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Hey everyone, this is Fran Mirabella, and I'm going to be filling in for Mr. Peer Schneider
who did the written review of Four Swords Adventures, to deliver up this video review.
So let's get started.
Nintendo's new Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures is a really
unexpected and unconventional choice. You know, who would've really anticipated the
company to bring a mostly 2D update to Gamecube. Four Swords Adventures is based on some of
the work that was carried out in the GBA Four Swords, but by and large it's a completely
different experience. But, this is Nintendo, and it's anything but conventional. I see
Four Swords Adventures as an important Gamecube release. The company could've starved fans
of the series until 2005, but here we are just a year or so after Wind Waker, and yep,
we've got another Zelda to love. What's there to love? A really unique spin on the franchise,
one of the best uses of GBA link-up yet, and simply one of the most cleverly designed action-adventures
available. The adventure mode offers up 24 stages over 8 different areas. This is all
set in a world reminiscent of the oft-acclaimed A Link to the Past. But it also brings together
the decades of experience that Nintendo has had in developing the franchise. There are
bosses and familiar enemies that are even from Wind Waker. In particular, the puzzle
designs are as intelligent as ever, this is one of my favorite things. One of the lead
level designers from Link to the Past directed the Four Swords Adventures, and there's plenty
of cleverness when it comes to managing the four Links in the world at once. Whether you
choose to play it single or multiplayer this is really evident. Without actually spoiling
moments in the game, let me give you an unsolved example of actual gameplay. You reach a part
in the experience where one of the four Links gets trapped underneath the world in this
shadowy world of dark. The three players up above in the Light World can see him beneath,
but they have no way to retrieve him, and they have no way to advance because there's
a poison path that blockades progress. I'll leave you to figure it out, but trust me when
I say that the solution is pretty cool and, you know, you really have to work together
and be a team to figure out how to get further and advance. And it's really just one of many
many cool examples. The real heart of the experience is in the strategy of this four-player
teamwork, and the Light and Dark Worlds especially play a huge part. Dark World usually shows
up on GBA where one of the Links heads into it, leaving the others in the Light World.
You can shoot arrows from Light World into the Dark World, so if you're teamed up with
someone, they're going to be staring at their GBA screen, and seeing for example your arrows
coming from the Light World into their Dark World on their GBA screen, and they'll be
telling you "move a little to the left, no a little more up, you know shoot a little farther"
sort of in that vein, and what it is is just a really really clever puzzle to get you to
work together, and it's just something that you probably haven't done before, so it's
pretty cool. And again, very clever, it's just scratching the surface; there's a lot
more things like this. That brings me to another interesting point though: you have to use
your Game Boy Advances, and honestly unless you'll only be playing during the day, you're
probably going to want to use your SPs. So, it's a really big commitment, and honestly
it's most fun when you have four players: that's what this game is designed for. You
can indeed play it single player and it takes on some new dynamics since you're in charge
of everything, but four player is honestly the way it's meant to be played. A really
nice part of this though is that you can save at any time and come back to it at whatever
pace you like. So, maybe, you'll even want to come back with some different friends.
This makes it a really awesome multiplayer game. And that's exactly why battle mode's
in there, it's basically just this four-player beat-em-up, but it's really good fun and you'll
learn in adventure mode that you're really not going to be a team of nicey nicey, share
and share-a-like Links, what's gonna happen is, you're gonna want to beat each other up,
which is usually a bad idea in the adventure, so battle mode is the perfect opportunity
to vent and get back at so-called former team members. I happen to find the battle mode
pretty fun and some of the levels are pretty clever. They're pretty diverse, they share
some of the cleverness of adventure mode, and there's little things like switches that
can be hit to open gaping holes in the ground, and there's also this really cool 2D side-scrolling
battle arena that you get into, and overall just really mixes things up and plays on the
classicness of the series. Graphics, sound, and technology really isn't a huge advancement
by modern-day standards of course, this is based on old technology, but when the camera
zoomed out it looks, kind of pretty. I think it's a refreshing change of pace in this 2D
style, and the art is still a delight. Only on zoom-ins things can get a little nasty,
and the sound effects and compositions as well as far as technology is concerned; they're
old-school, to say the least. You know, would some orchestrated sounds or higher quality
audio really have hurt? You know I agree that the old MIDI tunes really keep to that classicness,
but since it's on Gamecube I can't help but wonder what some orchestrated stuff, or just
some new samples really would've done for the game. So overall, technology's just sort
of alright, but there's moments where tons of 2D characters will flood the screen, and
particle effects will be going wild, they have some of the same cool stuff from Wind
Waker and it really pays off at these moments. Very stylish. Taking all this into consideration,
I think that Four Swords Adventures is one of the most entertaining titles that you can
play on Gamecube right now. It's got all that Nintendo charisma, and it's off the beaten
path of what other developers are offering. However single player isn't as strong as multiplayer,
and I really only recommend buying Four Swords Adventures if you know you can partake in
this. If you are pretty confident that you've got some friends who will play the Hyrulean
Adventure mode, then you're gonna be a really happy Zelda fan. As you dig deeper into the
later levels you'll encounter some really elating puzzle designs, and I guarantee that
the competition factor of multiplayer will really get your heart going, usually because
you're really angry at your teammates from stealing things from you. But you know, no
matter what you decide you have to try this game out. You're missing out on one of the
most uniquely entertaining games of 2004 if you don't, and I also think that you should
be banned from playing any forthcoming Zelda adventures if you don't.
So there, that's something to think about, isn't it?