Hyrule Warriors is novel for marrying the Dynasty Warriors games' one-person-army action with The Legend of Zelda series' methodical and puzzle-oriented gameplay. Its expansion, The Master Quest Pack DLC ($7.99), beckons you to revisit the game as it offers an all-new weapon to tote, five story missions for sorceress Cia, and a challenge version of the massive Adventure Mode map. Much like the first game, the Master Quest Pack DLC is a massive undertaking that spans many hours of gameplay. The game is a bit repetitive and even frustrating as a result of the new rules, but earning rewards and finding secrets is addicting and fun.

Adventure and Fighting Await

Anyone who has extensively played Wii U'sHyrule 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.