That's because you need a compatible controller connected before it will let you know it exists! Multiplayer in Hyrule Warriors on Wii U is a bit of a mixed bag. The framerate is a lot less consistent, enemies sporadically spawn especially when players are far apart, and the game looks blurrier in general. Still, cooperating with a friend and having a full screen to yourself is a blast! You can really optimize stages or take on bosses that may have been impossible alone. Unfortunately, Cemu struggles a lot more with multiplayer, with some minor and major issues pertaining to graphics.
Don't get me wrong, multiplayer on Cemu is playable, but it can be a bit of a pain. A much worse issue with multiplayer in Cemu is that sometimes graphics will begin to flicker. Usually it's just 2D elements such as the minimap, but in some very rare cases the entire output would flicker. My experience with Cemu was simultaneously incredible and frustrating. The game ran better than I could have ever imagined It's so close to just being this perfect, seamless experience that anyone could jump into.
If you read up and are willing to patch the game, then you can essentially avoid most of the issues. If you have a strong enough computer and are willing to risk hangs, you can even push the target framerate from 30 FPS to 60 FPS with a mod. None of the hacks for the graphical issues are permanent solutions for correct emulation.
That said, the overall experience was pleasant and my major gripe is that we need to use a few hacks and a specific version of the game. The core experience is emulated very well, making me optimistic that the rough edges will get smoothed over soon enough.
On an aside, it would be neat if someday options were added that allowed for better simulation of loading times and GPU timings so that users could see how the game ran on Wii U.
But that's something for the far future, and maybe even an emulator with different goals. Featuring tons of new characters, an additional story line based on the Wind Waker timeline, and the ability to swap between multiple characters during battles, Hyrule Warriors: Legends added a wealth of content on top of the Wii U base game. Because the game pushed the Wii U so hard, I was incredibly skeptical that a port to a much weaker handheld device could capture the experience.
As soon as I booted up the game, my fears were mostly realized. The graphical downgrade in the first mission is downright shocking if you've played the Wii U version. As a note, I used Citra to get clearer screenshots of the game than possible on my 3DS. In order to compensate for the loss in hardware power, the developers opted for a simpler style with outlines around models and less detail in general.
On the first mission especially, it results in a markedly less epic feel as you're fighting under pleasant skies and open fields instead of a foggy battlefield befit of an otherworldly invasion. Most ancillary details are missing altogether and only the very basics of areas remain. The game itself does play like the Wii U version. This isn't some port that feels like a completely different game.
It's just that the visual downgrade is very hard to ignore when you've just been playing on the console version.
Many of the special attacks that were so impressive on the Wii U were simplified or removed. FMVs and audio have similarly lost some quality, with cutscenes playing at a lower resolution and framerate and character voices sounding particularly fuzzy when played over headphones.
For a game about huge battles, the biggest sin is that the original 3DS simply can't render that many enemies at once. Sometimes you'll be swinging at an enemy right in front of you and it'll despawn to make way for another enemy to spawn, and then respawn after your swing has already missed.
This is a constant problem and the pop-in is outright distracting to a dizzying degree. On the original 3DS, the game is constantly struggling with slowdown and choppiness. It's impressive they made the game work and didn't compromise on the story or stages Would it be weird after all of that to say that Hyrule Warriors: Legends has a stronger base game than the Wii U version? After you get past the stripped down graphics and shoddy framerate, you'll find that there were a surprising number of tweaks and new features added to this version.
While some of the tweaks are simply to remove graphically stressful attacks, others seem like balancing changes. A lot of stages have new sections designed around the new mechanics not present in the original game. As mentioned earlier, the biggest change is that you can now switch between hero units during most battles and even command them to do things when you're not in playing as them. This allows for much finer control of the battle and can allow you to work on multiple fronts at the same time.
