The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords – Anniversary Edition (DSi)

Back in 2002 a Game Boy Advance remake of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past was released and for the most part it was just a rerelease of a superb SNES game with minimal touch ups. However, a rather sizeable bonus was included, a multiplayer component that not only provided a small but entirely new adventure with its own villain and unique look, but it did so with new item and enemy concepts that made it a clearly separate experience rather than just a reuse of assets. The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords was at first only a bonus for those who bought the GBA version of A Link to the Past, but in a rather unusual move, Nintendo would create an expanded version of the game for download on DSi and 3DS systems in 2011, The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords – Anniversary Edition given away for free as part of the series’s 25th anniversary and then again for a brief period to tie-in to the release of The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds in 2014. Unfortunately at the time of writing it is no longer available for download, but this game that started the small subseries of Zelda games focused on multiplayer action certainly isn’t worth forgetting about.

 

In a short scene that plays when you turn the game on you find the heroic adventurer Link and Princess Zelda at the shrine of the Four Sword, Zelda explaining the weapon’s incredible ability to split the user into four warriors that gave a hero the power to seal the evil wind mage Vaati long ago. However, the seal that had been placed on Vaati had already weakened to the point he had prepared an ambush, grabbing Zelda with the intent of making her his bride and zapping Link before he flies off to his palace in the skies. Luckily for Link a trio of fairies appear and urge him to draw the sword, the young hero splitting into four copies of himself identical save for the colors of their tunics. With the assistance of three additional versions of himself, Link sets out to clear the Sea of Trees, Death Mountain, and Talus Cave of the monsters within so he can prove himself worthy of the keys used to open Vaati’s Palace. Admittedly, the game doesn’t justify why you need to prove yourself to the fairies who hold the keys very well, and things get even weirder when you can play through the short adventure multiple times to earn different keys to face more difficult versions of the final dungeon, but the set up does at least give you some important context on why there’s four versions of the same guy running around and who that dark cycloptic villain at the end of the adventure is. It is likely not too much thought was put into it as most of it is an excuse to set up multiplayer action and as such you don’t get too many story updates beyond the opening and closer to interrupt the play.

 

In The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords – Anniversary Edition you and any other players able to join you need to make your way through mildly randomized dungeons, a group of preset designs lightly mixed together to provide dungeons that can be a little different each time if you do want to invest in playing through all of the game’s content. A single playthough of the core story will only take around three hours and the game tries to design for replayability so that you try the Silver Key, Gold Key, and Hero Key versions of the adventure. The three main dungeons each have a clear theme, the Sea of Trees a forest, the Death Mountain a volcano, and the icy Talus Cave focusing on different obstacles with each having their own unique boss to wrap them up. Vaati’s Palace can mix and match concepts as well as introduce some more fitting hazards for a palace in the sky though, but unless you decide to play through the adventure a few times in a short period of time you won’t see too much repetition. It is a bit odd the game doesn’t have more potential area design options to ensure variety and there’s no system in place to better prevent repetition if you’re doing back-to-back key quests, but whether an area is new or old you won’t have to linger in any one place too long.

The dungeons in this cooperative adventure are designed heavily around the idea of teamwork while also playing into a mild competitive side. Technically the only thing you need to do to clear part of a multi-level dungeon is find the set of warps that let you exit the level, but the game will usually place these behind locks or other obstacles to ensure you engage with the puzzles and battles placed out for your team to deal with. Plenty of activities in this game only work properly if all the players are coordinating, be it something as simple as tossing your ally over a gap to activate a bridge for you or something more involved like a puzzle involving the magnetic gloves item where you need to attract or repel each other when there’s ground only available to one Link at a time. The game finds a good way to mix in mundane interaction with your allies and more complex moments that require you to figure out how to work together. You aren’t forced to stick together though, players able to wander off and find things to do on their own and usually a level will have a few activities like fighting monsters for treasures that don’t demand a full team, but there are switches, giant rocks, and other barriers to progress where everyone must be present to overcome the obstacle and make continuing forward possible.

