Video Game / Hyrule Warriors

This article assumes you have played... almost every The Legend of Zelda game prior to Breath of the Wild and spoilers are unmarked for those games.

The Legend goes to war.

Hyrule Warriors (known as ゼルダ無双 Zelda Musou in Japanese), is a Spin-Off of The Legend of Zelda produced by Nintendo in collaboration with Koei Tecmo, and developed by Dynasty Warriors developer Omega Force, with some help from Ninja Gaiden developer Team Ninja. Announced by Nintendo during a Nintendo Direct on December 18th, 2013, it takes the gameplay of Dynasty Warriors and gives it a Zelda theme. It was released for the Wii U on August 14th, 2014 in Japan, on September 19 in Europe, and on September 26 in North America.

Generations ago, Hyrule almost fell into a state of chaos, but a hero clad in green saved the day. The hero separated the evil force into four pieces, with one piece sealed away by the Master Sword and the three other pieces sent into the depths of the space-time continuum in hopes this would prevent any possible return. Ever since then, a sorceress has watched equilibrium of the Triforce through a special crystal. Now, the delicate balance of the Triforce has been disrupted. Cia, the sorceress of this generation, developed feelings for a young knight trainee named Link, but those feelings turned into jealousy when she saw his close relationship with Zelda, the princess of Hyrule. Her jealousy made her succumb to the dark power that she was supposed to watch over, and her spirit was corrupted. Now, Hyrule Kingdom is once again being torn apart by the dark power unleashed by Cia.

The game received several DLC packs over the six months following release. Each DLC came with new maps, new weapons, and three of them with new characters and new gameplay modes. One pack is based on Twilight Princess and includes Midna's true form, whereas another is based on Majora's Mask and adds Young Link and Tingle to the roster. It also has functionality with Nintendo's amiibo figure line, with the Link Super Smash Bros. figure unlocking a Spinner weapon and all figures (including Link's, once the Spinner is unlocked) granting random items (with Zelda series characters - which includes those from the Super Smash Bros series and the Wolf Link amiibo that comes with Twilight Princess HD - giving better items than the others).

June 10 of 2015 brought the announcement of a 3DS version titled Hyrule Warriors Legends that seems more or less the same... Except for the additions of a slew of Wind Waker content, including a Wind Waker-focused storyline, new stages, enemies, and bosses, and the addition of Tetra and King Daphnes as playable characters. Later announcements revealed the inclusion of Toon Link, Skull Kid, and the newly introduced Linkle to the roster, as well as the ability to switch between other allied commanders on the map. It was released in Japan on January 21st of 2016, 24th of March for the UK, and the US on March 25th. The new characters and weapons (but not any of the other new features) were also made available within the Wii U edition, as either a paid download or as a free bonus available with the purchase of Legends.

Legends also received a wave of DLC itself, announced prior to its international release. The first pack is a "Master Quest" of Wind Waker, whereas the latter three are based on Link's Awakening, the DS games Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks, and A Link Between Worlds. Each pack includes new characters, weapons, and Adventure Mode maps. The new characters are Marin, Toon Zelda from Spirit Tracks, Ravio and Yuga. Again, the new characters and weapons can also be purchased on the Wii U version.

Finally, on May 18 of 2018, the Nintendo Switch port known as Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition was released, containing every piece of content from both the Wii U and 3DS versions, extra costumes for Link and Zelda patterned after their Breath of the Wild incarnations, and general visual and gameplay improvements thanks to the Switch's technology.

On September 8, 2020, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity was announced for the Nintendo Switch; a Prequel set 100 years before the events of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, during the war against Calamity Ganon, featuring the Breath of the Wild incarnations of Link and Zelda, Mipha, Daruk, Urbosa, and Revali as playable characters. It released November 20, 2020.

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This game provides examples of:

