Four Swords Online, Round 5

Today was our final stream of The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords via Nintendo Switch Online, where we had to get the last Hero's Key from Death Mountain and then finish Vaati's Palace in its 12 floor variant, which is big as all stages from the basic games combined. One last time of cooperating while screwing each other over.

This stream was already planned to happen a week ago, but the blue Link had no internet at the time (it should be no secret to the rest of the world by now that nothing is really working in Germany), so we had to reschedule. Today the timing wasn't the best for me, however, and I just wanted to be done with it, so if I sound more annoyed than usual, then that's why.

It also didn't help that blue Link's connection was lost in the middle of a stage and we had to start over. Normally, this wouldn't be much of a big deal, because the stages are rather short and replayable. But we were right in the middle of the Vaati's Palace marathon, the final stage, so this was a huge setback. Here it's not really the best how Nintendo just kicks you out of the game, instead of suspending it and giving the players a choice of what to do. The connection was only lost for a brief moment, where we could have waited...

What also annoyed me today is losing all your seed upgrades after a death. You already have the Rupee loss, but they also reset all your stats back to 0, which feels very punishing. Well, this gives you an extra incentive not to die, that's for sure. And if you die, then collecting the seeds will have value again. But depending on the level it might not be so easy to max out everything in the first place...

Anyway, first we had to conquer Death Mountain with 5000 Rupees, which is the most difficult of the Hero's Keys to obtain, because the fire levels can get very punishing. You really need to make good use of Rupee Fever, but if you're constantly hit by something, then that's not a given. We failed the first time, but we did it on our second try, so this went actually quite well nevertheless.

Since I already had 10 Medals of Courage and cooperation was key, I stepped back during Death Mountain, even let others have the treasure chests, but I still managed to snatch a medal after the second run for some reason. Maybe I subconsciously was still acting greedily... I mean, none of the other players were interested in the A Link to the Past connectivity, so the medals never mattered to them at any point. It was really only about getting more Rupees than others and scoring first place.

And the fight was on for the last stage! Here we didn't have to worry about Rupees any longer and you get more than you need anyway, so we were free to compete again. Still, we couldn't shake the mindset of "we need to maintain Rupee Fever" for some reason. I guess that it became a (good) habit after the Hero's Keys.

We also got sidetracked by the one floor of the sky palace where you have this platform that goes around the main room in a circle and you have to shoot eye switches to make chests appear. But there are a lot of blocks in the way, which can and will push you off, especially when there's lag to deal with.

I got stuck there for a moment, because there is a "safe zone" in the northeast corner of that parkour, a little past the halfway point. So, when you fall off, the game will put you there. Sounds nice in theory, but in practice there is no way of getting back to the beginning, unless you are able to beat the obstacle course, which took me a number of tries...

But ultimately we even got all treasure chests, because the blue Link ended up in the same situation and managed to shoot one last switch that I had missed. Teamwork! However, this was right before the connection loss, so this was all for nothing... And afterwards we've decided to rush things, because there was no need to go out of your way for Rupees.

We still finished with almost 25,000 Rupees, but collecting Rupees in this game is just so addicting. Well, I was torn a bit between "I don't really need them any longer" and "this is the finale, so I want to win this". And in the end the red Link (which was me) established his role in Hyrule's history as the one true Link:

I always liked the red tunic best, so this fits. And I would have gotten enough Medals of Courage for the Riddle Quest from this playthrough after all, but I really enjoyed having the Hurricane Spin Attack during this last round. It's just the best tool for annoying the other players and it was worth it for the "why do you have this?!!" reactions alone.

So, now I'm 100% done with Four Swords, for the very first time experiencing it as you should – by playing this game with three other people and in parallel to A Link to the Past, where one achievement leads to another. And I'm very happy about that.

Should you ever want to do the same, keep in mind that the Suspend Points store both the RAM of the game and the battery save data for some reason, unlike save states on conventional emulators. That's a huge pitfall here and the first thing I did after our session today was overwriting all existing Suspend Points, just to be safe.

In case of multiplayer you can't use Suspend Points, so you have to rely on the traditional battery save data. But now, if I were to load a Suspend Point from A Link to the Past, then all of my Four Swords progress today would have been lost... with no means to restore it (unless it's still there as your latest cloud save). So, keep that in mind!

Four Swords Online, Round 4

Problem already solved... Earlier today I left off worrying that I might not find anyone to collect Medals of Courage with, because there was simply not enough interest within the ZeldaChronicles community. I can already be happy enough to have found a round where we want to beat the entire game, and not just the simple Silver Keys level.

This is clearly not like the early days of Tri Force Heroes, where it was generally easy enough to find someone who wants to play and where people where genuinely interested in doing all the challenges and such. To be fair, Four Swords is not a new multiplayer Zelda game, it's over 20 years old. But being able to play this online on a Nintendo system is still a novelty, at least officially...

Now, I looked in other communities where I am or was active, but to no avail. Either people already had someone to play with or there was no interest at all. Finally, I hit pay dirt in the r/Zelda Discord community, which is quite active at the moment about seeking other players, and I was able to find someone there immediately. A guy named Carlos helped me to get my last two medals and now I'm happy.

Again, much thanks to Carlos (should you ever happen to read this)! I really appreciate it. And I will still hang out there in case other people need help as well. So, should you be in the same position as I was, where you need more medals, or generally looking for other players, check out r/Zelda.

(Update: People on this Discord are mainly from North America and playing the US version, so if you're looking for European players it still might be tricky. I was just lucky enough to run into someone else playing the EU version at the time when I joined.)

Anyway, I've cleared both the Riddle Quest and the Palace of the Four Sword right afterwards, so now I'm done with A Link to the Past (more on that in a separate post) and ready for the big finale.

Four Swords Online, Round 3

Today we had another stream of playing Four Swords together, which you can watch on Twitch. And we've made some good progress here, as you can see above, where we got two out of the three Hero's Keys by now: in the Sea of Trees and Talus Cave. So, only Death Mountain is left, but since the final version of Vaati's Palace is essentially all levels combined, we have saved those for the next time.

We had some connectivity issues early on, where the game really became hard to play due to the lag. Like, there was a part in Vaati's Palace where you have to carry a teammate onto platforms of your color from moving platform, which normally should be easy enough, but the delay makes you just run straight into the abyss...

We lost a lot of  health there, I can tell you that much. Luckily, the connection became more stable afterwards, because otherwise we probably would have aborted the session.

