There's some decent improvements to the gameplay of the original Hyrule Warriors in here- the shorter optional levels help break up the repetitiveness somewhat, and the character upgrades being merged with a kingdom management-type overworld is actually really well done. Overall it's nothing spectacular, but it's much more gratifying than I went in expecting it to be.
...That's all well and good but none of it actually matters. Nobody's playing this for the Dynasty Warriors gameplay, and the truth is that Tecmo totally botched a golden opportunity to flesh out the inarguably weak story of one of the most well-received games of the past decade. A borderline incoherent time-travel premise and barebones character interactions aren't inexcusable until they're coupled with the real kicker: the lack of any real worldbuilding. Age of Calamity's Hyrule feels absolutely identical to Breath of the Wild's Hyrule despite being separated by 100 years and the apocalypse, and because of this the game's existence doesn't feel justified. It doesn't add anything of value to the property it's playing off of, and it ends up being hard to recommend to even the biggest fans of Breath of the Wild.
...That's all well and good but none of it actually matters. Nobody's playing this for the Dynasty Warriors gameplay, and the truth is that Tecmo totally botched a golden opportunity to flesh out the inarguably weak story of one of the most well-received games of the past decade. A borderline incoherent time-travel premise and barebones character interactions aren't inexcusable until they're coupled with the real kicker: the lack of any real worldbuilding. Age of Calamity's Hyrule feels absolutely identical to Breath of the Wild's Hyrule despite being separated by 100 years and the apocalypse, and because of this the game's existence doesn't feel justified. It doesn't add anything of value to the property it's playing off of, and it ends up being hard to recommend to even the biggest fans of Breath of the Wild.