A-D

• Absurdly High Level Cap: Both the original and Legends set a default level cap of 99, with updates gradually raising it to 150, 200, and finally 255; and Definitive Edition just sets it to 255 to begin with. However, where most of the basic Adventure Mode map can be completed with level 30-50 characters, the additional DLC maps and a select few of the Level 3 weapon stages on the basic map can still be difficult with levels around 60-70. Although, it's safe to say that once you do reach 255, most of the game will pose little to no trouble.
• Adaptational Badass:
  • As if he weren't awesome enough, Link's moveset has been seriously upgraded to accommodate the Dynasty Warriors style gameplay. Young Link also gets this treatment, donning the Fierce Deity Mask in combos. And Toon Link as well, who now can do the Great Spin Attack without getting dizzy after it.
  • Zelda is usually a non-combatant in the source series. She kicks a lot of ass here, with a Royal Rapier, the Wind Waker baton (which can now attack with wind and lightning) and the Dominion Rod no less.
  • Impa uses Iaijutsu with a zweihander. And giant, flaming naginata.
  • Midna now attacks with full Twili power instead of hiding behind Link.
  • Even weirder is Agitha, a non-combatant who collected bugs. Here, she summons giant bugs to fight alongside her.
  • Fi was an assistant in her game, but now she can turn into the Goddess Sword and use the Sacred Flames offensively.
  • Ruto was in need of rescue in her game (twice), and now enters the fray. She needs to be rescued a few times here, but she also can kick ass with water magic.
  • Though Ganondorf has been proven to be a badass before, this game turns him from the Mighty Glacier brawler of his previous playable appearance into a sword-wielding/trident-wielding, magic-flinging Lightning Bruiser, much more faithful to his own series.
  • Zant's swordplay in Twilight Princess was a case of Unskilled, but Strong. It gets upgraded into a full-on Confusion Fu moveset in this game.
  • Tingle, from the Majora's Mask DLC pack, is a Fighting Clown who can take out just as many enemies as the others, despite many of his attacks causing (cosmetic) harm to himself.
  • Legends brings us not only Tetra, whom we already know is a badass, but also the King Of Red Lions/King Daphnes Nohansen Hyrule, who shows off some powerful transformation magic combined with water attacks. After spending the entirety of Wind Waker as a means of transportation, this is just as much of a surprise as is Tingle.
  • The Link's Awakening DLC pack brings us Marin. While she was certainly adventurous in her own game, here she has not only gained combat abilities, but also gotten over her fear of entering dungeons.
  • Toon Zelda from Spirit Tracks was already badass for being the first mainline Zelda to follow Link during his adventures. Now, she fights on her own with everything the Phantom armor can do.
  • Ravio was merely a traveling merchant back in A Link Between Worlds, whose cowardice was the reason he didn't stop Yuga himself. In this game, he's using the stuff from his own shop against his enemies.
• Adaptational Wimp:
  • Stalfos are difficult minibosses in Ocarina of Time. Here they're just squad captains for Stalchildren and mere cannon fodder.
  • On a similar note to Stalfos, Gibdos in most games are Nigh-Invulnerable, only able to even be harmed at all through the use of fire. Here, although they're still fairly tough and have the ability to resist flinching from attacks, they have lost their resistance to non-fiery attacks.
  • King Bulblin is a unique individual from Twilight Princess who is the leader of the Bulblins and a Recurring Boss. In this game, not only are there multiple copies of him, they're Elite Mooks at best. Ends up getting subverted as of the Twilight Princess DLC pack / Twilight Map: it turns out the others weren't King Bulblin, they were just particularly large elite bulblins. The King Bulblin appears in a few of the Adventure Mode missions as a major NPC. He's bigger than the common versions, with much more HP and damage potential, and almost always comes with a duo of elite henchmen.
  • In most Zelda games, Darknuts are some of the most dangerous Elite Mooks. Here, if anything, they are weaker than the other captains such as Moblins.
  • For pragmatic reasons, The Imprisoned only appears in its base form, without its arms or tail, and fighting it here is much more straightforward than it was in The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (although it's still one of the most annoying Giant Bosses in the game).
  • In The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, Stalmasters were dangerous Elite Mooks. Here, they practically are Palette Swaps of the also weakened Darknuts and have a weaker arsenal.
• Adapted Out: Legends removes some modes and graphical effects, including the Summon Gate summons, due to downscaling, while the original Wii U version never had the Fairy Mode and additional story mode chapters. Meanwhile, Definitive Edition on the Switch has nothing adapted out. It has everything the Wii U and 3DS versions have to offer.
• Advertised Extra: Toon Link, despite being one of the five characters advertised to be added in Legends, is the only non-DLC character to never appear in Legend Mode. The Wind Waker plotline occurs without even a token appearance by the game's star.
• All Your Powers Combined: Ganon has attacks from King Dodongo, Gohma, Manhandla, and Argorok. Thankfully for the player, these attacks have the weaknesses as the bosses Ganon copies have.
• Alternate Continuity: Confirmed by Aonuma, who says Hyrule Warriors is more of a "celebration" of the Zelda series than a proper entry in it. He uses "different dimension" to describe it, but his main point is that it's not part of Zelda's canon timeline. The game exists in a separate dimension to the various branches of the current Zelda timeline; the premise being the antagonist opening portals to different eras of the Zelda-universe, and bringing various heroes and villains together. Thus, the story is not non-canonical in and of itself; rather, Eiji Aonuma compares it to The Avengers. The game seems to consider itself in the "Child Timeline" of Zelda continuity, as the events of Skyward Sword, Ocarina of Time, and Twilight Princess are mentioned as being of "Hyrule's storied past", while the areas taken from The Wind Waker are described as the "world from another dimension".
• Amazon Brigade: Team Ninja is helping, so this is to be expected. Of the story mode's ten playable hero characters, eight of them are female. Impa, Zelda herself, Midna, Sheik, Princess Ruto, Agitha, Fi, and newcomer Lana. Updates add Cia, Twili Midna, Tetra, Linkle, Medli, Marin and Toon Zelda; though other male heroes are also added that even out the gender balance.
• And Now for Someone Completely Different: For the majority of the story, it follows the exploits of the Hyrulean forces dealing with the threat brought about by Cia. Then, just as everything seems to have been cleared up, the game switches to following Ganondorf and his forces as he establishes himself as the actual antagonist of the game. Legends and Definitive Edition add other instances, like Linkle's sidequests at various points throughout the main story wherein she's cleaning up any mooks left behind after Link, Zelda and co. have moved on, and thinking she's the famed Legendary Hero despite having No Sense of Direction.
  • What's really interesting about Linkle's series of levels is one in particular lets you play as Midna in her unshackled, grown-up princess form well before you have the opportunity to unlock her in Adventure Mode.
• And Your Reward Is Clothes: A number of Palette Swap variants of each character's main outfit are unlocked either through beating the respective levels on the Master Quest, Twilight, Termina, the Great Sea, the Master Wind Waker, Koholint, the Great Travels and Lorule maps, or unlocking the Rewards Map by collecting enough Skulltulas to finish the picture and then beating the corresponding Rewards Map levels. In Legends and Definitive Edition, even the base Adventure Map has clothes to unlock.
• Annoying Arrows: The only time that the archer infantry will ever pose a serious threat to you is in Adventure Mode battles where every hit is devastating. Outside of that, they fire so infrequently that they are only threatening to sword infantry that are tied up fighting against other sword infantry.
• Another Dimension: In Legends and Definitive Edition, the Wind Waker world is explicitly referred to as a different dimension, whereas the other eras are treated as part of the setting's history. This is in keeping with the official timeline, as Wind Waker and Twilight Princess are on separate branches.
• Another Side, Another Story:
  • The Master Quest DLC pack adds a new campaign to Legend Mode that allows you to play as Volga, Wizzro, and Cia during their initial assault on Hyrule. It shows how Cia recruited the four other main villains to her side, and ends shortly before her demise. In Legends and Definitive Edition, it's in the vanilla game and you need to clear it.
  • Legends and Definitive Edition also add Linkle's campaign, which happens alongside the main story.
• Anti-Frustration Features: Three versions across three systems, this almost deserves its own subpage.
  • All material and weapon bags present on the map will automatically be collected when the scenario is completed.
  • The developers have eliminated or relaxed a number of less-than-desireable features with each patch: you can now turn off all character intro cutscenes in Adventure Mode, there's an option to restart the mission right away if you make too many mistakes, the amount of damage you've taken during the mission is now shown directly in numerical form in the pause menu, and you can now remove unwanted weapon skills and check what the locked skills actually are without having to go through the trouble of unlocking them first and finding out they're not the ones you want.
  • Sealed weapon skills require a certain number of KOs to unlock. Fortunately, there exist "Rack up your KOs" missions, which are Exactly What They Say on the Tin.
  • Legends and Definitive Edition both include the following:
    • The time limit for the Adventure Mode missions that require you to get 300-1000 KOs in time has ben doubled, giving you 20 minutes instead of 10.
    • Fighting The Imprisoned is now much less frustrating, since it doesn't recover when its weakpoint meter is dropped to half. It can be completely emptied and attacked with a Weakpoint Smash after destroying its toes once and is actually vulnerable to the Focus Spirit Finisher, which can put it back into weak point mode almost immediately after a smash. Its first appearance in Story Mode can be beaten without having to resort to the Groosenator if the player is fast enough.m
    • Zant has received weak point openings for some of his standard moves, instead of putting them exclusively on the fumbles that require extremely defensive play to trigger.
    • Some of the items needed to interrupt enemy strong attacks have been altered, making some easier to stagger. More importantly, it shows an icon above the enemy of which one to use. Moblins still require bombs, but have a marginally wider wind-up time to make up for it.
    • Enemies stop appearing outside of specific areas or situations in Adventure Mode missions if you reach a gigantic kill count and it isn't a mission designed around doing just that, as it means you're likely using a weak character or weapon and are too pinned down to be able to complete it.
  • Definitive Edition further includes the following:
    • Everyone from the story mode of the original Wii U version, plus Linkle, is available from the start of the game.
    • Single Joy-Con play is enabled, which means that the co-operative gameplay from Hyrule Warriors on Wii U can be played without needing to buy an extra controller.^note The 3DS version simply used a version of the Samurai Warriors 4 guidance system to make up for the completely lost co-op play.
    • An Item Shop has been added for Adventure Mode, with separate stock for each map, making it easier to get certain items (as long as you got it once) and very much cut on the needed grinding for said items.
    • All Adventure Mode maps are available from the beginning, save for the Rewards Map (whose spaces are unlocked by collecting Gold Skulltulas).
    • The entire base Adventure Map is now available from the start of the game, with the only completion-related restrictions being Giant Bosses other than The Imprisoned and Phantom Ganon (due to all others requiring specific sub-weapons that are unlocked in the same Legend Mode scenarios as the bosses are encountered). Even then, the map only offers a warning that the boss is designed to be fought with a given item, allowing players to attempt it without (which pretty much requires liberal use of the manual Focus Spirit finisher to trigger their Weak Point Gauge).
    • The Damage Taken and KO requirements for an A-Rank on Adventure Mode battles are now adjusted based on the difficulty of the squares, rather than having the same requirements all-throughout. The usual trade-off is that (not counting missions where one or both of the two scores is discounted) is the more damage you are allowed to take, the more KOs that are required.
    • The way damage taken is calculated towards your rank has been changed. Instead of being based on the amount of hearts lost, it is now based on the percentage of your character's total hearts lost. Because your Damage Taken rank only drops to a B once you've lost more than a difficulty-specific percentage of your hearts (100% at the minimum), extra heart containers become a lot more useful (although the Heart Power ability introduced in Legends was already a step in the right direction in that regard). This also means you're allowed to take at least one hit in "All Attacks are Devastating!" and "Don't Get Hit!" missions and still get an A-Rank.
    • The DLC characters (besides Linkle and the Original Generation villains) locked behind completing maps. The Koholint, Grand Travels and Lorule maps are brutal, but so you're not locked out from earning and trying every character, the maps leading up to unlocking characters are easy enough to do with lower-leveled warriors and weaker weapons.
• Anti-Grinding:
  • Specifically, Anti-Leveling-Your-Characters-Exclusively-Through-Training-Dojo: the higher levels get prohibitively expensive to buy this way and leveling a character from 1 to 255 this way would cost several times the maximum amount of Rupees you can hold, which in this game is 9,999,999. Also, you can only use the training dojo to train to the level of your strongest warrior.
  • The Elite Mooks you have to defeat in the "All attacks are devastating!" missions will also only drop 1-2 materials or weapon bags in total, as otherwise these missions would be used to grind said materials or weapons.
• Arbitrary Headcount Limit: Playing Co-op Mode makes it easier to accomplish your objectives more quickly and rack up the rupees and knockouts. However, the performance optimization that's required to allow two players makes it harder to completely clear an area of all enemies because not only do fewer of them appear on-screen than in single-player mode, they will only register onscreen, within the player's reduced "draw distance", after the first few have been eliminated or scrolled away far enough. The draw distance limitations can also make enemies suddenly manifest in single-player, but it's much less frequent (most often on "Rack up KOs" missions).
• Army of The Ages: Both sides of the conflict consist of characters from different eras of the Zelda timeline.
• Arrange Mode: In the Adventure Mode, you traverse several maps stylized after the original Zelda game. Each screen represents a mission that can be cleared, some of which restrict what characters or weapons can be used or have special rules. Item cards can be obtained, which can be used to uncover new rewards or secret enemies in the maps.
• The Artifact:
  • Cia, Volga and Wizzro's Gold Rank material drops are their scepter, spear and ring respectively. After the three of them were Promoted to Playable in the Wii U version's first DLC pack, their Gold Rank material drops as enemies remained unchanged even in later editions of the game, despite those materials being their respective weapon types (no other playable character as their weapon as a material drop).
  • In the Wii U version, the Legend Mode scenarios for Cia's Tale possessed purple borders to mark them as DLC, being much harder than the base game's scenarios and not coming with Heart Containers or any other prizes. These scenarios still retain the different borders in Legends and Definitive Edition, despite (a) now coming with the base game and (b) Linkle's Tale not receiving the same treatment.
  • In the Wii U version, the Majora's Mask Illustration led to a level that adapted the game, but with a Majora's Mask possessed Lana instead of Skull Kid due to him not being playable. Legends and Definitive Edition brought Skull Kid in as a playable character, but the illustration and mission still use Lana rather than him.
  • The Song Stones found on the Grand Travels map become this in Definitive Edition. In Legends, they were a helpful way of earning more Item Cards without having to grind on previous missions for them, but the advent of the Item Card Shop in Definitive Edition means there's no real reason to use them.
  • In Legends, DLC characters for the Wii U version would drop their own materials newly-made for that game instead of those of base game characters like they did in the Wii U version. The same does not apply to the Legends DLC-pass characters in Definitive Edition despite them no longer being DLC, removing the reason they dropped other characters materials in the first place.
• Artificial Stupidity:
  • In the Wii U version, everyone on the battlefield except you and any non-cannon fodder attacking you will rarely attack.
  • In Legends, you can command your playable generals to go to certain locations, follow certain allies (including yourself), or attack certain enemies. They mostly avert this trope while following attack orders, but can still be distracted by outposts or insist on attacking a different target (usually a Giant Boss) until one of them is dead.
  • In many Adventure Mode stages in both versions, your commander will run straight into the enemy base as soon as it's open. Combined with non-playable allies' tendency to stand around and do nothing rather than attack, this often turns the rest of the stage into an Escort Mission.
  • Escort missions in general have this, due to the AI's habit of attacking everything they see in front of them. So not only do you need to make sure they don't die, but you need to constantly take out every enemy in sight whenever they fall victim to their tiny attention span.
  • In Definitive Edition, any playable characters that have been commanded to target a Giant Boss will act much more aggresively than usual, spamming attacks by the dozens when normally they just strafe a little and attack once in a while. This is great against most Giant Bosses (a bit of chip damage can be added when the boss isn't vulnerable, and when they are, the damage racks up pretty quickly as long as you're also attacking). However, they still do the same thing against Gohma and Manhandla... who immediately stop showing their weak points if they're hit with something other than the item they're weak to during the vulnerability window. This makes it much more difficult and time-consuming to take them on with the AI backing you up. Having enough characters will allow you to deal damage without hitting a weak point, but it may be more effective to maneuver your playables into position manually.
• Ascended Glitch: Characters that can use multiple different weapons can be glitched into using weapons belonging to other characters entirely, essentially making them behave like the character that their swapped weapon belongs to. While the glitch itself was patched after a few updates, in some of the missions in the Master Quest Map, Twilight Map and Termina Map, you can run into characters who use a different character's weapon and moveset.
• Ascended Meme:
  • "Hey, listen!" Expect to hear that whenever you see a tutorial message. With a new recording, no less.
  • The 8-bit Wooden Sword's summary mentions that veteran Zelda fans know it's dangerous to go alone. Impa also shouts, "It's dangerous to go alone! Take me!" in one mission... to Zelda.
