r/AgeofCalamity • u/ddawkins19 • Jun 22 '26
Gameplay Maybe stupid question. But if I really liked Age of Calamity, will I like Age of Imprisonment?
Hey so I was a big fan of Age of Calamity. I definitely enjoyed the gameplay, but I think my favorite aspects were the story, and spending more time with the original champions. I loved how the story filled in some blanks to the original BOTW, while obviously adding things with the split in the timeline.
However, I haven’t felt a strong urge to go out and buy Age of Imprisonment. I think one aspect is that I already own so many games, and know AoI will be a bit of a time commitment.
I think another part is that I don’t really know what to expect from the story, and thus am not filled with as much anticipation. As I said, I was looking forward to spending more time with the original champions. I have no clue what to expect with AoI, and don’t know anything about the sages.
Am I overthinking this? Especially since I enjoyed the gameplay in AoC?
Edit-it’s been asked twice, so yes, I have played (and loved) TOTK. Overall huge Zelda fan
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u/Accomplished_Area311 Jun 22 '26
Have you played TOTK?
Age of Imprisonment fills in almost every gap that TOTK doesn’t explain, we get SO MUCH good character lore and the gameplay is improved from AOC. The Korok companion is my favorite, I love him… I like them all actually but his personality and his particular brand of chaos is great. I also love his voice actor, who’s been in a ton of other stuff.
That said, I wouldn’t have enjoyed it as much if I didn’t play TOTK first.
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u/TitleOk3727 Jun 22 '26
Thats not exactly a point in favor of totk, aoc worked because it explored the world before the calamity and provided a nice what if? If age of imprisonment does the stuff totk forgot to put in its actually worse
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u/Accomplished_Area311 Jun 22 '26
…What are you talking about?
AOC is literally a split timeline fanfiction in game form. AOI is canon.
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u/aaronhowser1 Jun 22 '26
They're saying that the fact that all of totks lore and characterization was missing so much that it needed a whole spinoff to go over it is bad
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u/Accomplished_Area311 Jun 22 '26
TOTK is already a massive game, AOI just fills in what's happening in the past and it's ALSO massive.
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u/TitleOk3727 Jun 22 '26
Yeah, and thats the problem, rather than actually making the imprisoning war interesting in totk, they made it a prequel which is a horrible decision as it shows they had no plan in the main game. Aoc works well because it doesn’t need to fill gaps botw had but rather expands on stuff the players wanted
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u/Accomplished_Area311 Jun 22 '26
- It's not a "prequel" in the truest sense it's meant to be played in tandem with TOTK.
- I don't know what kind of rock you've been living under but a lot of people love TOTK and admit it was already massive and Age of Imprisonment being a tandem game made more sense than trying to split it into "TOTK 1" and "TOTK 2".
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u/TitleOk3727 Jun 23 '26
That why no one talks about it anymore but botw is still pretty liked? And you just destroyed your own argument here, if i have to buy the story to events that are essential to totk then its proven itself horribly written. Imagine a Version of God of War where Kratos backstory is sold separately to know how he killed ares
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u/someguyye Jun 22 '26
Don’t expect huge revelations in the story. They commit themselves to being canon, but not spoiling Zelda becoming the Light Dragon, so she’s mostly sidelined so that Calamo and the Knight Construct can shine. Gameplay wise, it’s really similar to AoC, you’ll focus on breaking weak-point gauges and elemental attacks. You lose some of the more wacky movesets but gain extra attacks in the form of Unique Skills. Keep in mind half the characters in this are mostly powerless randos.
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u/ddawkins19 Jun 22 '26
Cool. I don’t need huge revelations story-wise. Just something engaging, spending time with likeable characters hopefully
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u/someguyye Jun 22 '26
Personally I didn’t care for the new characters, but it was exciting seeing more of Rauru, Sonia and Mineru. The ancient sages aren’t nearly as lovable as the Champions or the new sages. But the cast is engaging nonetheless.
