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The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Pidgeot (talk | contribs) at 15:29, 11 January 2007 (It's Tsurugi, not Ken. Also modified some of the romaji to English spelling, in accordance with the MoS.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures
File:Fsabox.jpg
Developer(s)Nintendo
Publisher(s)Nintendo
Designer(s)Shigeru Miyamoto
Platform(s)Nintendo GameCube
ReleaseJapan March 18, 2004
North America June 7, 2004
Europe January 7, 2005
Genre(s)Action Adventure
Mode(s)Single player, multiplayer

The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures (ゼルダの伝説　4つの剣+, Zelda no Densetsu Yottsu no Tsurugi Plus, The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords+) is a game in Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda series for the Nintendo GameCube which also can use the Game Boy Advance handheld game console as a special controller. It was released in Japan on March 18, 2004, North America on June 7, 2004 and Europe on January 7, 2005. The game utilizes the Nintendo GameCube-Game Boy Advance cable, which was initially bundled with the game in North America. As with any game that uses this cable, it is incompatible with the Nintendo DS.

Story

Template:Spoiler The story begins with the land of Hyrule being in a state of fear due to strange happenings that have occurred in recent days. On a stormy night, Princess Zelda and the shrine maidens fear that the reason for these events is that Vaati's seal is weakening. She summons Link and brings him to the castle so he can protect her and the other maidens while they open the portal to the Four Sword Sanctuary. When they do however, a dark figure appears from the portal. This figure was Shadow Link, who then kidnapped the shrine maidens and sealed them in crystals. Link follows him to the sanctuary where he retrieves the Four Sword to destroy this evil version of himself. When he does, Vaati is once again released and wreaks havoc on the once peaceful kingdom.

As the game progresses, Link learns that the creation of his evil counterpart and the release of Vaati is only a small part in an insidious plot to take control of Hyrule. Things complicate as the dimension of the Dark World appears and people are being abducted throughout Hyrule. Link learns that not only have the knights of Hyrule mysteriously disappeared, but evil versions of them have been creating havoc. The castle has been taken over and monsters were appearing everywhere.

It's revealed later in the game that the true villain is none other than Ganon, King of Darkness. He has stolen a powerful trident and used it to take control of parts of Hyrule. He stole the dark mirror and used it to create Shadow Link and then sent him to kidnap the shrine maidens and trick Link into releasing Vaati. Ganon wanted to gain control of as much power as possible and build up his army. To this end, he wants to take control of the shrine maidens' power as well as abducting people and sending them into the Dark World where they would become part of his army. Vaati furthered his plans by creating monsters to add to his army and allowed Ganon to use his power to transform Hyrule into a land of darkness. It is also revealed that the knights of Hyrule were murdered by Ganon and their souls were trapped in the Dark World where they became creatures of Darkness. Link eventually saves the shrine maidens, retrieves the Dark Mirror, destroys Shadow Link and Vaati, and faces Ganon in an ultimate showdown. Link defeats Ganon and seals him firmly in the Four Sword. Peace returns to Hyrule and the people celebrate as all traces of the evil that plagued Hyrule are vanquished.

Gameplay

The main mode of Four Swords Adventures is Hyrulean Adventure, an episodic, cooperative multiplayer adaptation of the conventional Legend of Zelda gameplay. Shadow Battle is a competitive multiplayer battle mode. Navi Trackers, present only in the Japanese version of the game (and displayed briefly at E3 before the US release), is a multiplayer stamp rally race.

Hyrulean Adventure

Hyrulean Adventure is the main campaign Four Swords Adventures, and can be played by one to four players. It consists of eight worlds, each with three stages and a boss battle. The graphics are similar to that of the Game Boy Advance version, but the maps are static rather than randomly generated and the game includes GameCube-designed effects taken from The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. Music is based on that of A Link to the Past but is rearranged in places.