  • One Adventure Mode mission's description tells Fi (and Ghirahim in the Master Quest) to "go alone, despite the danger". Also doubles as a Stealth Pun; Link was told to take a sword because it's dangerous to go alone, but Fi and Ghirahim are swords, and therefore going alone is safe for them.
• Asteroids Monster: In various Adventure Mode maps, the "Stop the divisive plan!" levels feature fights against shadowy versions of the playable characters that will subdivide when they take enough damage. Fortunately, they can't recombine, nor can they divide additional times should the enemy healers give them more health (that said, Shoot the Medic First).
• Authority Equals Asskicking: The Captains seem to be the only mooks that are capable of attacking and defending.
• Autobots, Rock Out!:
  • When Ganondorf falls in battle and uses the power of the complete Triforce to transform into Beast Ganon, the music changes from an ominous, mid-tempo piece to high-speed thrash metal for the final battle.
  • The soundtrack as a whole is this to the rest of the franchise, as it takes several recognizable Zelda themes and throws an electric guitar/aggressive drum backing track to ratchet up the intensity.
  • "Focal Line" plays near the end of several stages after the player gets the final leg up over the enemy, usually during the final advance on the enemy keep. It perfectly conveys the awesomeness that's about to ensue.
• Background Music Override: If Ganondorf or Cia is the enemy commander of an Adventure Mode map, then when the gates to the enemy base open his or her Battle Theme Music will override the usual enemy commander music and even the Giant Boss music if the commander summons one after being defeated. The only battle theme capable of overriding theirs in this case is his One-Winged Angel form Ganon's own battle theme.
  • Happens with the Gold Skulltulas as well. Though instead of a different track, it's their signature noise, and the music gets quieter the closer you get, as opposed to being cut completely.
• Badass Adorable: Agitha, Young Link, Toon Link, Tetra, Medli and Toon Zelda are merely pre-teens, but still capable of standing their ground against the likes of Ganondorf or Cia.
• Ballistic Bone: The Stalchildren "archers" use bones as projectiles.
• Bandit Mook: Adventure Mode challenges will sometimes involve "Thief" enemies that can steal your magic, sub-weapons, or rupees if they connect with an attack. Item Thieves in particular will keep coming back to steal more weapons until they're beaten. They're generally just a minor annoyance, as you can fight well even without those resources, but Rupee Thieves will only show up when the goal is hoarding rupees to begin with.
• Betty and Veronica: Zelda and Cia for Link, respectively.
• Big Bad: The witch Cia at first, then Ganondorf. Ganon tries to hijack the main villain spot, but Cia drives him off and he has to wait his turn until the heroes have dealt with her, turning it into more of a Your Princess Is In Another Castle situation. Phantom Ganon is this for the Wind Waker story arc.
• Big, Bulky Bomb: One power-up temporarily replaces the character's bombs with giant bombs that are bigger than any character.
• Body-Count Competition: This is one of the mission types in the adventure maps. There are two variations: either you compete with the rogue forces to get a higher body count in a set amount of time (usually 7-10 minutes), or you compete to reach a certain score (which could be anywhere from 400 to 1000) before the rogue forces do. Like the Rupee and keep-capturing competitions, it's most common on the Termina map.
• Bond Villain Stupidity: Ganondorf manages to steal the Triforce pieces from the heroes, but does not bother to kill them. This is what allows the Hyrulean forces to strike back.
• Book Ends: Not counting the Wind Waker epilogue in later editions of the game (but applying whether or not you include Linkle's levels), the first and final missions both take place in Hyrule Field.
• Boring, but Practical:
  • The common reaction to depleting a WPG on giant bosses is to do a Weak Point Smash, it's actually more practical to stand outside of the circle and spam ranged attacks at them. Giant Bosses will not move for over 40 seconds after their weak point is initially exposed and they take much more damage when they're stunned, so you are free to whittle down its health for a while before going for the WPS. This can especially make The Imprisoned MUCH easier to deal with.
  • Also in regards to Weak Point Smashes on giant bosses, in Legends, they are all presented as the same simplistic elemental bursts for every character/weapon when compared to the Wii U and Definitive Edition's flashier and more individualized presentations. However, the execution for the Weak Point Smash is a few seconds shorter, which can mean the difference for getting an A Rank on some Adventure Mode missions where you are pressed for time.
• Boss-Altering Consequence:
  • Some map missions have you and the enemy leader attempt to reach a neutral party to try and get them to join their side. Depending on who reaches the neutral force first, you can either get a helpful ally or a powerful adversary.
  • In some of the Twilight Map missions, King Bulbin will appear as a miniboss. You can weaken him by defeating the enemies he summons, but if you instead choose to deplete his health down to 2/3 and avoid killing the enemy soldiers that he summons, he'll instead join your side, impressed by your strength.
• Boss in Mook's Clothing: Upper-tier Elite Mooks in later Story and Adventure Mode missions have golden auras that increase their health/damage resistance by something like ''4x or even more.'' Apply this to a monster with tricky Weak Point Smash openings (Moblins, Dinolfos), and you'll be in for a slog battle more draining than a good number of story character commanders in the same map. Goes double for Twilight Princess map battles in Adventure Mode, where they'll be inflicting more damage than most commanders, too. And God forbid you meet any enemies with red auras. They're not only powerful, but almost completely immune to flinching when attacked.
• Boss Rush: Aside from the few Adventure Mode missions where you fight two or three bosses one-by-one, completing the Boss Rush illustration naturally unlocks a Rewards mission that reenacts it. Except instead of fighting them all one at a time, you fight them three at a time, with each one replacing the last.
• Boss Subtitles: Per classic Zelda tradition, bosses are introduced with a descriptive phrase followed by their name, like "Fire Breathing King Dodongo," usually the same as in their original appearance. Adventure Mode often features the various playable characters as bosses themselves, which results in introductions such as "Princess of Hyrule Zelda."
• Break Meter: Depleting an enemy's Weak Point Gauge allows a warrior to deal major damage to that enemy and those surrounding it.
• "Bringer of War" Music: The track "Under Siege" is basically an updated take on the Bringer of War music, appropriate considering the game deals with the clashing of large armies rather than the series' traditional fare of a lone hero battling the forces of evil.
• Brutal Bonus Level: Most of the Rewards Map levels aren't too difficult, but the one that really qualifies is the Boss Rush level. On its own, facing off against all of the bosses teaming up against you wouldn't be so bad, but all of them require two Weak Point Smashes to take down, which, considering the RNG-powered AI that all the bosses have, can really take a while. But the kicker is that after you down just one boss, all of the bosses get a morale boost, enabling them to kill you in only two or three hits. So, in short, the bosses take too long to kill so they will inevitably gang up on you, and they're boosted enough to kill you in a few hits. You also have to A Rank this mission to get one of the costumes in Legends and Definitive Edition.
• The Bus Came Back: As this game takes place in multiple eras of the timeline, many Zelda characters, hero and villain alike, get to make a return. Notably, there are several characters who assisted Link in the original franchise, like Sheik, Midna and even Marin, appear in a playable form.
• Camera Abuse: Cia's, Wizzro's, Linkle-using-Boots and Link-using-Fire-Rod's victory scenes all feature this. Sheik's intro as a enemy in Adventure Mode also features this.
• The Cameo: This game is full of them, naturally.
  • A notable example that affects the gameplay is Bow-Wow the Chain Chomp returning as a weapon.
  • Notable because the game already includes an Expy of her, Navi shows up during the first mission in the Ocarina of Time levels (but only for the US Wii U version).
  • In Adventure Mode, King Bulblin appears in some battles on the Twilight and Termina maps and Captain Keeta appears in some battles on the Termina map.
• Cannon Fodder: Everyone that is not above the rank of Captain won't last for long on the field.
• Casting a Shadow: Darkness-elemental weapons include Zelda's Dominion Rod, Ganondorf's Great Swords, Midna's Shackle, Zant's Scimitars, Ghirahim's Demon Blade, Cia's Scepter, Wizzro's Ring, Twili Midna's Mirror, Young Link's Mask (ironic in the fact that the Darkness element is for his weapon, yet it is also his weakness), Skull Kid's Ocarina, and, surprisingly, Ravio's Rental Hammer.
• A Child Shall Lead Them: In the Adventure Mode maps, both ally and enemy forces alike can be commanded by Agitha, Young Link, Toon Link, Tetra, Medli and Toon Zelda, all of whom are 10-to-12 years old.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder:
  • If Ghirahim is helping you fight large bosses in Adventure Mode, don't expect him to be helping you for very long.
    Ghirahim: Oh, my head was swimming for a moment there. I could have sworn we were enemies. Very well. I shall give you my undivided attention.
  • He even has the gall to suggest that you're the one getting in his way afterwards (although he gets extremely frustrated if you take your attention off the bosses and beat him down as a result).
  • Wizzro also gets this in Cia's Tale. He betrays Cia twice: once immediately after joining her, and again when Ganondorf attacks her just before her demise.
• Co-Dragons:
  • Wizzro and Volga to Cia.
  • Zant and Ghirahim become this to Ganondorf.
• Colony Drop:
  • The Moon from Majora's Mask returns. It's summoned by a Great Fairy to aid the heroes in knocking a large boss out of the sky after the hookshot and two sets of magical chains fail (though it turns into a mass of normal fairies after it does its job). It's also a normal attack when using the enhanced hookshot and she uses it as her Special Attack when you play as her.
  • Said Moon also drops as part of Young Link's Focus Spirit finisher. Specifically, Skull Kid throws it at him, but since he's wearing the Fierce Deity mask, he just cuts it in half.
  • Skull Kid uses a rather rarely seen miniature version of this trope towards the enemy by using the Moon as a soccer ball in his Focus Spirit Special Attack.
  • The Termina Field Adventure Map does this. The first time you play it, it's counter is set to 3 maps, meaning the moment you clear your third map, all progress on the adventure map is lost. The Moon is then reset to 72 maps, and excluding the Inverted Song of Time items that can restore up to 10 on the counter, you have 72 maps to clear to reach the final boss tile and clear that map (which can be difficult given the items on the map are designed like a puzzle). Fail, and you have to totally start over.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Blue troops are allies, red are enemies, and yellow are "rogue" (either unaligned or a second enemy force, depending on the map). The map markings are also based on opacity rather than hue: small troops are nigh-transparent blips on the map, troops led by a minor officer as more solid dots, and Captains as a solid dot with a border.
• Confronting Your Imposter: Impa and Sheik visit Lake Hylia and the Water Temple and are confronted by an apparently Face Heel Turned Princess Zelda. After defeating her, Sheik uses the Lens of Truth to reveal it was the shapeshifter Wizzro in disguise. When he asks how they saw through his ruse, Sheik steps up and tells him that he couldn't possibly have been Zelda because she is Zelda.
• Conservation of Ninjutsu: Comes naturally with the territory. The very numerous Mooks go down in droves, whereas the more infrequent Elite Mooks and bosses take longer to bring down.
• The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: Zig Zagged, as there are some things only you can do and some things only the AI can do.
  • When the AI is taking bases, they don't need to deal with keep bosses. All they need to do is reduce a base's keep meter to nothing and it's theirs. On the other hand, you also have a bit of an advantage, as when the enemy takes over a base, its keep meter is set to only half, whereas when you take one, it gets set to full.
  • AI characters can use any of their attacks at any time without having to worry about building combos, filling a special attack meter, or entering Focus Spirit. On the other hand, the enemy is incapable of performing Weak Point Smash attacks. Also, the AI can not use attack items like the bow or bombs. Some characters also have other attacks they're not allowed to use as well; for example, you'll never see an AI Zant use his spin move, or an AI Darunia use his special attack, although in an opposite example the player cannot perform Volga's fireball move (you can transform into the dragon like he does, but you have zero access to the projectile that AI Volga can use).
  • Even though they can use their combo moves immediately, AI-controlled characters will leave openings after all but the most basic attacks.
  • Another inversion: the AI characters don't get a Last Chance Hit Point like you do.
• Continuity Porn: The game has tons of references to the main Zelda series, and not just in the major stuff like characters and places. There's also small details, like the loading screen being a classic 8-bit Link defeating an Octorok and obtaining the Triforce, the classic Item Get! jingle and animation, the Game Over and Boss Clear tunes from Ocarina of Time…
• Continuity Snarl: Within Cia's Tale, some things that were mentioned in-game or Word of God have been disproven.
  • Volga originally is said to have sold his soul to Cia to be stronger. Cia's Tale states Volga wanted nothing to do with anyone and Cia had to brainwash him into servitude.
  • Cia is mentioned as having turned Midna into her imp form, but now Midna was already an imp fighting against Zant when Cia first appeared. (This one is most likely Gameplay and Story Segregation, as Twili Midna is part of separate DLC in the Wii U version and Legends and Definitive Edition invoke Grandfather Clause). That said, Cia could've simply just turned Midna into an imp off-screen right before the battle.
  • For Skyward Sword, the Link of Hyrule Warriors encounters the Goddess Blade still in its stone under the statue of Hylia, implying they are encountering Skyloft before the events of that game. However, Groosenators are found throughout the Sealed Temple, which Groose doesn't build until about two thirds into the game.
• Crippling Overspecialization: "VS" Weapon Skills will only give you bonus damage when used against a specific class of enemy; e.g., "VS Legend" increases damage against Link, Zelda, Ganondorf, and Young Link (and Toon Link, Linkle and Toon Zelda in Legends). The most overspecialized of all is "VS Ganon", which solely affects Dark Beast Ganon, who is easily the least common giant boss in the game. In Legends and Definitive Edition it also works on Phantom Ganon and Yuga, but that's only a mild improvement.
• Critical Failure: You can interrupt most of the Elite Mooks' super attacks (the ones where they glow blue and white with wisps of energy surrounding them) by using the correct subweapon (Bombs for Moblins, Boomerang for Darknuts and Stalmasters, Hookshot for Aeralfos & Fiery Aeralfos, Hammer for Blins, Bow for everything else) on them during their windup. This will result in a Magic Misfire, when involving either actual spells or fire-breathing. It will hit surrounding enemies and leave the enemy captain stunned with its weakpoint exposed for an extended period of time.
• Crossover Villain-in-Chief: Ganondorf is the de facto leader of the enemy forces in Hyrule Warriors, where he is leading past Zelda villains such as Zant, Ghirahim, Yuga, and original villains developed specifically for the game. Some new villains were arguably necessary, as the Zelda franchise hasn't featured very many villains not named "Ganondorf" or his beast form, "Ganon.", and even Cia being part of the Goddess of Time is shown to pale in comparison to him.
• Cycle of Hurting: "Juggling" is a special tactic that requires knocking an enemy into the air and keeping them airborne by continuously performing attacks with little starting or ending lag. The primary benefit is that the airborne enemy cannot block or dodge until they touch the ground which makes this the best way to whittle down an enemy captain's or enemy playable character's health to nothing. The lightning element is specifically dedicated to increasing the damage output of juggling attacks.
• Damage Over Time:
  • Water-based attacks can leave a DOT on enemies. It takes the form of a bubble of water on their heads, and drowns them for the next few seconds. In Legends, they just have a blue outline.
  • Barrier keeps will drain your hearts over time unless you have captured the fairy to that keep or defeated the keep boss. Interestingly, instead of dealing a quarter-heart worth of damage every few seconds, the barrier is actually rapidly depleting HP from the hearts, as there is 100 HP for every quarter-heart, which explains why the numbers in the "Damage Taken" ranking can be in the single digits. It's worth noting that this effect is negated by Focus Spirit being active.
• Damage-Sponge Boss:
  • Golden Aura Elite Mooks in Adventure Mode battles with them as the primary targets have upwards of quadruple health, and in DLC map battles, they're even beefier.
  • Out of all of the Giant Bosses, The Imprisoned is the only one whose Weak Point Gauge you must expose by dealing raw damage, rather than using an item to counter one of its attacks. It's also the only one who forces you to break said WPG in more than one cycle (in the Wii U version), and if all that wasn't bad enough, it has the most health of every Boss period.
  • The Dark Giant Bosses in the Boss Pack Challenges are the epitome of this trope, being completely immune to stunning and thus making raw damage the only method of hurting them. Graciously, however, they do take more chip damage than normal Bosses.
• Damn You, Muscle Memory!:
  • The game features a hidden mechanic where using the right item on an enemy while it is performing a special attack can cause the attack to backfire. Legends and Definitive Edition make this mechanic obvious by indicating what item you need to use when, but also changes some of the items and timings.
  • In the first stage in Legend Mode, you are required to bomb the rocks in front of the keep separating Link and Impa from Zelda. In Legends and Definitive Edition, however, you have to take control of Zelda and capture that same keep in addition to destroying the boulders, which means if one's not paying attention, one could think the game is bugged due to the gate not opening even after getting the bombs from the mine.
• Damsel in Distress:
  • AVERTED by, of all people, Princess Zelda herself! At the end of the game's first scenario, Zelda goes missing, and the storyline looks like it will be you rescuing Zelda. She's actually never even captured.
  • Played straight with Princess Ruto. The Ocarina of Time scenarios involve you rescuing her from her captors and then saving her from an elaborate trap.
  • Subverted in the penultimate scenario of Linkle's Tale. Zelda does get locked in the King's Hall of the Palace of Twilight and needs rescuing, but she hasn't been captured; the shadow of Midna's true form has closed the gates to prevent her from receiving backup, and on her own it's an uphill battle.
• Dark Action Girl: Cia after her Face–Heel Turn.
