I've had the 3DS version of this game collecting dust for several months now. I bought it on amazon a while back, played about two or three stages before realizing I still had no idea what the heck was going on. Apparently the game is best played on a [ New ] 3DS XL, whereas I was using a 2DS at the time.

I was looking through games to pawn at Gamestop and figured that would be one to sell. Figured I'd pop into my 3DS (now that I have one of those) and look at it for the sake of morbid curiosity. It's still just as overwhelming as I remembered, but actually fun once all the menus and stuff start to make SOME sense.

The combat is certainly more fun than that of most Zelda games, like the horde encounter from Skyward Sword magnified x10. It's very cathartic to just mow down armies of enemies with a tiny bird girl. <3 Medli. The combat alone wouldn't be nearly as fun if that was all it was about. Rushing into an enemy's base and conquering it is pretty fun.

I just wish everyone else wasn't completely frickin' useless. I send Lana into an enemy keep while I go and conquer three of them, and... nothing. Fortunately the 3DS game lets you take control of all of your characters, so if someone's closer to an incoming threat you can just switch to them instead of running all the way across the map.

Also exclusive to the 3DS is the Fairy Companions, which you can raise in order to give your warriors benefits in battle. You find different fairies, food and clothing for them throughout adventure mode. I ended up finding a light element fairy named "Kari", almost like they know I like Digimon, or someone on the localization team is a fan.

New to the 3DS version (and later added to the Wii U as DLC) is the character "Linkle". As a character I'm kind of critical of her, but game-play she is an absolute BOSS. She seriously comes off as OP and in a game like this that is NOT a problem. 

The story is kind of dumb, but it doesn't really matter here like it would in a typical Zelda. It's mostly just there as cut-scenes from stage to stage and establishing a reason for so many worlds to come together. In the end it ends up feeling more like a tribute to the franchise in the same was Smash Bros is to Nintendo IPs in general.

New antagonist Cia stirred a bit of a controversy when first announced. Compared to characters in the average Zelda game her design is very sexualized, even compared to Midna's true form in Twilight Princess. But the thing that kills it for me is her motivation being the typical "Unrequited love/woman scorned" motif. Between that and the Zelda equivalent of Supergirl/Batgirl/She-Hulk/Ms. Pac-man... not very optimistic on this game's original characters.

Now, I never had a problem with Navi in Ocarina of Time. I think her voice is actually cute and she doesn't do things like forcibly get in your face and repeat things an NPC said two seconds ago like a certain sword spirit does. But Proxi, the new fairy in Hyrule Warriors is not only the mascot of this game's excessive yet necessary info-dumping, but has an even more high pitched and grating voice, courtesy of the person behind Mako of Kill la Kill.

As of right now I've just finished the prologue section of the game and am ready to choose one of three paths, Ocarina of Time world, Twilight Princess World and Skyward Sword world. Torn between TP so I can unlock Midna maybe and SS world for Fi.

This is definitely not a game to just pick up for five minutes a day and for the love of god do I not have any hopes of 100% completing it. I don't even bother with the gold skulltulas, I'll save those for replaying stages, once I can digest everything this game throws at me.

I have it for the Wii U. Beat the main storyline and yeah it's dumb, but in a good way. It's a fan service game so I wasn't expecting too much from this game.

It's a lot of fun. I love pulling off special moves and what not. Forgive me I haven't played HW in a long time.

It seems they approved the AI in the 3DS version. You couldn't control your teammates and there were no fairies in the Wii U version.

I would love it if they pulled a MK8D and port it to the Switch with all of the DLC. I would buy it in a heartbeat. At least the Switch is getting Fire Emblem Warriors. I haven't played many FE games, but love HW so much that I'm willing to buy it anyway.

Mew Ami wrote:

I would love it if they pulled a MK8D and port it to the Switch with all of the DLC. I would buy it in a heartbeat.

And then they did. I'm pretty content with the 3DS version, and it's too soon for me to want to replay the entire thing again, but if the performance on this version is even better than either previous version, I'd consider snagging it. It'd be cool if you could actually see just how many enemies are on screen, instead of wiping out a bunch of them, only to have a few dozen more just... appear. Not even teleport in like they do in keeps, they just... fade into existence.

I refrained from buying any of the DLC partly because the game was so overwhelming at first, and partly because there's only one character I particularly want. Now with this "Definitive Edition" coming out, I'm not sure it'd even be worth it.

Now I'm debating about buying it. At least not right away. 

There was update that they will sell the items cards use on the adventure maps. So you don't have to replay levels to grind for those items you use on the maps.