The digital preorder bonus is a joke weapon for Link, the Lucky Ladle, which appears to be a traditional sword-n-board. The fact that such a weapon can exist for him suggests that it's not just inheriting the weapon system from Hyrule Warriors 1, where different weapons were just flat upgrades.
The extreme variety of characters and play styles in the last one of these was the best thing about it, so I'm hoping it maintains the Musou tradition of having a ton of non-canon scenarios with varying degrees of seriousness. Ideally, this would allow them to pull in characters who couldn't have been involved in the events of the story. Making the champions' heirs playable would be a great way to pad out the roster.
I’m afraid I haven’t played any Dynasty Warriors games, either. The way you describe it, it sounds almost like an RTS where you’re controlling a single character rather than clicking around a map.
That's an apt description. They're light strategy games controlled with an action interface, and the strategy is all about prioritizing objectives based on how long it'll take you to run there and kill whoever you need to kill at that location. It can get very hectic, but you can level up to give yourself an edge. Some Warriors spinoffs have more elaborate gimmicks on top of that concept, but not Hyrule Warriors. If you love Unlocking things, there are so many things to unlock.