• Dark Is Not Evil: While with the exception of Yuga, all of the villains (including Volga, once his Level 4+ Dragon Spear is unlocked) use the Darkness element, Young Link, Midna, Twili Midna, and Ravio do as well and are definitively heroic characters in this game. Zelda also uses the Darkness element when equiped with her Dominion Rod, but she's far from being evil. Other examples include some benevolent characters' Level 4+ weapons adding Darkness on top of the already existing element (Link's Hylian Sword, Zelda's Rapier, Lana's Book of Sorcery, Darunia's Hammer and Toon Link's Sand Wand). Skull Kid does too, but is also more of a wild card. His mischievous dialogue isn't evil per se, but doesn't paint him as noble either.
• Dark Reprise: The main theme of the final map played within Adventure Mode, Ganon's Tower, is a more tense version of the normally triumphant theme song of the franchise.
• Deadly Ringer: Marin from Link's Awakening uses the Sea Lily's Bell, a foot-tall bell that she holds with both hands. It's an effective bludgeoning weapon but also unleashes exploding water spheres on nearby enemies and ringing it can also summon the Windfish to charge or bellyflop on enemies.
• Death Mountain: The Trope Namer appears as a stage.
• Decapitated Army: In many cases, the current condition of the battlefield doesn't matter — should the keystone captain or base fall in battle, that side automatically loses. Frequently a moot point for the enemy squad (as the enemy base won't fall until said captain is defeated unless said captain strays far from the base), but potentially a worry for the player — it's quite possible for a player to lose because he or she couldn't keep an allied captain alive, even though the allies have conquered most of the map's bases and the player hasn't been hit once. This can be either a point of strategy or panic when you're seconds from winning a map and suddenly you see the message "X is in danger!", telling you an instant loss may be a blink away.
• Defeat Means Friendship: In Adventure Mode, King Bulblin and Captain Keeta appear in some battles on later maps, starting with the Twilight map for King Bulblin and the Termina map for Captain Keeta. They appear as part of the enemy or rogue forces, but if you get their health low enough, then they will briefly disappear and then reappear will full health as your allies and fight on your side for the rest of the battle. Also, beginning on the Termina Map is a mission template where you can recruit the entirety of the rogue forces to fight with you against the enemy forces. The trope is referenced by Sheik, who says she will be your ally if you defeat her in battle, but doesn't actually do so.
• Dem Bones: Stalchildren with their Ocarina of Time design appear as regular mooks. The larger weapon-wielding Stalfos, which likewise sport the Ocarina of Time design, appear as Elite Mooks. The four-armed Stalmasters from Skyward Sword also appear as Elite Mooks. In Adventure Mode, Captain Keeta appears in some battles on the Termina map.
• Department of Redundancy Department: The Majora's Mask DLC pack gives the Goron and the Zora transformation masks... To Darunia and Ruto, the respective playable Goron and Zora (although they don't transform due to the masks being mundane in this game). Averted with the Deku Mask, which is given to Lana.
• Deus ex Machina: The Great Fairy's role within Legend Mode is to provide these to turn the tides in favor of the protagonists when they find it difficult to do so by themselves. In levels where you control the villains, they get wise and you'll get missions where you have to prevent the heroes from getting to the level's Fairy Fountain.
  • King Daphnes in the Wind Waker levels of Legends and Definitive Edition. He appears out of nowhere and tells everyone what to do next when the party has no idea where to go or what to do, despite being on a timer. He isn't even mentioned before, either, and the narration even states that he reveals himself "by divine command".
• Developer's Foresight:
  • The first chapter of Legend Mode requires obtaining the bomb sub-weapon in order to clear some boulders blocking the entrance to a keep. In replays of said chapter wherein the player now has access to bombs from the start, the boulders can be cleared right from the start. The other entrances of the keep past the boulders, however, will remain locked even if the keep is secured by the player. This is to prevent Sequence Breaking through the chapter early on.
    • A similar event occurs in a later Chapter, where you obtain the Boomerang. In it, a set of vines blocks you from entering the Temple from the front, which can be cut down with said Boomerang. However, replaying the level with the Boomerang and using it to cut the vine down reveals a gate behind the vines, also preventing Sequence Breaking. But that's not the best part. If you cut the vines before capturing the two keeps, the dialogue itself will change to reference the gate, instead of the vines.
  • Also in the first chapter, Wizzro is actually present on the map in the Mountain Keep. Players can fight him there, but he'll retreat after he loses half his health. This still doesn't stop him from summoning King Dodongo, however.
  • All cutscenes use the characters' default weapon class; Hylian Sword for Link, Giant Blade for Impa, Book of Sorcery for Lana, and Rapier for Zelda. In the Wii U version, equipping a character with a higher-tier weapon from that class for a given mission in Adventure Mode (i.e. Link's White Sword) will result in them carrying that weapon in the cutscenes surrounding that mission. Additionally, equipping alternate costumes for allied characters will have the character wear that costume during the mission, as well, with a few exceptions (generally involving cutscenes that occur before the narrator's pre-mission ramble). Sadly, both of these are exempted from Legends and Definitive Edition, as the cutscenes are pre-rendered using Wii U graphics.
  • In Adventure Mode, if the path between two squares doesn't have a valid connection as determined by the original Zelda 1 map used in the mode, the on-screen character will teleport between them in a puff of smoke instead of walking there.
  • Certain characters have specific lines in Adventure Mode depending on whom they're working with or fighting against, rather than generic battle quotes. Link and Impa, for example, have personal dialogue for when they're working with Zelda, and Midna and Zant have special dialogue for when they're facing off against each other. Ruto in particular has a unique portrait that goes alongside special dialogue that only appears up when fighting alongside Link; because she's blushing due to being reminded of her Link, who she was in love with.
  • Using the Zelda, Sheik, Ganondorf, Toon Link and Wolf Link (which gives weapons for both imp-form and Twili Midna) amiibos at the start screen won't start giving you weapons for those characters until you've unlocked them. They give the same random items and Rupees as everything else. They also give the familiar "Puzzle Clear" jingle, instead of a vocal yell from that character, until they are unlocked.
  • Introductory and victory cutscenes are affected by where the character is on the map during and when the battle ends. For example, if you are outside the temple, your character's victory animation takes place outside the temple. Go inside the temple before the screen fades to black and the cutscene takes place inside the temple.
  • During the first Twilight-era mission in Legend Mode, the player is advised to capture the keeps that generate Twilight zones so as to dispel the Twilight and weaken Midna. If any of those keeps are uncaptured before Midna is defeated, she'll proclaim that she never expected to lose while she still had access to the Twilight's power.
  • Also during said mission, Cia is waiting in the Sorceress' Keep, and will vanish from the map when either Midna or Lana reaches the keep, with a different trade of dialogue for each.
  • At the beginning of the mission "Shining Beacon" in Legend Mode, you're normally expected to capture the East and West Sanctums, at which point Lana will tell you about the South Sanctum and you'll be told to go there next, which will progress the chapter progress. However, if a character visits the South Sanctum before Lana tells you about it, one of the characters will note that "There's a sanctum over there too!" and you'll be prompted to capture it without hearing Lana's dialogue.
• Diegetic Soundtrack Usage:
  • Lana sings part of The Legend of Zelda when summoning enemies.
  • If you use a glitch to let Zelda use Lana's Summoning Gate, she'll sing Zelda's Lullaby instead (seen here). invoked
  • Linkle sings the famous "Got Item" jingle as a taunt.
  • Twili Midna's victory scene will have her hum the start of Midna's Lament, and a Twilight Wolfos will proceed to mimic her.
• Dinosaurs Are Dragons:
  • King Dodongo exhibits this trope, both in his new appearance or his Ocarina of Time incarnation
  • A rock remix of Ocarina of Time's "Dinosaur Boss Battle" plays either when you fight King Dodongo or when you're fighting against a boss enemy that happens to be a dragon (Volga included).
• Disc-One Nuke:
  • The Master Sword. Though high-star Level 3 weapons will surpass its raw power, they're not unlocked until the player is deep into Adventure Mode. The Master Sword, on the other hand, gets unlocked about halfway through Legend Mode, and using it makes the rest of the story much easier, especially once it unlocks the ability to shoot Sword Beams. It does become something of an Infinity -1 Sword, however, until you get all other non-DLC weapons and 25,000 KOs, unlocking the Evil's Bane ability, which increases the sword's power to 500, 50 points more than any other Level 3 weapon can ever get. In Legends and Definitive Edition, the ability only requires 10,000 kills to unlock, but you need 25,000 kills and all Level 4 weapons to unlock a new second skill called Exorcism, which cranks the Master Sword up to an unmatched 900 attack!
    • This is worse in Legends and Definitive Edition. The Level 2 and Level 3 weapons were removed from the first Adventure mode map, and are inaccessible until finishing Legend Mode, whereas the Master Sword is still found halfway through the Legend Mode. Only Link, Linkle, Impa, Sheik, Lana, Zelda, Tetra, and King Daphnes can get a Level 2 weapon before that. That said, it starts to lose steam once you begin the Master Quest missions, and taking the Master Sword when it doesn't even have Evil's Bane unlocked to the Twilight or Termina missions is... not a good idea.
  • The Spinner and Epona for Link, and the Dominion Rod for Zelda if a player buys the Downloadable Content or necessary Amiibo early on, as all three of these weapons come already fully unlocked. That means based on luck, a player could randomly get their hands on a Level 2 or even a Level 3 version of this weapon right at the beginning of the game (and have a weapon roughly twice to three times as strong as anything else they should have in the game at that point).
  • To a lesser extent, characters received via Downloadable Content, meaning Twili Midna, Tingle, and Young Link, also come with all three tiers of their weapons unlocked. This is much less useful as far as Story Mode goes, since these three never appear there, but they can be very useful in Free Mode and Adventure Mode, since they (along with Link and Zelda) will be the only characters with stronger weapons already available.
  • In Definitive Edition, all of the Adventure Maps are unlocked as soon as you complete the prologue mission in the story mode. Marin unlocks on the first stage of the Koholint Island map, letting you level everyone to 15 right away with enough rupees.
• Double-Edged Buff: The Glass Cannon fairy magic multiplies the warrior's damage output by 8, but getting hit once will leave the warrior with one-quarter of a heart.
• Double Entendre: Cia makes taunting remarks towards Link, which seems like usual behavior for a villain. But, given the fact that she's a Stalker with a Crush who really WANTS Link...
  Cia: Link, stop wasting your time with petty brawls! Come show me what that sword can do...
• Double Unlock:
  • The Master Sword's locked skill, Evil's Bane, requires 25,000 kills to unlock. But before it even starts counting your kills, you must unlock every non-DLC weapon first and at all three of each weapon's levels. The correlated Legendary skill takes it a step further since it waits until you unlock Evil's Bane to start counting kills, making it a Triple Unlock.
  • Legends reduces the required kills for Evil's Bane to 10,000, but the Master Sword now has a second skill called Exorcism that requires 25,000 kills and all non-DLC Level 4 weapons to unlock. The Legendary skill on other weapons also now requires Exorcism to be unlocked first.
  • In Definitive Edition, Exorcism only needs 15,000 kills to unlock, though you must now gather all Level 4 weapons for all characters in the game (including those that were formerly DLC in Legends). Unlocking the Legendary skill after Exorcism has also been dropped to 10,000 kills.
  • Adventure Mode has these all over the place. Just to access new stages, you have to clear adjacent stages above a certain ranking, and some paths don't open until you get far enough in Legend Mode. Then, there are hidden rewards that you have to unlock after gaining access to a stage by using items (which you get by beating other stages). And if a secret reward's location isn't obvious (and you don't remember where it is from playing The Legend of Zelda on NES), you will probably need to use a compass to find it, adding another layer to the unlock. Some rewards require specific characters, whom you need to unlock through the story or other Adventure Mode stages. Later in the game you will even encounter stages that can't be played until you use an item to uncover the enemies, and then might need to use a second item to find a reward!
• Do Well, But Not Perfect: Getting A ranks on most Adventure Mode stages requires a certain number of KOs. Reaching that number may require the player to hold back on capturing keeps until enough enemies have spawned.
• Downloadable Content: Both the original and Legends releases received several DLC updates, both paid and free:
  • Wii U release:
    • Link, Zelda, and Ganondorf have alternate costumes giving them the appearance of themselves from other Zelda games as bonuses either in the Collector's Edition or given for preordering, depending on the region. They were later made available separately.
    • A free day-one update adds Challenge Mode and an 8-Bit weapon for Link's sword and shield moveset.
    • Another free download lets you play as the three Original Generation villains. The paid Master Quest pack released alongside them includes an alternate story mode scenario for them, a new Epona "weapon" for Link, Guardian of Time costumes for Lana and Cia, and an Adventure Mode map with further unlocks: the three villains' weapon upgrades, 8-bit weapons for several other characters' movesets, as well as an additional alternate costume for everybody (most notably; Zelda, Darunia, and Ruto get reskins based on Alternate Universe counterparts from A Link Between Worlds and Majora's Mask).
    • The Twilight Princess pack has Twili Midna as a new character, a Dominion Rod weapon for Zelda, a Postman costume for Link and an Ilia costume for Zelda, and another Adventure Mode map with more 8-bit weapons and another set of recolor costumes (including battle-damaged Ghirahim, Skyward Sword Impa, and Darunia and Ruto as their Twilight Princess counterparts). A free update alongside it adds amiibo functionality, raises the level and inventory caps, and adds more potions.
    • The Majora's Mask pack adds Tingle and Young Link as playable characters, Ocarina costumes for Sheik and Impa, a Skull Kid costume for Lana, and yet another Adventure Mode map with its own set of "costumes" - in quotes because these are each simply the regular character wearing a mask. Like the other DLC, it also comes alongside a free update; this one raises the level cap again, adds more materials and weapon skills, allows you to sell weapons and remove and appraise skills in the bazaar, and puts in a quick restart option and lets you see how much damage you've taken in one battle.
    • The Ganon pack adds a Boss Rush mode and another mode that lets you control Beast Ganon, which then unlock a handful more recolor costumes in boss colors and the ability to play as a giant Cucco in the Boss Rush. The accompanying free update raises the level cap further, add the ability to record scores for each battle, more potions, medals, and challenges, and fix the bug from the last update that caused longer load times.
    • And buying the Season Pass for all four paid packs throws in a Dark Link skin for Link.
    • An additional "Classic" costume for Link that resembled his old NES/SNES character design was added later to celebrate the announcement of the Legends port.
  • Legends came with its own set of DLC packs. All of the packs' new characters and weapons are also being made available for the Wii U version, but Adventure Mode maps and My Fairy costumes aren't:
    • New characters added for Legends (Toon Link, Tetra, King Hyrule, Skull Kid, and Linkle, plus Ganondorf's trident) were released as DLC for the Wii U version; free for those who buy Legends and later available as paid content for those who don't.
    • A free update adds Medli from Wind Waker as a playable character. The accompanying paid Master Wind Waker pack adds an Adventure Mode map and My Fairy costumes in addition to Medli and Legends' built-in Wind Waker content.
    • A SpotPass update delivered an exclusive My Fairy called Lazuli.
    • The Link's Awakening pack adds Marin as a playable character, Pegasus Boots for Linkle, an Adventure Mode map, and Lv. 4+ weapons that have a secondary element in addition to the original weapon's primary element.
    • A combined Phantom Hourglass/Spirit Tracks pack includes Toon Zelda as a new character, the Sand Wand weapon for Toon Link, My Fairy costumes, another Adventure Mode map, and more Lv. 4+ weapons.
    • The Link Between Worlds pack features both Ravio and Yuga as playable characters, My Fairy costumes, one last Adventure Mode map, and the final selection of Lv. 4+ weapons.
    • Like the original game, buying a Season Pass for Legends adds an extra costume, this time of Ganondorf in his Wind Waker robes.
  • In addition to the various DLC packs, Link amiibo figures (which included Toon Link variants until he was released as a separate character) unlock the Spinner weapon from Twilight Princess for Link to use in the Wii U version. (Other amiibo figures grant random items and weapons, with Zelda series characters giving better items, but nothing exclusive.) This isn't included in Legends or Definitive Edition, as the Spinner unlock was moved to Adventure Mode.
• Dub Name Change:
  • In French, Agitha is known as Machaon, in Japanese as Ageha, in Spanish as Maripola, and in Italian Xenia.
  • Cia is known as Cya in French and Spanish.
  • In the Japanese version, Wizzro's title translates to the Magician of Darkness. In the US version, it is Twisted Wizard.
  • Tetra's Italian name is Dazel, which is an anagram of Zelda.
  • Ravio is called Lavio in French.
  • In the Japanese version, Volga's title is 灼熱狂戦士, which translates to Scorching Berserker. In the English version, his title is changed to simply Dragon Knight.
  • In the original Japanese version and the European version, the fairy that asks Sheik and Impa for help when they travel to Death Mountain in the Hero of Time era is simply a generic unnamed fairy. In the North American version, the fairy is identified as Navi in the cutscene as somewhat of a bonus.
  • In the Japanese version, the desert ruins stage that Cia occupies is identified as the Lanayru Gorge. In the English version, it is identified as the Valley of Seers.
• Dual Boss: Zelda and Link serve as one for Ganondorf in the Battle for the Triforce stage; if you don't strike them both down at once, they will keep getting back up. this is offset a little by the fact that when you take down one, you have a sizable time frame (less than a minute) to defeat the other, so it's not required to somehow have both of them in the same sector to accomplish the mission. Made easier in Legends and Definitive Edition, where you can control and swap between more than one character on the battlefield.
• Dying as Yourself: Some clarity appears to return to Cia as she lies dying after being defeated by Link. The "dying" part is subverted in the Wind Waker arc in Legends and Definitive Edition.