Then, after failing miserably with the Hero's Key at the Sea of Trees, there was a clear shift from competition to pure cooperation. Without Rupee Fever it's very difficult to reach the 5000 Rupees required and you really want to make the most out of it. So, we had to stop messing with each other and even save treasure chests until everyone was at full hearts. And we've made good use of the Rupee Wraith exploit, where you recollect the Rupees that it makes you drop and this gives you double the amount back (this was fixed in the DSi version). It's overall super satisfying to get enough Rupees in the end, it feels like a real accomplishment and good team work.

Despite moderately holding back, I still managed to snag three Medals of Courage today, only two more to go. Though, I would love to complete the Riddle Quest and obtain the Hurricane Spin Attack before the last stream next Sunday, because otherwise I won't have much use for it. I've also finished A Link to the Past in the meantime, except for the Palace of the Four Sword, where I want to have the Hurricane Spin for that as well.

Sadly, we haven't played in the other round a second time, because those two of the guys were too busy with Among Us. And the last one might not have any interest in continuing after the credits have rolled, I'm not not sure. So, now I'm hoping to find someone, anyone really, to help with those last two Medals of Courage, because I really want to finish this. But I seem to be the only one who cares about the A Link to the Past connectivity from the two groups that I've joined, so that will make things difficult.

Four Swords Online, Round 2

Another day, another round already. I've played in a slightly different group this time, organized from the ZeldaChronicles community. So, no stream to show today. But I still had this one guy (again as the blue Link) with me, who is really ambitious about getting all the Rupees before everyone else, so it was as competitive as yesterday, probably even more so. It was also more balanced, where everyone scored first place at least once, so that was great.

In the beginning we were only three, which made it feel like Tri Force Heroes, but after one stage we had the fourth guy join us for some mad fun. And we've beaten the game on the easiest difficulty, so we've played five stages in total. Well, a little bit more than that, because there have been accidents...

If a stage starts on a difficult section and you don't have any Rupees yet, it's easy to get a Game Over, especially if people are screwing around.

Anyway, in case you're wondering how progression works with different people, the progress is saved individually for every player in the form of the different keys for each stage. And you're always playing by the lowest common denominator. So, even though two of us had Golden Keys already and I was the host, we still were playing for the Silver Keys to let the other two players catch up. But now that we've beaten the first version of Vaati's Palace, we're all eligible to earn Golden Keys, which we will do next time.

Why even bother and not just stay in the same group, you may ask? Well, I suppose, here it's actually a good thing that you need ten Medals of Courage in total. This encourages you to play with less experienced / progressed players, because this gives you another / a better chance.

So, even though blue Link and me didn't see any actual progress in the game today, we still made some progress by earning medals. I got two more, which brings me to five, only five more to go!

Overall, we had some good laughs. At the end of the floors we often just started attacking each other maniacally, so it became impossible to finish. Or some levels in Vaati's Palace have these bridges, where one player has to stand on a switch to keep them retracted. Of course he wouldn't dare to step off right when everyone else is crossing... right? And it was always a fierce fight for every treasure chest. The possibilities to mess with each other in this game are priceless.

The guy who played purple Link, who has joined us last, also brought in some nice dry humor, which is perfect for a game that you shouldn't take too seriously. Would love to play Tri Force Heroes with him one day and hear what he has to say about those epic tales from the Drablands.

Can't wait to continue this!

Four Swords Online, Round 1

We are live! Quite literally. Today I had the pleasure of playing The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords with four people at the same time, for the first time in my life. Best I was able to do before was three, usually just two, so this was interesting.

You can actually watch the whole thing on Twitch, but it's in German. A friend of mine, KarlderHeinz, streams there regularly, just for the fun of it and to stay in contact. Mostly this is singleplayer, but from time to time he plays multiplayer games with people from his small, but great community, usually on Sundays. In the past two years this was almost exclusively Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, where we've checked out the new courses...

Now I had made the suggestion that we should give Four Swords a try via Nintendo Switch Online, because I had a feeling that this could be a lot of fun in this round. In fact, some of us had played Four Swords Adventures together in 2018 and I still remember the laughs.

And it was fun, more than that, because the motivation to keep going is there. I went in with the expectation that we would play this until the credits roll and then be done with it, but we've actually got two Golden Keys already and are planning to complete the game eventually. There was a spark there. Getting the Silver Keys is too easy, so there was the ambition to play this a bit more seriously, as far as this was possible...

But let's start from the beginning. This was the first time that I've played any of the classic games online and it's about as bumpy as you would expect. It's peer-to-peer, as most Nintendo games with online multiplayer, so there can be some lag with four players. For the most part it went well, but you want to make sure to play this with people who live in the same state or country as you. It probably also helps to only play this with one other person, but that wasn't the goal here.

There can also be some visual glitches, like flickering shadows, which is notable in the stream. However, I personally didn't have such issues on my TV. But what I really dislike with the Nintendo Switch Online emulators in general is that it shows you part of the controls at the bottom and there is no way to hide this information. It's just wasting space and looks ugly. (Update: you can turn this off in the options, but you'll need to do this before you go into a game.)

Well, I was the group's overachiever, because I'm the only one who is bothering to also play A Link to the Past, where I had obtained the Master Sword beforehand. This unlocks sword beams in Four Swords, which was giving me a bit of an edge, but for the most part it didn't matter, because you only get them at full health. Still, you want to be at full health for the Rupee Fever, where for the Golden Keys we already had to be a bit more strategic and make sure that everyone gets enough health.

Now, I should be the only one in this groups who cares about earning the Medals of Courage, but I still have to fight for them. One guy in particular (he was the blue Link) has this mindset of "I don't care what Rupees will do for me, I just don't want any of the other players to get them." It's absolutely infuriating, but believe it or not, this is also exactly what I was hoping for...

In the past I was either playing this game alone, thanks to the added singleplayer mode in the Anniversary Edition, or I had someone who helped me out to finish the original Game Boy Advance version. So, I've rarely played this in an environment where the people would fight for Rupees.

Four Swords has this mix of cooperation and competition what makes it so unique. You have to work together to make it, but you also want to snatch all those Rupees for yourself, where this encourages toxic behavior. You may, for example, let two other players do the work and then harvest the fruits of their labor. And you can always carry and throw other players, where once their fate is in your hands, they can't do anything about it. In German we say "Kameradenschwein", someone who betrays their comrades. And you sometimes have to be the Kameradenschwein in this game if you want to score first place.

Or maybe you are just lucky. That also helps a lot, but I've ran out of luck at some point in my life, where today's session was proof of that. Whenever there are two treasure chests, usually one of them has a big Rupee and the other has a small one. And I always got the small one, every single time, so that didn't help.

