I read many reviewers saying tha tthis was the best Dinasty Warriors ever made, so nop, 75 on metacritic seems very resonable for the best game on the series, and almost everyone that plays enjoy it and have like a 8.4 user score.

That's a deceptive question. Obviously it wouldnt have had the same content, so probably. But whose to say what it would have been if it wasn't Zelda?

Are you asking if Hyrule Warriors was only good because it was in the Zelda universe? I think you need to rephrase it that way.

It would have been lower for sure.  The game did not give the characters enough story time to develop, except for one of the villains, but that was okay because they were already established characters, if they were brand new characters that wouldn't have worked.

Hyrule warrios has a lot of zelda perks and not just characters and items but it has some of the gameplay invovled. it would be a regular warriors game if you removed zelda and its scores would be lower. Zelda elements added freshness to the series which is why it got such good reviews.

Its a good game but if you take out all the Zelda fanservice it is an average Dynasty/Samurai/Random IP Warriors game. Despite consistent sales, those don't usually set the rating charts on fire.

Dude, the Zelda bias is immense, obviously, it would've.

HOW on earth could there be a "HYRULE WARRIORS" WITHOUT ZELDA?

Just look at the Dynasty Warriors series and you'll know the numbers.

To be fair - use the JP numbers only as Dynasty Warriors isn't that well known brand - compared to Zelda or Nintendo - within the west...

Scores would be slightly lower, but would've massively impacted sales (for the worse).

I think the scores would have been about the same. It actually is a good game. Now would sales have been the same? Hell no.

I think it would have but not for bad reasons. One of the best aspects of the game is the fan service and it is in my opinion well done. With unknown characters and a story with less references, the would certainly have been less good.