eli

Hyrule Warriors is a hack-and-slash game that’s all about delegation and multitasking. You spend each campaign sprinting full-tilt across the map, evaluating which missions take priority, while dispatching as many opponents as you can. Enemies are more important than the environment 100% of the time.

Breath of the Wild is an open-world adventure game that’s all about adapting to various climates and landscapes, improvising with tools you find, climbing everything in sight, etc. The devs want you to explore and experiment.

In short: Hyrule Warriors rewards you for efficiency and bodycount, BotW rewards you for “fricking around and finding out.”

How does this play out in Linked Universe?

Our guys find themselves in an unfamiliar area, with unknown (to them) monsters. What do they do?

Warriors immediately zones in on the enemies, Wild’s attention goes to his environment.

A moment later, they’ve both advanced a little, but Warriors is still laser-focused on the monsters. Maybe he’s analyzing their patterns, but in any case, he’s observing them closely.

In contrast, Wild still hasn’t paid the Sparks much mind. He’s moving much faster, and appears much more interested in the water.

Notably, it doesn’t seem like he “tests” the water at all. He steps right in with both feet.

In BotW, that’s not a bad strategy. The game itself encourages you to wander anywhere and everywhere, including areas that might look “unavailable” or “off-limits.” Unless you talk to a local who knows something, or Zelda’s disembodied voice chips in, you don’t have a guide or companion— the best way to learn about something is to jump in.

Clearly, like Legend said, that kind of approach is less advisable in a dungeon.

Warriors reacts really fast here— faster than Wild, who actually triggered the trap, and who’s known to be incredibly agile and maneuverable.

A lot of that comes down to experience, a teamwork-vs.-lone-explorer mindset, and Wars’ ungodly speed in-game, but I think there’s also something to be said for combat approach.

Interestingly, Warriors doesn’t warn Wild not to touch the water or the tiles— not that he’d know lol. But since he’s already approaching their situation with more caution, it’s interesting that he doesn’t seem to register what Wild’s doing as “dangerous” until the trap actually triggers.

In other words, he doesn’t clock the environment as hostile— he reacts at the exact moment he notices a new, active threat.

Contrasts like these help to force a duo’s internal differences into action, and it’s one of the many reasons I love this pairing for this particular dungeon. I think their differing approaches could complement one another splendidly, if they learned to use them in tandem!