We've finished half of the game by now and I only got three medals out of ten, so I certainly won't be able to complete everything in this round. But the requirement of ten Medals of Courage is way too much in any case. If nothing goes wrong, you will be playing twelve stages in total. And if you keep things even, then every player will end up with only three medals... Even if you're only playing two-by-two, you won't get enough. The Anniversary Edition was a lot fairer here, where either you needed five medals or 30,000 Rupees in total.

But I will try to play with some other people as well. And once I get all ten medals, I will keep playing A Link to the Past some more. It's actually a great choice for replaying right now, before Echoes of Wisdom returns to the same Hyrule. And it's been a while since I have played the GBA version with its extras. In case you don't know, here's a summery of how the two games interact with each other:

• Obtaining the Master Sword in A Link to the Past unlocks Sword Beams in Four Swords.
• Scoring ten Medals of Courage in Four Swords unlocks the Riddle Quest in A Link to the Past.
• Solving the Riddle Quest unlocks the Hurricane Spin Attack in both games.
• Beating both games opens the Palace of the Four Sword in A Link to the Past.
  

Most of this was impossible (or very hard) to do on the Game Boy Advance if you didn't know anyone else with the game. So, it's really nice that after all these years this title has become a bit more accessible.

Four Swords Anniversary Edition, Extra Round

Yesterday I had the chance to play the new Four Swords Anniversary Edition in multiplayer together with Evelyn Jade from ZeldaEurope.de. She didn't have the chance to play through the game yet, so she was the host and we picked up her latest savegame. We've beaten the first door of Vaati's Palace, cleared the Realm of Memories and got all three Golden Keys. It was a lot of fun, after all this game was meant to be played in multiplayer and not alone. And I'm really happy that I had the chance to play the game with her.

It's also a little bit more challenging. You really have to work together at points and you can't abuse the warping. For example the Link's Awakening stage turned out to be much trickier in two player mode. You can't just go somewhere using the Roc's Cape, let the second Link appear right next to you and use his bombs to blow some cracked blocks up. One player has to get the bombs and he needs to find a way around the swamp. A lot more coordination is needed here. But after all that's what multiplayer is about... cooperating.

Okay... cooperating and competing. And what makes this multiplayer game so unique is that you do both at the same time. You work together but you fight for the Rupees. Since I already got the Hurricane Spin Attack I had the advantage and at the beginning I annoyed the hell out of Jade using that technique... :D It's especially helpful during Rupee Rain or during the credits, where all the fairies appear. Well, then I had to promise to stay fair and not use it. And resisting to use the Hurricane Spin was really hard for me, because after all I went through HELL to unlock this thing. But we both got some medals at the end and it's not like you need these things anymore. Unlike in the original version collecting medals isn't necessary to unlock anything. And maybe next time we will be equally powerful for a real match. ;)

Of course I wouldn't post this if I hadn't made any interesting observations. The 50 Rupee minimum time bonus stays in multiplayer and gets even multiplied by the player count. In our case we would at least get 300 extra Rupees per stage for doing nothing else but reaching the goal. In the original version it was 6 Rupees, one Rupee per player and per floor. This makes a 294 Rupee difference, which sometimes might be the difference between winning or losing. While playing the GBA version it happened that we were short on a couple of Rupees at the end of a stage. Something like 2930 Rupees while going for the Golden Key in Death Mountain for example... so, yeah, this can really make a difference. And in four player mode you would get 600 Rupees extra for nothing!

The second difference was that they fixed the exploit, where you abuse Rupee Wraiths and Rupoors (the Black Rupees) during Rupee Fever to your advantage. Ah, I missed Rupee Fever so much, especially the catchy tune. Scoring like 8000 Rupees? Not a problem when you really use Rupee Fever all the time (in case you don't know what Rupee Fever is, when all players have full health the Rupees count doubly). However, in the GBA version you could even exploit Rupee Wraiths and the black Rupees. You dropped Rupees, but you could recollect them and get twice the amount back. Let's say you touch a Rupoor and you drop four small red Rupees, that's 80 Rupees alltogether. If you recollected them, you would get 160 Rupees back thanks to the Rupee Fever. They fixed this in the Anniversary Edition, the dropped Rupees now also count doubly. You drop four red ones, you lose 160 Rupees instead of 80. So, no abusing of Rupee Wraiths or Rupoors anymore... that's bad, because it was actually a very clever tactic. UPDATE: Actually they didn't fix it, you can still use this tactic. I'm sorry for the wrong information, my mistake.

But except for these things the multiplayer works exactly the same as in the GBA version. They only other difference is that you can use the whistle to annoy the other player(s), which can be fun. The only thing that could make it more annoying would be Link shouting his "Come on!" phrase from The Wind Waker each time you use the whistle, that would be so unnerving.

Generally I'm pickung the game up every now and then for a short session. It's perfect for some Zelda action in between. I'm usually replaying one of the original stages, because maybe I get to see a new floor, which I've never encountered before. Love the randomization and I actually got to see some new stuff. It's really amazing how many different floors there are. The new stages on the other hand provide very little replay value. Especially the Hero's Trial. I replayed the first door, which isn't as bad as the other two, once using the Hurricane Spin Attack. But overall the level design is too linear and too tedious, one enemy spawning switch after another. And unless I feel like torturing myself I probably won't be replaying the other two doors anytime soon. But by now I collected a total sum of over 220,000 Rupees, which speaks for the general replay value. You're going to return to this game once after a while, which makes it different from other Zelda games. If you're finished with a normal Zelda game it might rest for years... but not this game and the fact that this is a downloadable game, where you don't have to swap any discs or cartridges, makes picking it up even easier.

Now after experiencing the multiplayer I'm finally ready to finish my promised review. Unlike all the superficial reviews of this game this one will be very thorough.

Four Swords Anniversary Edition, Final Round

100%. Like in the original game you get a nice golden Four Sword icon on your save file if you've beaten Vaati's Palace using the Hero Keys. I don't know if you also have to beat the Hero's Trial to get the icon, but I guess not.

First of all, I want to say that the new total Rupee counter is a nice thing. Not only is this a good alternative way of unlocking the Hero's Trial (normally you would have to collect 5 Medals of Courage to unlock it, which isn't possible in singleplayer), it also ensures that beating a stage is never for nothing. For example if you try to get a Hero Key, but weren't able to collect 5000 Rupees, the Rupees at least get added to your highscore. Or simply replaying a level also adds to the score, which adds a little bit to the replay value. I already got over 130,000 Rupees by now and this score will be growing. But it's a shame that the Hero's Trial is the only thing that gets unlocked by the Rupee highscore. They could have added some other extras.