In Hyrulean Adventure, most of the same mechanics as the previously-released Four Swords for the Game Boy Advance (GBA) are used. The multiplayer version requires each player to have a GBA, which is used as a controller and to which the action transfers when that player's character goes off the main screen, but the single player game may be played with either a GameCube controller or a GBA. There are always four Link characters (differentiated by different colors: the main green, red, blue and purple) in play, regardless of the number of people playing; "extra" Links are attached to those directly controlled and positioned around the controlling character. Normally, the extra Links just follow the player, but players can separate an individual Link and control it alone, or put the four Links into formations. These techniques are required to solve some puzzles and defeat certain enemies. Players are encouraged to work together to gather enough Force Gems to empower the Four Sword, failing to do so by the time the Boss is defeated results in having to go back to the beginning of the stage to collect more.

Players are also allowed to play mini-games at Tingle's Towers (in multiplayer mode) found in every world, to gain extra multiplayer lives. These eight games are earned by playing though certain stages in multiplayer mode. The mini-games include horse racing, a hammer tag, monster hunting, and five others.

Shadow Battle

In Shadow Battle, two or more players battle each other until only one is left standing. As in Hyrulean Adventure, each player uses a different-colored Link character and wields various tools to attack the other Links. Initially, there are five stages which players can choose to fight in. Five bonus maps are unlocked upon completion of Hyrulean Adventure (these "dark stages" are almost the same as the first five maps, but the player has limited vision). In each stage, items randomly appear. These are usually similar to the items in Hyrulian Adventure. There are also many special objects in each stage. Players can use these objects to their advantage. There is also a time limit; when it reaches zero, Vaati arrives, meaning an instant tie.

Navi Trackers (formerly planned as a stand alone game titled Tetra's Trackers) is only on the Japanese version of Four Swords Adventures (Four Swords +). In this game, multiple players, using a combination of the television screen and Game Boy Advances, search for members of Tetra's pirate gang (Tetra is a pirate captain in The Wind Waker) to gain stamps from them, as many as possible within a given time limit. All action takes place on the Game Boy Advance used by each player, with the television screen showing a basic map and Tetra narrating the action.

Unlike most other Zelda games, players could enter their name as well as choose their gender; however they played as one of the Links regardless of this choice.

Unique in the Zelda series (except, to an extent, BS The Legend of Zelda: Stone Tablets of Antiquity), Tetra and her pirate crew have full voiceovers in place of text-only dialog, with Tetra also synthesizing the two-character name that each player inputs at the beginning of the session—possibly why this game was not localized for the English release. In an early version of the game showed to review sites Tetra apparently spoke English—reportedly, one line was something like "Let's hear it for Mrs. A!"—and was able to pronounce at least some synthesized phonetic letters, A, B, C, and D, as shown in screenshots (it is to be assumed the full alphabet was available).

However, while the two-symbol rule worked fine for Japanese players, English is written with the Latin alphabet and has much more complex spelling and phonetical constraints. For example, if a player's name was Sarah that is two syllables, so if a soundalike equivalent of that name was entered via Japanese characters, Tetra could easily pronounce "Sar-ahh" as a fairly realistic representation of the player's name. But this would not work with the Japanese version's implementation of English characters. Each of the two permissible characters being pronounced, the aforementioned player's name could only be "SA". Since the English voice had already been added, this technical barrier is the likeliest reason for its omission.

A single-player mode is also available, either collecting alone or in competition with Tingle, the aspiring fairy found also in Majora's Mask, Oracle of Ages, The Wind Waker and The Minish Cap.

Development

Despite the fact that all translation for the PAL version were finished in October, the game did not see its way to Europe until early January 2005. A possible reason for this is so that the game did not compete with The Minish Cap for sales, which in turn was released pre-Christmas in Europe because, unlike North America, it would not canabalise Nintendo DS sales[1].

Comics

A manga novelization of the game was authored by the manga-ka Akira Himekawa. In it, each of the four Links have a distinct personality: the Link in green (nicknamed "Green") acted similarly to his normal self, aggressive and brave, the Link in red ("Red") was portrayed as a childish optimist, the one in blue ("Blue") was quick-tempered and over-confident, and the one in violet ("Vio") was aloof and self-possessive. This of course caused the four Links to argue amongst one another due to their conflicting personas. The four decided to use nicknames of the color they're wearing so they wouldn't confuse each other.

See also

  1. ^ http://uk.gamespot.com/gba/action/thelegendofzeldatheminishcap/news.html?sid=6106627&mode=recent
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