E-L

• Early-Bird Cameo: In the first level, it's possible to run up to meet with Wizzro before his official story introduction in the second level. He's only identified as the Dark Wizard, and he runs away after he reaches half health. This doesn't stop him from summoning King Dodongo, however.
• Easter Egg:
  • In the Legend Mode mission The Water Temple, after encountering Fake Zelda inside the Water Temple, King Dodongo is summoned to attack your allies. At this point, Darunia and Ruto appear to fight the monster, telling you to stay where you are and finish the mission while they take care of it. If you choose to disengage with the boss and run back to fight King Dodongo, you see that rather than the usual yellow Dodongo that appears everywhere else in the game, in this mission (and only this mission) it is the black-scaled version with large crystals on its shoulders, which appeared in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. It's no longer quite so Easter-y in Legends or Definitive Edition; not only has it been upgraded to a mission objective, it also appears as the final boss of Linkle's Tale.
  • In Legends and Definitive Edition when you're on a loading screen during Adventure Mode, try pressing any button but A. They play ocarina notes from Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask with the same control scheme as in the 3D remakes, save for B/A being swapped due to those buttons serving non-note purposes in each game.
• Easy Level Trick:
  • The "Guard the allied keeps with your life!" missions become incredibly easy in Legends and Definitive Edition if you give your fairy the Repair Technician skill and use it in an otherwise problematic keep, allowing you to mop up the enemies you need to kill as the mooks fail to take down the fortified keep.
  • The "All Attacks are Devestating!" missions are often seen as extremely difficult... until one realizes that your bow is just as devastating. Simply target an officer, let fly, and move on.
  • Likewise, in the "All Attacks are Devestating!" missions and the "X Rule: Don't Get Hit!" missions, you can use a weapon with the Regen skill, which slowly regenerates your health. Because of your Last Chance Hit Point, even one heart per second of regen is invaluable. It's even more useful in "Definitive Edition" thanks to the Damage Taken score recalculation.
  • And speaking of Regen, it works all the time, even in "No Healing" missions.
• Elaborate Equals Effective: All the most powerful weapons in the game are more elaborate than their weaker counterparts. You have to complete special missions in Adventure Mode to earn them.
• Eldritch Location: The Temple of Souls is a twisted palace existing in another dimension. It is a reflection of Cia's own corrupted mind what with it being a large Stalker Shrine as it is littered throughout with various statues of Link. One room in particular is plastered to the brim with pictures of him.
• Elegant Gothic Lolita: Agitha's alternate costume from the Master Quest map, which trades out her bright colors for black and blue to match her Level 2 weapon. The Twilight Princess map gives her a pink version instead, to go along with her Level 3 weapon.
• Elite Mooks: They come in two groups.
  • The lower group of Elite Mooks have more health and are less numerous than the regular Mooks, but still don't put up much of a fight.
  • The higher group of Elite Mooks have far more health, have a variety of attacks, and can can actually block your attacks, forcing players to fight more strategically when facing them.
• Enemy Summoner: Among the numerous hordes of enemies, there are a few capable of constantly summoning others until defeated.
• Equal-Opportunity Evil: In terms of troops, the Dark Forces have a slew of different monsters that their armies can mix and match for a variety of different army setups. In contrast, the Hyrulean Forces simply use Hylian and Goron soldiers as troops.
• Escort Mission:
  • Sometimes, a lynchpin character (one who explicitly is mentioned in the level briefing to cause a defeat if they retreat) is under threat (either because they make an advance or the enemy is advancing on them), and they need you to cover for them. However, unless they already took plenty of damage from other sources, these usually aren't too difficult. More problematic are ones where you have to accompany your army's version of an Elite Mook to a certain location; although these missions generally don't result in defeat if they're failed, the escortee is much weaker than you and can't do as much damage against foes. If such an escort is announced and you're on the other side of the map from the escortee, you can practically write off that mission immediately.
  • In the Twilight Princess Adventure Map, there are missions where you need to escort one or more giant Bombchus to an enemy keep that is invincible to every attack except being blown up by one or more Bombchus. These missions normally boil down to having to beat three to five Elite Mooks, although this can become more problematic if there are multiple Bombchus on completely opposite sides of the map.
• Everything Fades: As is tradition for Zelda games, enemies flail around for a bit, become desaturated with color, and explode in a puff of smoke with a *PAF* noise. Giant Bosses turn black and explode with a much more glorious effect.
• Evil Counterpart: Every character has a "dark" palette that makes his or her skin, clothes, and equipment completely black and gives him or her glowing red eyes, but only Link's is freely useable, and in the Wii U version only if you buy the Hero of Hyrule DLC combo pack. In Ganon's Fury, this palette also doubles as a Superpowered Evil Side of sorts for the giant bosses: their dark versions can't be stunned with properly-used subweapons and you can't use Weak Point Smashes against them, but they take much more damage from any attack by default, meaning you can fight them like any other enemy, but there's no way to interrupt any of their attacks.
• Exact Words: Legends and Definitive Edition add the ability to issue a command to any playable warriors you're not presently using. This trope ensues if you don't take the exact mechanics into effect; the ability to command a warrior to, say, defend Zelda is parsed as "Go to this square and defend Zelda", ...In That Order, so if Zelda has moved to a different square before the commanded warriors gets there, they're still gonna go to that square before chasing after Zelda to defend her.
• Eye Scream: Gohma. Poor, poor Gohma gets smashed in its eye with a wide variety of weapons.
• Fake Difficulty: The game is ridden with Artificial Stupidity, fortunately on the side of your allies as well as the enemies. The Twilight Princess Adventure Map is especially noticeable with fake difficulty in that the enemies are not actually smarter, but simply hit you for a lot more damage than they usually would, even on high-leveled characters. The good news is that in Definitive Edition, the damage output won't automatically sink your A-Rank thanks to the Damage Taken score adjustments.
• Fake Longevity: Though the Adventure Mode is largely optional if you only care about the story, completing it tends to take disproportionately long: this is mainly due to the fact that most stages take five to ten minutes to beat at their shortest, there're 128 of them, and any of them with Skulltulas in them need to be beaten at least twice to collect both of them. Combine this with the fact that you often need to beat an additional stage or two in order to gather the items to make the enemies visible and/or reveal the stage reward (in the original and Legends versions, anyway; Definitive Edition lets you just buy most of them once you've collected at least one of each), and you'll need to beat most stages two or three times on average even if you manage to somehow A-rank them on the first playthrough.
• Fanservice: Linkle's opening and victory animations feature close-ups of her thighs- with the reason that that's where her crossbows are holstered- as well as focusing on her butt when she's skipping away in her crossbow victory animation. Cia's intro animation is full of close-up shots on her cleavage, butt, and bare leg.
• Fighting Clown: The Cuccos exist in this game for the sole purpose of providing comic relief related to their "revenge squad" tendencies. True to the source game, they're some of the strongest enemies in the game. This time, however, they're beatable.
  • Tingle, who smacks enemies around with a sack of rupees, accidentally sets off explosions as a finishing move, and has a balloon he's afraid to pop as a special. His Naruto Run has a clear focus of his... Assets, and he leaves confetti everywhere.
• Final Boss Preview: The heroes meet Cia in person early on, but she defeats them, takes the Triforce pieces, and opens doorways to the other eras of Hyrule.
• Final-Exam Boss:
  • For his first phase, Ganon uses the attacks of the first four giant bosses, and has the corresponding weaknesses while using them. When an attack is countered with the proper item, Ganon cannot use that attack anymore.
  • Phantom Ganon is this for the new Hammer item and character swap system in Legends.
• Finishing Move: When you evade a strong attack from an Elite Mook or use the corresponding weapon correctly on a giant enemy, a hexagonal gauge appears on top of it, which you need to deplete with repeated attacks: do so, and you'll follow up with a Weak Point Smash that does major damage to said enemy.
• Fire, Ice, Lightning: There are also Light and Dark, but Fire, Water (often represented by ice), and Lightning are the most common elemental attack types.
• Fisher King: In the first stage, under Zelda's rule, Hyrule Field is lush and vibrant. In the final stage of the main story, after Ganondorf takes over, it's a hellish landscape pierced with many a building-sized greatsword.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Link's first scene has him fighting a fellow trainee with a spear, while Link is fighting with a sword and shield. For the first mission, Link is auto-equipped with his Level 1 Hylian Sword, and the first commander he fights is Volga wielding his Level 1 Dragon Spear.
  • Notice how Lana and Cia, to an extent, have opposing hints of Fashionable Asymmetry? (It's most noticeable in the shoulders.)
  • During the prologue, Lana can be seen briefly awing over Link as if she has a crush on him, a subtle foreshadowing that she used to be part of Cia (who's mentioned to have a crush on him during the prologue).
  • One from the beginning for those who don't already know Sheik's real identity - what is Zelda doing in the dream sequence at the start of the game? She's playing the harp — specifically, the Goddess Harp (Sheik's Level 1 weapon).
• Floating Continent: The Land in the Sky stage, which is based on Skyloft and the various other islands from Skyward Sword.
• Forced Level-Grinding: This is one of the downfalls of Ganon's Fury mode: Ganon can't use the bazaar, can't get stronger weapons, is a huge target, and many enemies do a ton of damage to him per hit because he starts at level 1, so the only real way to deal with some of the harder levels is to level him up beforehand.
• Full-Frontal Assault: Midna, Ruto, and Darunia are technically nude (and Twili Midna is half-nude), though their lack of human features lets them get away with it.
• Full Health Bonus:
  • The Master Sword will only conjure sword beams when Link is at full health.
  • The Heart-Strong weapon skill will increase the attack power of any weapon it's on as long as the wielder can avoid taking any damage.
• Game-Breaking Bug: In Legends, there is one that freezes the game whenever you try to rename a fairy you caught (and this happens on both 2DS/3DS and New 3DS).
• Gang Up on the Human: Mama Cucco will specifically hunt you to the ends of the realm if you don't escort her baby to her, despite the game's claims that she's attacking indiscriminately. Regardless of how far away she is or how many soldiers she needs to run past, she will only attack you.
• Giant Mook: Though not outlandishly huge, the Lizalfos and Dinolfos Chieftains are noticeably larger than their basic Elite Mook counterparts.
• Good Morning, Crono: A tradition in the series. In this case, it isn't Link who the game starts with waking up, it's Princess Zelda. And, in Legends and Definitive Edition, Linkle.
• Gotta Catch Them All: Counting all characters and weapons sets (but not the Master Sword, 8-Bit Weapons, or Ganon's Fury mode), there are 42 different weapons to collect in Hyrule Warriors. The hardest challenge in this game is not to complete every Legend Mode map on Heroic Difficulty or to complete every Adventure Mode map with an A rank but to collect a perfect variation of every weapon (Level 4+, 5 Stars, 8 Slots).
• Gratuitous Japanese: Lana shouts "Se no!" when performing her finishers, Agitha (and sometimes Lana) exclaims "Sore!" when attacking, Cia shouts "Toriyah!" when performing her special attack, and Linkle will exclaim "Yoshi!"^note Japanese lingual rules forbid words from ending in consonants, with "n" being the only exception, so when a character says "Yoshi!", we don't hear the I. when confidently pointing herself forward (in the wrong direction) during her crossbow victory cutscene.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Not directly mentioned in the game, but the series lore is referenced: Demise, who is established as being responsible for Ganon in The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, makes an appearance in his Imprisoned form.
• Green Hill Zone: The Hyrule Field stage.
• Guide Dang It!:
  • Characters can immediately break into a run by holding down the dodge button. All materials and weapons in the field are automatically collected at the end of a mission. Neither of these things are ever mentioned in-game, although the former is briefly mentioned in the manual.^note Also for the former, it's averted in Legends and Definitive Edition, where it's mentioned in a loading screen tip.
  • Some of the Hard Mode Skulltula clues can be misleading, as well. The clue for the final stage says you have to defeat ??? (Ganondorf) before ??? (The Castle Keep) is recaptured. This may lead you to believe that you have to capture the Castle Keep and defeat Ganondorf before his forces reclaim it, but you actually have to defeat Ganondorf while the Castle Keep is still in his possession, then capture it.
  • There isn't an easy legend for which 8-bit icon is whose in Adventure mode, especially the small heads that show who a reward belongs too. The three Links in particular look almost identical (Link's ears are long and pointed upwards, Young Link's are short and horizontal, Toon Link has a brighter color palette).
    This is particularly frustrating when a section of the first map is blocked off by "Link" being required and the game telling you he's not unlocked. You actually need Toon Link, who isn't even unlocked via that map. Good luck figuring that out if you're trying to do the adventures in order.
  • Character-specific elemental weakness. Each character receives more damage if they are attacked by a weapon infused with an element they are weak to, but the game doesn't even provide hints as to which specific elements each character is weak to. Some are very easy to figure out (almost every single villain is weak to light while every single version of Link and Zelda is weak to darkness), but some others are rather cryptic (Lana being weak to lightning or Agitha being weak to fire).^{Complete list}The Hylian Captains, Link, Impa, Sheik, Zelda, Fi, Young Link, Linkle, Toon Link, Tetra, King Daphness, Medli and Toon Zelda are weak to darkness. Ganondorf, Midna, Zant, Girahim, Cia, Wizzro, Twili Midna, Skull Kid, Ravio and Yuga are weak to light. The Gibdos, Moblins, Stalfos, Icy Big Poes, Agitha and Tingle are weak to fire. The Goron Captains, Lizalfos, Big Poes, ReDead Knights, Fiery Aeralfos, Stone Blins, Darunia and Volga are weak to water. The Dinolfos, Aeralfos, Shield Moblins, Big Blins, Lana, Ruto and Marin are weak to lightning.
• Hades Shaded: Cia, who is much darker-skinned than her good counterpart, Lana.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Cuccos have this, even more so than in the other games. Some Adventure Mode battles will have two cuccos fighting for territory in a random base. Interrupt and the base gets sealed off, with you asked to "survive until the cuccos calm down."
• Heavily Armored Mook: Apart from the knight-like Darknuts, a few of the soldiers from both sides of the conflict are outfitted with more armor amongst their less-armored brethren.
• Held Gaze: Between Link and Zelda when they first see one another in the castle courtyard.
• Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: Even before getting the hero garb, Link doesn't wear the helmet of the Hylian soldier uniform.
• Helpful Mook: Some Adventure Mode missions have an enemy Summoner who periodically summons a group of the lowest level mooks to the player's location. This is entirely beneficial for the player; not only are the mooks far too weak to pose any sort of threat, but KO'ing them brings you closer to the KOs required to A-Rank a mission.
• Heroic Mime: In keeping with Zelda tradition, Link does not speak. Instead, a fairy named Proxi serves as his proxy and speaks for him.
• Immune to Flinching: Enemies surrounded by a red aura cannot be flinched by regular attacks. They can only be knocked back if attacked with a special attack or Weak Point Smash. In most Legend Mode and Adventure Mode missions, you are intended to avoid unflinching enemies, but certain Gold Skulltula challenges and Rewards Map missions require you to fight them.
• Improbable Weapon User: Several.
  • Zelda, with the Wind Waker, a magical conductor's baton.
  • Lana's primary weapon is a book of spells.
  • Agitha uses a Parasol of Pain.
  • Sheik's Harp weapon. (It's actually a lyre.)
