Hyrule Warriors (for Wii U)

The Balance
Combining the army-swatting warfare of Dynasty Warriors with the deliberate exploration and puzzle-solving of Legend of Zelda would have been very tricky, so developer Team Ninja didn't do that. Instead, it built a very capable Dynasty Warriors game and slathered it with a thick layer of Legend of Zelda icing. The design and style hallmarks of Legend of Zelda are all here, but the gameplay is almost pure Dynasty Warriors. And it comes together surprisingly well, in the form of a more engaging Dynasty Warriors game than the last few releases in the series.
This is a double pleasant surprise, because the last time Team Ninja got its hands on a Nintendo property it made Metroid: Other M. Fortunately, it seems that lighting doesn't strike, kill, and reduce to ash a beloved game series twice.
Story and Action
You play as a Link in a Hyrule, where a Zelda is preparing to defend her kingdom from hordes of enemies that suddenly appeared. As you fight them off, you find out that an evil sorceress is behind the invasion. She wants Link's soul, and to get it she wants to unseal the four parts of a great evil that have been scattered through time and space. Hence the use of the indefinite article. The game only has one Link and one Zelda as playable characters, but your adventures will take you through no less than four different Hyrules, each with their own Links and Zeldas conspicuously absent.
There's the Hyrule of Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, where you fight through the danger-filled Death Mountain and Lake Hylia. There's the Hyrule of Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, where you engage enemies on the Twilight Fields and Temple of Twilight battlefields. Then there's the Hyrule of Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, where you fight through Skyloft and the Sealed Grounds. As you play, you unlock additional playable characters from each game, such as Midna from Twilight Princess and Darunia from Ocarina of Time. That's right: This is a best-of game.

You can unlock over a dozen different fighters from the Legend of Zelda series, plus a few new characters made just for the game itself, all of which look and feel very different. Link is a capable longsword fighter with a powerful spin attack that can easily cut through crowds. Sheik (the desert ninja princess) doesn't have Link's reach or crowd-clearing moves, but she's faster and can string together longer chains of hits.  Add different weapon types for each character, each with their own move sets, plus individual experience-based level growth and progression trees that require crafting badges from materials found on the battlefield, and you get a pleasantly deep game that goes further than just running around and beating armies.
Action takes place from a third-person view and feels like a shallow version of character action games like Devil May Cry and Bayonetta. Weak and heavy attacks can be chained into combos, and you can dash/roll or block certain attacks. Finding the right rhythm with those three buttons is the key to doing well, since certain combos have finishing strong moves that can cause elemental damage, smash an enemy's defenses, or cut through a crowd. On top of all of that, you have two power meters that fill up as you fight, giving access to huge, powerful special attacks and a Focus mode that makes you move faster and hit harder for a short time. There are also Zelda-like items like bombs, bow, boomerang, and hookshot, which are both useful in combat and are necessary to solve some very simple puzzles.
Most levels require you to either defeat the enemy commander or capture the enemy keep, all while making sure your own keep doesn't get captured. You don't directly control troops, which spawn steadily from keeps you control and outposts on the map, but you can capture more keeps and outposts to make sure you have more troops than your enemies. It becomes a very frantic game of tug-of-war as you push forward to gain territory and run back to make sure you don't lose your own strongholds. Your troops are capable cannon fodder that can keep enemy troops at bay, but powerful captains and commanders can cut through them as easily as you can cut through their own soldiers. Watching the mini-map is vital. It's used to track the red blobs of enemy forces pushing against your blue blobs.
Adventure Mode
In addition to the main story-based Legend Mode, Hyrule Warriors offers an unexpected treat in Adventure Mode. This mission-based mode is a story-free, bite-sized exploration of the game framed around the style of the original Legend of Zelda. You navigate a map of the classic game's Hyrule, where every screen represents a different mission. The missions are usually much smaller than the levels in Legend Mode, often taking just five to ten minutes rather than the 20 the Legend Mode's levels require. You have to meet certain conditions small sections of the game's maps, like killing a certain number of enemies with a certain character or weapon type. You're then scored on how fast and effective you are, and get rewards based on it.

Beating a mission offers some form of prize, like a heart piece to expand a character's health bar or an item card to explore the map. An A-class score on a level often gives a better prize, but these are more difficult to get for multiple reasons. Not only do you need to show mastery in that mission, but you often need to uncover the prize using item cards you can get from completing other missions. Search Mode takes you to a zoomed look at the Legend of Zelda map, where you can go tile by tile and use item cards like bombs, candles, and power rings to uncover secrets. Fans who memorized the original game won't need any help to unlock rewards like new and unique weapons, but if it's been decades since you played Legend of Zelda you can use compass item cards to make target tiles sparkle, narrowing your search. The combination of varied, shorter missions and style of presentation makes Adventure Mode a very entertaining and satisfying extra, once you're done with the main story.
Multiplayer
Multiplayer is limited to local co-op, and even then it requires the optional Wii U controller. If you have it, you and a friend can play as two heroes in the story mode missions, with one using the main Wii U GamePad with its touch screen and the other using the screen-free Wii U controller and your HDTV. It's a pretty flimsy mode, with no online functionality and no one-on-one arena combat. The lack of a dedicated head-to-head mode is disappointing, considering the varied characters' styles and weapons offering enough depth for a simple, tournament-style fighting game.
The Warrior's Song
Omega Force and Team Ninja did a surprisingly good job with Hyrule Warriors. It's accessible for players who aren't familiar with the Dynasty Warriors series (which includes most gamers in North America), offers enough combat depth to make the action feel like more than just a beat-em-up, and is swimming in Legend of Zelda fanservice. It seems like a niche crossover game, but if you like Zelda and want to enjoy its style and ambiance in a more visceral setting that's almost entirely free of puzzles, you should give Hyrule Warriors a look. It's simply an enjoyable game, and it has enough respect and recognition that I can almost forgive Team Ninja for Metroid Other: M. Almost.