Monday, August 12, 2013

A Link Between Worlds and Multiplayer: Shadow Battles and StreetPass?

So, in my previous post I talked about how a new Four Swords game could essentially spawn from A Link Between Worlds. But of course A Link Between Worlds itself could already feature some sort of multiplayer. I doubt it will be an entire Four Swords game, because then Nintendo would have announced something by now, but there's still room for something small.

Both Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks came with their own Battle Modes. Both very different. Phantom Hourglass offered a very strategic 1on1 online battle mode, while Spirit Tracks had a local multiplayer four player Last Man Standing game. And both failed to deliver. While the mode in Phantom Hourglass can be played online, it's not very Zelda or fun. And the mode in Spirit Tracks, while it's not that bad, can't be played online. So, unless you had a friend with the game, you probably haven't played it yet. And it also wasn't that much fun to be honest.

You know, what was fun? Shadow Battle! The little deathmatch mode in Four Swords Adventures:



It's a small game, but a lot of fun to play. You can use all the Zelda weapons, you can slash Cuccos to make Cucco waves appear, activate traps and more. Perfect. And so much better than the Battle Modes on the Nintendo DS. And A Link Between Worlds has everything to reimplement that and make it even better! The game has the Dark World, so you could have Dark World levels again. And the Item Meter is perfect for the Four Swords item system. Adding Shadow Battles would work nicely.

Of course it should be online. Because otherwise it gets just ignored, much as the multiplayer in Spirit Tracks. And it would be so much fun! Imagine all the match making in Zelda communities. I would play this forever. It could really keep the game alive.

Another possibility would be the Monster Hunting from the Tingle Tower minigames in Four Swords Adventures also. There you were basically playing together against waves of enemies, but the player with the most kills in the end wins.



Another topic would be StreetPass. In Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks you had the Tag/Contact Mode, which was some sort of predecessor of StreetPass basically. It's purpose was to share Ship Parts and Treasures with other people. Well, you had to do it manually, but with StreetPass you could automate the process. Put your duplicate treasures up for "sale" and automatically receive treasures from others when StreetPassing them.

However, the trading idea came with a big bad downside: randomized collectibles. And without the trading it could take you forever to complete your Ship and Train Part collections. I hated that mechanic, where certain treasures would be super rare for you, just so it encourages you to trade. But what to do, when you have noone to trade with? If that's what StreetPass leads to, I'm against it. Or at least add the possibility to buy treasures with Play Coins. But generally I prefer it, when every item has its fixed spot in the game. So, I'm not a fan of this idea. It's still something that could happen nonetheless.

1 comment:

Gango said...

Im really hope its the return of Shadow battles pls nintendo and a four sword game too pls :D