Hyrule Warriors: Master Quest Pack DLC (for Wii U)

Adventure and Fighting AwaitAnyone who has extensively played Wii U's$316.99 at AmazonHyrule Warriors will tell you that Adventure Mode (in which you undertake quests, as opposed to wandering around killing things) is the meat and potatoes of the game; it's where you invest most of your time. The story campaign, called Legend Mode, has hours of casual fun and narrative to keep it engaging, but the true Hyrule Warriors experience begins in Adventure Mode.
Master Quest Pack offers a remixed version of the original Adventure Mode map, and presents new challenges, rewards, and rules. Think of it as a call back to the Second Quest from the original The Legend of Zelda, a mode that introduced tougher enemies and altered item, dungeon, and enemy placement.
The Adventure Mode map is designed so that you cannot simply plow through it in whatever direction you want. There are obstructions aplenty that force players to move towards other areas and collect critical item cards to make progress. Just as you can't enter the fourth dungeon without a raft in The Legend of Zelda, you cannot access that particular tile on the new map without the Raft Card in your inventory.
As in the Second Quest, the Master Quest map switches some of the items required to discover secrets. Blowing open a suspicious wall a bomb card works fine on the normal Adventure map, but in Master Quest the same wall requires the recorder card. This is not a problem for players familiar with the secrets in The Legend of Zelda, but those who aren't may find the deviations confusing and frustrating. Pro tip: When in doubt, play the recorder.
The Master Quest Pack DLC also introduces new combat rules that make the new map significantly more challenging than the original. For example, some conditions limit your completion time to 15 minutes. Others penalize you for taking damage, while others encourage high K.O. counts. This is in addition to the conditions from the original Adventure mode map, which limit certain missions to specific characters, make all attacks a one-hit K.O., test players' character-recognition capabilities, and so on.

Patches, Missions, and WeaponsWith the content patch in October, villains Cia, Wizzro, and Volga became available in Free Play mode and Adventure mode. Unfortunately, they're restricted to their level one weapons. Weapons in Hyrule Warriors have three tiers, which means that these three characters are limited to relatively weak weapons. The Master Quest Pack lets players unlock the characters' level two and three weapons. In addition, the map has comedic 8-Bit weapons locked away for several characters, unique costumes, and extra heart upgrades for the original 13 characters.
The DLC also gives Link an all-new weapon: his trusty steed Epona. Link slashes at enemies from Epona's back and deals great damage to clusters of enemies with the horse's powerful charges. Unfortunately, riding Epona doesn't seem to be any faster than walking, but she is still a respectable addition to Link's arsenal.
Beyond the new Adventure Mode map, the Master Quest Pack includes several story missions for the antagonist Cia, as well as the magician Wizzro, and the dragon knight Volga. These scenarios run parallel to the hero's story during Legend Mode. The new scenarios flesh out their respective backstories and give their perspective on the villain's side of the war, which is nice considering the otherwise shallow nature of Hyrule Warriors's story.
The GrindAdventure Mode is a deliberate grind for item cards, equipment, heart pieces, and costumes. Players are expected to replay Adventure Mode missions with multiple characters to earn all the available rewards. Adventure and Master Quest missions are fairly short—most take under 10 minutes to complete. But ranking plays a huge part in how rewards are doled out. Many rewards require that players earn an A rank during the mission, which involves quickly completing tasks and killing a certain number of enemies without losing much health. Fail any one condition, and your rank drops to a B and you forfeit any A-rank rewards.
The flipside is that the grinding is also highly addicting and satisfying. Using an item card to unlock an A-rank reward for a character feels good, and actually earning it feels great. This is especially true if it's a new weapon you've unlocked.
It's disappointing that there are no new battlefields in the Master Quest Pack DLC. A new environment or two would have made for a refreshing change of pace from the fourteen or so battlefields that are constantly reused in the game.
A retry option during battle is desperately needed, too. It is frustrating to know that you failed an objective and must let yourself die if you wish to restart. You can choose to quit by returning to the map, but that also takes you to a loading screen and forces you to re-select your character and weapons before retrying. The option to restart already exists in the game upon a mission failure, so it wouldn't be much of a stretch to let players simply restart from the menu.
A Massive, Action-Heavy Time SinkIf you're looking to extend the already impressive life of Hyrule Warriors, the Master Quest Pack DLC is a good investment. The new story chapters flesh out the villains and their motives, making the overarching story of Hyrule Warriors a bit more coherent. The new Master Quest map gives players plenty of new combat scenarios and challenges, as well as new rewards to unlock and earn. Though completing the map a second time around can get a bit monotonous, there is still plenty of fun to be had with the added content.