Review #92: The Legend of Zelda - Four Swords Anniversary Edition

 If you ain't about multiplayer, just skip it.

 Four Swords Anniversary Edition is an "enhanced" port of sorts of the Multiplayer component of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past Advance. Be warned, there is no online, and Multiplayer was the way the game was meant to be played, even if Nintendo did add some Single Player stages. But hey, at least it's free(And only available for a limited time!). As I had no one with the game nearby available, as I'm sure will be the case with more than a couple others, I was only able to play the Single Player mode and it's worth it, trust you me.
 Four Swords is not your typical Zelda game, the story is very barebones, but has Link coming into contact with the Four Sword, which divides him in four Links, and to top it off, Zelda gets kidnapped so the Links must team up and defeat the Wizard Vaati. There is no overworld here, instead the game is divided in many stages that, even though they contain Puzzles, Chests, Keys and items such as Bombs or the Bow, as one would expect from  Zelda, the focus is on gathering more Rupees than your opponent, Rupees here do not serve as currency but rather as points.

 In Single Player mode you'll be restricted to two Links, the Green one and another one of your choosing. You play as both Links at once, however, you'll always be in charge of the Green one as the other one follows you along, but won't attack or do anything else than following you. Actually, there are a couple of actions that require two Links, in which case the other Link will automatically help you. Pressing R or L let's you take control of either Link, as the other one sits down, he can't take damage but he won't attack either. You can press the X at any time to make the other Link warp right next to you, in case you need him. Honestly, it's pretty lame. Taking care of two characters is a drag, movement speed is pretty slow, and it would've been better if the other Link at least attacked when something came close to him, or to be able to select another Link as your main character.
 Unlike other Zelda games, you don't carry all your items, instead you'll find items on Pedestals that you can take, however, each Link can only carry one item, so you'll have to keep that in mind as well. See how it starts becoming a drag taking care of two Links, one of them always being dead weight, more or less? Items are your favorites, the Bombs, Bow, Boomerang alongside a couple of oldies, like the Cape(Behaves like the Roc's Feather) or the Pegasus Boots and the new Magnet. Puzzles are a bit simpler than your standard fare, and it makes sense as it's a Score-based Multiplayer game, but doing all of them by yourself makes them pretty lame. They look as if they would be fun alongside other human characters, but by your lonesome they become lame.

 There are four main levels, with about seven unlockable ones. Most of the main levels are pretty short, 10-15 minutes each, but some of the unlockables can take quite a bit more. Unlockable levels also tend to be much harder as well, however, unlocking some of the levels in Single Player is pretty annoying, as you need to amass huge quantities of rupees(5000+) on each stage by yourself, and this means abusing respawning enemies, a grindy and annoying task. Some of the unlockables, luckily the easy ones, are pretty neat, being throwback levels to the GBC(A Link to the Past), NES and SNES versions of Zelda, and the Links get the appropriate make overs!
 The Legend of Zelda - Four Swords Anniversary Edition is probably a good Multiplayer game, but the Single Player portion is both annoying and lame, even if it's free, it's hard to have fun with it.
 3.5 out of 10.