World of Hylia - Zelda RPG Concept

This is an idea, which I had early on while playing through Breath of the Wild... Essentially all Nintendo would have to do is take the world of Breath of the Wild and use it for more of a RPG-like gaming experience. The key aspect here is that you would create your own character in one of the following races:

• Hylian
• Sheikah
• Zora
• Goron
• Rito
• Gerudo

While Link is the all-rounder, who can do it all, here each race has specific traits. Sheikah would be good at stealth, but they are weaker in general. Zora can swim fast and swim up waterfalls, but they are weak to electricity. Gorons can roll around using stamina and swim through lava, but they can't swim through normal waters. They can also swing two-handed weapons at ease, while they can't use bows or smaller weapons. Rito can fly around using their stamina and they are good archers. Gerudo are good fighters in general and show better heat resistance, but are weak to the cold. And the Hylians are simply the default characters with no specific perks or disadvantages.

The player would go through a typical character creator in the beginning of the game, where he can also define the gender and the looks of the character to his liking. And depending on the tribe, he or she will start in a different location of the world map. Then you take on quests, try to improve your character or do whatever you do in a RPG like this.

The world would be the same as in Breath of the Wild, but the RPG would take place either ~100 years before or after the game. This way Nintendo could recycle the game world of Breath of the Wild, where the players would already be familiar with the environments, while at the same time it could explore new things. Hyrule Castle and Hyrule Castle Town could be there in full glory with a real population, instead of being some decayed ruins full of Guardians. Nintendo could also extend the world at some of the borders, where you currently just run into invisible walls.


Multiplayer?

Now, there's the question, whether this should become a singleplayer experience or a multiplayer (MMORPG) experience, where you play together with other people all over the internet. This could be even a potential direction, where multiplayer Zelda is headed.

Minidungeons could appear all over the world similar to the Sheikah Shrines, where for each a certain number of people is required or at least recommended. This could work similar to the pedestals in Tri Force Heroes, where everyone has to step into the "Triforce" to enter the next area.

Only problem with multiplayer would be the new fighting mechanic of Breath of the Wild with its slow motion parts. This would be really hard to get right in multiplayer. Hyrule Warriors partially has the same issue with Special Attacks during coop, where the other player can essentially walk around the frozen enemies and look at the attack at different angles. It could work similarly in a multiplayer game based on Breath of the Wild, at least for melee combat and flurry rushes. The mid-air archery is what makes things complicated. You can't just freeze the game for everyone in your proximity, while you do this.

Another issue would be inventory management, where you can spent quite some time within Breath of the Wild's menus. Even switching weaponry over the D-Pad shortcuts can take its time. Here the game normally pauses, which also wouldn't be possible in a multiplayer experience. So, if Nintendo ever wanted to try this, there are certainly some technical hurdles to take.

Zelda and Multiplayer: Spirit Tracks

The history of Zelda's multiplayer is a history of failure. By now six games in the series already tried to implement a multiplayer mode, but still the Zelda series isn't known for its multiplayer experience. Let's take a closer look, how multiplayer was incorporated into Zelda and what went wrong.

Final part:
Spirit Tracks

Phantom Hourglass finally managed to offer a multiplayer with the right approach, a small battle mode that can be played online as an addition to a main singleplayer adventure. My biggest complain about the multiplayer in Phantom Hourglass, however, was that it wasn't symmetrical, that it's too complicated for beginners and not much fun overall. Something like Shadow Battles from Four Swords Adventures, a "Deathmatch" Zelda mode, would have been better. And that's exactly, what the Nintendo DS Zelda team probably thought, too. So, the new battle mode has four Links battling against each other. A dream!

Well, it's the only multiplayer mode in a Zelda game, which I haven't tested so far, so I can't tell much about it. But from all the materials I have seen, it looks great. You can play with up to three more players and everyone plays with Link, so everyone is in the same sitatuon. The four Links have the colors from the Four Swords games, but they don't have swords or other weapons. Your goal is to collect Force Gems and the player with the most Force Gems at the end wins. But you aren't slowly carrying them into bases like in Phantom Hourglass, you're collecting them more like rupees. It's similar to the Coin Battle modes from various other Nintendo multiplayer games. There are no weapons allowed, but there are various traps and hazards all over the different themed arenas. Phantoms are chasing you, there are Phantom Eyes, you can use trap doors and throw bomb flowers and there are power ups to collect. It's chaos, but the kind of chaos, that can be tons of fun.