Story missions are redesigned with new dialogue, side objectives, and rewards! Hyrule Warriors: Legends is also home to a new mode called My Fairy. Throughout stages you'll find costumes and food items that can be used in My Fairy in order to power up a fairy companion to help you in your battle. From reviving you when you die, to giving you additional magic power, or protecting you from barriers, fairies can be essential to getting higher ranks and completing missions in time.
The new content does make a lot of the earlier missions more engaging. You have a reason to explore and try to find the new rewards instead of simply shotgunning to the end goal of every stage. The unfortunate thing is that Hyrule Warriors: Legends has a far inferior experience due to the hardware.
Emulation sometimes allows games to perform far beyond how they could on original hardware. While the preservationist in me wants an emulator that can emulate all of the lag and framedrops, sometimes it's just fun to have an emulator that truly unleashes the game.
That's what Citra is right now. Enhanced resolution and a superior framerate immediately makes it easier to play. According to the game database, this game requires a powerful PC to run, however I didn't run into any slowdown on my Core iK and GTX even when pumping the resolution up. The side effect of upping the resolution is that it reveals just how barren and stripped down the environments are in parts of the game. The animated backgrounds of the Wii U version are left cut down and frozen.
It's impressive that they managed to bring an approximation of the Wii U game to the 3DS, but a lot was lost in translation. Interestingly, because some events are based on number of kills and there are less basic enemies, a few missions took a lot longer on 3DS.
Adventure Mode missions that require more kills have time limits greatly relaxed to make up for the lack of enemies. Being able to switch characters mid-battle to find clumps of enemies proved necessary to get A rank in some Adventure mode missions, at least at my character's levels. The one sticking point of the 3DS version is that even on Citra the game itself is limited by the 3DS hardware.
The game won't spawn that many enemies and they're constantly despawning right in front of me. After I tried the game out on my n3DS, I quickly saw that they were not joking. Most of my complaints with the original 3DS experience were actually addressed! The framerate is much improved with slowdown more or less non-existent in the first couple of missions.
Even when there is lag in larger battles, it tends to be rather mild compared to the constant drops that happened on the weaker handheld. And speaking of heavier areas, a lot more enemies spawned in than compared to original 3DS hardware and Citra.
This greatly helps the game feel like the Wii U version as the battles start to reclaim some of the grandeur they had in excess on the console edition. Don't get me wrong, terrain draw distance and enemy pop-in are both still fairly distracting.
But here? It's a minor problem instead of something that you're constantly fighting with. While it's an obvious graphical downgrade compared to the Wii U version, the new gameplay elements do make it a tempting choice to play over the Wii U version. Plus, if you're a fan of 3D effects, you can actually use the 3D screen when playing on New 3DS for added depth The effect is actually fairly impressive and can be fun to use in bursts. This is where Citra ends up in a very strange place.
For Hyrule Warriors: Legends, the game itself is heavily downgraded when running on original 3DS hardware. Emulating New 3DS hardware is quite a pain for Citra as it wasn't designed for the multi-core nature that is the new 3DS.
Scheduling and emulation of another CPU are required. Despite this, developers have been hard at work on New 3DS emulation and allowed me to test some experimental changes with Hyrule Warriors: Legends. In these builds, Citra would report itself as a New 3DS and has modifications for extended ram and some other hardware differences. And it worked! Sort of. The game did boot in n3DS mode as the game as the draw distance for enemies was lengthened and enemy animations were extended.
However, it didn't do things quite right as the enemy density was unaffected. Despite not quite hitting the mark, it is quite nice to see the game at least running in n3DS mode. It's a slightly better experience than emulating the game as if it were running on original 3DS hardware but nowhere near as good as real n3DS hardware. Why is the game not running correctly? No one is sure quite yet. All there is to do is to keep implementing n3DS features correctly until the game starts working. Whether it is Citra or another emulator that gets this game right, I do believe that the n3DS version of the game is worth seeing if you're a fan of the other versions.
