This is a game I wasn't really planning on replaying or rebuying any time soon, but then I found it in very nice condition for a whopping 300 yennies, so into the playlist for GameCube month it went! X3. It's a game I've beaten a time or two before and played with friends on several occasions, but that was so long ago I'd forgotten just about everything about this game. It took me about 8 or so hours to complete the Japanese version of the game by myself.

Four Swords Adventures is the Nintendo-made follow up (of sorts) to the extra Four Swords multiplayer mode Capcom put into their GBA port of Link to the Past several years before. Rather than just a handful of levels, this is a whole game designed for four Links to partake in as they fight to save Hyrule from the evil wizard Vaati. The story is very light for a Zelda game outside of simple plot exposition, but most of the text is dedicated to light flavor text or just explaining what to do in each stage, and the writing that is there does a good job of explaining things and being as entertaining as it needs to be. And that's right, you read that right. This is a Zelda game with stages. You play through eight worlds of three stages each trying to get to the end of it to complete your exceptionally linear adventure. Granted that isn't a bad thing, as this is a fairly necessary concession to make for the sake of the multiplayer, which is this game's main draw.

This is an adventure for four Links, and you can control them by yourself or you can have up to three other friends take control of them. Playing by yourself or with any number other than four people, you can use the C-stick or hold Y to access fixed formations for your Links to walk in to achieve different environmental puzzles or take on particular enemies or bosses that demand more spread out or compact formations (such as walking in a horizontal line to push a large block or form an offensive wall to take on oncoming enemies). The only real downside to this is that playing with any number of friends is a pretty significant investment in equipment, as each player needs their own GBA and link cable to the GameCube to play (as you go into a personal sub-screen to go into sub-areas of a larger area). You don't need that to play alone, but it's a pretty unfortunate obstacle in experiencing what's otherwise a pretty damn impressive and unique multiplayer experience.

If you imagine a Zelda game with all of the fluff known as "adventure" taken out and boil it down to a more linear approach to the usual puzzle solving and enemy fighting, then that's what you've got here. The combat arenas and the sheer emphasis on the number of enemies in combat are a little unorthodox for a 2D or 3D Zelda, sure, but it fits really well into the multiplayer format this game is designed around. Stages have an impressive diversity of being more combat, platforming/exploring, and puzzle focused, and that leads to always feeling like you're doing something different. Some of the puzzle focused stages are a little too puzzle-y for my liking (both as a kid and as an adult there were a few solutions I had to look up on my own), but perhaps they're mean to be harder because you're intended to have four heads thinking up solutions rather than one XD. At any rate, it really pays to pay attention to what NPCs tell you, as they often given rather crucial hints to solving the puzzles in your way and are almost always there to do more than simply add flavor text.

The presentation is a very wild thing, even in the context of Zelda in the mid-2000's. You have a 2D game that feels a lot like the original Four Swords game, but the presentation is this weird mish-mash of Link to the Past-like and Minish Cap-like environments combined with a lot of NPCs (and bosses) plucked straight out of Wind Waker (though they're obviously different characters within the universe of the game). They do a really cool job of converting what were once 3D boss fights into 2D ones, and it overall gives the game a very eclectic feeling in how it's presented. The music is also excellent, but it's also by and large remixes of existing Zelda tracks, just to add one more onto the pile of how much of a delightful mish-mash of Zeldas this game feels.


Verdict: Recommended. This is definitely more highly recommended if you have friends to play with, but just as a solo game, it's simply quite good. It really won't set your world on fire, but it's nonetheless a really neat and unique game by any measure, particularly for the time. Definitely one worth spending a weekend on if you can find it for the right price, even if you don't have friends to enjoy it with~.