 

The cooperative ideas are definitely what the game wants to emphasize, to the point some enemies won’t even take damage unless you coordinate things properly. While your sword can easily kill simple bats and slimes, something like the Hikkun takes no direct damage and its up to two players to stand on either side and grab it so they can pull the clam-like monster apart. Bosses often will reveal color-coded weak spots where you need the right Link slashing the right area or a foe might fire out color-coded spheres that must be volleyed between the players until it is flashing and ready to harm the boss. Sometimes certain players can see invisible objects others can’t and need to communicate with other players to tell them about it or simply carry them across with the knowledge only they have. The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords – Anniversary Edition concocts a lot of little quick moments of teamwork and ones that require a bit more effort to coordinate, this certainly not just a Zelda adventure with more people running around nor is it so entrenched in frequent partner-focused puzzles that you don’t have time for anything else.

 

The competitive angle mentioned earlier arises in the form of Rupees. Usually a form of currency in the Zelda games, here it is a multipurpose collectable that can appear in all sorts of ways and is frequently a reward for even the smallest of interactions. Enemies might drop them, hitting the right switch can make a group of chests full of Rupees appear, and sometimes the prize for finishing a fight or puzzle is to just have the room littered with Rupees for a bit that everyone can scramble around collecting. Rupees do serve some practical purposes, the team of Links needing to collect a certain amount to earn the keys necessary for Vaati’s Palace and any player who dies will have their revival cost Rupees in an ever-climbing amount, but mostly these go towards an end-of-level scoring moment where the person who picked up the most Rupees gets a medal. The medals are important to unlocking the Hero’s Trial dungeon unique to this rerelease but if one player has it unlocked they can have other plays join them in it still, but the medals are mostly an interesting reward for being a bit greedier than everyone else. Running off to find little nooks with extra treasures, working with another player to complete a puzzle or fight without the other two so you two can be the only ones who profit, or just going out of your way more to grab the money gives the player a personal goal on top of the group’s objective of finishing the level. Even in a harmonious group of friends it’s still easy to get caught up in the desire to collect the most Rupees with the game often making it a small competition to grab the Rupees or treasure chests first. You can even sabotage each other a bit, the Rupee Wraith a curse that pops out of a treasure chest and can be passed between players with a touch to make them drop Rupees. The Rupee Like enemy poses as a Rupee and then springs up and drains the tricked player of Rupees until someone breaks them free, so other players can choose to leave them to their fate if they want their chances of getting the medal to go up. Luckily, you do have a good amount of life to go around and the group toll for a player death does discourage being too violent with each other while possibly allowing the brief moments of expressing a little distaste for someone by tossing them down a pit or into some lava. Overall though, this competitive angle shouldn’t consume the group since it’s not too important but it still provides an interesting personal angle to the action.

In terms of how you explore dungeons normally, the item system plays a big part. Link can carry one item besides the sword he uses for regular fighting, some of these having combat use like the bow and arrow or shield but many of them are involved in some sort of special navigation that plays into the puzzles. The Gnat Hat lets you shrink down so you can slip into small passageways, the Roc’s Cape lets you jump over large gaps, and the Pegasus Boots gives you a speedy run that can let you overcome limited windows of opportunity. In some areas the group will all get the same item and need to tackle a trial together, but the game can be more interesting when people are made to coordinate with different options. Someone might be carrying bombs around so they can detonate obstructions while others are keeping the bow so they can shoot far off switches to make paths for that bomber. Some enemies can only be damaged after a certain item has made them vulnerable too, some fights requiring delegation as the player with the right tool needs to make the right actions to protect the group.

 

Another feature only found in the Anniversary Edition of this game is the Realm of Memories, a more interesting motivator for clearing the game multiple times as each run will earn you a new design for this special dungeon. The Realm of Memories is actually meant to evoke other older Zelda games, imitating their visual style as best they can without altering the gameplay too much. One based on A Link to the Past is an obvious choice considering this game’s origins, but a Link’s Awakening version and even one based on the original The Legend of Zelda provide both nostalgic callbacks and better curated designs than the main adventure’s mildly randomized offerings. The Hero’s Trial similarly benefits from its more focused and difficult design, the Sea of Trees especially made rather simple as it is both the first dungeon you’re expected to complete and its activities are often fairly basic since they’re meant to ease you into the idea of camaraderie. The true tutorial area, the Chamber of Insight, is perhaps too happy to hold your hand with overly long explanations of concepts and dungeons meant only to teach concepts, but thankfully it is optional. However, averaging out the newer dungeons with the ones carried over from the GBA release and you do get a good batch overall, although it could have definitely used some scaling difficulty to make the required return trips to places like the Sea of Trees more likely to provide a challenge.

