The Armies of Ruin: Hyrule Field

Hero-in-Training

Princess Zelda has been having ominous, recurring dreams about an evil force sweeping over Hyrule. Her fear that these dreams are something more leads her on the hunt for the legendary Hero who can don the green Hero’s Tunic. As she investigates the soldiers training within her walls, she notices a young recruit with much more skill and vigor than the rest: a young man by the name of Link.

Before she can come to any conclusions about Link’s potential to become the Hero, she is called away on urgent matters: It seems that her dreams were premonitions after all, for the devious Wizzro and his right-hand, the Dragon Knight Volga, march toward Hyrule Castle with an army of Moblins bent on claiming all of Hyrule for themselves.

Hearing of Princess Zelda’s trouble, Link races off, sword in hand, ready to fight for Hyrule.

Strategic Advantage

At this point, we all know who Link is and his place as the legendary Hero, but we’ll still need to prove that fact to Impa and Zelda. And to do that, we’re going to need to help win this battle.

Below are descriptions of how to complete all of the objectives in this level of Legend Mode. Follow our instructions and we’ll give you the fastest, easiest, and most fruitful strategies for completing the level and finding lots of secrets along the way.

Assisting Impa

Helping Impa doesn’t require as direct an approach as it might seem. Just make your way across the starting bridge into the field ahead and start swinging. As you thin the enemy numbers, a fairy named Proxi will call out for help. Help her the same way you’ve been helping Impa, via relentless assault on the enemy.

After you clear enough enemies, Proxi will hitch a ride with Link, serving as the silent protagonist’s mouthpiece for the rest of your adventure.

Continue fighting the enemy hordes until the gate to the Abandoned Fort to the north opens.

Face the Dragon Knight!

A new wave of enemies comes out of the Abandoned Fort and their leader, the Dragon Knight Volga, must be defeated to capture the keep.

Volga is the first enemy Warrior you’ll do battle with in Hyrule Warriors and he is no pushover. Luckily, you only need to get him down to half health to end the fight.

The easiest—and fastest—way to defeat Volga is with a full-on relentless assault. Keep swinging until he hits you with a small Force Blast. After knocking you back, he’ll likely do a small jump, followed by a downward lunge with his lance. Roll backward to avoid the lunge, then roll right back at him and start swinging as soon as you see his Weak Point Mark. Most enemies will knock you away or evade your attacks after you’ve degraded their Weak Point Mark enough, but Volga’s Mark can often be driven down in a single assault.

Repeat this method a few more times and Volga will retreat from the battle, opening the northern gate of the Abandoned Keep and giving Link a good amount of Experience Points.

On the Level

On the bottom-right corner of the screen, just below your KO count, you’ll find your Warrior’s Level and Experience Bar. Defeating enemies earns you experience, which will slowly fill up your Experience Bar. When the bar completely fills, your Warrior will Level Up, increasing their strength and, at times, increasing their total Heart Container count.

After a Level Up, the Experience Bar will empty. Just fill it back up and your Warrior will Level Up again and again.

Defeat Lizalfos

As you make your way north, an ally Goron Captain will request your assistance with a pesky Lizalfos. Lizalfos are agile enemy Captains that can breath fire balls or create flamethrower-like bursts in front of and around themselves. They are defeated in much the same way as Volga—attack them until they knock you back with a Force Blast, at which point they’ll do one of two moves: breath a spray of fire directly in front of them, or breath a wall of fire in quarter circle around them and then do a downward stab attack. The first move is the one you want, as it is the easiest to counterattack, but both moves reveal the Lizalfos’s Weak Point Mark.

The best way to tell which move it’s using is by looking at Lizafos’s feet. If a blue aura surrounds it, Lizalfos is about to use the second and more devastating of the two attacks. Unless you’re certain you can get behind Lizalfos without getting hit by its flames and its lunge, you’re better off waiting out this one, as it’ll do a substantial amount of damage and you’ll also miss your window for attacking while its Weak Point Mark is in view.

Rendezvous with Zelda

Once Lizalfos has been dispatched, the door to the mines, which is directly north of you, will open up. Head inside and follow the stairs down to the bottom of the mine shaft, where you will find a treasure chest containing the Bomb Sub-Weapon.