Beating every Zelda in timeline order 7/20:

I had never played this one before, and Four Swords Adventures surprised me a lot. Coming from Four Swords, I wasn't looking forward to playing this, but this is just a purely fun experience. Condensing 2D Zelda into a focused, segmented level-by-level game creates a beautifully paced, wholly fun experience. Playing single-player might not be the way the game is meant to be played, but it works remarkably well and using the four links in puzzles and combat is a lot of fun. Speaking of puzzles, there were a lot more than I was expecting that really required some out-of-the-box thinking. I especially enjoy the levels that are a condensed area that you have to talk to people and trade weapons to progress through. Pretty much every level was fun, the bosses were unique and enjoyable, even when borrowed from Wind Waker. My only real complaint is that you're not going to get anything terribly interesting in the story or the locales offered. It's pretty standard Zelda fare. And it's pretty easy, since the Force Fairies are completely broken.

It feels really good to thoroughly enjoy something that's as fun and rewarding to play as this. I only wish I had played Four Swords Adventures sooner. I was missing out.

You don’t need to call up some friends to bring their Game Boy Advances and appropriate link cables to play this, but good lord would it help.

The second game to be released in the Four Swords Saga, but the last in the story of that saga’s timeline, The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures is a bizarre Frankenstein’s monster of a game. And I kind of love it.

Featuring the original four Link sprites from the Game Boy Advance Four Swords, certain enemy sprites and environments from A Link to the Past, sprites of varying quality made just for this game (the worst goron you will ever see is in this game), and special effects from Wind Waker, Four Swords Adventures can look surreal at times. It feels like the most impressive fan game that could be made at the time. This feeling is only compounded further when the adventure is parsed out into easily digestible levels (or if you prefer, multiplayer challenges) organized on a Super Mario World-style map. It’s like your friend from another class that you only saw during recess said “what if Mario and Zelda combined?? And we could all play it!” and it was real.

2004’s Four Swords Adventures does what 2002’s Four Swords didn’t do, and made the levels have a linear flow to them. Gone are the long and drawn out open air dungeons of the past. Gone are the collectible charms that make your Link playable. This time you’re playing a game set up like a zelda game, that you can also play with 3 other people, and every Link can attack and zip around like never before.

Four Swords Adventures is the first released Zelda game using a top down point of view to give Link the ability to roll. There’s no i-frames but that burst of speed is such a delightful treat, and it feels so good to do with the satisfying click of a GameCube controller’s R button. Pressing B at the end of a roll executes an immediate spin attack, which is even more fun to do. I am not exaggerating when I say this roll is one of the reasons I like this lackluster game so much.

The game is lackluster for a few reasons, most of which stem from from its identity. Four Swords Adventures is first and foremost a classic single player Zelda experience. It is also a multiplayer experience. These two things could work beautifully together, with brain busting puzzles that really take advantage of having four Links on the screen, but the combination tends to just boil down to activating four switches at once or doing color-specific things as the matching Link. The multiplayer aspect is baked into the experience, but it the actual level and puzzle design was made for one player and then made to accommodate three others afterwards. This game is completely playable solo, which is interesting, but leaves you with a handful of stale moments meant for the full four player experience.

Another victim of the single player/multiplayer styles butting heads is every level being their own contained challenge. You can’t beat a level without getting 2,000 Force Gems (there’s no rupees in this game, just triangles), and each level makes sure you can easily get that many. They’re not carried over between levels, so unless you’re doing multiplayer and want to win, there’s no real in-game reason to grind for Force Gems.

The lack of Force Gems being carried over, means they’re not a currency (except for specific and ultimately useless situations), means that the occasional village level has none of the quiet charm of visiting a village in a regular Zelda game. There’s no shopping or side quests to do, it’s just another level. But at the same time, The Village of the Blue Maiden level is a pretty fun time! I would absolutely prefer to experience that village’s puzzle if it was a village in a Zelda game and not a village-shaped dungeon in a multiplayer game, though.