Now let's talk about the interesting part: how to farm Rupees. Without Rupee Fever it is impossible to get 5000 Rupees in a normal stage, so all you can do in singleplayer is farming Rupees by slaying the respawning monsters. Preferably monster that drop those large Rupees worth 50, 100 and sometimes even 200 Rupees. Those are Bow Moblins, Spear Moblins, all types of Wizzrobes, Gibdos and Darknuts. Not the nicest selection, I know. The easiest to kill are Gibdos and Bow Moblins, so aim for those. Spear Moblins have better defense and offense than their bow brothers and can hurt you quite badly. Wizzrobes can be annoying and cast fire or ice on you, both aweful stuff. Well and Darknuts usually disappear before you can defeat them. And they are super rare. So, the best options are Bow Moblins and Gibdos.

The first stage, where I got a Hero's Key, was surprisingly Death Mountain. That was the stage that always came last when we played the GameBoy Advance version. First I tried farming with Fire Wizzrobes, which was a terrible idea. So, I headed on and the next floor turned out to be the ideal farming spot. It started with a minecart and Boomerang pedestals. Take those Boomerangs and head on. There will be an area, where only Gibdo spawn. Stun them with the Boomerang and kill them for lots of easy money. I also got two Razor Seeds, which fastened the process.

At the Sea of Trees search for Bow Moblins, because they are easy to defeat. I used the area, where the entire floor is surrounded by a ledge with lots of grass and treasure chests on it. You start in the Northwest, right near the goal, next to some Pegasus Shoes. In the northern lower area the Bow Moblins would spawn. This place was ideal, because there were plenty of grass to heal yourself. Not that the Bow Moblins made any real damage...

I guess you could look for Gibos in Talus Cave, but I found a nice spot, where farming with Wizzrobes actually works great. It's a small room north of the goal with normal Wizzrobes (red ones that shoot beams instead of fire) and these weird floor tiles that only one Link can see. There are four pathways made of these tiles leading to treasure chests and one is nearly completely surrounded by blocks. Stay there, the blocks will keep you safe from the Wizzrobe fire. As soon as one Wizzrobe spawns on the pathway I attacked him with the Hurricane Spin Attack. This is probably the safest way of using Wizzrobes to farm Rupees. Worked fine for me and I hate Wizzrobes. UPDATE: I found another nice spot to farm Rupees in Talus Cave using Bow Moblins. It's a spot, where the goal is on higher grounds surrounded by bushes. At the west side Bow Moblins will spawn.

There are some other details, which I have noticed. Rupee Wraiths were dumbed bown big time. They only steal three Rupees from you and then vanish, you can entirely ingore them. They might take more, if you happen to run into more than one Rupee Wraith on the same floor, but overall they are not as annoying as in the multiplayer. This is understandable, because they are a pure multiplayer element. It's about passing the Rupee Wraith to another player, so that he is busy losing Rupees instead of you. There's no point in having Rupee Wraiths in singleplayer, but at least they got a small appearance. In multiplayer I would use them to double the amount of Rupees I lose by recollecting them during Rupee Fever. That way a Ruppe Wraith actually turned out to be useful. However, there is no Rupee Fever in singleplayer and you can't use this technique. So, it's good that they didn't make the Rupee Wraiths stop you.

And Rupee Shards are definitely too rare. In most cases I couldn't get a full set. They should have made sure, that you get a number that is divisible by four in a stage setup. Or at least four shards per stage. It's stupid that you can only find three Rupee Shards during one stage, even if you turn every stone and cut every single straw of grass. I sometimes have the feeling that they replaced the Rupee Shards with fairies. There are so many fairies hidden in singleplayer (at least in the normal stages, in the Hero's Trial you're lucky if you find a single heart), it's excessive and absolutely unneeded. There were never so many faires, when we played the multiplayer on the GBA. But there were lots of Rupee Shards hidden under grass and rocks.

There's also a nice easter egg. When you replay one of the three key stages, the Great Fairy at the end will be replaced with a Great Fairy from Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask in all her glory. I don't think this was the case in the GBA version and although I actually prefer the Great Fairy design of Four Swords and The Minish Cap, it's nice to see that something from the N64 Zeldas made it into the Anniversary game.

So, that's about it. Another Zelda game completed 100%. Only Ocarina of Time 3D missing. And Skyward Sword. I had a lot of fun and trouble with this game and I will definitely return to it regularily to replay some levels. It's perfect to satisfy a small Zelda hunger. Expect a detailed review of the Four Swords Anniversary Edition soon here on Hyrule Blog! Unlike other sites I only review a game after fully beating it. Some sites didn't even know about the Hero's Trial...

Four Swords Anniversary Edition, Round 4: End of Hero's Trial

Yeaaahhhhh! I did it! I've beaten the Hero's Trial!! I can't tell how relieved I am that this is over. This was the toughest and most enduring challenge in the entire Zelda series yet. Forget the Great Palace or the Cave of Ordeals. If you want a real challenge, play the Hero's Trial.

Well, my playthrough of door 3 took a very similar course to my playthrough of door 2. I somehow got through the first two floors and saved 2000 Rupees. Then I had to retry the final floor about four times until I finally did it. If you know the traps, you can prepare yourself and take many precautions in this floor, which makes things easier. The final room with dozen Eyegores was really fun. They were easy to beat, just gang them up and then switch between both Links. They dropped many Rupees, which really helped in the final fights, lots of Darknuts and Ball & Chain Troopers. Best way to deal with this is equipping both Links with Bombs when you enter this room. After you've defeated the Eyegores pick up the bombs again and start blasting. It's your best weapon in this situation. I'm actually surprised that they didn't also add some Wizzrobes to screw you up even harder. But I guess that even for the Hero's Trial this would have been too cheap.

Right before the goal there was another switch, but I already expected that this one will trigger fairies like in floor 1-3. And that was really nice, though I had enough Rupees left to survive even more terror. While I slashed myself through the faires I said to myself "I did it!" multiple times. Ahhh, this felt so good.

Now all that's left is the Hero's Keys. But this should be a breeze compared to the Hero's Trial and very relaxing. The Hurricane Spin Attack is lots of fun to use, it might happen that I will replay even some parts of the Hero's Trial using this.

Four Swords Anniversary Edition, Round 3: Hero's Rising

Zelda II is officially not the toughest challenge anymore, which the Zelda series has to offer. The Hero's Trial in Four Swords AE is the new king of the hill. But it shouldn't be proud, because all it does is abusing the game's mechanics to create cheap death traps. It's cheap, it's cruel, it's relentless and it's never ending (or at least feels like it at the moment). And it's our own fault. Zelda fans kept whining over the years how easy the new games were. And this is Nintendo's answer. "You want some challenge? How about this?"