  • Midna, who fights with Prehensile Hair and magic wolves.
  • Twili Midna one-ups her imp form, fighting with a mirror, a bridge, and her own tears.
  • Tingle's weapon is his balloons. He also smacks foes with a sack of rupees.
  • King Daphnes uses a sail.
  • Yuga attacks his foes with magical picture frames.
• Infinity +1 Sword
  • An update has made the Master Sword's Sealed Skill Evil's Bane no longer exclusive to the Master Sword: You can pick up a randomly dropped weapon with a 25,000-KO Sealed Skill.
  • The perfect variation of a weapon is Level-3, 5-Stars, and 8 Slots. Unfortunately, the chances of getting this kind of weapon are very low.
  • Legends adds Level 4 weapons, upgraded versions of the Level 3 weapons with massively increased stats, ranging from 500 to 750. Naturally, the Master Sword also gets a second skill to enable it to surpass even these.
  • And there is the matter of the Level 4+ weapons from Legends 's DLC maps (sans Master Wind Waker), which adds a second element to every non-DLC weapon, along with the advantages of the Level 4 weapons.
• Informed Flaw: After gaining the Master Sword, Link is said to grow arrogant, rushing into battle alone with no regards for his own safety. Too bad this is just how the gameplay works, so it seems like the other characters are getting upset over Link doing nothing different whatsoever.
• Insurmountable Waist-Height Fence: In Legend Mode, the mission in the water temple tasks you with saving Ruto, who gets trapped inside a room in the middle of the temple. To get to her, you have to find flood gates to drain the water blocking the way to the room... except the water in this case seems to be only about chest-deep at most, so there's no reason you couldn't just wade or swim there. Becomes even worse after you open the first floodgate and most of the water is drained away, leaving two ankle-deep streams that you could easily jump over or wade through, but which are treated as insurmountable obstacles. This is particularly egregious when you're playing as Ruto, who somehow cannot swim through the water.
• In Spite of a Nail: During the fourth mission in Legend Mode, a mission entails safely escorting an Engineer from the Allied Base to a bridge so he can lower it. Succeed, and thing proceed that much faster. Fail, and the Hyrulean Forces take a hit to their morale... but Cia ends up lowering the bridge herself, in order to let her monsters attack.
• Intra-Franchise Crossover: The first game in the series that reunited good part (if not all) of the incarnations of characters from the game series in a game that isn't Super Smash Bros. series.
• Item Crafting: Materials collected from enemies can be used to create badges and mixtures from the apothecary. Badges work as a Tech Tree where each badge offers passive effects, such as additional attacks and the ability to use a healing potion. Mixtures affect the quality of weapons found from Random Drops such as power and number of skills, but they only last for one battle (although if you fail a mission and retry it, you can keep using the mixture until you beat it or quit out of it) and only one can be active at a time. There are also three mixtures with direct gameplay effects: one of them lets you break enemy guards with every hit, another gives you permanently powered-up subweapons, and the final one gives you a constantly filling SP gauge, but they're far more expensive to make both price- and material-wise than the mixtures that just increase specific types of drops.
• Interface Spoiler: During Cia's Tale, in her efforts to recruit Volga, she ends up being joined by Wizzro. The moment he appears on the map, you get his character intro cutscene, which only happens for enemy commanders; sure enough, Cia is betrayed by evil jewelry as soon as she's in position to fight Volga himself.
• Jiggle Physics: Lana's and Ruto's chests bounce quite a bit in their idle animations, though for the former it's more noticeable in her Guardian of Time alternate costume. Cia's chest bounces a bit when she's in motion, as well.
• Just in Time: In the Temple of Souls, Link is trapped in a room with several Dark Links. Lana comes in to aid him; however, even with her, they are still at a disadvantage. Just when things are looking dire, Darunia, Midna, Fi, and Impa appear to save them.
• Keystone Army: On some Adventure Mode levels, the enemy will send out an elite force of morale-boosted mooks led by an officer with a stat buff. These forces can endanger your keeps more quickly and are tougher to deal with than the ordinary Raid Forces but will rout instantly with the defeat of their officer.
• Kick Chick: The Pegasus boots weapon set turns Linkle into one of these.
• Kid Hero: Agitha, Young Link, Toon Link, Tetra, Medli and Toon Zelda can all join the fight despite them being noticeably preteens.
• Killer Rabbit:
  • Cuccos are this, in an interesting upgrade from Video Game Cruelty Punishment. Find a cucco in Legend Mode and attack it, and it'll summon more cuccos, which, though no longer invulnerable to attacks, are many times more powerful than normal enemies. Eventually, this attack culminates in the appearance of an even more powerful golden cucco.
  • The full extent of the cuccos' badass nature can be seen in Adventure Mode. Some battles have cuccos fighting alongside the player. In some others, you'll receive side missions telling you a golden cucco is feeding; let them go for too long and they become ungodly strong. In a few other levels, you're told that two cuccos are fighting for territory; fail to break them up and the winner will capture a base, then spread out and steamroll the rest of the map unless you defeat them. Then, some levels will just have a single cucco follow you around. If you hit it too many times, it'll attack you. It can get hit by enemy attacks, but it never attacks them. This is rather frustrating for some missions, because you have to be careful of what attacks you can and shouldn't use. Considering Zant's wild fighting style, good luck getting his Level 2 weapon.
  • Lana's Summoning Gate weapon allows her to summon smaller versions of the Giant Boss monsters. Her special attack, the strongest of these, summons a massively upsized cucco instead, which then flattens anything in its path. It's further Played for Laughs in Lana's victory animation for said weapon, where she is terrified and runs away screaming as she's chased by a horde of cuccos popping out of her gate.
  • It's possible to unlock the ability to play as a giant cucco in the Wii U's and Definitive Edition's Ganon's Fury mode.
  • Linkle is a cucco farmer, and thus her main allies for her first couple of missions are cuccos that either come to help her or ones she ends up befriending during the mission. This puts her on equal footing with her enemies since she doesn't have any allies at the start of the game.
• A Kind of One: Several of Lana's attacks with the Deku Stick involve summoning Deku Tree sprouts to help her attack (she can summon up to three at a time), and her standard special attack and victory animation with the Deku Stick involves her summoning the Great Deku Tree himself. A hollowed-out Great Deku Tree also appears within the Faron Woods map as a base.
• King Mook: Wizzro and Volga. Volga is a combination of the Dinolfos, Lizalfos, and Aeralfos — enemies that are Elite Mooks at best and Red Shirts at worst — only scaled up to the power level of the playable characters. Wizzro is an even better example, as he even looks like a Big Poe, the Elite Mook he's based on.
  • Also Captain Keeta and King Bulblin, who are larger and more powerful versions of Stalchildren and bulblins respectively and are treated as characters.
• Lady of Black Magic: Cia and Twili Midna are both elegant sorceresses.
• Lady of War: Zelda, courtesy of becoming an Adaptational Badass, has a very graceful style of fighting in the game.
• Lag Cancel: The ending animations for many attacks can be canceled by dodging. This is especially useful for characters that just show off at the end of their attacks, like Ghirahim. Additionally, you can use a super move to cancel out of animations as well. You can get the most out of diminishing a super boss' weak point gauge by activating a special move after a level 4 combo for many characters like Ganondorf. You can cancel out of a Gibdo's stun attack with the same activation in most circumstances.
• Last Chance Hit Point: Any attack that would otherwise kill you will instead leave you with 1 HP, as long as your health is above that number, although your health will be displayed as one-quarter of a heart (although health is displayed as hearts in traditional Zelda form, damage is actually measured in HP, with 400 HP for every heart).
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: Several of the characters' bios in the loading screen tips go into brief detail about their backstories and roles in their original appearances, leading to quite a few of these.
  • That Sheik is actually Zelda, and that Midna is the ruler of the Twilight Realm are casually revealed by the story mode.
  • The fact that Ghirahim is a living sword like Fi is kept hidden until the very end of Skyward Sword, but he utilizes his true forms as part of his moveset, as well as having it mentioned in his bio.
  • As far as DLC, an alternate costume for Ganondorf spoils his appearance in Twilight Princess, and Midna's true form is a playable character.
  • King Daphnes and the King of Red Lions being technically the same character in Wind Waker. Also, the fact that Medli is the Earth Sage.
• Lethal Joke Item: Various DLC packs included 8-Bit weapons, which repurpose item sprites from the NES The Legend of Zelda as new weapon variants for most weapon sets belonging to the original 13 characters.^note The only ones excluded are Link's Master Sword, Horse, and Spinner. Despite looking silly, they're incredibly powerful and equivalent to regular Level 3 weapons. In Definitive Edition, the 8-Bit weapons are reskins for the Level 4 and 4+ weapons and not separate items; the 8-bit appearance can be switched on or off in the Settings screen.
• Lethal Lava Land: The Eldin Caves stage.
• Let's Split Up, Gang!: After Cia brings forth the multiple areas from different eras to the main world, the Hyrulean Forces split up into three armies to deal with the problem on three separate fronts. Impa and Sheik head to the era of the Hero of Time, Lana heads to the era of Twilight, and Link heads to the era of the Sky.
• Let's You and Him Fight: Midna's entrance starts with her already at war with Cia, but due to a misunderstanding on the battlefield, she assumes Lana and Agitha are part of Cia's forces and attacks. When Cia retreats, it leaves Lana to defeat Midna and sort out who's on whose side.
• Level-Up Fill-Up: Get your experience bar filled up, and all of your health and special gauge is restored.
• Light 'em Up: Light-element weapons include Link's Hylian Sword, Master Sword and Horse, Zelda's Rapier, Agitha's Parasol, Fi's Goddess Blade (or rather herself), Toon Link's Light Sword (as well as ''light'' in weight), Medli's Rito Harp, and Toon Zelda's Phantom Arms.
• Light Is Good: Despite Dark Is Not Evil applying, NONE of the villains use the Light element. Well... except...
• Light Is Not Good: Ganondorf of all characters gets a Darkness/Light version of his Great Swords called the Swords of Renewal as his Level 4+ weapon in Legends and Definitive Edition. This is probably a reference to the Sword of Sages that he used in Twilight Princess.
• Lightning Bruiser: Par for the course for Dynasty Warriors. While this can vary from character to character, the fact is you can attack harder and more aggressively than any enemy, move faster across the map than any unit and actively dodge attacks, and take more damage than any ally regardless of difficulty simply because you can control your character.
• Limit Break: In true Dynasty Warriors fashion, each character has super attacks which they can use to wipe out enemies. In general, there are three varieties for each character/moveset: the normal one that takes one bar of Special gauge to use, the Focus Spirit finisher that's used automatically when the bar runs out, and a different variant that's triggered when you use the special during Focus Spirit (which also has a secondary property of instantly stunning giant enemies and opening them up for a Weak Point Smash).
• Lizard Folk:
  • Lizalfos and the stronger Dinolfos relatives appear as Elite Mooks. Aeralfos, the winged versions of the Lizalfos from The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, appear as Airborne Mooks, along with the new Fiery Aeralfos.
  • There are also the Lizalfos and Dinolfos chieftains, who are larger and tougher than their regular counterparts.
• Loads and Loads of Loading: Not as bad as other examples, but the Wii U's 1.5.0 update introduced a bug that significantly extended the load times for each mission. The 1.6.0 update timed with the Ganon DLC Pack thankfully fixes this.
• Loophole Abuse:
  • Certain Adventure Mode missions limit which character or even which weapon can be used... for Player 1 (Wii U), or the initially-controlled character (Legends and Definitive Edition). Player 2, or any remaining playable slots, can be filled by whoever you want *cough*Link*cough*, wielding whichever weapon you want *cough*Master Sword*cough*. Even if you don't have an actual second player in the Wii U version, you can always park Player 1 somewhere safe and rain down moons with Player 2.
  • The Training Dojo at the Bazaar doesn't let you level up characters any stronger than the highest-level playable warrior. Anti-Grinding at its finest... until you purchase the Boss Pack, and with it Dark Beast Ganon. Ganon can't be levelled through the Dojo, but his level counts towards "highest-level playable warrior", and his first mission alone is impossible to finish without going from Level 1 to Level 13 or higher, depending on whether you go for the captains. A little Rupee grinding (or some lucky amiibo scans) can turn the Dojo into a Disc-One Nuke. The loophole is closed in Definitive Edition, where Ganon is not counted towards "highest-level playable warrior".
• The Lost Woods: Two different versions of the Faron Woods serve in two different stages. The Skyward Sword iteration is part of the "Sealed Grounds" stage, but it largely serves as background to the spiral pit; the aptly named "Faron Woods" stage is better suited to the trope. Though it resembles the Twilight Princess iteration in design, it is actually a completely original version for the game, as it contains a giant Great Deku Tree which serves as the stage's centerpiece and a Tree Top Town built around it.
• Love Makes You Evil: Cia's feelings for Link is what corrupts her into villainy, although not directly; her feelings and the doubts they inspired in her opened the door for Ganondorf to influence her.
• Luck-Based Mission:
  • Some Adventure Mode missions have an event where two cuccos appear in a random base and start fighting. If you try to stop them, you'll get locked in the base with them and risk taking tons of damage until they calm down. If you ignore them, they'll take over the base and head out to steamroll other bases. The mission to get Ruto's third level weapon has this event happen three times, and the mission's difficulty changes significantly depending on how nice the game decides to be with where the events happen. If they're all on the north end of the map where the enemy bases are (or even better, an event occurs in a base that was already lost to the cuccos), the mission will go fairly easily; if they all spawn on your side of the map... good luck getting A-rank.
  • The Festival Of Cuccos mission in Adventure Mode has the same problem, if not even worse. It is entirely possible for the "two cuccos fighting in a keep" event to happen directly in the path of the Cucco Chick you have to escort back to its mother, making the escort all but impossible and practically guaranteeing you'll face Mama Cucco's Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
  • The Manhandla Stalks event. Stalks of the plant boss, Manhandla, appear randomly, dispersed among the keeps, whereupon they will attack either your base, various areas, or you from a distance. They could all end up in the same keep, which is great, or they could end up on opposite ends of the map, which is awful. Bonus points if the enemy is already attacking your base when this happens (which is more common than you might think).
  • Occasionally, a Hylian soldier will appear, often near powerful enemies, and get wounded, and if you don't escort him to the base so that he can retreat, he'll die and reappear as a Hylian ghost that curses your forces, causing a huge chuck of your allies to flee. The problem is that if he doesn't appear right near you, he'll likely die before you have a chance to help him.
  • Some of the rupee gathering missions can fall here depending on how the game feels. Sometimes you'll be racing against 3 Lizalfoes or Moblins, other times it'll be three heroes such as 3 boosted Dark Linkles that are immune to stun. What can make these missions downright infuriating is that Rupee Fairies and Rupee Captains can spawn anywhere, and sometimes right on top of your opponent. If they gain a Rupee Fairy, they get double Rupees for a limited time, and if they kill a Rupee Captain, they get a large sum all at once. Considering there are 3 team captains on their side at any time and they respawn when killed and they can summon backup (including giant bosses) and sometimes they'll summon Rupee Thieves to take a large sum of rupees from your total and force you to waste time chasing it down and your only backup is you and the second character you chose, winning these missions can boil down to just being lucky enough to be near the enemy spawns, otherwise you have to charge all over the map hoping the opposing team doesn't get there first.

