At first, this game is pretty simple. The objective is the same every stage, and that's collect 2000 Force Gems so you can destroy the things at the end of the stage. There's (almost) always enough Force Gems with plenty to spare, barring probably one level, and that's 4-3, the Hyrule Castle stealth mission. If you're tying to blaze your way through without getting caught, there's a realistic chance you could reach the end without enough Force Gems, which isn't a game problem, but a me problem.

One thing I wasn't too big a fan of was the number of Shadow Link fights. You got at least one per level, a couple of times two of them. It's not that they're bad, it's more that Shadow Link barely has any changeup to his moves aside from the arena. He's always dropping bombs that help you stun him. I do like the second phase where he changes to one of your Link's colors and only that Link can damage him, but the fight started getting a bit old after a while due to the number of times you fight him.

Vaati is an afterthought. By Level 5, Ganon is the main villain everyone's talking about. He's even the final boss while Vaati goes down like a chump. Even the Palace of Winds literally had Ganon statues laying around with no Vaati statues in sight aside from the front entrance. For a big bad wind sorcerer sealed up by the Four Sword, he lacked any sort of real impact, especially since you literally only see him at the start and end of the game.

That's not to say Ganon's any better. Sure, we hear mention of the guy in Level 6 and 7, along with the knights saying they were beaten by someone other than Vaati, but he kinda just...shows up at the tail end of the game in the flesh. We don't know his plans or anything. He just...appears.

Then there's the items. While some had a lot of time to shine, others felt like they were underutalized, like most of the Level 2 items like the Fire Rod especially, which only got a chance to use it's Level 2 abilities in the Ice Temple, where it was just a Cane of Somaria replacement. The shovel was barely used too. Roc's Feather got some nice time to shine, which is nice because I'm pretty sure it'll never appear again after this game.

Overall, as another relic of my childhood, it was alright. I'm pretty shocked at how easy the final part of the Ganon battle was since that was literally the part I never finished as a kid because I didn't know what to do at that part. Past me was pretty stupid.

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.

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~.

For what I've managed to try: HOLY SHIT, it has so much potential, why it hasn't been remastered yet? Only thing resembling this was Triforce heroes. I thought the trend of Four Swords was going to be a stale back in mid 2000s, but I was so wrong (I mean: if we don't count Phantom Hourglass multiplayer with those Links and the other game just mentioned) and now I really wish they could do justice with this.

Doubt Nintendo would fuck it up like Square Enix did with FF Crystal Chronicles, just to mention the other closest game to a similar experience.