All I played today for hours was the Hero's Trial. I've finally beaten the second door only to get my ass kicked again behind the third door. Well, you have to see what's coming and prepare yourself, if you get surprised all the time it doesn't help. Though the level of surprise gets lower. You know it won't stop until they at least spawned some Ball & Chain soldiers. It's actually surprising if not all hell breaks lose after stepping on a big switch.

I was really looking forward to the Hero's Trial, because I expected something like the Hero's Cave in the Oracle games. Some really good puzzles that can keep you trying and thinking for hours, some stuff where you have to show your skills and some badass fights. It should challenge you, but it also should be fun. The Hero's Trial, however, is just torture. I'm torturing myself with every second I spent in this dungeon. It's very repetitive, all you basically do is step on switches and expect to get swarmed by countless tough enemies. There's some platforming between the fights, but nothing exciting. The puzzles are no-brainers, if there are any. It's all about the aweful enemy combinations in the worst possible places.

Well, my second attempt on the second door went quite well until floor 3, the sky palace one. I died a couple of times during the first two floors, but I also collected 3000 Rupees. Door 3 then really tested my patience, I had to repeat it like five or six times until I finally got to beat it. Luckily there's the new Retry function that let's you reset a floor. Otherwise I probably would have gone crazy already. What gave me huge trouble were dozens of skeletons throwing bones at you while you navigate platforms and try not to get thrown into the pits by air currents and to dodge Spiny Beetles. At the end of the stage naturally they had to spawn two Ball & Chain Troopers and several Fire Wizzrobes on a small platform over the air. Everything else would have been ridiculous. Interestingly there seems to be a swarm of fairies like in the credits at the end of each door. Imagine that you get killed at the end, because one of the these faires pushed you into the abyss. I would have gone so mad...

Door 3 takes place at ... surprise, surprise... Death Mountain. The first floor focuses more on platforming, which was a nice diversity. And the second floor is actually the first non-linear dungeon design that Grezzo offered so far. There's a large room with a lot of fumaroles and locked doors. There spawns a key in the center each time after completing a section. It's not the most innovative non-linear design, but it's better than everything the new stages offered so far. Well, I was careless, died a lot and Ball & Chain soldiers killed me at the end. I will try again tomorrow and hopefully close this insane chapter of Zelda.

But I've heard that the Hurricane Spin Attack makes the Hero's Trial very easy. Just keep spamming the Hurricane Attack. Well, it was basically the same in The Minish Cap. Nothing could stop you after you got the Great Spin Attack. The Dungeon Simulator minigame also played with insane enemy combinations, but the Great Spin Attack made everything easy. So, I'm looking forward to abuse the Hurricane while replaying parts of the Hero's Trial. All those Darknuts, Ball & Chain Soldiers, Gibdos and Wizzrobes are going to get their asses kicked! Look forward to my revenge, game.



I also replayed the A Link to the Past level in the Realm of Memories. It's not as fun as the Link's Awakening stage though. If I had to rank them, I would say Link's Awakening is the best, A Link to the Past second and the NES Zelda stage third. This one I haven't even replayed yet.

Four Swords Anniversary Edition, Round 2: Hero's Hell

By now I've beaten the game on gold level. Getting the Golden Keys without Rupee Fever went surprisingly smooth. I had to farm some Rupees killing Rupee Likes and Fire Wizzrobes, but it wasn't that bad. And I don't worry too much about the Hero's Keys. It will take it's time, but it's manageable. It would be a lot more fun with Rupee Fever, but I can't help it right now. Unless Nintendo hears the voices (I'm not the only one complaining) and releases a small patch, there's no other way.

It also seems that Rupee Shards got rarer. This makes sense, because normally you would have to share the Rupee Shards with others. If there are four Rupee Shards and player 1 got three, but player 2 got one, you don't get anything. One player must assemble four shards, it's even a "common" multiplayer strategy to leave the shards to the player, who needs them the most, if you find them under bushes for example. Since there are no other players, it would be probably too easy, if there are too many shards. But Grezzo made them a little too rare. I only managed to complete a golden Rupee once so far... however, while Grezzo made it generally harder to collect Rupees, the lowest time bonus is now actually 50 Rupees. You always get 50 Rupees at the end of a floor. In the GBA version if you took too long, you would only get 2 Rupees, one per player.

Vaati's fight was very different from last time. He didn't use the Patra form, but the arm form and the volleyball form. It's the first time that I managed to beat Vaati using the volleyball form, in multiplayer we never could do it. That's how smooth the singleplayer works. I got really good at using two Links.

And there's a reason for that. Called the Hero's Trial. Or how I call it, the "Hero's Hell". I was always asking for some more challenge in Zelda games, because for a Zelda veteran the last games were a mere routine. However, you should always be careful with your wishes, because what Grezzo delivered here might be over the top. Even as someone, who likes playing Zelda II - a game that gives other Zelda fans nightmares -, I'm right now quite frustrated by this stuff.

Well, let's start with the basics. I was expecting some new settings and visuals, but there aren't any. It uses the graphics and everything from the original four stages. However, it now looks all gloomy. The forest stage looks wintery, but there's no snow, it's just that they added a different color tone to everything. The ice in the ice cave looks black for example. I guess the looks were inspired by the Silent Realm from Skyward Sword, the visiuals are quite similar. And considering that this game was made within three or four months, expecting all new graphics might have been too much. Well, the first door offers two floors in the forest and one in Vaati's Palace. And the second door offered two floors inside the ice cave... I haven't reach floor 2-3 yet, so I can't tell how it looks like. But I'm guessing the third floors always take place in the sky dungeon.



The first time I played the Hero's Trial it kicked my ass. It's main feature are mass enemy fights. Something you didn't get in the original stages, because the GameBoy Advance only could handle so many enemies at the same time. But the enemy combinations can be aweful and your biggest enemy is collision damage. I already complained about the enormous collision damage while playing the GBA version, if an enemy corners you, it's a safe death. There is litte invulnerability time and the enemies like to ran into you. That got me killed multiple times in the first door. The room, where four Darknuts spawn at once then gave me the rest, I managed to beat them, but I lost all Rupees during the process. Then the whole floor went crazy, respawning flying floor tiles everywhere, all hell was loose. That killed me in the end. The problem with the mass enemy fights is that you're all alone. Normally there would be three other Links helping you out, Four Swords Adventures style, but here you can only fight using a single Link. And you have to be very careful.