M-P

• Magic Nuke: What using Fairy Magic does as it unleashes a magical explosion that completely wipes out nearly every enemy Mook in its range while dealing heavy damage to all other enemies and leaving behind a passive effect based on the spell's element. Doubling up the same element on a single fairy will expand the radius of the effect and Refreshing a fairy when she reaches level 99 will add a little extra damage to the spell for each refresh.
  • This can relieve pressure on K.O. contest stages, as a single use can sometimes net upwards of 500 kills.
• Main Characters: Link, Zelda, Ganondorf, and in this instance, Lana. Link and Zelda being the series' staple protagonists, Ganondorf reprising his role as Big Bad also plays an influential role, and newcomer Lana becomes a temporary lead role as she becomes the bearer of the Triforce of Power.
  • During Ganondorf's arc, Ghirahim and Zant become the dragons and play a major antagonist role during the majority of it minus the last mission.
  • Cia is the focal point of the Cia side story alongside Wizzro and Volga.
  • Link, Tetra, and Lana are this for the Wind Waker arc.
  • Linkle is naturally the focus of the Linkle arc.
• Making a Splash: Water-elemental weapons include Link's Great Fairy, Impa's Giant Blade, Lana's Spear, Ruto's Zora Scale, Tetra's Cutlass, King Daphnes's Sail, and Marin's Bell.
• Man-Eating Plant:
  • Deku Babas, which spew a circle of poison to protect themselves and hinder characters.
  • The plant boss, Manhandla.
• Massive Multiplayer Crossover: The game brings together several characters and elements from different The Legend of Zelda games thanks to Cia twisting space-time. According to Eiji Aonuma, he likens the game to being similar to The Avengers.
• Mêlée à Trois:
  • When Midna is first encountered, she is in command of a third faction which proceeds to fight both the Hyrulean forces and the Dark Forces.
  • In the midst of the battle in the Temple of Souls between the Hyrulean forces and Cia's, Ganondorf bursts in with his own army to fight them all.
  • Several Adventure Mode missions include the objective of fighting two armies at once.
    • All contest missions are this, with you and any other characters you were allowed to choose facing off against a well-populated enemy team while fighting enemy forces as both teams race to collect more of the objective.
  • In Cia's subplot, her attempt to recruit Zant finds her arriving in the Twilight Realm in the middle of a civil war between Midna and Zant, and she decides to take one down and recruit the other. What this translates to is "beat them both", though you can do so in whichever order you wish.
• Mickey Mousing: Attacking enemies' weak points causes a musical sting, with a single larger music note hit when you perform the massive attack at the end.
• The Millstone: See The Thing That Would Not Leave below. You're most definitely better off without it.
• Mirror Match: There are stages in Adventure Mode where a specific character is required, and has them fight a copy of that character at some point of that stage.
• Mirror Self:
  • There is a Zelda imposter who sows confusion and discord between the main Hyrulean forces and Darunia's gorons in order to get them to fight one another. It's actually Wizzro in disguise.
  • Cia herself is capable of summoning several Dark Links to do her bidding.
• Money Is Experience Points: Your warriors will level up through standard gameplay, but this makes it difficult to keep the entire roster leveled up due to being able to only focus on one warrior per stage. To counter this, you can spend Rupees to level up your warriors at the dojo to bring them up to the same level as your currently highest leveled warrior.
• Mook Commander: The game has rally captains appear in certain missions in Adventure Mode. These captains instantly boost the morale of every enemy on the field, including giant bosses. Defeating them instantly reverts the morale back to normal, which is a necessity when going up against the aforementioned giant bosses.
• Mordor: Ganon's Castle, which is Hyrule Field transformed into a hellish version of itself. It also serves as The Very Definitely Final Dungeon of the main story, before the Linkle and Wind Waker epilogues.
• Moveset Clone: In the Twilight and Termina maps in Adventure Mode, you'll fight against characters that are using weapons that belong to a different character instead of their own.
  Impa with Link's Hylian Sword and Shield
  Impa with Sheik's Harp
  Sheik with Zelda's Rapier
  Sheik with Impa's Giant Blade
  Lana with Cia's Scepter of Time
  Lana with Zelda's Rapier
  Zelda with Link's Hylian Sword and Shield
  Zelda with Lana's Book of Sorcery
  Zelda with Sheik's Harp
  Midna with Link's Hylian Sword and Shield
  Zant with Ganondorf's Great Swords
  Ghirahim with Ganondorf's Great Swords
  Cia with Lana's Book of Sorcery
  Agitha with Lana's Book of Sorcery
• Mummy: The ReDead Knights and Gibdo, which appear as Elite Mooks. They have shouting attacks that temporarily stun opposing characters as well as the ability to spew out poison.
• Multi-Slot Character:
  • Link has his main self, Young Link from Ocarina of Time/Majora's Mask, Toon Link as a hybrid of the Link from The Wind Waker/Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks, and (depending on whether or not you count him as Link) Ravio from A Link Between Worlds.
  • Zelda has her main self, her Sheik disguise, Toon Zelda from Spirit Tracks, and Tetra from The Wind Waker.
  • Midna has both her Imp form and her true form.
  • Fi is something of an interesting example in that there's technically only one playable version of her, but her future self (in the form of the Master Sword) is one of Link's movesets.
  • Downplayed with Ganondorf, whose Dark Beast Ganon form is only playable in specific game modes.
• Mundane Made Awesome: The song for the "stage select" theme within this game becomes this once you realize it's actually a dramatic remix of the standard "House" theme introduced within The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and appearing in almost all games then on.
• My Future Self and Me: The Master Sword and Fi; Ganondorf and The Imprisoned; Link (with his Ocarina of Time costume) and Young Link; Young Link and Toon Link.
• Mythology Gag:
  • There are three distinct time periods that you travel to, not quite matching, but representing, the three timelines of Legend Of Zelda, with one area being Twilight Princess, the other two being Skyward Sword, the earliest point in the Zelda timeline, and Ocarina Of Time, the point where the timeline fractured.
  • Tutorials are accompanied by a voice clip similar to Navi's infamous "Hey! Listen!". The victory jingle and Game Over jingle are also taken from Ocarina of Time.
  • The fairy that accompanies Link in this game, called Proxi, occasionally starts a point with "Hey, listen!".
  • The official artworks for Link and Zelda's alternate outfits, based on their appearances in Ocarina of Time, Twilight Princess, and Skyward Sword, are in the same pose as their artwork from those games. The artwork for Zelda's alternate skin from Ocarina of Time uses the same pose as Young Zelda from the Ocarina of Time remake.
  • On the same note, Link's render where he is wearing the Classic Tunic◊ looks almost exactly like one piece of artwork◊ from the original The Legend of Zelda.
  • Zelda goes missing at one point of the story, and during that time, Sheik appears. Hmmm...
  • Sheik is also part of the army detachment that rescues Princess Ruto. In Ocarina of Time, when encountered after the time skip, Ruto mentions she was saved by Sheik.
  • When using her Harp, Sheik will play one of four out of six teleportation songs from Ocarina of Time during her Strong Attack I, depending on which Strong Attack she previously used; in Ocarina of Time, Sheik had to teach those songs to Link. The Strong Attack II song is the Serenade of Water, the Strong Attack III song is the Bolero of Fire, the Strong Attack IV song is the Song of Storms, the Strong Attack V song is the Nocturne of Shadow, and the Strong Attack VI song is the Prelude of Light. She also plays Sariah's Song for the cancel-finisher for focus.
  • During the cutscene telling of the sorceress who guarded the Triforce, silhouettes of characters from Ocarina of Time, Twilight Princess, and Skyward Sword can be seen. In the OoT scene, Ganondorf's silhouette is seen holding the sword he had in the SpaceWorld 2000 GameCube Tech Demo and Super Smash Bros. Melee.
  • At the beginning of Ruto's character trailer, she is seen being carried like she was in Ocarina of Time.
  • Some weapons are named after items throughout the series, like the White Sword, the Magical Sword, the Magical Rod, the Magic Hammer, the Megaton Hammer, the Giant's Knife, the Biggoron's Sword, Silver Scale, Gold Scale, Water Dragon's Scale, the Sol, and the Twilight Sword.
  • The design of Link's Magical Sword is based on, of all things, the sword on the box art of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link.
  • The base Adventure Map and the Master Quest Map are set on exact replicas of the NES Zelda overworld, complete with unlockable rewards hidden in the same places as that game's secrets. Some references are even more specific:
    • All of the keep-taking missions that end with a boss being summoned are in the same places as the original nine dungeons in each quest. Furthermore, the mission corresponding with the final dungeon has a fight with Ganon at the end.
    • You find the Magical Sword in exactly the same map tile as in the original, and it's even unlocked by pushing the same grave.
    • Wizzro's Level 3 Ring is unlocked in a Master Quest mission that, while being one of the dungeons in the NES Master Quest, was also the location of the blue ring shop in the regular game.
  • During the second fight at the Valley of Seers, Zelda has to get to the Fairy Fountain. Impa calls out to her with: "It's dangerous to go alone! Take me with you!"
  • Manhandla is weak to the boomerang subweapon, like in Oracle of Seasons.
  • The upside-down Lorule Triforce can be seen during the final battle against Cia's forces.
  • The alternate costumes released for Zelda, Darunia and Ruto in the Master Quest pack make them take the appearances of Hilda, Darmani and Lulu, respectively.
  • Ganondorf says Cia is his "favorite puppet yet."
  • Darunia's victory dance is based off of his dance to "Saria's Song" in Ocarina of Time.
  • Darunia's use of the Megaton Hammer is a mythology gag and a development gag. He bemoans not having the hammer before trying to face Volvagia in Ocarina- though he does get a chance to use it against Volga in Legends and he's satisfied with that- and in the early beta of Majora's Mask, Goron Link's default weapon was supposed to be a hammer before it was changed to fisticuffs.
  • Link's "Gauntlets" moveset contains many elements from the handheld Zelda games: one move has him burrowing underground with the digging mitts, and another has him swinging a giant black pillar around. The third-tier version is named the Power Gloves, which replaces the Ball and Chain with Bow-Wow the Chain Chomp, and the fact that they have the lightning element may be a reference to the Magnetic Gloves. Finally, though it's not exactly very useful in this setting, they allow him to pick up pots, bomb flowers, and boulders over his head.
  • If you do well enough fighting against King Bulblin on the Twilight Map, he may join your side, impressed by your strength, alluding to his actions in Twilight Princess. If you are playing as Midna, she'll even reprise her "he... he spoke..." line.
  • Strafing Stalfos Knights and Stalmasters is a good way to get around their stubborn defenses in their respective games, so if you do it to them in this one, it dazes them, instantly revealing a weak point gauge that empties twice as quickly as normal.
  • Young Link's Focus Spirit finisher involves Skull Kid calling down the moon while Young Link puts on the Fierce Deity's Mask and cuts it in two. The sword master in Majora's Mask claimed that he would do just that.
  • Tingle's entry animation (which can only be seen in Legends and Definitive Edition due to the fact that you never face him as an opponent in the Wii U version) has him flying onto the battlefield with his balloon, only for it to pop as if somebody shot at his balloon like what Young Link would do if he wanted to buy a map from Tingle within The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask.
  • The Termina Map has a turn-limit that counts down until the Moon crashes into Termina, just like in Majora's Mask. The first "loop", there's only three turns, reflecting the number of days until the Moon crashes into Termina. On the second "loop", there are instead 72 turns for the 72 total hours from the first to final day. The music also uses the three different Clock Town tunes after every 24 turns have passed. It overall also represents the fact that the game can't be beaten on the first "loop", as Link has to remove the curse that turned him into a Deku Scrub that the guards won't allow to leave town. The three turns also slightly alludes to the fact that time goes slightly faster during the first loop since there's not much else to do during the beginning.
  • Tingle's first two weapon tiers, the Rosy Balloon and Love-Filled Balloon, reference the titles of the two spin-offs starring him.
  • One of the new items in Legends is the ocarina, the design of which is based on the Fairy Ocarina. Ganondorf being playable means that he can use this ocarina^note although none of his Legend Mode chapters have owl statues to warp to. In the manga for Ocarina of Time, Ganondorf stole the Fairy Ocarina from Link, believing it to be the titular temporal instrument.
  • Linkle's theme from the Legends Nintendo 3DS port sounds similar to the version of the classic Overworld theme played in Link's Awakening and Oracle of Seasons & Ages.
  • The fourth scenario of Linkle's Tale in Legends takes place in the Palace of Twilight; a Dark Zant serving as Gatekeeper is referred to by Midna as a "phantom of Zant". Twilight Princess had a Phantom Zant enemy that was guarding the Sols needed to advance through the dungeon.
  • The fire, water, and lightning-elemental fairy spells in Legends are named Bombos, Ether, and Quake.
  • The Lorule costumes based on the sages (Seres, Osfala, Gulley, Oren, Irene, Rosso, and Impa) are located in the respective Lorule dungeons where their paintings are found.
• Never Say "Die": Zig-zagged.
  • Played Straight: Being a Zelda game, death is mostly just implied and words like "defeat" are used a lot, and being a Warriors title, the "K.O." counter makes a return here, too.
  • Averted: The villains will make it perfectly clear what they plan to do with you and your allies if you lose. Wizzro in particular likes to talk about all the slaughtering he'd like to perform. Even the heroes will use the word "kill" a few times when referring to the giant bosses, and one of Zelda's opening lines in an Adventure Mode battle is that she'll cut you down with her own hands. Fi averts it in one of her victory quotes where she coldly and calculatedly says that "all life signs from this enemy have ceased". Also, some adventure mode maps start with Hylian captains on the back foot, if they're defeated you'll be haunted by their ghosts, suggesting it was a good bit more fatal than just forcing a retreat.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: After Cia absorbs the power of the first three fragments of evil, the heroes retrieve the Master Sword to fight her, weakening the seal on the fourth and final fragment. Impa worries that the seal would be broken by pulling out the sword, but Lana says it would only be weakened and they all agree that there is no other option. The problem here is that Lana forgot to tell them that it would eventually break if the sword was not put back.
• Ninja: The Sheikah tribe, lead by Zelda's retainer Impa, once again qualifies as the Hyrulean version of these. Sheik's moveset in particular is very reminiscent of a stereotypical ninja, and her dodging speed allows her to bypass attacks like no other character can.
• No Campaign for the Wicked: Averted; in the main storyline there are three levels where you get to play as Ganondorf attempting to conquer Hyrule. Plus a set of five side stages centered around the Original Generation villains.
• No Cutscene Inventory Inertia:
  • Taken a step further via plot-induced glitch in the story mission "A War of Spirit" if you play as Link equipped with any weapon other than the Master Sword (Epona, the Magic Rod, the Gauntlets, etc.). Link is shown wielding the Master Sword during the cutscene that occurs partway through the mission, and afterwards will be using the Master Sword for the rest of it. It's harmless, and somewhat justified because the Master Sword's true power awakens in the cutscene, but it's confusing if you had another weapon equippped.
  • More conventionally, cutscenes are pre-rendered in Legends and Definitive Edition, so characters will be shown with their default weapons and costumes regardless of what you have equipped.
• No-Damage Run: Some missions in the Master Quest Map have this as a special condition, where any hit will knock you down to 1/4 of a heart. To compensate, the game adds a clock item that will temporarily freeze nearby enemies, but it doesn't stop the missions from being hard to beat, let alone A-rank (except in Definitive Edition, which allows you to slip up at least once before you lose that rank).
• No Fair Cheating: A minor example: though you can use a single Compass item as many times as you like in Adventure Mode by opening the Home menu and quitting the game right after you use one but before the game is saved, it doesn't work with skill appraisals in the Smithy, since the game saves right after you pay the required number of Rupees.
• Non-Indicative Name: The material "Ganon's Fang" looks a lot more like a horn than any of his fangs.
• Non-Humans Lack Attributes: Midna (both versions), Ruto, and the Gorons are all technically naked, but lack visible naughty bits due to being different races than the more human-like characters. Though Ruto's alternate costumes seem to suggest she's wearing a dress that's simply the same color as her skin.
• Non-Standard Character Design: The Wind Waker characters keep the art style from their home game.
  • Averted with Yuga and Ravio, who are redesigned from their semi-cartoony appearances in A Link Between Worlds and now have more realistic proportions.
• One-Hit Kill: In any Adventure Mode battle where "All attacks are devastating", every attack is an instant kill against all enemies. Subverted for attacks against the player due to the Last Chance Hit Point.
• One-Man Army: Every playable character gets to wipe out hordes of enemies en masse.
• Only One Me Allowed Right Now: Throughout Legend Mode, it is never even considered that other versions of characters could be running around different timelines; when rumors of Zelda running around the Era of the Hero of Time are heard, it is immediately assumed to be Hyrule Warriors Zelda and never even considered it could be the Hero of Time-era Zelda. Similarly, no other Links are mentioned or even seen in Legend Mode, even when some of them are playable characters alongside the Warriors Link.
• Original Generation:
  • Though mostly a Massive Multiplayer Crossover to the Zelda series as a whole, there are some original characters, namely Cia, Wizzro, Volga, Lana, and Linkle. On a related note, Link, Zelda, Impa, Sheik, and Ganondorf are new incarnations for this game rather than particular incarnations from previous games. Linkle was planned to be a little sister-type of character for the original version but was scrapped at first. However, they retooled the character for Legends, making the 3DS version her first official appearance.
  • The game introduces new enemies that aren't present in the main Zelda games called Fiery Aeralfos and Icy Big Poe.
• Overly Generous Time Limit: Like most of the Warriors games, this installment has a standard time limit for a story map or conquest-type Adventure Mode map be one hour. It almost never even comes close.
• Our Ghosts Are Different: Poes, whose design resemble that used in Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask.
• Our Goblins Are Different: Bokoblins with their red Skyward Sword look feature as regular enemy mooks. Bulblins with their green Twilight Princess look also serve this function. Moblins with their pinkish-red overweight Skyward Sword look also appear.
• Our Dragons Are Different: The wyvern-like Twilit Dragon Argorok from Twilight Princess is a boss of the "Palace of Twilight" stage.
• Out-of-Character Moment: Many Adventure Map missions have character pairings that would never happen in-universe. Zant and Midna on the same side? Fi and Ghirahim? Zelda and Ganondorf? Ganondorf and Link?!
• Palette Swap:
  • Fiery Aeralfos are Playing with Fire red-versions of Aeralfos. Icy Big Poes are An Ice Person blue-versions of Big Poes.
  • Characters have alternate costumes that are mostly just different color schemes.
• Peninsula of Power Leveling:
  • The "Rack up your KOs" levels in the Master Quest Map are essentially these: they pit you against a large number of enemies with no allies to worry about and give you a constant stream of Magic Jar captains to kill so that you can keep your Focus Spirit active for extended perioids of time, which not only allows you kill stuff more quickly in general and to murder the normally time-consuming giant bosses in record time, but it also gives you large boosts to EXP given and rupees dropped. The hardest one of these at the lower left corner of the map is especially effective for this: in normal gameplay, you can expect your characters to level up once every three to five full-length battles fought or so, but depending on how high your level is, how long you can stay in Focus Spirit and whether you're equiped with a weapon that increases experience gained, you can expect to gain anywhere from 3 to 8 levels.
  • "Rack up your KOs" missions are also great for grinding silver and gold materials from Elite Mooks, as almost every challenge will include one or two particular kind easy to farm. Trying to fill out a character's badge chart? Just go to the correct "Rack up your KOs" mission and you'll likely have a couple dozen of the material treasure you need by the time you're done.
  • Thanks to the EXP-increasing mixture, you can expect to gain 5 to 10 levels per playthrough if combined with an EXP-increasing weapon and Focus Spirit bonuses.
  • Finally, if you're not opposed to abusing glitches, you can also focus all your leveling efforts into a single character and then use the Rupee glitch listed on the YMMV page to essentially bypass the Anti-Grinding restriction listed above and get all your characters to maximum level in record time.
  • Once you hit the Twilight Princess Adventure Map, you can start fighting Dark-versions of characters (Dark Impa, Dark Agitha, etc.) which will normally split into four versions by the end of the mission (fortunately, they split their remaining health, as well). Though not conductive to gaining experience, this is a fantastic way to farm for normally hard to come by materials, as each split-off dark character has its own drop and by the Twilight Map most boss characters are dropping double treasure, anyway.
  • The Grand Travels Map in Legends also features battles where commanders are accompanied by soldiers which turn into their clones after a while. The last one standing can get as many as 6, making for easy reaping of materials.
• Perfect Play A.I.: Some levels in Adventure Mode, "quiz" fights in particular, will pit you against characters who will guard against almost every attack you throw at them. You need to wait for the opportunity to break their weak point gauge or find the opportunity to interrupt their attacks.
• Play Every Day: Downplayed with the amiibo functionality: they can be used to receive a random reward each day (rare materials, weapons, or a random amount of Rupees), but there is no real punishment for not bothering.
• Playing with Fire: Fire-elemental weapons include Link's Magic Rod, Impa's Naginata, Lana's Summoning Gate, Darunia's Hammer, Volga's Dragon Spear, Tingle's Balloon, Linkle's Crossbows, and Toon Link's Sand Wand.
• Plot Hole: When we meet Midna for the first time in the original Legend Mode, she says that Cia cursed her back into her imp form. In Cia's storyline, however, we see that Midna is already in imp form when Cia first meets her, though given how Zant was able to return, one can assume Cia cursed her off-screen prior to the encounter.
• Princesses Rule: A number of the playable Hyrulean Forces characters (at least Zelda, Midna, and Ruto) are princesses.
• Product Delivery Ordeal: During the "Land in the Sky" mission, the heroes find themselves overwhelmed by the Dark Forces and have to convince the sky spirit Levias to help them. They do so by making offerings of the deity's favourite meal at specific spots on the map, with Link clearing the path of enemies so that Fi can transport gigantic batches of pumpkin soup to the required destinations.
• Product Placement: The Majora's Mask DLC for the Wii U version was released a week before a Majora's Mask remake hit the 3DS. Downplayed since Nintendo hasn't done any cross-promotion of the two games, but the timing lines up too nicely to be a coincidence.
• Promoted to Playable: The developers were excited to say this might be the first time some people can play as their favorite characters. To explain, previously it has only been possible to play as Link (and Tingle in his spin-off games), although Zelda and Midna are partially playable in some games. In this game, you can play as a vast range of heroes and villains, including complete extras such as Agitha from Twilight Princess and even the Great Fairy herself through an unlockable weapon for Link. The Great Fairy isn't really a weapon, it lets you play as the Great Fairy, while she carries Link in a bottle. You can also play as monster-form Ganon and as a giant Cucco.
• Punny Name: Link, our silent hero, quickly finds a fairy companion called Proxi, who decides that she can do enough talking for the pair of them. Thus, Link has a proxy to speak for him.
• Purple Is the New Black: The Darkness element is represented by purple in attacks, status effects, the element's icon, etc. Some non-elemental attacks from darkness-aligned characters use black, often with orange mixed in, but anything having to do with actual darkness effects is represented by purple. This is likely in reference to the Shadow Medallion (and the "Shadow Element" in general) from Ocarina of Time, which was purple.