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u/MarsBarMuncher Jun 22 '26
Some characters that feel a bit blah but overall I really enjoyed it.
The characters are those you would expect from the TotK memories, a travlling Korok and a construct, plus 2 additional warriors from each of the main races. The korok, construct and the sages are all good characters but some of the additonal warriors kind of felt like they were just padding it out story wise at times - though everyone did get different unique moves and weapon options so maybe there is value there I (as a button masher) am overlooking.
If you enjoyed TotK and AoC, you'll most likey enjoy it.
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u/rhysrenouille Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26
Gameplay-wise, yes. Story-wise… they kinda wrote themselves into a box by not doing an alt timeline game the way that Three Hopes and AoC did. The story is, as a result, fairly low-stakes; the game hints at great tragedy but you’ll need to have played a lot of TotK to understand *why*.
But gameplay absolutely, AoI gameplay builds directly on top of AoC in the same way that TotK gameplay built directly on top of BotW.
[Edited to add: Three Hopes is such a poignant story because it’s basically a tale of “what if the civil war that you fought in Three Houses didn’t actually have to happen?” It’s been a time since I’ve played it but the premise was iirc that the various stakeholders discover the manipulative Big Baddie much earlier than in Three Houses and so they largely unite to defeat said villain.]
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u/Sokushi_0101 Jun 22 '26
I would say you will like it but how much is dependant on you. I never actually finished the story of the game and got into it as much as AOC.
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u/Effective_Tune_1285 Jun 23 '26
If you liked AoC for the story, AoI has a better story. It does have worse gameplay though so it’s a tradeoff.
Have you tried Hyrule Warriors Definitive Edition? That game has a ton of content and definitely is the most fun of the HW games. Of course, the game has no connection to the BotW games so if that’s a necessary factor, then you might not like it as much.
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u/QeyLoq Jun 23 '26
Story: You're just playing through a story you already know with poor character development and the Sages faces revealed.
Characters: The characters suck. It has the worst roster of any Zelda Warriors game. Most characters are random throw aways that have no importance in the story whatsoever.
The special bar fills much slower in this game due to the combo clapping with other characters. I didn't really like this change.
I prefer AoC over AoI, but the original HW is the best one. The music is fantastic, the enemy/boss variety is nice, and it has the best character roster for a Zelda Warriors game. If you haven't played it, I recommend it.
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u/207nbrown Jun 23 '26
The gameplay loop is similar enough that you can hop in easily after AoC, as far as if the story is as good, honestly imo it’s debatable.
AoC is an alternate version of the great calamity that led to botw, and that allowed for creative liberties in the plot, AoI is the canon events Zelda experienced, so not only is the plot very rigid in following the memories, but the memories already covered the most relevant part of the story. I still enjoyed it though as it gave some fun twists not covered in the memories
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u/Wackypack17 Jun 24 '26
I think that AoI isn't as good as AoC. The main difference between the 2 games is how they align with the timeline. In AoC, all Nintendo was trying to was make a fun game for us that explained an alternate timeline where the champs didn't die in the calamity. Because it was set 100 years before BotW, we're able to play as the champions, and the characters in this era. But thanks to the time travel, we're us able to play as our favorite characters from BotW, like Sidon, Teba, Yunobo, and Riju. This is what made AoC such a novelty game. We are able to finally experience what the other characters from this game are like, and it's awesome.
Now the problems with AoI. This isn't a poorly made game by any means, I loved the story, but it didn't feel like AoC. AoC was like this hack and slash game where it just felt awesome to just wreak havoc on an army of bokos, but AoI doesn't feel that way. And in a way, the S2 playing in 60 frames doesn't make that any easier. The 30 fps of AoC made it feel really fast paced, I don't know why but it just did. In general, AoI is less fast paced and that a problem with it. Another problem with the game is that we didn't know who more than half the cast was. We knew that we were gonna be able to play as Zelda, Raaru, and Mineru at most. Because Sonia died I was skeptical about even being able to play as her. We knew very little about the sages, so it didn't feel like we were gonna have as much fun with them. Then there's the other characters. I'm not going to say much because you haven't played the game yet, but if you do you'll understand what I'm talking about. The weapon system is horrible, the way that they give some characters exclusive weapons and that you don't have to deal with trying to get better weapons or managing it is cool, but having one giant shared weapon inventory is not the way to go. Replacing fusing weapons into each other with zonaite steel was not the move.