Well, the new singleplayer offers a nice tactic for being cornered, namely switching between both Links strategically. Let one Link rest in a corner (he can't be hit while he waits) and as soon as you get yourself trapped, switch to the other Link and attack from behind. You basically use one Link as bait and the inactive Link as your safety anchor. After I learned how to do this, the first door went down quite smoothly. But of course this was only hell's warmup...

Welcome to the Frozen Hell behind the second door! Navigating on ice floors in Four Swords is aweful, in no other Zelda game walking on ice floors feels so terrible. And this level abuses this big time. It adds Moblin archers to screw you hard while you try to walk on the ice... but the worst part are the enemy combinations. Ice Wizzrobes and Ball&Chain Soldiers for example. The Ice Wizzrobes freeze you and the Ball&Chainers give you the rest while you can't move. Not fun. And as soon as you die it's one giant downward spiral. You lose all your powerups, so it already gets much harder. And with each death you have to pay more. Before you know it, you lose 500 Rupees per death, which gets you a Game Over easily. And naturally there aren't too many Rupees in the Hero's Trial stage. Or health. In the normal stages you can find more fairies then you can count. Now a fairy is a rare sight in the Hero's Hell, if you're lucky you'll find a single heart inside a treasure chest...

Well, with four players the Hero's Trial probably would be easier. Because dealing with so many enemies at once using only one fighter is really hard. An alternative would be the Hurricane Spin Attack, using it could be very helpful inside the Hero's Trial. Unfortunately you have to beat the Hero's Trial to get the Hurricane Spin Attack! That's another Circus Leader's Mask. Remember that one from Majora's Mask? It's only use was to stop the Gorman Brothers from attacking the carriage. However, to get the Circus Leader's Mask you have to defend the carriage first. It feels similar, because you don't really need the Hurricane Spin Attack in the other stages. Maybe I'll replay the first door using the Hurricane Spin Attack, if I manage to beat the Hero's Trial. But right now I don't feel like replaying any of it.

While I think it's great to get some challenges and evil fights, the main problem is the length of the floors. They are massive and they go on forever. And Grezzo's level design is aweful, they are all very linear and all you do is running from one big switch, that rains enemies down on you, to the next. You get sick of this easily. And I hate the mere thought of having to go through any of this again. Luckily there's the new Retry function, which lets you reset a floor in case you've screwed up, however, both times I completely lost motivation to go on and didn't bother... I was looking forward to some challenge, but I wanted it to be fun. Not frustrating and demotivating.

However, there's a nice easter egg at the end of the first floor of door 1. They made a large 25 out of bushes on an island in the water. As in 25th Anniversary. I've heard that there are other 25s hidden, but I have yet to see one.

I also replayed the Link's Awakening level just for fun today. I just love how they made it, there's lots of cool stuff. For example where you would fight Moldorm in the Tail Cave, it spawns a Mini Moldorm. I thought that was funny, but it definitely fits.

Well, I hope that I can somehow beat the Hero's Trial. I've heard, that there are some hidden shortcuts, which make the floors easier. That would be totally awesome. But right now I'm taking a vacation in Ocarina's 3D Hyrule, it's very relaxing to play Ocarina of Time 3D after burning inside the Hero's Hell.

Four Swords Anniversary Edition, Round 1: No Rupee Fever and Realm of Memories

The irony of buying a Nintendo 3DS to play a 2D game is quite big, but Four Swords is the game I was playing this evening. And I managed to beat Vaati once, as well as the entire Realm of Memories stage. Took me a couple of hours and that was not even half of the game. I'm very happy that I've beaten the GameBoy Advance version just recently, because now I can compare both versions in detail.

Well, it took me only one minute to notice that there was something very wrong with the new singleplayer mode. There's no Rupee Fever! For those, who never played Four Swords before and don't know what Rupee Fever is, in multiplayer when all players have full health a nice catchy music theme starts and all Rupees are worth twice as much as normally. This is Rupee Fever. Do not take Rupee Fever lightly, Rupee Fever is the one and only method to get Hero's Keys. To get a Hero's Key you need to collect 5000 Rupees in one stage. But there are no 5000 Rupees in a stage, no matter what. 3000 might be possible, but only if you're lucky. The only way to score 5000 Rupees is a permanent Rupee Fever. This leads to completely different tactics. For example you don't cut any bushes until it is necessary to look for hearts and fairies (or when the floor is wiped). Or never open a treasure chest unless you have full health. It was very challenging to get all the Hero's Keys in the original game, but with these tactics we made it.

I don't know how I am supposed to get all Hero's Keys without Rupee Fever. It seems the only way to farm enough Rupees is defeating the respawning enemies again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again until you got enough Rupees. But that takes forever and is boooooooring. This is not some stupid RPG, this is Zelda! And Rupee Fever was such a nice tactic. I do not understand Grezzo's decision to remove Rupee Fever from the singleplayer mode and I do not support it. Luckily this is a downloadable game and they can patch it. So, pretty please add Rupee Fever to the singleplayer mode!

What I also noticed are the changes in the sound effects. They changed a lot of sounds like for example the Roc's Cape or when you move a block. If you want to know, how the original game sounded like, play The Minish Cap, because pretty much all sound effects carried over from Four Swords. So, the new sound effects feel weird and it's not like the new sound effects are better than the old ones. Because they aren't.

But there's also good stuff. Remember that I wanted them to include the Rock Breaker, because lifting up all rocks and pots takes forever? Well, you still have to pick up rocks, but you can now smash pots with your sword. That's really cool and saves some time.

The singleplayer works well so far, as far as I can tell you play the same old two player mode all by yourself. However, they had to dumb some parts of the game down to make it work. Most noticeable is the expanded time window for all sorts of switches, like those pull levers or the eye switches. Normally this stuff has to be done all at the same time, but now you have a huge time window. You don't even have to switch between the two Links to do it fast enough, you just keep activating the switches with one Link. I don't know, this feels quite strange and kind of lame. And the Bulbuls (those red enemies with a huge green ball belly) got a lot easier in singleplayer, it's basically the same as with the levers, you have much more time for the repeated strikes. But okay... Four Swords was never meant to support a singleplayer mode, it's only natural that some stuff had to be simplified. It's not the only thing that makes the singleplayer feel inferior to the multiplayer. You're not competing who gets the most Rupees, which always was part of the fun. The fact that you're not competing for Rupees makes the game feel a little bit like Ancient Stone Tablets. There you also collect tons and tons of Rupees for no real reason.