After obtaining your new toy, Moblins begin dropping boulders down in front of the mines, locking you in. Head back up the stairs and test out your new tool by pressing .

Head south, back through the Abandoned Keep, and into the field where you started the Scenario. Once there, go east toward the West Field Keep. The Keep is blocked off by boulders (it’s marked as an X on your minimap). Luckily, you have your new toys; blow up the boulders with your Bombs to enter the Keep. As soon as you step foot into the Keep, its north and south doors will open. Don’t leave just yet: Instead, capture the Keep to help aid your allies in the war effort.

Playing for Keeps

If you’re wondering what the point of capture Keeps is, here’s a breakdown: Keeps are strongholds that continuously produce more soldiers to aid in the battle. Your overall goal in each battle is to capture a majority of the Keeps. Capturing keeps stops the flow of enemy units from that location and starts a flow of friendly units to help during the battle. It also slows down the enemy’s conquest of a map by forcing them to stop at every one of your Keeps to capture it. If you don’t capture Keeps, you’ll be forced to run back and forth around the map to keep your enemies from winning by capturing your home base.

To capture a Keep, you simply need to decrease the meter directly below your minimap by defeating enemies inside the Keep itself. As you defeat the Keep’s forces, more units will teleport in to try and stop you. Once the meter is empty, the Keep Boss will appear. Defeat this Captain and the Keep is yours!

Another way to find the locations of specific Keeps is through the Battlefield Info screen in the Pause menu. Press to bring up the Scenario-Information Screen, then select Battlefield Info, press and you’ll find a list of all the Keeps in this Scenario. We’ll be referring to Keeps by their names often in this guide, so make sure to use this screen to point you in the right direction.

Take note: If you capture either of the Keeps before visiting the northern areas of the battlefield, their northern gates will slam shut, cutting you off from the north side of the map. If you want to grab this Scenario’s Heart Container and Piece of Heart, head north before capturing either of the Keeps.

Piece of Heart Opportunity When playing as Link, cross over to the north side of the map and head west to W. Rockface Keep. Capture the Keep to make a treasure chest containing the Piece of Heart appear. Open the chest and claim your new Piece of Heart.

Heart Container Opportunity As Link, head directly north of the W. Rockface Keep on the map’s north side to find a boulder concealing a treasure chest. Open the chest to claim your new Heart Container.

Meeting the Great Fairy

After you’ve captured the Keeps, Zelda hatches a plan to devastate the enemy forces. Down in the southwest corner of the map is the fountain of the Great Fairy. If Zelda and Link can pray to her, she may assist the heroes in defeating the enemy troops—that’s the plan anyway.

Head south toward the Great Fairy’s fountain, but before entering it, make sure to stop off at the South Field Keep to the west of the Great Fairy. It will likely be in danger and have a couple, if not several, enemy Captains. Defeat them and any other enemies with Health Bars to give your allies the edge they need to hold down the fort.

Now head toward the Great Fairy and use your Bombs to destroy the cracked wall blocking your entry. Upon entering the fountain, move directly into the center of the circle in front of the fountain and hit . The Great Fairy heeds the requests of Zelda and Link and destroys a large portion of the enemy’s army.

Reptilian Rampage

To get back at Zelda’s forces for that little Great Fairy trick, Wizzro calls in some help of his own in the form of the mighty King Dodongo.

Hard Mode Skulltula Opportunity You must be using Link and his Knight’s Sword before this Skulltula will show up. After helping Zelda pray to the Great Fairy, the Hard Mode Skulltula will make an appearance in the bottom-left corner of the screen near Hyrule Castle. You’ll find the Skulltula sitting on the southern wall in the gated-off corridor directly to the right of Hyrule Castle.

Boss Fight: King Dodongo

Legend of Zelda veterans will know this creature and its hatred of Bombs all too well. The giant lizard starts its path of destruction directly above the Central Keep. It swiftly conquers the Keep before making its way down to the Allied Base, destroying every Keep it comes across along the way.

Boss fights are all about speed in Hyrule Warriors. Letting a boss have its way with the battlefield for too long will have heavy consequences. If a boss enters the field, waste no time in attacking and defeating it. Don’t hesitate to hit the boss with attacks until its Weak Point Mark is exposed; most attacks do little or no damage and can leave you vulnerable to a boss’s attack.