Sounds good, doesn't it? It probably could have been more fun, if the players had swords and could use other items from the main game, but I can't really judge and tell, because I wasn't able to play it yet. And here's the problem. For some unimagineable reason they decided to cut out the online mode this time. You can only play it locally with Multi Card or Download Play modes. It's Four Swords all over again! It's useless and a huge backstep from the last game. None of my friends has a Nintendo DS, not to talk about the pure interest in playing Zelda. So, how am I going to play this, Nintendo? And I'm not the only one with this problem, just check some Zelda fan boards out there. Also, Phantom Hourglass worked online, so why not this game? They were SO close of giving us the first flawless and playable Zelda multiplayer mode, but they had to screw it up again. This is not awesome and there's no excuse, why removed the online mode, except for them being lazy.

About the other criteria, I'm not sure if the game rewards you with rare treasures for winning. But there don't seem to be any "Big Plays" like in Phantom Hourglass. And there's always the trading via Contact Mode as a motivation. But I'd say, the multiplayer mode looks fun enough, so you probably don't need any motivation to lure you into playing it. And since I can't play it anyway, I at least can't complain, that I'm missing out any rewards.

Update: After I actually was able to try it myself, the mode wasn't much fun after all, where I can even understand that they didn't bother with adding online functionality. You have to worry more about the Phantoms than the other players, where something like the Shadow Battles certainly offers more fun.


Summary

This was the last part of my "Zelda and Multiplayer" article series. In conclusion you can say, that there were six different games and six different approaches for a multiplayer mode in Zelda. But none of them is perfect, the biggest overall problem is the connectivity and finding other players, only one game so far managed to offer an online mode. And the concepts ended up being too big or too complicated. They tried to make standalone multiplayer Zelda games, but they ended up being unaccessable. They tried to make small battle modes, but they were either not fun enough or didn't support online play. But one thing, which Nintendo always did right, was learning from their past approaches. They are learning very slowly and they even tack backsteps, but they are learning. And my hopes for the future are, that they will be finished with learning at some point and then magically be able to give us the right multiplayer experience in one of the upcoming Zelda games.

Zelda and Multiplayer: Phantom Hourglass

The history of Zelda's multiplayer is a history of failure. By now six games in the series already tried to implement a multiplayer mode, but still the Zelda series isn't known for its multiplayer experience. Let's take a closer look, how multiplayer was incorporated into Zelda and what went wrong.

Fifth part:
Phantom Hourglass

What did we learn so far? First of all, that a Zelda multiplayer mode should come as an addition to a solid Zelda singleplayer game and not as a separate game. We probably don't even need some full blown large scale multiplayer Zelda, a small but fun battle mode could do the job as well. There should be some rewards for playing the multiplayer mode as a motivation, but on the other hand players don't want to miss out something in the singleplayer in case they can't play the multiplayer. And most important, make sure that they can play the multiplayer, an online mode is a necessity for something like Four Swords, because it's hard to find other players in your neighborhood.

And all of that is exactly what the team, which made Four Swords Adventures, thought when they were making Phantom Hourglass. Instead of making simply another Four Swords title for the Nintendo DS, they focused on a new singleplayer adventure. But they added a small Battle Mode as an addition, where you even could win four of the rare golden ship parts for the main game. But you also could get those on your own, in case you weren't able to play the multiplayer. That's perfect, there's motivation, but you don't miss out anything like a secret dungeon just in case. And even the best, the game is playable online and you can battle with other Zelda fans all around the world. A dream!

So, how did they screw it up? The problem is not the overall setup, the problem is, that the multiplayer mode itself isn't too much fun. It's entirely based on the new stealth concepts from Temple of the Ocean King, a dungeon which got mixed reactions from the fan base. I personally thought, that the stealth sections in the game were a nice challenge, but it's not like it's so much fun, that I would want a multiplayer mode based on it.