If you've played the game on 3DS, you'll quickly notice that character outlines that help make the game look more stylistic are missing. However, outlines around objects render over everything. This results in the game not quite looking up to par. Neither of these bugs can be remedied using Citra's software renderer, making me believe there is a problem deeper in the emulator. Worse yet, software renderer even crashed on me in the main menu.
Thankfully, I didn't see any crashes in the hardware renderers and was able to play through several stages unimpeded. Whether you can stand playing the original 3DS version of the game or not determines if you can enjoy this game in Citra. There are less enemies, more pop-in, and graphical glitches as you play, but you also get higher resolution graphics and a much smoother framerate than possible on original 3DS.
If only there were a version of the game that combined the portable nature of the 3DS with the power of the Wii U This is the version of the game I'm most familiar with and one of my favorites to play when I'm between other games.
Definitive Edition strives to be the best version of the game by combining both the Wii U and 3DS versions into one complete package along with some enhancements. The game features the Wii U's graphical style with the resolution bumped up and the target framerate pushed to 60 FPS. The game has all of the modifications and enhancements developed for Hyrule Warriors: Legends. That means that you can switch characters, raise fairies, and play the more substantial 3DS versions of stages.
My Fairy has seen a complete visual overhaul and has been reborn with full 3D graphics. The functionality remains mostly the same; raise fairies to give you essential boosts to help you weather the storm of giant bosses and hordes of enemy captains. When the game first launched on Wii U, there was only one map with over one hundred battles with many having secrets to find. On Nintendo Switch you start with all of the adventure mode maps, including those only present in DLC exclusive to one version previously.
The developers rebalanced rewards and gave each map a difficulty to help you choose where to start. Easier maps can help you level up your characters, unlock new characters, and unlock stronger weapons.
Harder maps have better rewards, including legendary weapons that can greatly enhance your favorite characters. My only major complaint with Adventure Mode is that they still don't tell you the A rank requirements. Do yourself a favor and find a guide that lists out all the A ranks unless you want to deal with a lot of frustration. Another thing I noticed is that the missions in the map present in all versions of the game tend to be more like the 3DS version in the Switch version.
Mission descriptions use the 3DS version's text and time limits have been relaxed on a lot of the earlier timed missions despite the enemy count returning to console levels.
Much like the Wii U version, this entire game can be tackled with a friend in a rather awkward to setup co-op mode. It feels tacked on, especially in the menus where you have to manually activate co-op on player 1's controller every stage.
In this version, Player 1 also must select player 2's character, where as in the Wii U version the second player took control for those menus. These problems don't actually matter once you're in game as this is the best multiplayer experience that you can get with Hyrule Warriors.
The loss of a second screen for each player is a bit unfortunate but understandable considering the Switch lacks the Wii U's tablet. On the plus side, multiplayer packs a much bigger punch in Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition. Enemy count in multiplayer is much better than on Wii U and you won't find one of the players barren for enemies while the other is locked in a battle.
Another thing I need to mention is that the game's controls have been altered a bit compared to the Wii U version. All characters can turn much faster. While it doesn't change much, I just felt the need to mention it as I felt it's one of those things you only notice when bouncing between versions. While usually I'm a bug hunter within emulated titles or in games I speedrun, this is one of those games where just about everyone will run into a rather severe issue if they play it long enough.
It's easy enough to work around and isn't very dangerous, but it's a bug I need to mention as part of the experience. Because the Nintendo Switch allows you to sleep games without ever turning them off, it's very easy to end up unintentionally cause this game to go haywire.
The longer it's left on without rebooting All of the following glitch demonstrations are taken directly from console. These are not emulator bugs. The screenshot above is from last year when I first got the game and was shocked to see it break so spectacularly. I didn't know what caused it back then or how to reproduce it. Once the game crashed, it was gone. While tons of other people have reproduced this bug and captured footage of it, one of my goals coming into this article was to try to and figure out what was going on myself.
