Now that some time has passed since Nintendo shocked us all with the announcement of a

Dynasty Warriors/Legend of Zelda spinoff, I still don’t quite know what to think of it. The fan response to this announcement is mixed, to say the least. Taking a cue from Sergio Leone’s seminal 1966 spaghetti western, the reactions to Hyrule Warriors can be broken into three distinct categories.

The Good

First of all, Hyrule Warriors is a collaborative third party exclusive game, and Nintendo has classically struggled on working with third parties at all, let alone exclusives. Despite the otherwise paltry software lineup, Nintendo has at least secured some impressive exclusive third party games for Wii U, including three Sonic games,

Bayonetta 2, and other collaborative titles like Shin Megami Tensei X Fire Emblem. With Hyrule Warriors added to that list, there is at least some added value to the average gamer to pick up Nintendo’s system over the third party-friendly Xbox One and Playstation 4, especially in Japan where the Warriors games are nearly as popular as Call of Duty is here.

Nintendo also claims that this collaborative development process speeds up HD game development. Because Wii U is Nintendo’s first HD system, by working with third parties like Tecmo Koei for

Hyrule Warriors, Nintendo can release games at a faster pace than during their painfully slow first 12 months after Wii U’s launch. So, the more Nintendo experiments with games like Hyrule Warriors, the more games we get to enjoy on our Nintendo systems!

The Bad

The last time Nintendo handed over the reigns of one of its high-profile properties to Tecmo Koei, we got

Metriod: Other M. Now, Tecmo Koei’s development team for Other M was Team Ninja, and while its safe to assume that Hyrule Warriors will be developed Omega Force, the same team that develops the other Warriors titles like Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors, Team Ninja and Omega Force are still under the same development umbrella of Tecmo Koei. Because the two teams are connected this way, they might share some of the poisonous design philosophy that killed Other M.

While the

Warriors series has a few standout gems, the series is also extremely divisive. The highest rated game in the series, according to Metacritic, is the Playstation 2 entry Dynasty Warriors 3, with a 78/100 average rating. Dynasty Warriors 3 was released in 2001. The lowest rated game in the series is the more recent Dynasty Warriors 6 for PS3, with a 43/100. The last game released in the Warriors series was Dynasty Warriors 8 in 2013, which sits at 68/100. With this striking range in quality, it’s hard not to be worried about Hyrule Warriors.

The Ugly

The

Hyrule Warriors teaser trailer begins with a sweeping camera over what appears to be a battle-torn Hyrule Field, but the music that blares is a loud, distorted rock guitar infused with the classic Zelda theme. Hearing the otherwise classic Zelda theme tarnished with a cringeworthy rock guitar immediately took any excitement out of me when watching it live during the December 2013 Nintendo Direct presentation. It reminded me of Halo 2’s famous theme music also being ruined by rock guitar back in 2004. Zelda’s vast library of battle themes and overworld music should give Tecmo Koei a large library of exciting music that works perfectly fine without crashing rock guitar, but the team chose to present this new recording. As someone that finds the music in the Zelda series one of its finest attributes, this hurt to listen to.

Not as ugly as that theme music, but Link’s new design in

Hyrule Warriors also leaves a lot to be desired. Not only is his long, blue scarf questionable, but his eyes and face have a duller look compared to the extremely expressive designs of

Skyward Sword and Wind Waker HD. The Warriors games are notable for having upwards of 100 playable characters in some entries, and its not announced whether there are other non-Link characters playable or not, but this one lackluster design might be because there are more character announcements coming down the line.

I think

Hyrule Warriors’ best bet is to make an obviously non-canon game that acts more like Super Smash Bros. than a proper entry in the series. It would be fun to play around on various battlefields throughout the Zelda series, but based on the announcement so far, it’s not clear if this will be the case. The Warriors games can be fun in small doses, and I recommend playing Warriors Orochi 3 Hyper for Wii U if you haven’t played a game in the series yet.

Even though I wouldn’t call myself a die-hard

Warriors fan, I remain cautiously optimistic that Nintendo can bring enough new ideas with one of their best IPs to create a game that is refreshing and classic in Hyrule Warriors.