Well, how does it work? There are only two players in this mode, one is red and one is blue. One player controls three Phantoms by drawing paths on the map and the second player controls a Link, who wears either red or blue and who doesn't have a sword or any other weapons. The players take turns as soon as Link gets hit or the time for the round runs out. Your goal as Link is to collect Force Gems and carry them to your base. There's one base for both players on the map, a red and a blue one, and you can even steal Force Gems from the other base. It's basically a mix between Capture the Flag and Pacman. There are also items like the Pegasus Boots, that make both Link and Phantoms walk faster. It's very strategic and it's not easy to get into it. You have to know the maps like the back of your hand to win a match. The Phantoms has to be placed in strategic positions in order to catch Link. As Link you do, what you've done most of the time in the Temple of the Ocean King, the problem just is, that you can't see the Phantoms all the time, you only see them if you're carrying Force Gems.



The mode isn't too appealing, because it puts the players in different positions. A good multiplayer is always symmetrical. Chess wouldn't be so popular, if one player only has pawns and the second player gets three queens. Which is exactly like the multiplayer of Phantom Hourglass feels like most of the time, one player attacks and one player is always on the run. It's also too strategic, like I said, as a beginner this mode can be a huge turn off. For example one time I couldn't find anyone with my rank, so I had to play vs. anyone and I of course ran into some very experienced player, who "pwnd" me hard. It was humiliating and I stopped playing (against anyone) right after it. Normally Nintendo manages to create a multiplayer like Super Smash Bros. Brawl or Mario Kart Wii, where you can even have a lot of fun as a beginner and where it's fun to play, even if you lose. But not here.

The bright side is, that this mode is playable online. It's the only Zelda multiplayer game so far, that supports online. There are some minor problems with it, sometimes it lags a little bit and some players like to disconnect, when they lose. But there's some sort of punishment for disconnecting often and you always have the option to play against friends, where this shouldn't be a problem at all. So, overall these aren't reasons, why you should remove the online mode from the next game. Next to online, Phantom Hourglass also supports local multiplayer and even Download Play, where you only need one card to play the game. So, it covers all possible multiplayer options for the Nintendo DS.

There's also some kind of an achievements system as a motivation to play the Battle Mode. These achievements are called "Big Plays" and include several tasks like not to dribble the Force Gems or to have a flawless victory. There are 16 of them and each time you collect four of them, you receive one more golden ship part from Eddo's apprentice in the Adventure Mode. Funny thing is, that a lot of people help each other out to get those Big Plays and the golden ship parts. It's cheap, but it somehow brings Zelda fans all over the world together and this is wonderful. And even if you can't play the multiplayer mode, you can still get the golden ship parts somewhere else, so you don't miss out anything unlike in A Link to the Past - Four Swords. As an addition, you also can trade treasures and ship parts online and offline with the help of the Contact Mode in order to complete your collection much faster.

So, overall Nintendo took with Phantom Hourglass some big steps in the right direction. It's a small battle mode as an addition to a new singleplayer adventure. There are rewards for the singleplayer in form of rare items and you can play it online. But the problem is, that the mode itself isn't symmetrical and too complicated for beginners. Something similar to Shadow Battles from Four Swords Adventures would have probably been more appealing.

Last part: Spirit Tracks

Zelda and Multiplayer: Link's Crossbow Training

The history of Zelda's multiplayer is a history of failure. By now six games in the series already tried to implement a multiplayer mode, but still the Zelda series isn't known for its multiplayer experience. Let's take a closer look, how multiplayer was incorporated into Zelda and what went wrong.

Fourth part:
Link's Crossbow Training



Before talking about the Battle Modes of the Nintendo DS installments, we should take a small look at Link's Crossbow Training, a spin-off title to the Zelda series. After Twilight Princess the Zelda team experimented a lot with the first person perspective and even made a first person demo of Twilight Princess. What later came out of it was Link's Crossbow Training, which was bundled with the Wii Zapper and was supposed to be an introduction this piece of plastic. Much like WiiPlay came bundled with a second Wiimote. It's similar to games like Duck Hunt with the big difference, that it uses most of the environments and enemies from Twilight Princess and really looks good that way. It's surprisingly entertaining and fun, but only lasts for two or three hours and that only if you go for all platinum medals.