Force Gems aren’t the only thing not carried over. Link, Link, Link, and Link don’t have the usual arsenal of tools here, and instead can carry only one item at a time. In multiplayer, this could in theory make each Link “specialized” for one item as needed. Maybe the red Link’s player insists on using only the fire rod because he’s red. It’s a bit of fun character theming that the game could allow, solely due to one player’s choice. At the end of the level he puts the fire rod away, to try something else next level. But that’s not the case. Most levels are built around using only a specific item or two at a time, and they’re also made with single player in mind, and gives you four pedestals with the same item needed for the level. It’s pretty rare that a level will ever accommodate four Links using a different item each.

There is a lot weighing the Four Swords experience down (I didn’t even mention how shallow the main villain is), and yet somehow I still find it enjoyable. The game feels fun to play, and the music is great as always. But maybe do a level or two a day, so the patterns don’t make themselves too apparent too quickly.

I have beaten The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures (at the time of writing this), ironically, four times. I’ve mostly soloed it but I have had friends over to play it and we had a great time griefing each other.

I’m not sure if I should recommend it though. I personally really like it, but I can still see the flaws. Still a really fun time though. But I’ll tell you what, Zelda Freaks should play this game just to see that strange collection of sprites it has.

Honestly one of the most fun and chaotic multiplayer experiences I've ever played. I will note that getting 4 players together alongside 4 gbas AND 4 link cables severely hurts it a bit but if you're like me and you can manage to get the perfect set up, it's so worth it. I've played this game with 4 players like 4 or 5 times and every single time it was always hilariously competitive. I hope they can remake this game on like the switch where it would be much easier to set up because it's legitimately so fun!

تحفة نينتندوية مدفونة بصراحة.

ما يجعلها مدفونة هو بسبب أنها لعبة جيمكيوب تتطلب وَصل 4 أجهزة غيمبوي للتحكم بالشخصيات. الفكرة فريدة من نوعها وتتبع خطى الشركة في تعزيز التناغم بين أجهزتها المنزلية والمحمولة واستغلت الميزة خير استغلال. فمثلاً أنت ترى العالم الخارجي في التلفزيون وعندما تدخل مبنى أو كهف فستنتقل شخصيتك لشاشة الجيمبوي في يدك ويظهر المكان الذي دخلته دون أن تتحرك الكاميرا معك مما يتيح للجميع حرية استكشاف المباني والكهوف (لكن ما إن تريدون التوجه لمنطقة مجاورة فسيتعين عليكم جميعًا التحرك سويًا)

اللعبة تعاونية لكن تنافسية بالوقت ذاته وهو ما أعتبره بصراحة من عيوب ألعاب نينتندو ﻷن التنافس فيها مستفز بصراحة. هناك نظام أموال تكسبه من هزم الوحوش أو فتح الصناديق وتضع لكل لاعب رصيده الخاص وهو معرض لفقدان الرصيد ويكسبه غيره. وفي نهاية كل مستوى تسألك اللعبة "من أزعجك؟" و"من ساعدك؟" لكن هناك حالات نكون فيها لم نزعج بعضًا وتَسَاعدنا كثيرًا لكن اللعبة ﻻ تتيح الخيار لذلك. وسؤالهم يؤثر على شاشة النتائج بحيث يرتفع أو ينزل تقييم اللاعب لذا قد يتحول الأمر لتخريب أحيانًا وإفساد للمتعة.

إجمالاً كانت تجربة فريدة وممتعة. لعبناها سويًا عبر خاصية نِت-بلاي في محاكي الدولفين. ورغم أنها تشوبها أحيانًا تقطيعات وتعليقات إلا أنها كانت تجربة محترمة ولم تفسد المتعة كثيرًا

Disclaimer - I have never played this game with other people, only single player. I would actually wager that very few people who’ve played this game have done so with any more than 2 players due to how difficult it is to set up a multiplayer session - requiring a GameCube, a GBA, 4 link cables and three friends with another GBA apiece.