Well, in Vaati's palace I haven't encountered a single pothole trap. Usually there are many potholes under the bushes and you have to be very careful while cutting grass. However, there wasn't a single hole anywhere. It might be that this is only the case in the easier difficulty level, the holes might return after I got the Golden Keys... We'll see. Also, Vaati used his Patra form more often than usual. I don't mind, because I like this form, but it was kind of strange. In the GBA version he mostly used the arms.

And they changed the credits. The credits are a lot longer now and different stuff happens. Now at the beginning Rupees appear on the platform, but some of them are Rupee Likes. Then the fairy part from the original game starts, however, at the end multiple treasure chests appear now.



So, after all this the Realm of Memories stage got unlocked. Naturally I had to play this one next. And boy was that fun! It felt good to finally get something new after all the replaying, which I've done this year. And the retro levels are great. Spoilers ahead! Do not read, if you don't want to know what the retro levels have to offer!

Well, each level gets two overworld settings and a dungeon, the first dungeon of each games to be accurate. A Link to Past got outside and inside Hyrule Castle and the Lost Woods. Link's Awakening has the Mysterious Woods and Goponga swamp as one floor, the Tail Cave and the Tal Tal Heights. And finally The Legend of Zelda gets some one floor around the big lake, one at the graveyard and a replica of Level 1.

The A Link to the Past level was pretty basic. It's kind of like the game would have looked like, if Capcom had been too lazy to make their own engine. Interestingly there were many areas, where lots of treasure chests would spawn. Now this really, really reminded me of Ancient Stone Tablets. The stage ends where you got the Master Sword in A Link to the Past, which fits very will. Because after all this stage unlocks the "Master Sword". Well, you only get the Sword Beam, I don't know why they called it "Master Sword", but whatever...

The Link's Awakening stage is my favorite one. This definitely brought back many memories, the GameBoy visual style is very impressive. And the details are great, for example they added the rare Chain Chomp item to the Goponga Swamp. Originally in Link's Awakening you had to take Bow Wow for walkies at the swamp to open Level 2. And the replica of the Tail Cave was amazing. I wondered what the final floor could be and it took me only one second to realize that the goal would be on top of Mt. Tamaranch at the Windfish Egg! Very nice! And the mountain music theme is still the best! Love it.

The The Legend of Zelda level then got more crazy and intense. Lots of Moblin fights and the graveyard with all the spring floor tiles was quite tricky. Visually not as good as Link's Awakening, but still very cool. Though I have to say that this was my least favorite one out of the three stages.

But overall the Realm of Memories stage is awesome, awesome, awesome! Great idea, nice way to celebrate the Anniversary, lots of cool and crazy stuff. The name is absolutely fitting, because this stage brings back a lot of memories.

So, by now I collected about 27,000 Rupees. Which means the Hero's Trial isn't far, I'm really looking forward to it, I have no clue what to expect except for the room with the many Stalfos. I've heard, that alternatively you can also unlock the Hero's Trial by collecting five Medals of Courage. That sounds fair and this is a good solution. That way the medals still have some value, but you can also unlock everything in singleplayer.

More tomorrow.

Beaten Vaati's Palace Alone

So, I was just playing around with Four Swords to check out some more templates. You can play this game alone by controlling two GameBoy Advance systems simultaneously. Usually I just carry the other player around with me and switch between both systems. Some stuff is quite tricky to do, for example those enemies that have to be pulled from both sides. For those I have to press the R button of the GBA system in my left hand by pushing the system against my left leg, lol... I already managed to beat both Talus Cave and Death Mountain that way (only the easiest form of Hot Head though) and just now I blasted through Vaati's Palace using the Silver Keys.

Fighting Vaati alone actually wasn't all that difficult. The form where you have to play volleyball is pretty much impossible to handle (we never even did that one in real coop), but luckily he switches forms often and you only need to do the damage on one form. And there's one where he turns into a creature similar to Patra, where eyeball creatures fly around him. You only need to hit these into him to deal some damage, which can easily be done alone. But I also managed to score some hits during his arm form by pre-placing the second player in the right spot. Though this was much more difficult to do...

Anyway, this got me yet another medal of courage. That's my 17th one.

If Manhandla wasn't such a bitch you could beat the entire game alone on the easiest difficulty level. But for most people, who only play for story or who are satisfied by seeing the credits once, that would be already enough...

Talking about credits, this game has one of the most fun credit sequences ever. All players are on a platform in the sky and fairies fly by. If you hit the fairies with your sword they drop Rupees depending on their own color and you can hit the other players into the abyss. Those Rupees count for the results at the end, so you're still competing during the credits and this can be fun. However, you don't pay much attention to the actual credits, lol.

I also experienced a cool new set-up for Talus Cave with a lot of small rooms, where you can blast the walls on all sides. This reminded me of Ancient Stone Tablets, which could have very similar structures and where you also collect tons of Rupees. But it's amazing to see that the game has still new templates to offer after all this playing time.

Four Swords, Final Round

This is it. I've fully beaten Four Swords today together with Den. We got the last Hero's Key from Death Mountain and blasted through all 12 floors of Vaati's Super Palace. After eight years I've finally got a perfectly finished save file on my GBA cartridge. If you've beaten the most difficult version of Vaati's Palace a golden Four Sword appears between Link and the Medals of Courage on your save file.

Death Mountain was a pain, we resetted the stage about four times until we finally got a set-up that wasn't brutally hazardous and which offered a lot of Rupees. Especially those annoying fire monsters that always come from the lava could easily break your Rupee Fever, so we avoided levels with those. But in the end we managed to collect more than 6000 Rupees to receive the red Hero's Key. The fairy then warns you that Vaati's Palace will have 12 floors of madness instead of the usual three.

But during playing Death Mountain we really noticed that the biggest strength of Four Swords is also its biggest weakness. The random level design. It's a double edged sword. It really adds to the replay value and it will take you many play sessions to experience all possible layouts. I probably haven't seen all of it yet and I will continue to check out the dungeons. However, in some set-ups it is very hard if not impossible to meet the 5000 Rupees requirement for the Hero's Keys. Even with Rupee Fever. So, all you can do is try again after a failed attempt, which can be frustrating, or to reset the stage until you finally get a set-up which looks promising, like we did. Luckily this is not a problem in the final dungeon, Vaati's Palace

In the final version of Vaati's Palace every third floor featured one of the game's four bosses, their order seemed to be chosen randomly except for Vaati of course, who always appears on the 12th floor. But you battle all four bosses again in this stage and the length of this dungeon is equal to playing all four normal dungeons in a row. The other floors with no bosses on them got random settings and layouts, anything could happen. I usually enjoy the forest stages the most. But after the trouble of Death Mountain, where we really struggled to get enough Rupees, Vaati's Palace felt like a relief. There's no Rupee Limit at the end here, you only collect Rupees to revive fallen players. We didn't die a single time, so we basically didn't have to collect a single Rupee. But we are so drilled to collect Rupees by now, that we still got more than 27000 Rupees at the end, which is a tremendous amount.