 

One last interesting change of note made between the original release of Four Swords and its Anniversary Edition comes in the form of solo play. The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords – Anniversary Edition has very few levels that can be completed without the assistance of another Link, but the game demanded you have between 2 or 4 players back on the GBA. To make it possible to play alone the game simply gave control of two Links to a single player, the L and R buttons used to swap between the two as necessary. A whistle command also exists to have the other Link follow behind you in this mode, that Link contributing when it’s absolutely necessary as the AI handles whatever part of the task is required of it. While having this option is definitely appreciated and it was implemented in a serviceable way, it does sort of expose how much the game does need that group coordination to be interesting. Collecting Rupees on your lonesome lacks that competitive fun, some puzzles aren’t really challenging at all when it’s just one human doing both sides rather than needing to time things, and the AI can take the difficulty out of fight concepts like tracking the colors of boss weak points. If you need to earn medals and can’t beat out your friends’ Rupee grabbing skills then it at least has a practical purpose, but this is a game that requires cooperative play to really enjoy since the challenge emerges mostly from the idea of working together properly.

THE VERDICT: An enjoyable little cooperative adventure that designs well around teamwork focused activities but gives room for mild competitive moments, The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords – Anniversary Edition has a good set of ideas for how a group of two to four players can cooperate both in battles and in puzzle-solving. The single player option removes much of the fun since a lot of the activities are made interesting because of the need to coordinate and the game probably could have diversified its content more since it is already designed to be replayed to reach all the unique content, but it can still provide simple entertainment for players as well more involved moments where everyone needs to come together. The items, enemies, and bosses all bring their own ideas on how the group needs to coordinate to succeed, this game a good fit for a set of players looking for something involved but not overly complex.

 

And so, I give The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords – Anniversary Edition for Nintendo DSi…

A GOOD rating. Having played this game solo, in two player, in three player, and even four player, I can squarely say that all but the single player play manages to keep up the entertaining concepts that mix player coordination with moments where people can embrace a little selfishness and try to grab the Rupees for a competitive angle that doesn’t turn the group against each other too much. Playing with your little tag-along AI player in solo play shows how much much of the content relies on communicating with human players to be interesting, the interaction with the game not absolutely dry on its own but the AI is simply to skilled in holding up its end of cooperative moments that they lose their charm. The action feels more exciting when everyone in the group is trying to get into the right position or hold off the enemies as a team, and with ideas like the item distribution not always being equal you can get moments where players fill defined roles rather than having a solo player who must do everything. It’s a little funny that the coordination aspect is both woven into the game’s DNA so much it loses its luster without other human players but the game still provides moments when you’re together with friends where it can be enjoyable to go off and find treasures on your own, but the intended social aspect is definitely where the game works best because even when you break away you’re still doing so to gain the edge in the Rupee competition instead of just occupying yourself. The mild randomization meant to give the game some longevity probably should have been refined better or just have the game feature a few quality preset dungeons, but there are still good concepts at play in these dungeons even if you might be surprised to see a familiar floor before you’ve even played enough to earn all the keys.

 

The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords – Anniversary Edition is a fun cooperative Zelda spinoff that never gets too advanced in what it expects a team to coordinate on but still manages to provide many group-focused activities in its combat and navigation that feel like natural and interesting barriers. It doesn’t restrict you too much and allows players to indulge in moments of selfishness or quibble with the other players without punishing such impulses to the degree people would get frustrated. Giving the game out for free for a while was a smart way to ensure more people could potentially find others to play the game with, the game featuring no online but almost every owner of the system could have downloaded it and played it for a time. Unfortunately Nintendo decided to remove it and not even offer the ability to buy it so the number of people who can play it will only diminish with time. Nintendo’s actions are too hard to predict, but hopefully some day this game will get another rerelease in some form, because while it does have an uneven way of presenting its content, it has a good array of concepts for team-focused action that make it a nice little adventure you can easily justify replaying a few times with a group of friends.