Skulltula Opportunity Unfortunately, you’ve likely crossed the 1,000 KO mark around the time you start this boss fight, which means your very first Gold Skulltula has appeared somewhere on the field. If you want to get the Skulltula, you’ll need to ignore the devastating Dodongo and head directly to the west side of the battlefield, above the Hyrule Castle Keep.. The Skulltula can be found skittering along the ground to the right of the Abandoned Keep’s southern entrance. Hit it to defeat it and earn your first puzzle piece.

If you race directly to the Central Keep, you should have no problem catching the Dodongo before it destroys the Keep and moves on.

King Dodongo looks frightening, but if you know what you’re doing, you’ll make the fire-breathing behemoth look like a garden-variety lizard. Just wait for Dodongo to open its mouth and then throw a Bomb inside to get it to reveal its Weak Point Mark. The trick is knowing when Dodongo’s going to open its mouth and when it’s going to strike with another move. Just about any time the Dodongo breaths fire, it’ll follow up by opening its mouth to charge up a giant fireball to damage you. You know what to do at this point—toss that Bomb in its mouth and then let it feel the fury of your sword.

If King Dodongo stands up on its back legs, get a good distance away, as it’ll likely come crashing down, sending a shock wave in every direction. If it doesn’t crash down, then it’s going to roll directly toward you, This is a good deal easier to dodge if you’re alert. Roll to either the left or right so you are not directly in front of the Dodongo and you should be fine.

King Dodongo must also have aspirations of becoming a singer, as it likes to make powerful, shock wave-producing roar frequently. Before the Dodongo roars, it cocks its head back and to the side (use the above screenshot as a reference). This is your chance to race a good distance away from the monstrous reptile to avoid having your skull rattled and your eardrums . . . well, let’s just say they’ll be a lot less than functional. The roar is definitely one of Dodongo’s most powerful attacks, so avoiding it should be one of your highest priorities.

The last few moves King Dodongo can do are pretty easy to avoid if you know what’s coming. If you spend too much time in front of its front legs it’ll try and swat at you. If you spend too much time behind Dodongo, however, it’ll jump and spin around in the air to reposition itself to face you. Both moves are easy to dodge and the lizard king doesn’t use them often. Just stay on your toes and you’ll be able to avoid them with ease.

Hit the Dodongo monarch with three or four Weak Point Smashes and you’ll put the beast to bed, winning the Scenario in the process.

How Bazaar

You also have the ability to visit the Bazaar, a marketplace where you can buy potions and upgrade your Warriors’ weapons, levels, and abilities.

To get to the Bazaar press at any time before selecting your Warrior and their weapon. This will lead you to the Bazaar screen which will have four options (though the Smithy will be closed for the time being). The different options are:

• Badge Market: This is where you can purchase badges using both Rupees and Materials you’ve collected by defeating Captains. Here you’ll be able to upgrade various aspects of your Warrior, like the length of the Special Bar, how quickly you capture Keeps, and your resistance to certain elements. Be sure to check back here often and look through each of the different Badges to see what Materials are required. If you want to know where to find a specific Material, you can head to the Badges chapter of this guide and look through the Enemies section.

  

• Training Dojo: This store is equipped for the extremely important purpose of leveling up your Warriors at the cost of Rupees. There is a catch, however: You can only level up your Warriors to the level of your highest Warrior. If Link is your strongest at Level 20, then you can only level your other Warriors to Level 20 as well. This is an excellent tool for keeping Warriors that don’t see a lot of action battle-ready.

  

• Apothecary: For the price of Materials, you can purchase Potions that increase the drop rates of certain items for the duration of a single mission. A lot of the Potions affect the drop rates of weapons with specific properties such as more Weapon Skill Slots and Materials of higher rarity levels. If you find that you have an excess of a certain type of Material, you can use it to buy a Potion to ensure you gather better resources for the battles ahead.

  

• Smithy: This is the store to go to if you want to make your weapons more powerful. If you have a weapon with high attack power, but no Weapon Skills in its Slots, you can take a weaker weapon with a Skill you want and fuse them together. All you need to do is select the weapon with an empty Slot that you want to strengthen, then select a weapon with the Skill you want and select Fuse Weapons. Simple!

  

Use these stores frequently and you’ll have Warriors that could even challenge the goddesses themselves.