Overall I have to say that Four Swords is an amazing little game. You have to consider that this was just a bonus, something tacked to an already established main game, A Link to the Past. Normally a game like this would use the main game's engine, you would expect the looks and sounds of A Link to the Past. However, Capcom made their own artstyle - a 2D version of The Wind Waker's artstyle -, sprites, new items, enemies and music all for this little bonus game. Of course all of it would be later reused for The Minish Cap, but at that time this was a remarkable effort. (Ironically Four Swords Adventures then would just copy everything from A Link to the Past, lol. You would it expect to be the other way around.)

And overall I would say that this is the best multiplayer experience of Zelda there is. It got this exciting mix of cooperating and competing, because you really want to be the one who gets all the Rupees, Four Swords Adventures doesn't have that, it doesn't really matter who collects the most Force Gems. And Four Swords sometimes even encourages the competition with special set-ups. The multiplayer puzzles are far more clever, everything in Four Swords Adventures can be solved using the single player formations, which doesn't allow more complex challenges, where a good player coordination is required. And collecting enough Rupees is far more challenging than collecting the 2000 Force Gems in each level. The only thing that's missing are the really awesome mass fights from FSA, where you hack yourself through dozens of enemies. The GameBoy Advance isn't capable of that. But overall I'd say that Four Swords is a much more clever multiplayer game than Four Swords Adventures.

But this comes with a price. While the multiplayer is more interesting, there's no singleplayer mode. Let's say they add the controls and formations of Four Swords Adventures to the port, then it would be still impossible to play the game because of certain obstacles like enemies that have to be pulled from two sides. You really need at least a second player to join. And because of this you can't play and enjoy this game whenever you want. But I really enjoyed the randomisation of the levels and the idea of collecting a lot of Rupees as a goal. And I wish I could play this game in singleplayer...

Well, this is a historic day in my life as a Zelda fan. It's not only that I finally managed to conquer this game after eight years, but from now on I can finally claim that I've completely beaten all Zelda games for 100%. Oh, wait, I still can't do that, because I haven't played Ocarina of Time 3D yet, but Four Swords was always the one big obstacle in my way to an 100% completion of the entire series and now this is gone. (I somehow hope that they don't change anything in the DSiWare vesion save for the necessary separation from A Link to the Past, because otherwise I would have to face the same obstacle again. :D Or at least add a singleplayer...) Thousands of thanks to my buddies Den and Rob for making my dream come true. It wouldn't have been possible without the two of you. (I doubt they'll ever read this blog, but I leave my thanks just in case.)

Four Swords, Round 5

Another round of Four Swords with Rob, we tried to get Hero's Keys both in the Sea of Trees and Death Mountain. Sea of Trees went smoothly except for the annoying Manhandla boss, however, collecting 5000 Rupees in Death Mountain seems to be a very challenging task. Even with Rupee Fever this is already getting very close, but there's stuff that can hurt you everywhere to disrupt your Rupee Fever. Lava pits, hot steam and fire all over the place. And instead of grass you have to cut fire, which can also hurt you. It's really important that you stay patient and DO NOT open any treasure chests without Rupee Fever. Rob did so in some occasions and I'd say otherwise we could have made it, we had about 3800 Rupees at the end... considering that we already struggled to get the 3000 Rupees last time in Death Mountain this is quite good. To make things worse the game spawned Red Rupee Likes all the time. If there's no second player near you, they will cost you a lot of Rupees.

However, this is the last time, where we will ever have to collect enough Rupees again. In Vaati's Palace you only collect Rupees to pay for deaths, which is relaxing, since you don't die that often anymore. So, only Death Mountain stays in the way of my fully finished Four Swords file.

In the Sea of Trees right after the goal on the 2nd floor we had a second closed door. However, we couldn't find a second key anywhere. Maybe we've overlooked something, but we really looked in every corner. Or we were supposed to take a second key from the previous floor, but I'm not sure if you can do that and we also cleared all of the 1st floor. Or maybe it was a bug in the dungeon generating... but since we already had 5000 Rupees at that point, we didn't really bother.

And today was my first encounter with Darknuts in this game! They look differently from The Minish Cap, but they use the same movements. I didn't even have the chance to defeat them, though I was using my mega cool Hurricane Spin Attack, which always worked wonders on Darknuts in The Minish Cap. But they vanished before I could kill them. There are mostly no pre-placed enemies in this game like you would normally have in a Zelda game, but here the game randomly spawns enemies in the area near you. But they also vanish after a short time to avoid that there are too many enemies at once.

Four Swords, Round 4

It's time to fully beat this beast. It's getting harder to convince my friends to join me in a game of Four Swords and I even have to play the "you're doing me a favor with this"-card by now, but the goal is getting closer. And as soon as I've beaten Vaati in the highest level, I will be done with this game. Probably forever, unless I'll get to know some dedicated Zelda fan in the future, who also enjoys playing this. But I'm primarily doing this right now to get the "I've beaten and 100%ed all Zelda games" bragging rights and after that I will be satisfied. And I have to say that the fact, that I can't play this game whenever I want, that I'm dependent on a 2nd player, really annoys me. Zelda is after all a singleplayer game. But otherwise playing Four Swords wouldn't be such a big deal for me and I would have beaten the game already eight years ago.

Well, today I only played one dungeon together with Rob. The dungeon was Talus Cave and this was our first Hero's Key. Getting the 5000 Rupees went surprisingly well, even though we screwed the first level up. There were multiple locked doors and only one key and I used the key on the door, that would immediatly lead you to the goal. That way we skipped a part of the level, where more Rupees would have been waiting. But we were focusing on having Rupee Fever all the time and that way we gathered enough before the boss. What really helped was diving, on the second level there was water and in Four Swords usually every water block got one Rupee. That's not much, but if you got an entire lake and dive through every spot you can gather a good amount of Rupees, especially if Rupee Fever is on.

The boss in Talus Cave, the Delu Zoll, interestingly used a new technique this time. It made itself invisible to one player and only the other one could see it. Later it would make itself invisible to all players and you could only guess where the boss was by the dust it was whirling up.

So, only one dungeon today and only one key. But that's still one step closer to a 100% completion of Four Swords and every single step counts. Until next time.