Zelda: Four Swords Adventures

Picked up my pre-ordered copy of The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures from EB Games today. The Classic NES GBA SP was released just in time to tempt me to buy it to have 2 Game Boys for 2 player connectivity connection craziness gameplay. If there’s one reason for Nintendo to push their GC/GBA connectivity craze, Four Swords seems to be it.

A new 2-D classic style Zelda game, on a home console even. Starting up the game and listening to the title screen play the ending theme to A Link to the Past gives a taste of the nostalgia and throwbacks to older Zelda games to come. After a somewhat unnecessarily long introduction, your greeted by everyone’s favorite head spinning owl, informs you your the hero and have accepted your destiny, etc. etc., and the bush whacking and gameplay begins.

Using the GBA, the controls and movement of Link felt very similar to A Link to the Past, the R button still used for picking up stuff (now including other players!) and B and A to use the Sword and item. Link’s gained some new moves since his SNES adventure though. As with Ocarina of Time and its sequels, spinning the control pad and pushing B will let Link unleash his spin attack without charging, although it can be difficult to pull off due to the limits of the control pad versus an analog control stick. Link can also apparently do some sort of lunge or foward thrusting jump attack, although I haven’t quite gotten that down yet. Collecting enough Force Gems, which you can fight over with the other players to get a higher score, will allow you to upgrade your sword, giving the Four Sword the ability to shoot sword beams or have Link unleash the hurrican spin attack from The Wind Waker.

Each player can pick up and keep 1 item at a time, such as a Boomerang, Bombs, Slingshot, and Fire Rod. With bombs, there are some parts where you must blow up a wall to make a door, so at least one player will have to hang on to the bombs and take care of the obstacles so the other players can proceed. My favorite and most used so far is the Fire Rod. Not only does to shoot a fire projectile as it did in A Link to the Past, but the A button can be held down to use it as a short range flame thrower! Its also great for burning down large fields of grass in one sweep. Becareful where you shoot the flame though. Using the sword or any weapon on the other players will hit them, although not damage them. With the Fire Rod, if the other players are hit, they’ll catch on fire and run around, and if you or anyone else happens to touch them, you’ll also catch on fire.

The GBA requirement of the game comes in when you enter any building or cave. The stage map on the TV stays the same, while Link will disappear into the house, and reappear on the player’s GBA screen. This, along with each map area zooming in and out too accomadate showing all players on the screen at once, means you never have to worry about being tied to a fixed area with the other players. Although all players must be at the end of a map to scroll the screen to the next area to travel through like in A Link to the Past. A Seiken Densetsu game, such as Secret of Mana, could really take advantage of this, checking your inventory, casting spells, and exploring wouldn’t be a problem.The player’s heart life meter is also displayed on the GBA screen, and only shown over the player’s head on the TV when damaged or refill hearts are grabbed. When talking to people, the text will also be shown exclusively on your GBA, unless its an important event all players need to see.

A few puzzles require players to go in different directions to hit a switch so other players can proceed. One puzzle in Hyrule Castle involves having a player stand on a switch outside while the other players go in to pick up the treasure. Standing on the switch removes the wall blocking the window, so the players inside can see. When playing 2 players, each player can have the extra Links tag along, so pushing select, I left my green Link on the switch and came inside to join the fun. Just for kicks, heading back out and nearing the exit, I pushed L to call back the green Link, leaving the switch up, and the window blocked, so the room inside went dark from the lack of light.

The first major boss battle involves a certain phantom but with a twist. Instead of simply playing tennis 1 on 1, you now bounce the projectile to the other player(s) who will bounce it back to the boss. Plenty of enemy soldiers from ALttP to fight, and they’ve adjusted their move pattern to try to avoid getting hit. The land walking Octoroks are back with a vengance, Hyrule must be experiencing an overpopulation and evolution problem, blue octoroks will take a beating and keeping on spitting rocks.

Tingle is back for his… 4th Zelda game appearence and is just as infatuated with fairies as ever. He’ll hover by with his balloons sometimes, and its still fun to pop his balloons and have him fall, sometimes into the deep water, waiting for 2 minutes and then realizing that he’s probably not going to get back up this time…