But it could have lasted much longer with an appropriate multiplayer mode. There is a multiplayer mode, where players take turns and compete for the highscore. But that's boring, because it's not much fun waiting for the other player(s). It's okay, if you only have one Wiimote, but otherwise it would have been much more fun, if the players could play simultaneously. Much like in the Shooting Gallery in WiiPlay. It would be much more chaotic, of course, but that's the point. Trying to break other players' streaks by shooting targets before they do and so on. It probably would only work with two players, because it would get too much with three or four, but that's still better than just playing alternately. This and a couple more levels (like Forest Temple, Goron Mines and Lakebed Temple) would have worked wonders on this game. It probably could have been a Wii title, which I would play regulary with my friends.

Well, Aonuma said recently, that he wanted to make a "Link's Crossbow Training 2/Plus", that does exactly that. But Nintendo ordered him to focus on Zelda Wii right now and considering, that they want to release the game this year, that's the right thing to do. They can still make a better Crossbow Training in 2011. And to be totally honest, they should have already done a real multiplayer mode in the original and there's no excuse, why they didn't.

Zelda and Multiplayer: Four Swords Adventures

The history of Zelda's multiplayer is a history of failure. By now six games in the series already tried to implement a multiplayer mode, but still the Zelda series isn't known for its multiplayer experience. Let's take a closer look, how multiplayer was incorporated into Zelda and what went wrong.

Third part:
Four Swords Adventures

After the release of Four Swords a small part of the Zelda team was assigned to create something similar for the GameCube, while they were focusing on the possibilities of the GameCube to GameBoy Advance connection. Two Zelda games were announced on E3 2003 then, a new Four Swords (Hyrulian Adventure) and Tetra's Trackers, which were later bundled into one game called Four Swords Plus together with a third game mode called Shadow Battle. Sadly enough, Tetra's Trackers (or Navi Trackers) was only part of the Japanese version and didn't make it into the version released on the Western market, called Four Swords Adventures. But I've already posted an article about this topic a couple of months ago (here).

There are two big differences between Four Swords Adventures and the original Four Swords, the game doesn't come with a solid singleplayer game, but the Hyrulian Adventure mode is on the other hand entirely playable alone. You can control all four Links all by yourself and you don't need a second player to experience all of this game except for some minigames hosted by Tingle and the Shadow Battle mode. This is a big advantage over Four Swords. But alltogether it feels more or less like a "Party Zelda", since there's no real singleplayer Zelda experience.

There's no real singleplayer Zelda experience, because the game is divided into levels and stages much like a Mario game. The only thing you carry over from one stage to another is your number of collected Force Fairies, which are equal to the lives in a Mario game. There are 24 stages alltogether, which is six times more than Four Swords had, but the stages are all static and unlike in Four Swords not randomly generated. Also, there are no difficulty levels. So, while there are much more stages, the replay value of the game is much lower. It sort of balances it out.

But an advantage of the division into different stages is, that Four Swords Adventures offers Zelda gaming for in between. You can't just simply pick any of the other Zelda games up and play a dungeon. You are either playing the full game from beginning to end or not. But if you want to play a little round of Zelda in between times, this game is the best choice. Just pick a level and play through a dungeon or some forest. You can't do that in any other Zelda. Well, at least not yet. If they really include a scene mode in future Zelda games, where you can replay any parts as to your liking, you don't really need levels.

The gameplay is pretty much equal to Four Swords except for one crucial difference. There's no competition between the players. In Four Swords everyone wants to be first place, because everyone wants to get a Medal of Courage for A Link to the Past. But here it's not like you're getting new items for The Wind Waker, there's no real reason to want to be first place except for pure competition between the players theirselves. But it changes the gameplay and the way you play the game a lot, because you don't go on your own much and you don't fight fiercely for Force Gems or other items. Well, there are still the Heart Containers and Blue Bracelets, which are worth fighting for, but it's not as much. That you can solve the game alone by controlling all four Links at once also restricted the game a lot in puzzle and enemy design. There basically can't be any puzzles, where two Links do something asynchronous at the same time like pulling an enemy apart or using those nice little handcars going on tracks. And most of the time the Links just stay together, there's not much alone time.

