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.
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.