Retro Review: The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures

I have been a fan of the Legend of Zelda series ever since I watched my family play the very first game when I was little. I began playing the games with A Link to the Past, and I have played many of the games in the series since then. Throughout the years, I have noticed that some Zelda games are not as good as I hoped they would be, and that certainly describes The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures for the Nintendo Gamecube. This game was designed as a way for up to four players to work together as well as against each other in their quest to save Hyrule from a dark fate. A solid Zelda game was what I wanted, but instead, I got the game that I consider the worst in the series and a way for Nintendo to make a lot of money from forcing people to buy extra accessories just to play the game.

On a dark and stormy night, Link and Zelda are on their way to the Four Sword Shrine to make sure that Vaati, the menacing sorcerer, is still trapped within the mystical Four Sword. As she and six other maidens check to see if Vaati is imprisoned, a shadowy figure who resembles Link, and who has the rather unimaginative name of Shadow Link, appears and captures all seven girls. As the real Link gives chase, he finds the Four Sword and is tricked into pulling it out of its pedestal. Not only does this create three other versions of him, but it also releases Vaati, who soon thereafter begins to wreak havoc on the land. Now the four Links must journey through Hyrule in order to rescue the maidens and foil Vaati's plans. While the set up is not all that original, there are some interesting, if perhaps a bit predictable, twists that hint that there may be more to the trouble in Hyrule than what meets the eye.

There are plenty of features from previous Zelda games that have been carried over to this one: enemies to destroy, dungeons to explore, weapons to use, and puzzles to solve. The twist this time around is that you and/or up to three other players are controlling four Links, who must work together (and in two-to-four player games, against each other) to complete each stage. Yes, instead of an over world that you gradually explore over the course of the game, the game is divided into 24 stages within eight worlds. Many of these are locations taken from classic Zelda games: you will explore Hyrule Castle, Kakariko Village, Death Mountain, and more. Within the stages, you will find tasks that require all four Links to complete, whether they are color-coded puzzles (each Link is a different color) or a task that requires all of them to to use water to extinguish fire. You can even set up different battle formations, such as lining them up horizontally, to give you an advantage in battle.

The main objective in each stage is to accumulate Force Gems, the power source of the Four Sword. These can be found in treasure chests, hidden in hard-to-reach areas, or given to you after a battle. If you collect enough of these jewels, your swords can shoot beams and can destroy a barrier to the next level or the crystals that hold each maiden. Later in the game, you will also collect other jewels from cursed knights that will ultimately lead to your final challenge. Other things that you can pick up include heart containers that extend your life, bracelets that can increase your defense or enable you to pick up heavy objects, and carrots that summon horses for you to ride.

Many of the classic Zelda weapons are back, and you will need them to complete the game's many challenges. The bow and arrow, bombs, lantern, fire rod, and many other items can be found, and even upgraded with the aid of the Great Fairies found throughout the land. Sometimes, these items can come in handy against bosses, and you will fight at least one major battle in every stage. Speaking of bosses, many classic foes such as Phantom Ganon, the Moldorm, and Dodongos can be found, and the battles, while mostly easily, are often filled with excitement. In fact, the game is filled with nostalgia, and characters from previous games make an appearance. Malon and Talon can be found in one stage, and Dampe the grave keeper waits for you in another. Even the bug catching kid from A Link to the Past appears at one point.

All of this may sound fun, and at times, it is, but now I shall move on to the reasons why I feel that this Zelda game is the worst of the bunch (not counting the CD-I games, which I have never played and have no intention to play). First and foremost is the fact that, unless you are playing by yourself, you will need a Game Boy Advance system and a cable for each player just to play the game. This is because when you go inside a building or cave, the action switches to your Game Boy Advance screen. Nintendo wanted to show off the capabilities of linking the Game Boy Advance and Gamecube systems together, but did they really have to force everyone to shell out a lot of cash in the process? The method becomes annoying after a while. In a single player game, you can play using a Gamecube controller, and the Game Boy Advance footage appears in a window on your television screen, but this feature is not present in the multi player games. It is little wonder that Nintendo abandoned the linking function soon after the game was released...no one wants to spend more money to play a game than they have to.

Making an unwelcome return in this game is Tingle, perhaps the single worst character in the entire Zelda franchise. His main function here is to swipe gems before a player has the chance to collect them and to annoy people with his crazy antics. While not as much of a pain as he was in the Wind Waker (at least he does not force you to pay an insane amount of gems just to advance the story this time), he is still obnoxious. After this and The Minish Cap, he was spun off into a series of games released overseas, and he can remain a spin off character for all I care.

Another complaint is that in some ways, this does not feel like a real Zelda game to me. Instead of keeping weapons in an inventory system like in most other games, you can only hold one at a time, and must switch it with another one when the situation demands. Having to backtrack to get a specific weapon can be annoying at times. Also, weapons do not carry over to the next stage, and neither do extra heart containers or other upgrades. The stage design is inconsistent: some levels are a bit more linear, while others will require a lot of exploration, resulting in more monotonous backtracking. The puzzles are largely too easy...in fact, the difficulty level remains quite low for much of the adventure. What should be a fun experience is therefore reduced to feeling like quite a chore.

The game is also quite repetitive. On multiple occasions, you face variations of the same challenges: running away from large bombs, fighting Shadow Link, and sometimes, facing the same boss again...with no change in strategy whatsoever. As an example of the latter, there is a large skeletal knight that you must fight four times, and except for a minor change in the last battle, the fight is exactly the same every single time. Was Nintendo getting lazy at this point? Lastly, you can only save after completing a level, and some of them are quite long. The overall game can take about half a day or so to finish, but it can feel longer due to these aspects. I like the idea of taking a series in a different direction...just not like this.

Perhaps the best parts of the game are the graphics and sound. The graphics make the game look like it was on a Super NES, with added shadowing and other effects. However, in a game filled with nostalgia, it works well, and proves that a game does not need the best 3D graphics in the world to look spectacular. The music mostly consists of remixes of songs from other Zelda games, but they sound as great as ever. The Dark World theme from A Link to the Past gets a hauntingly beautiful variation in the Frozen Hyrule level, and even the Level 9 music from the original game can be heard in some levels. If you want to hear this excellent soundtrack without actually playing the game, there's always YouTube. If only such lovely detail was given to the actual game play...

Even the worst Zelda games have their merits, and indeed, Four Swords Adventures is no exception. As a whole, however, I feel it was created for the sake of making an absurd amount of cash as a result of having everyone get a Game Boy Advance and cables just so they could play the game. Not a smart move on Nintendo's part, in my opinion. If the company were less focused on getting rich quick and took more time to create a Zelda game that truly feels like other titles in the series, the game would have surely become a more solid title. As it is, it is a weak entry, one that curious players can try out. Just do not expect this to be the best Zelda experience ever...far from it. Here's to hoping that Nintendo will think twice before trying something like this again.