Link, due to the dimensional rift caused by Phantom Ganon), and it's rubbed in by unlocking Toon Link immediately after the story has concluded.
• Tough Act to Follow: The first Hyrule Warriors was an all-star celebration of Zelda characters from different games coming together. With Age of Calamity focusing solely on characters from Breath of the Wild and being based off such a critically-acclaimed game, it's inevitable for some people hoping for a second crossover to be disappointed. Indeed, when the game released, opinions were split between those who greatly appreciated the more condensed storyline and focus, and those who missed the large character rosters and more varied scenarios that the first game provided.
• The Un-Twist:
  • Ganondorf is the dark force corrupting Cia. Not only is this not a surprise given that it's unlikely he wouldn't be the main villain after getting announced for the game, but the Foreshadowing that shows Link defeating the silhouette of what is obviously Ganon and the same thing being what's corrupting Cia makes his involvement very obvious.
  • Sheik revealed to be a disguised Zelda, which is so blatantly obvious that even non-Zelda fans would have seen it from miles away, since the very first scene in the game shows Zelda playing Sheik's harp.
• Unexpected Character:
  • Prior to her reveal, most weren't expecting Midna to be a playable character at the time partly due to a lack of information before the reveal, and due to early screenshots which led to the speculation that the game would probably take place somewhere around Skyward Sword era thanks to the abundance of that game's enemies. She was also unexpected because she seemed to be just a One-Shot Character who was explicitly written out at the end of her first appearance.
  • invoked According to Aonuma himself, he was surprised at quite a few of the characters to be included in the roster. Another such example soon came in the form of Agitha, a one-shot character who isn't even plot-significant in Twilight Princess, but is playable in non-Campaign portions of Hyrule Warriors. ^note She is the instigator of one of the game's biggest sidequests, however.
  • With the Majora's Mask DLC announced, people weren't surprised to find that Young Link from the N64 games was one of the two characters. The same cannot be said for the second character included in the DLC Pack: Tingle.
  • The ultimate example of this is probably a giant Cucco, whom you play as in a set of missions in the Boss Pack once you unlock him via the Ganon levels. Doubly so for not being announced until after the DLC became available.
  • Since Legends was out in Japan on January 2016 (two months before the US and EU releases), everyone thought that the five characters introduced in the 3DS version (Linkle, Skull Kid, Tetra, King Daphnes and Toon Link) were the last ones to be added. Then the March 2016 Nintendo Direct announces a Season Pass for Legends (meaning even more content) and a free DLC character for both versions of the game: Medli.
  • And they still weren't done. Even after Medli came the reveal of perhaps the both most-unexpected and most-welcomed unexpected character in the roster: Marin.
• The Woobie: As a corollary to Cia's Jerkass Woobie status, Lana is this. Throughout the game, she desperately attempts to save Cia and convince her to stop her mad scheme for her own sake, but is rejected at every turn. All the while, she struggles to deal with her own unrequited feelings for Link. And when Cia is finally defeated and dies in her arms, Lana is plainly heartbroken and devastated that she couldn't save her. Also doubles as an Iron Woobie as despite everything she goes through, she tries her best to keep her spirits up, even though it seems like she wants to break down and cry.