Let's start from the elephant in the room: yes, the game does show the Dinasty Warriors side a lot more than it does the Legend of Zelda side.
While you do get some classic Zelda subweapons, you will more often than not just use them when they're absolutely needed (lowering a giant boss's guard or removing a specific obstacle) and never in actual combat, since regular mooks can be killed by the dozens with your regular attacks and their damage and area of effect is subpar when dealing with anything higher up the food chain than mooks.
Also, the plot is pretty much an Excuse Plot to cross over several Zelda universes and bring all the characters together: the Original Generation characters are good in the game's context and in design, but they don't have much depth and personality to them, and the game's status as non canon makes them seem wasted.
On the good side, anyone who wanted to see all the meaningful characters from the Zelda Universe (and then some) mashed together in a World of Badass setting where they make mincemeat out of mooks on the route to mauling each other won't be disappointed. The main plot is pretty limited in that, only letting you play a basic Good Guys versus Bad Guys scenario (though it lets you play AS the bad guys in Ganondorf and Cia's chapters), so Adventure Mode is the place to be if you want to get the most from it.
Indeed, getting all the rewards from Adventure Mode is where the game's longevity is at...IF you don't mind the game getting rather repetitive and power-creepy. Most of the time the difficulty will only increase on account of the enemies taking more hits to defeat, forcing you to either get a character's 4+ weapon or sinking a few million rupees into leveling them up. There are some variations in battle events, but most of them can be summed up in "Kill enemy X before it does Y" or "Keep ally X alive until he does Y".
In other words, the strategic component is little more than a matter of prioritizing targets while you reach the 1200 kills necessary to A-rank a map or the conditions to reveal a Golden Skulltula. You do have to keep an eye on your important NP Cs and base, but everything else is fair game. AI allies are merely glorified meat shields that follow a food chain: band of mooks < Band of mooks with unmarked officer < Assault officers < Captains < Named characters. Unless the map features morale events, you can just leave them alone and they will do just fine as long as you take out the strongest enemies first.
Frame rate drop is very noticeable. Even on 3DS XL and despite the fact fewer models are rendered in the Legends edition, you can see a huge difference when fighting in regular battles versus fighting in duel or quiz maps which don't feature mooks.
It's not a game which will satisfy MOST players. But it does deliver just what you expect of it: a Dynasty Warriors-based game with Zelda characters, a Zelda-esque spin on gameplay, and lots of hacking and slashing action.
A blend of different things that isn't digested easily.
Let's start from the elephant in the room: yes, the game does show the Dinasty Warriors side a lot more than it does the Legend of Zelda side. While you do get some classic Zelda subweapons, you will more often than not just use them when they're absolutely needed (lowering a giant boss's guard or removing a specific obstacle) and never in actual combat, since regular mooks can be killed by the dozens with your regular attacks and their damage and area of effect is subpar when dealing with anything higher up the food chain than mooks. Also, the plot is pretty much an Excuse Plot to cross over several Zelda universes and bring all the characters together: the Original Generation characters are good in the game's context and in design, but they don't have much depth and personality to them, and the game's status as non canon makes them seem wasted.
On the good side, anyone who wanted to see all the meaningful characters from the Zelda Universe (and then some) mashed together in a World of Badass setting where they make mincemeat out of mooks on the route to mauling each other won't be disappointed. The main plot is pretty limited in that, only letting you play a basic Good Guys versus Bad Guys scenario (though it lets you play AS the bad guys in Ganondorf and Cia's chapters), so Adventure Mode is the place to be if you want to get the most from it. Indeed, getting all the rewards from Adventure Mode is where the game's longevity is at...IF you don't mind the game getting rather repetitive and power-creepy. Most of the time the difficulty will only increase on account of the enemies taking more hits to defeat, forcing you to either get a character's 4+ weapon or sinking a few million rupees into leveling them up. There are some variations in battle events, but most of them can be summed up in "Kill enemy X before it does Y" or "Keep ally X alive until he does Y". In other words, the strategic component is little more than a matter of prioritizing targets while you reach the 1200 kills necessary to A-rank a map or the conditions to reveal a Golden Skulltula. You do have to keep an eye on your important NP Cs and base, but everything else is fair game. AI allies are merely glorified meat shields that follow a food chain: band of mooks < Band of mooks with unmarked officer < Assault officers < Captains < Named characters. Unless the map features morale events, you can just leave them alone and they will do just fine as long as you take out the strongest enemies first. Frame rate drop is very noticeable. Even on 3DS XL and despite the fact fewer models are rendered in the Legends edition, you can see a huge difference when fighting in regular battles versus fighting in duel or quiz maps which don't feature mooks. It's not a game which will satisfy MOST players. But it does deliver just what you expect of it: a Dynasty Warriors-based game with Zelda characters, a Zelda-esque spin on gameplay, and lots of hacking and slashing action.