"Hyrule Warriors" already has an official release date, at least a Japanese release date. The game is set to come out on August 14 in Japan and probably later this year in the West.

Tecmo Koei started releasing information about the "Hyrule Warriors," which will be a Zelda spinoff in the Dynasty Warriors series. Basically, it is "Zelda" minus the puzzles, plus more action and fighting larger groups of bad guys, which is a good change in pace.

The "Hyrule Warriors" release date is set to bring two-player local simultaneous co-op, with one player as Link on the TV and the other as Impa on the GamePad. The game's villain is unsurprisingly the witch Shea, who kidnapped Princess Zelda. That being said, one unfortunate thing about the "Hyrule Warriors" release date could be that it is being co-developed by Team Ninja, who has a bad reputation with the "Metroid: Other M."

Beyond that, Tecmo Koei also confirmed that the level design of "Hyrule Warriors" will be quite similar to the average "Dynasty Warriors" game, which will not be a typical puzzle-heavy Death Mountain dungeon. As such, it appears that every moment with "Hyrule Warriors" is going to be a battle, whatever the ambient setting may be.

Tecmo Koei producer Yosuke Hayashi said that, "There were many things that we couldn't decide on from within our company alone, so we often went to Nintendo and also consulted with Aonuma for the more detailed parts. As this process went on, we were able to see a fine line between what we could and couldn't do with Hyrule Warriors."

On the other hand, Eiji Aonuma himself said that the game is a Zelda game that he can't make and a deviation from the series but nonetheless a significant exploration of what "Zelda" can be about.

The game might not be exactly like "Zelda" Wii U or "Skyward Sword" but "Hyrule Warriors" is an exciting game on its own light. Needless to say, it will be a valuable addition to the "Zelda" series and it will be like nothing we've seen in the past 20 years.

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