R-T

• Random Drop: On top of the series' traditional rupees and hearts from cutting down foes and grass, this game features materials for badge crafting as well as random weapon pickups after every battle.
• Random Number God: There are five variables to a weapon drop which are Weapon Rank, Weapon Stars, Weapon Slots, Number of Skills, and Type of Skills. Getting the very best weapon (Level 3 for the Wii U version and Level 4 / Level 4+ for Legends and Definitive Edition, five stars, eight slots) requires a tremendous investment of time and amazing luck. And since that's just for one type of weapon for one character (and there are a LOT of weapons), you'll be working for a very, very long time to get them all.
• Rank Inflation: The battle rankings for Adventure Mode in the Japanese version of the game are S, A and B, as expected. Averted in the other versions of the game, where the ranks were shifted down to A, B and C.
• Rare Random Drop: Materials dropped by enemies come in bronze, silver, and gold rarity. Bronze items are common drops from Elite Mooks. Silver items are rare drops from Elite Mooks and common drops from bosses and character enemies. Gold items are rare drops from bosses and character enemies.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Every character's "Dark" counterpart gains these, along with a black color scheme.
• Red Shirt Army: Link is joined by the knights of Hyrule for the first time. They're nowhere near as powerful as Link (or any other playable character), so he still has to do most of the work.
• Retraux: The Adventure Mode, which has a grid laid over the overworld map of the very first Zelda game and 8-bit sprites of all the characters.
  • They even re-did maps from other Zelda games into the same style. Koholint Map is a partial exception, given its source game was already in 8-Bit (though it was modified so it can fit with the NES graphics and grid system).
• Reincarnation Romance: Implied between Link and Zelda.
• Remixed Level: The Master Quest Adventure Map is almost entirely comprised of identical missions from the original Adventure Map, just with extra "Master Quest rules" added on top of them.
• Resemblance Reveal: At the end of the Palace of Twilight stage, Midna and Lana confront Cia; frustrated over being cursed back into an imp, Midna lashes out at Cia and knocks her mask off, revealing that she has Lana's face.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge:
  • In some Adventure Mode missions, a Mama Cucco and a Cucco Chick will appear, and you're asked to escort the Chick to its Mama. If the Chick gets killed, the Mama Cucco goes crazy, gets the highest powerup status possible, and makes a beeline for you, chasing you around the map no matter how you try to avoid or run from her.
  • Also in Adventure Mode, you will occasionally be tasked with escorting an injured Hylian Captain back to base. If you fail to escort him and he gets killed before reaching the base, he comes back as a vengeful ghost, and although his rampage isn't as physically devastating as the Mama Cucco's, he lays a nasty curse that causes a huge chunk of your allies to vanish. Most notably, if the mission has more than one playable warrior slot, the ghost will cause your other playable warriors to vanish, automatically failing the mission.
• Rocket-Tag Gameplay: "Watch out! All Attacks are Devastating!" missions in Adventure Mode, where everything on the battlefield is a One-Hit-Point Wonder, both you and the enemies (well, technically you're a Two-Hit-Point Wonder due to having a Last Chance Hit Point, but the point still stands, especially since in every version of the game except Definitive Edition, you still need to finish those missions without getting hit to A-rank them).
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: You can actually select Zelda in the final levels. Yes, Zelda finally gets to challenge Ganondorf HERSELF. She also is playable for over half the first level, so you can have Zelda helping take back Hyrule Castle TWICE.
  • Princesses Ruto and Midna also take the field to help stop Cia.
  • You can also have King Daphnes destroy Phantom Ganon himself in the last level of the Wind Waker arc.
• RPG Elements: This is one of the rare Zelda games to have Character Levels and a Skill Tree.
• Save the Villain: The Legends epilogue involves Link and Lana, with Tetra and Daphnes's help, saving Cia from Phantom Ganon.
• Scarf Of Ass Kicking: Link has a blue one in this game in addition to his usual attire, which has been spectacularly well received by the fandom. The scarf is an accessory worn only by Hyrulean Army Commanders, presented to Link by Impa as they search for the missing Zelda.
• Schizophrenic Difficulty: The later Adventure maps like Phantom Hourglass/Spirit Tracks and Lorule are set on HARD or HERO difficulty. The game expects you to tackle these last obviously after you've done the prior maps. Problem is you also unlock new characters on these maps at level 1. Should you have a stage which requires a new lower level character but allows you a partner, the game won't stop you from bringing a level 200 Link.
• Schmuck Bait:
  • Some out-of-the-way keeps function as traps with no real way to tell them apart from the regular variety beforehand: if you clear them out in hopes of uncovering a treasure chest, you'll be trapped inside and need to kill off some Elite Mooks to open the doors. If you don't know about them beforehand and time it poorly, getting trapped inside one at a bad moment might cause you to lose the entire battle.
  • Some maps have multiple keeps guarded by elemental barriers, but only one fairy available. One of these keeps is inevitably by your starting location right next to the one fairy you get... but there's nothing in that keep, and now the final keep with the officer you need to beat the level keeps its barrier.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: The legendary hero separated the evil force into four pieces, sealed one in the temple of the Master Sword, and sent the other three into the depths of space-time.
• Second-Person Attack: A few of the characters' victory cutscenes do this. Notably:
  • Zelda's victory cutscene with the Rapier has her swinging it at an angle that, if the camera were a person, she would be aiming at his throat. The sword doesn't seem to actually hit, though, so there is that.
  • Wizzro has one of his shadow fish drool purple slime onto the camera, before he grabs the camera with his giant hand. The scene ends with him cackling as the camera struggles to escape.
  • Link's victory scene with the Magic Rod summons a giant fiery dragon (the same one from his special attack), which rushes the camera and engulfs it in flames.
  • Cia's victory scene has her order her Dark Link servants to attack the camera (or possible Lana), damaging it and causing everything to go white for a moment.
  • Linkle's victory scene with the Boots has her doing a few kicks in the air before almost doing one in front of the camera.
  • In the cinematic that plays when Sheik is encountered as an enemy in Adventure Mode, she's seen playing her harp in a tree, before throwing a Deku Nut and disappearing. The camera looks back and forth for her, only to have her rush into frame and threaten the camera's tripod mounting with a kunai.
• Sensible Heroes, Skimpy Villains: The majority of the female heroes of the Hyrulean Forces are sensibly dressed. The sole exceptions are Midna and Ruto, who are technically naked but get a pass since both lack certain human attributes and the latter's Ocarina of Time 3DS design makes her look like she's wearing a dress of sorts, and potentially Lana's midriff-exposing outfit depending on one's values. On the dark forces' side, though, Cia is dressed in a very Stripperiffic outfit.
• Sequence Breaking: The Wind Waker Adventure Mode map starts with a mission with the Helmaroc King as a boss you need to beat, ensuring you at least have to get the Hammer first. However, one can easily use the Special Gauge to stun it into revealing its weak point.
• Shifting Sand Land: The Valley of Seers and the Gerudo Desert.
• Shock and Awe: Lightning-elemental weapons include Link's Gauntlets and Spinner, Sheik's Harp, Lana's Book of Sorcery, Zelda's Baton, Ganondorf's Trident, Linkle's Boots, and Yuga's Picture Frame.
• Shout-Out:
  • Several of Link's moves from his guest appearance in Soul Calibur II, particularly the Cyclone Slash, make an appearance.
  • Link's gauntlet special attack where he flips the world with his ball and chain is similar to an attack used by Whitebeard in the One Piece Pirate Warriors spinoff. Likewise, some of Ruto's moves are reminiscent of Jinbe's from the same game.
  • Linkle's fighting style and stances are one humongous reference to Equilibrium.
  • As per Legend of Zelda standards, a Chain Chomp is in the game... as the Gauntlets' final rank, though this also references the use of Bow-Wow the Chain Chomp, who appears in Link's Awakening.
  • Toon Link's Weak Point Smash has him flail his sword around before he stops to get air. This is the same as one of his taunts in Super Smash Bros. Brawl and for 3DS/WiiU.
  • Wizzro's title is Twisted Wizard.
  • Midna entraps Agitha's Goddess Butterfly in a bubble of twilight magic.
  • In the "Defeat X enemies" levels in Cucco's Fury, Link is an AI ally. If he has to retreat due to low health, Proxi will say they need to make like a leaf and run away.
• Shown Their Work: The way each character opens a chest with a sealed weapon, heart piece or a heart container inside of it accurately reflects their personality: Link, Impa, Zelda, Sheik, Darunia, Ruto, and Linkle open it in the traditional manner (first popping the lid open to peek inside of it, then throwing it open), Midna and Fi throw it open right away without peeking inside, Ghirahim pops it open with a single finger flick before throwing it open, and Ganondorf kicks it open instead. Tetra, Toon Link, Medli and Young Link, fitting to their sizes, lean on the lip of the chest and risk falling in before grabbing whatever is inside. And Skull Kid makes the fairies open it for him.
• Shows Damage: Dark Beast Ganon, during the first part of his battle. Hit his bomb weakpoint and his left bracer breaks in half. Hit his arrow weakpoint and his right bracer breaks. The hookshot weakpoint rips off the tip of his tail and breaks one of his tusks. The two boomerang weak points break his horns. Once all of his weakpoints are broken he Turns Red and enters the second, more dangerous half of the battle. Land the killing blow, and the jewel on his forehead shatters.
• Silicon-Based Life: Gorons, which are rock-based, rock-eating characters from the other Zelda games, appear as regular grunts for the Hyrulean forces.
• Silliness Switch: The aforementioned 8-bit weapons. Turned into a literal switch in the Definitive Edition, as they appear as a model-swap for Lv.4+ weapons activated from the game settings.
• Socialization Bonus: In the Wii U and 3DS versions only, connecting to the Nintendo Network in Adventure Mode will make Network Links appear on the map. Helping them will offer generous rewards such as lots of Rupees, EXP, Rare Weapons, and Gold Materials. There is even a Medal for it if you help 10 of them. The 3DS version also includes StreetPass Links, which work similarly.
• Soundtrack Dissonance:
  • Before a battle starts, the battle music can be customized to a tune other than the normal one. Setting the Bazaar theme to play makes the battle a considerably different experience.
  • A few Adventure Mode battles take place at Ganon's Tower, the desolate wasteland version of Hyrule Field, but play the triumphant main theme remix usually heard on the lush, green Hyrule Field. The same thing occurs in the last scenario of Linkle's Tale, although the skies have cleared up and the start-of-scenario pan gives the name "Hyrule Field".
• Slice-and-Dice Swordsmanship: As usual for a Warriors game, thrusting weapons like Zelda's rapier and Volga and Lana's spears are mostly just used for slash attacks.
• Static Role, Exchangeable Character: When playing a chapter normally in story mode, certain character roles will be switched depending on the character chosen to play it. For example, in the second Valley of Seers instance, Zelda at one point goes to the Great Fairy fountain with a contingent of soldiers. However, if she is chosen to play as for the stage, Ruto takes up her role instead. A short list of replacements: Ruto appears if Zelda, Sheik, or Darunia are chosen on missions where Zelda or Darunia have a story role. Agitha appears for Midna, and Fi for Impa. The Temple of the Sacred Sword highlights this, as each of the statues can be activated by two members of the cast, but each default member is playable after the Mission is cleared with Link. Also, during a single mission, Proxi and Link take Zelda's place if she or Sheik are chosen, leading to the odd hilarity of a little fairy leading the Hyrulean forces.
• Stalker with a Crush:
  • By the end of the day, that's Cia's flaw. She uses her ability to watch over the worlds to spy on Link and gets a crush on him. The further in you go the more clear it becomes, and the game makes it clear that's what she is. The Temple of Souls clearly makes it more obvious. It's a huge temple with portraits and statues of Link and his other incarnations.
  • As a gameplay mechanic, some levels will spawn a Cucco that will follow the player throughout the level. It's neutral at first, but when it takes enough damage (and with the large number of wide-area attacks, it almost certainly will), it turns hostile and starts sending hordes of Cuccos after the player.
• Stripperiffic: Cia's outfit is quite revealing, to say the least. Even moreso is Twili Midna, who is topless and wears nothing more than the sash on her waist and the robe on her back, with one of her legs exposed up to the waist.
• Stupidity Is the Only Option: In the "Enduring Resolve" Legends map, after you beat on him a bit Ghirahim turns tail and flees, crying that he's outmatched against you. You're ordered to pursue him... right into the heart of the enemy stronghold. Even if you catch up to him before he can make it and attack him some more, when at low health he just stops taking damage and can't be defeated. You have to let him run to the enemy base and chase him there. No prizes for guessing what happens next.
• Suave Sabre: When Tetra was added as a DLC character, she was actively wielding this cutlass in battle with many upgrades to enhance her fighting style compared to how she was only seen using this weapon in game art.
• Sucking-In Lines: King Dodongo does this when preparing to use his fireball, thereby telegraphing the point when you should throw your bombs into his mouth. Argorok also charges up like this for his fireball attack, as does Ganon.
• Suddenly Voiced:
  • In a first for a Legend of Zelda game, there's a fully voiced narrator who recounts the events of the main story between chapters as opposed to a silent one like in other games. Other than that, the rest of the characters follow Zelda tradition wherein they either just grunt, just speak Simlish in the case of Midna and Fi, or just utter short (Japanese) phrases in the case of Lana, Agitha, and Cia. None of the Links even speak directly, as their dialogue is provided for by Proxi, or in Toon Link's case, Aryll.
  • On another level, this is the first time in the franchise where the Lizalfos speak, even if it's mostly broken sentences. There are also hints that they are an organized society, such as the tribe that is loyal to Volga in Cia's Tale, and the monster horde that Ganondorf destroys in the Gerudo Desert is implied to be a raiding party led by Lizalfos.
• Super Mode: Focus Spirit mode. After filling up a magic meter, you'll be able to enter this mode by pressing R (or Up on the control pad in Legends). While in Focus Spirit mode, your character's abilities will be increased, much like the Style Action from One Piece: Pirate Warriors 2: specifically, their attacks and movement speed are faster, their hits break enemy guards, and every 20 or 25 (depending on the character) mook kills until around 130, they get an additional bonus effect that also slightly refills the magic meter.
  • Ghirahim and Young Link are the only characters who actually change their appearance while in Focus Spirit mode, while all the other characters are just surrounded by a colored glow during it (based on the main element of the weapon they're holding).
• Swapped Roles: Link's Great Fairy weapon. You actually play as the Great Fairy while she carries Link around in a bottle the same way Link typically carries fairies.
• Telephone Polearm:
  • One of Link's special attacks while using the Gauntlets is to pull one of those huge pillars from Ocarina of Time out of the ground and beat enemies up with it.
  • King Daphnes' special attack has him grow the sail to massive size before swinging it around.
• Terrible Trio: Cia forms one with Wizzro and Volga. Later, Ganondorf forms one with Zant and Ghirahim.
• Theme Song Powerup: In the first stage, the main Zelda theme starts playing after Link awakens to the Triforce of Courage (and, in doing so, No Sells a One-Hit KO done by Volga).
• The Thing That Would Not Leave: In certain Adventure Mode battles, a single Cucco will keep following you every way you go until your attacks ruffle its feathers to summon its army against your butt. Yes, it follows you and no one else for that one reason, so it makes you think twice about your positioning and using area attacks.
• Throat Light: Along with Sucking-In Lines, this is the second tell that King Dodongo is about to use his fireball attack.
• Throw Down the Bomblet: Bombs are a subweapon that can be used by anyone. Several bombs are thrown by default to take out multiple enemies, although they're by far the most inaccurate out of all the subweapons and can't be aimed reliably.
• Time Stands Still: The "Don't get hit" missions in the Master Quest Map have a rarely-spawning unique item not seen anywhere else, the clock from the original The Legend of Zelda: picking it up stops all enemies for a brief period of time, which evens the playing field a good deal.
• Timey-Wimey Ball: It's thanks to Cia twisting space-time that characters and elements from different eras and Alternate Timelines, which would normally not be able to interact with each other, are able to do so. Phantom Ganon is responsible for doing the same in the Wind Waker arc in Legends.
• Too Dumb to Live:
  • Watch your allies crowd around giant bosses and just die by the bushel when they make huge, sweeping attacks.
  • In some Adventure Mode battles, an optional mission will begin where you need to escort a wounded Hylian Captain to safety. If he dies, he'll come back as a vengeful ghost to curse your army and attack you. Most of the time, he'll appear too close to the enemy and too far away from you for you to have a fair chance at rescuing him.
• Took a Level in Badass: Princess Zelda has presumably led her country almost her whole life, but by the end of the events of the game she has led her armies in multiple high-risk battles, vastly improved her own combat abilities, and saved her kingdom from the ultimate evil.
  • This could also generally applies to the whole roster, as all the characters are fighting against hordes of thousands of enemies (unlike how it is in the main series), yet they come on top. Especially the ones who were simple non-playable characters back in the main games, like Agitha and Marin.
• Tree Top Town: The "Faron Woods" stage has a town built on the trees adjacent to the Great Deku Tree.

U-Z

• Vague Hit Points: The game uses quarter hearts as the smallest visual unit of the Life Meter, it's not the smallest actual unit. Every quarter heart is worth 100 HP, which the player will only be able to notice if they enter a keep with a damage barrier, which deals small increments of Hit Points per second, so they're damaged without otherwise visual change. If the character is hit by an attack that activates the Last Chance Hit Point, that would leave the character with 1 hp, but it would be displayed as 1 quarter heart. The exact number of Hit Points is shown in the pause menu/results screen for the Wii U only, as the Nintendo Switch uses percentages instead.
• Variable Mix:
  • Some levels use different instruments in specific areas, such as the Crystal Caves in Eldin Caves, and the interior of the Temple of the Sacred Sword. Most tracks also add one or two in certain generic situations, such as whenever you're inside an enemy keep, or activating Focus Spirit, as well as playing a toned-down version during the pause menu. You can listen to these variations of the tracks in the Gallery by pressing L or R when the song is playing. This is unfortunately lost in Legends, which instead opts for a simpler Theme Music Powerup for Focus Spirit.
  • The track also slowly dies down as you get close to a Golden Skulltula, which is part of how you find them.
• Villain Episode: Three of the stages focus on Ganondorf's conquest of Hyrule after the defeat of Cia.. Cia and her cronies are also the protagonists of their own scenario, which focuses on how they met and their own conquest of Hyrule.
• Villainous Crush: Cia has a thing for Link. The reason she turned evil is because she wanted Zelda out of the picture.
• Virtual Paper Doll/Virtual Pet: My Fairy mode is a cross between these. About half of the new rewards added to Adventure Mode in Legends are clothes and food for your fairies.
• Warrior Princess: All of them. Zelda, Ruto, and Midna are three princesses of defined kingdoms who are not afraid to fight on the front lines, risking life and limb to save their world. Agitha, although not of royal descent, is the self-proclaimed princess of the insect kingdom, and she too is willing to get her hands dirty to save Hyrule.
• Weapon-Based Characterization:
  • Link: Hylian Sword / The Master Sword, Magic Rod, Gauntlets, Epona, the Spinner, and a Great Fairy
  • Impa: Giant Blade and Naginata
  • Sheik: Harp
  • Lana: Book of Sorcery, Spear, and Summoning Gate
  • Darunia: Hammer
  • Zelda: Rapier, Baton, and the Dominion Rod
  • Midna: Shackle
  • Fi: Goddess Sword
  • Ganondorf: Great Swords and Trident
  • Ghirahim: Demon Sword
  • Ruto: Zora Scale
  • Agitha: Parasol
  • Zant: Scimitar
  • Wizzro: Ring
  • Volga: Dragon Spear
  • Cia: Scepter
  • Young Link: Mask
  • Tingle: Balloon
  • Ganon: Ganon's Rage
  • Cucco: Cucco's Spirit
  • Twili Midna: Mirror
  • Linkle: Crossbows and Boots
  • Tetra: Cutlass
  • King Daphnes: Sail
  • Skull Kid: Ocarina
  • Toon Link: Light Sword and Sand Wand
  • Medli: Rito Harp
  • Marin: Bell
  • Toon Zelda: Phantom Arms
  • Ravio: Rental Hammer
  • Yuga: Picture Frame
• Where It All Began: After your journey across boundaries of time and space, you end up back in Hyrule Field to take on Ganon.
• World of Action Girls: As stated above, the game has a comparatively large focus on heroines. There are only two male protagonists in the base game, compared to seven female protagonists. A (roughly) Gender-Equal Ensemble is achieved by counterbalancing them with only one female antagonist, compared to five male antagonists.
• World of Badass: As per Dynasty Warriors standard, every character you can play as is capable of killing entire legions of Mooks single-handedly. Fowl farmer who can kill scores of enemies with bomb arrows? Check. 35-year-old Manchild who slaughters his foes by popping a balloon in their faces and tossing bombs at them? Check. Ten-year-old "Princess?" who can beat up the king of evil by throwing butterflies at him? Super check.
• World of Chaos: Hyrule, after pieces of locations from other timelines have been materialized randomly into it. Noticable most in the Water Temple stage where Zora's Domain abruptly cuts off to Lake Hylia, and taken up to eleven in the Wind Waker levels featuring battles on a stage where multiple islands from across the Great Sea are mashed into a single stage, and two dungeons on opposite sides of that era's Hyrule have been spliced together.
• Xenafication: Zelda is much fightier than usual. Agitha, who in Twilight Princess never got involved in the action and just collected bugs, here gets to kick some ass.
• Yin-Yang Bomb: Legends DLC and the Definitive Edition introduce dual-element weapons for the Lv. 4+ tier.
• You Are Too Late: The first time you start the Termina Map, there's only three hours remaining before the Moon crashes. You don't have nearly enough time to make any real progress, so the Moon will crash and reset the map. Fortunately, after this, you are given a 72-hour cycle to work with.
• You Can't Thwart Stage One: Cia and Ganondorf each get their hands on the full Triforce and its infinite, reality-warping power early on in their respective arcs before somehow still being defeated by the heroes.
  • In Ganondorf's case, you can't thwart stage one because you're playing it.
  • On a smaller scale, Sequence Breaking is nigh impossible in Legend Mode; if you manage to bypass the enemies to get to the "main" target of the scenario (i.e. Wizzro in the first scenario of the Prologue), they'll quickly disappear to prolong things until the necessary storywise events have occurred (i.e. King Dodongo has appeared)
  • This also happens in some Adventure Mode battles, combined with an unusual variation of You Shouldn't Know This Already: In many of them, you have to complete a mission, and are then told to find a boss key in a specific keep to access the overall boss of the battle; it is very possible to get the key early but the key won't work until you complete the starting mission.
• Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: You beat the evil sorceress. Yay! But wait, the story's not over. While you were tracking her down and fighting her, Ganondorf was off gathering his power. Now, he's back to full power and the heroes have to head off again to take him down, too. Then, once Ganondorf's done with, sometime later yet another villain (Phantom Ganon) starts causing trouble in the Legends and Definitive Edition versions.

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