The best thing about Four Swords Adventures is probably, that it uses nice updated 2D graphics from A Link to the Past. Overall the game is full of references to the SNES Zelda and it even somehow tells its backstory, the Imprisoning War. Well, the ending doesn't fit, because Ganon wasn't banned into the Dark Realm, but the theory that he later was banned with the help of the Four Sword was backed up by the Four Swords version of A Link to the Past on the GameBoy Advance, where the broken and cursed Four Sword resides inside the Pyramid. But this article isn't about timeline theories, let's just say, that fans of A Link to the Past will like this game a lot.



What I also liked was the small battle mode, Shadow Battles. It's basically Zelda Deathmatch, but with Last Man Standing rules. The last player alive wins. You can use your sword, all items from the game and even traps to kick the other players asses and it's a lot of fun. I would say, if you want to do a Zelda multiplayer, this is the best way. Zelda fans prefer to play the game alone anyway, so don't waste time with making some big standalone Zelda multiplayer games and just add something fun like this to the main games. (Which is basically, what they tried to do in the Nintendo DS Zelda games.)

The main problem with Four Swords Adventures is pretty much the same again, the connectivity. To play this game with two or more players, you need one GameBoy Advance and one GameCube to GameBoy Advance connection cable for each player. Seriously, how? The GameBoy Advance connection maybe was an interesting idea on the paper, but this game really jumped the shark. And I'm thankful, that this whole handheld to console connection thing is over and that Nintendo doesn't use the Nintendo DS for every second Wii game. The only bright side is, that you don't need any other players to play this game and that you don't even need a GameBoy Advance then. And this is how most Zelda fans experienced the game. Which shows, that there was absolutely no need for Nintendo to make this game. An A Link to the Past classic Zelda game with the addition of the Shadow Battle mode probably would have been much more successful than this "Party Zelda" mix. (Also, if you really have to make a Party Zelda mix, be sure to include all game modes and not to cut something like Navi Trackers out.)

But I doubt, Nintendo will ever do anything similar again. The game was a failure, the sales numbers speak for themselves, it only sold 250.000 units worldwide, which is underselling for a Zelda game. It's the only Zelda game, which didn't break the million. As a comparison Link's Crossbow Training sold 2.75 million copies, which is more than ten times more. Four Swords at least sold 1.81 million copies, but most of them probably because of A Link to the Past.

The Four Swords games are the worst selling and least played Zelda games in the series. Both of them were released ahead of their time and suffer from a heavy connectivity problem, on the Nintendo DS and Wii and their online capabilities they probably would have been more successful. But maybe the approach of making a standalone multiplayer Zelda game was wrong to begin with. A multiplayer mode as an addition to a fine and solid singleplayer Zelda is okay, but something like Four Swords just won't sell well. Zelda is all about the singleplayer.

Next game: Link's Crossbow Training

Zelda and Multiplayer: Four Swords

The history of Zelda's multiplayer is a history of failure. By now six games in the series already tried to implement a multiplayer mode, but still the Zelda series isn't known for its multiplayer experience. Let's take a closer look, how multiplayer was incorporated into Zelda and what went wrong.

Second Part:
A Link to the Past - Four Swords

This was the first real multiplayer game in the series and gameplay-wise it's still the best. After creating the interesting twin games for the GameBoy Color, Capcom experimented more and created the first Zelda multiplayer game. They called it Four Swords and it came as an addition to an edited version of A Link to the Past, re-released on the GameBoy Advance. Two games on one cartridge, which is just fair, after they basically split up one game on two cartridges with Oracles.

Both games interact with each other, so your achievements in one game may influence the other. Sword techniques learned in A Link to the Past can be used in Four Swords and if you beat both final bosses, Ganon and Vaati, the new secret dungeon opens in A Link to the Past, the Palace of the Four Sword, which is host to some of the most difficult boss fights in the entire series. (Well, you can enter this dungeon by using some glitches, but officially you can't without playing Four Swords.) Also, collecting ten Medals of Courage in Four Swords allows you to participate in the new Riddle Quest, where you can learn the Great Spin Attack. So, most of the new features in A Link to the Past aren't accessible without playing Four Swords. Which means there's a reason, a proper motivation, to do so. This can be important. See, most Zelda fans want to get everything in their Zelda games, find every little secret there is. So, they're motivated to play the multiplayer and to earn ten medals on their way. But the disadvantage of course is, that when they simply can't play the multiplayer for whatever reason, they miss out even more than just the multiplayer. And this makes Zelda fans pissed.