Unfortunately, despite my contacts in the emulation community, no one was able to give much of an answer. Despite that, I continued testing and finally got the bug to start happening again. With my capture card always recording, I recorded a ton of footage of the issue hoping to make some sense of what was going on. In the end, I did figure out what was going on with multiplayer, but I still don't know why the game breaks the way it does. As one last note, despite how severe this bug is and the fact it will eventually crash the game, I have not seen anyone lose any progress because of it.
If the game is going to crash, it seems to do it on stage load before you've accomplished anything. And, with the game's generous autosaving, even if it did crash during a stage, you'd rarely lose more than ten minutes of progress. While Cemu may claim to be experimental, it's much closer to what I'd call a general use emulator at this point. I had a few issues learning the ins and outs of graphics packs, installing DLC, dumping my NAND and all of that, but the emulator itself is incredibly impressive and the game is playable.
The Switch emulation scene is more along the lines of what I'd call experimental. At most, I just hoped one of the emulators could boot the game. Softlocks after intro video. Need CemuHook to see the movies in-game. The effect around enemies after killing them is.. It plays flawlessly, with 60 fps in menus and the game seems to lock the refresh rate at 30 fps in any battlefield. I get no bugs and no visual issues at all! Freezes on black screen after Mission is done.
Camera during cutscenes is out of focus. There are also some frame drops during massive battles. Played until the second map to test the game. Finished Legend Mode in co-op and played other modes as well. Several minor graphical glitches exist: shadows appear at wrong places, transparency problem with enemies' death effects, several alternate versions of bosses have pixelated black-and-white appearance.
Pre-rendered cutscenes are out of sync. In cooperative mode, sounds are played only for the first player TV. Tested using Wine 2. Playable, with occasional frame drops when there is many entities on screen.
Cutscenes plays at 30 fps, but audio often desyncs. Menus runs at 2x speed 60 fps without the 30 fps graphic pack. Nvidia cloud issue still present. DLC doesn't work; when installed, crash at the loading screen tri-force logo in the bottom right corner.
In cutscenes, sound is often desyncs. Without graphic pack 30fps lock, menus runs at 60fps and 30fps in game.
DLC is not working and crashes the game. The intro cutscene plays fine but there is static at louder parts of it. I dont think the menus should run at 60 FPS, they seem to be sped up. I tested on both gpu's I listed and got the exact same results and performance 1. DLC works using the relevant graphic pack! Playable, with occasional frame dips when there is many entities on screen. Audio often desyncs during cutscenes. Menus runs at 2x speed by default.
Nvidia cloud issue solved also using graphic pack. The game is fully playable and dlc works but requires the DLC Fix graphic pack. Audio on cutscenes is out of sync, shadows are placed far from characters. Cemuhook version 0. Audio is out of sync in cutscenes, shadows are placed far from characters. Shadows are now fine. Audio sounded fine but might be out of sync in cutscenes. Dual Core and Triple Core Recompiler options will cause the game to freeze.
If you want to turn on 60fps mode you need to use dualcore-compiler and then when you start a map,give the game 1 min to catch up. It will auto fix itself to the proper 60fps. If there is alot of enemies with mini bosses included outside of a keep it will be between fps. If no minibosses or just 1 miniboss is present it will be 60fps.
When your inside a keep its 60fps stable no matter what. Rare crashes on map changes, and cutscenes seem to rarely work Seems to be cutscene specific, as some always work, and some seem to never work at all. Crashes seem related to cutscenes as the crashes always occur where a cutscene would be. FPS never dips below Be advised that the addition of Reshade to CEMU caused graphical glitches in menus items would get cut off and with in-game geometry Terrain textures would dissapear in perfect triangles.
No other graphical glitches were observed, and no graphical glitches were observed at all upon reshade's removal. Game only launches in Single Core Recompiler. All other options cause the opening loading screen to go forever and seems to have a very slow memory leak. Cemuhook H encoder tested and does not fix missing cutscenes. Using triple core recompiler, have not ecountered any issues during my 3h session.
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