the legend of zelda: four swords adventures

I was looking forward to Four Swords Adventures as soon as I found out it would be using the same type of controls as Crystal Chronicles. Any game that takes advantage of the Gamecube/GBA connectivity beyond the bonus unlocks of Metroid Prime or peripheral gameplay of Wind Waker should be encouraged, despite what the general opinion is. The GBA-as-controller is not a problem as long as the game itself can justify it; sadly with Four Swords Adventures this is not the case.

With Four Swords Adventures, the question begs to be asked: how many times can Nintendo repackage an old Link adventure? The graphics are incredibly dated, and no matter how pretty the effects are they still look like they've been taped onto the sprites and pixelated backgrounds. This is probably the most outstanding fault against the game: it feels old. For instance, I knew where to find every secret passage and most puzzles were easily solvable based on past Zelda games.

The theme of "the four who are one" continues from the Four Swords game included in A Link to the Past for the GBA, except this time you have to save six maidens and Princess Zelda from the evil Vaati, which I suppose is reason enough for adventuring through seven areas of three dungeons each. This is the essence of the Hyrulean Adventure, which can be played by one to four people.

Regardless of the number of human players that start an adventure, there will always be four Links on screen. This is because every puzzle in the game requires the action of four players, heavily stressing the cooperation aspect of the game. The surplus Links simply become companions, who follow the human player's character. You can perform formations with the group, which becomes handy in both object push/pull/lift and combat situations. You can also throw your teammates to get across chasms, which I found especially amusing.

The primary currency of Four Swords Adventures is Force Gems: collecting entire sackfuls is imperative. The object of each dungeon is to collect enough to power the Four Sword, and only then will you be able to face the Boss in the final dungeon of each area. They also become a kind of performance metric, because at the end of each dungeon stats are tallied and one player is declared the "winner", an event that could only be considered ironic. As long as you have collected Force Fairies and enough gems, you can be instantly resurrected with a Gem deduction penalty. Naturally this takes away from the Four Sword's power. Curiously, the Force Gem tally for each player is shown on the main TV screen, but not each player's life meter. The perceptive player could see this as being a subtle hint toward's the game's true purpose.

Each player is only allowed to carry one special/magic item at a time, and you can't carry them over into other dungeons. Similarly, any new heart containers you gain will also be removed upon entering a new dungeon. Four Swords Adventures is very much like Crystal Chronicles in this respect, as every dungeon seems like a discrete instance in time. Perhaps this is a limitation when using the GBA as a controller; it's very possible that player-specific data can't be stored anywhere and so it is reset for every new dungeon. But I find that very hard to believe.

I found it pretty distracting to have gameplay switch constantly between GBA and the TV. It's almost like constant validation of the use of the GBA as a controller, because if you take away the indoor views, there's really no point to it. Indeed, the group will have to split up to perform certain tasks, but you still can't go beyond the borders of the current screen without collecting the party. If a player is still inside a building or cave, and another tries to leave the area, a small window will pop up on the TV screen showing a GBA-view of the player that's still inside. The odd thing is that in single player mode, this also happens when you go inside, whether you're using the standard controller or GBA.

Depending on who initiates conversations with NPCs, it only appears on their GBA, even though most times the information is valuable to all players. Certain cutscenes will show dialogue on-screen, but it's more for story advancement and not clues for solving quests. A big problem I had was that if a GBA is disconnected (whether by pulling out the cable or batteries dying) the game will automatically quit to the main title screen, even during play. No graceful exits like in Crystal Chronicles, where the game would wait for the GBA to reset and allow players to continue with the dungeon.

For experienced players, this game isn't much of a challenge. All the traditional clues for secret passageways and puzzles are self-evident. A veteran group of Zelda gamers could get through the whole game in a weekend without really trying. Now mind you, the controls and objectives set up by the game are a lot easier to grasp for new players. I played this game with The Wife, who enjoyed the cute characters and simple gameplay a lot better than the occasionally complicated controls and snap tactics during boss battles in Crystal Chronicles. I agree, although they are both essentially hack and slash cooperative adventures - one of them just happens to be infinitely more pleasing to the eye.

Some other additional features of the game include Tingle's Tower, a bonus area that you gain access to in each new set of dungeons. This holds unlockable bonus games, whose sole purpose is to put Force Gems into your pockets. This is especially useful before venturing into the Boss dungeon, because without your sword fully powered up you won't be able to proceed. The Shadow Battle available from the game's main menu is a two to four player Zelda deathmatch, which was about as interesting as the battle mode from Mario Kart: Double Dash. This may be fun for some, but after a few rounds it's clear that the Hyrulean Adventure is the core of the game.

If you can somehow cut out all the shortcomings of this game, you'd have yourself a pretty addictive co-operative adventure. But playing parts of the game on my GBA felt a lot more natural than looking at the TV screen, where the same graphics are a lot bigger. In that sense, I'd much rather be playing A Link to the Past: Four Swords with a link cable.

As a cooperative game, Four Swords Adventures has its definite benefits: it's not a hard game to get into, and the puzzles are for the most part easy to get past. But we've all played this game so many times, and as nice as it is to go through it with a friend, I can't justify the cost. Maybe if this game came out before Crystal Chronicles I'd possibly be a bit more lenient in my judgement, as it would be the first game to exploit the GBA as a controller. But when you're basically looking at a 13 year old game that's been overly stylized for 2004, I'd sooner lump this in with the NES Classics and Shining Force. If anything, Four Swords Adventures has made me appreciate the multiplayer brilliance of Crystal Chronicles even more.

in static pallor