While the GBA linking concept is utilized in a creative and interesting way, the high barrier to entry for even playing this game as it’s intended is definitely a massive negative for the title as a whole.

That said, unlike the version of Four Swords on the DSi, four swords adventures actually has an enjoyable and well implemented single player mode. Arranging and switching between links is seamless and intuitive and it’s actually pretty easy to multitask with them and have the links do different things in quick succession. This mostly comes into play during boss battles, which are generally high quality.

The level design in this game is similar to the original four swords i.e pretty different from normal Zelda games. Most levels act as a sort of mini dungeon - even levels that take place outdoors - where the links will proceed down various linear paths and sometimes backtrack when new paths are opened by player actions. There are a couple levels that switch things up by acting more as puzzle boxes where the player has to talk to different NPCs and complete tasks and puzzles to proceed.

Combat generally feels good and is actually a bit more involved than most 2D Zelda games due to the expanded combat mechanics allowed by the four links.

The biggest flaw this game has - apart from the high barrier to entry - is due to how it breaks from the classic Zelda formula that fans know and love. While the mini dungeon focused design of FSA can be fun it’s not nearly as refined or engaging as the classic Zelda formula that Nintendo had perfected by this time. Four swords adventures, despite sounding fine on paper, is honestly just a huge slog to play. I actively had to force myself to finish. This was no doubt exacerbated by this game’s surprisingly long run time. It’s very repetitive and neither puzzles nor combat involves much challenge or engages the player in creative ways. After the first world you’ll have experienced pretty much everything this game has to offer. If you want to actually finish it you’re going to be in for a very boring and repetitive experience.

I’d only recommend this game to hardcore Zelda fans who want to see what it’s like and even then I’d probably only recommend they play the first few levels and then move. If it ever gets a remaster and playing with three other people is more practical id probably be recommending it to more people. However, as it stands, most people trying this game for the first time in 2023 will probably be playing single player which just isn’t a terribly worthwhile experience.

Four Swords Adventures feels like a slow descent to madness. Playing through the game was cool at first because it felt like an evolution of Four Swords in some ways. There was more of a story happening, the levels were longer, some cool gameplay moments. But honestly the more the game went on, the more I was getting sick of it.

Let me start with things I like because there isn’t that many. I played the game in single player and I really like how they translated the multiplayer elements into the single player mode, it just makes sense to be able to control all Links whenever I want and toggle whenever I want to control a specific Link. I also like the GBA implementation, even though I played it in single player with a GameCube controller, just knowing what moments would’ve used the GBA screen was a really cool concept, especially its use in a couple of the bosses. I also really like the Palace of the Winds. That’s pretty much all I like about the game.

Other than that, I kind of had a miserable time playing Four Swords Adventures. By the time you get to the second temple, you’ve already seen it all and have to get through this repetitive slog of a game. I had to literally force myself to keep going because there’s really not much interesting things going on in these levels. The temples were dreadful and so were the bosses. It also didn’t help that the game didn’t have any original music or locations that felt original. I kept thinking to myself that I might have had more fun if I played it in multiplayer like the game is intended but I can only see that being fun in the beginning. The game gets old fast and I don’t think playing it with friends would’ve made it any better.

Honestly what baffles me is that I left this game feeling like I heavily preferred the previous Four Swords. It had far more interesting items, shorter levels, and overall a shorter and cuter experience. Which is exactly the kind of approach they should have for a multiplayer Zelda of this style. Don’t pad it out to make it the length of a full game because this multiplayer formula just doesn’t work for a full-length game. Four Swords Adventures should’ve felt like a cool side mode the same way Four Swords did. Instead it tried to be a fun multiplayer Zelda experience and failed in doing so. It’s not a fun time and is barely a Zelda experience. This currently ranks at the lowest of my list because at least Adventure of Link tries to do something different and is a bit more “adventurous” for lack of a better term. Four Swords Adventures is just an uninspired and clunky game with tons of wasted potential.