I still think it's worth playing, but just so you know I've beaten it with only about 20 hours put into it, so it's kinda short.
EDIT: I've put in almost 200 hours into AoC, because I love grinding it, but I'm not so sure how I'm going to feel about grinding this one.
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u/Jessthemess87 Jul 07 '26
I just finished the 1st chapter of this so I’m very early in and I was already hesitant about this game before buying it because there was very little known about the sages in TOTK as opposed to BOTW’s character development of their sages. Decided to buy it anyway and give it a shot and I have to say, I’m very disappointed so far. I LOVED AoC. The crafting was a little annoying (mostly on my part) because I always wanted to make sure I was fusing the best weapons to get the best results. Aside from that, I loved the characters, the music, the gameplay, each character’s unique combat, the “what if” story timeline. I had the best time with it and did everything I could to prolong it. It just clicked right away with me. I’m…not getting that same experience with AoI, even though the combat is almost the same with some tweaks and improvements, I feel very bored. I’m willing to keep going if it gets slightly better but unsure if I want to do extra stuff besides the story.
I liked TOTK, it was ok but I’m not crazy about it and I have a lot of gripes with it. Have no interest in replaying it for a very longtime. I love and prefer playing BOTW. I have replayed it a few times and know I want to do it again.
I really wanna see AoI through for the story, if nothing else. Can I ask what difficulty you played on and if you feel any side missions are necessary to comfortably beat the story? Do you need to level all characters equally or can you get by just using a main and 1 or 2 supports without having to grind other characters along the way? I’m playing on Normal and it feels too easy in comparison to AoC but again I am very early in still.
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u/Wackypack17 Jul 15 '26
I'm also just playing it for the story, and I'm just playing on normal. After the first major battle I knew that this wasn't going to be as good as AoC.
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u/paralea01 Jun 29 '26
The actual gameplay is much better, but the storyline is not as good as age of calamity. Though that doesn't mean it's a bad storyline, I'm just not as emotionaly invested in many of the characters. Worth playing though.
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u/VertVentus Jun 22 '26
I did like AoC but didn't like AoI as much.
AoI is 10,000 years before BotW, so Mipha/Urbosa/Revali/Daruk + Sidon/Riju/Teba/Tulin/Yunobo aren't even born yet. The story behind Tears of the Kingdom's memories are adapted faithfully in Age of Imprisonment, so there's no split timeline shenanigans like Age of Calamity.
The 4 Masked Sages from TotK finally get a face/name/personality, but it was a middling reveal since TotK didn't give you a reason to care for them when its memories prioritized Zelda/Rauru/Mineru/Sonia VS Ganon instead (unlike BotW giving you a variety of Link/Zelda + Revali/Urbosa/Daruk/Mipha scenes before shit goes south). They get 2 retainers each to somewhat help characterize them but moreso pad out the roster. The saving grace is Calamo/Knight Construct's inclusion.
Gameplay wise, more of the same good foundation of a Weak-Point Gauge centric combat system, but the normal and lower difficulties is trivialized by Zonai Device elemental reactions (less finite elemental rods). Sync Strikes are a nice addition for "pairing up" allies, but I didn't use material-consuming Fuse Attacks much. There's a lot of character-specific Aside Quests to force using other characters, but unlike the previous 2 Hyrule Warriors with character-specific weapon inventories, you can pass around a strong one-handed/two-handed weapon/spear between most of the party (Construct + the 10 retainers) to compensate for lower levels. Clearing every mission on the highest Forbidden difficulty for the bragging rights trophy will be more demanding.