Four Swords is divided into four levels not counting the tutorial one, a forest area, fire caves, ice caves and a sky temple. The interesting thing here is, that the levels are randomized. There are certain pre-built parts, but how they are mixed up together is different all the time. So, every time you play the same level, you will get a different expierence. Also, the game offers three different difficulty levels with the help of the keys, that are gotten from the fairies at the end of the dungeons for collecting a certain amount of rupees. To enter Vaati's Palace you need the three silver keys from the dungeons. If all players already have the silver key from a certain dungeon and play this dungeon again, the difficulty increases and they have to collect more rupees, but they will get a golden key at the end. Repeat this again for the Hero's Keys. If you have golden keys or Hero's Keys from all the dungeons, you can choose to enter Vaati's Palace for harder versions, too. The random level creation and the difficulty levels really add something to the replay value of the game, even though there are just four levels. And replay value is very important for a multiplayer game.

The gameplay is overall that of a normal 2D Zelda game, so as a Zelda fan you will instantly feel at home. The main difference is, that you only keep one item next to your sword and that there are other players around. What makes this game so unique, is a mix between co-operation and competition. This is where the medals come in. To win a Medal of Courage, you must be the player, who has collected the most rupees at the end of the level. So, every player wants to be first place, which leads to some fierce fighting for treasure chests and alike. Throwing other players into pits just because you want to get to the rupees before them? A normal situation in this game. On the other hand you have to cooperate in order to solve puzzles, beat enemies and bosses and so on. This can get really interesting. If you played the Coin Battle Mode in New Super Mario Bros. Wii, you pretty much already know, how crazy this type of multiplayer gameplay can be. You also get quite some freedom as a individual player. A level is divided into two or more "floors", but on a floor you can basically go wherever you want and try to find hidden treasures on your own. Of course there are points, where you need the other players to progress, but there's always some free roaming. Additionally there are different upgrades to find for a player like Heart Containers and seeds. The seeds are inspired by the Oracle games, can be found under grass, bushes, rocks and alike and include the Razor Seeds, the Armor Seeds and the Pegasus Seeds, which increase your sword power, defense and speed. Of course you want to get them, before any of the other players does.



The game features the graphics and sounds from The Minish Cap, so it feels and looks very familiar. However, it's more the other way around, The Minish Cap was based on this one. After this game was released, there was a lot of fan demand for a real new Zelda singleplayer game on the GameBoy Advance, so Capcom decided to create a singleplayer game based on what they had with Four Swords. They basically took all of the graphics, as well as most of the enemy sprites and items and made a solid singleplayer Zelda game out of it. The innovative Gnat Hat item turned into the main item and idea of the game, the Minish Cap. (But as a side note, the Gnat Hat in Four Swords is basically more powerful, since you can shrink and grow back to normal everywhere and not just on portals.) But overall The Minish Cap is just Four Swords turned into a singleplayer game. Which is okay, because otherwise it would have been a waste of beautiful graphics and nice ideas.

So, classic 2D Zelda gameplay, unlockables for A Link to the Past, random level generation, difficulty levels, backstabbing and co-operation mix, The Minish Cap style? Sounds really good, doesn't it? But there's one big problem. How many Zelda fans out there were actually able to play this game once? I thought so, not very much. How many were able to finish it or even get ten or more Medals of Courage and all the Hero's Keys? Even less. Four Swords is probably the least played and least known game in the Zelda series. For me personally it's the only Zelda game, I couldn't finish, I only had the chance to play it once. The problem is, that in order to play this game you need at least a second GameBoy Advance, a second copy of the game, a GameBoy Advance Link Cable and a second player, who is actually interested in playing this too. The last requirement is probably the most troublesome. See, I have two GBAs and I even bought a second copy of the game on ebay, which is enough to test the game a little, but not enough to really play it. You need a Zelda fan, who wants as badly to finish the game as you do. And that's not so easy to find. Zelda forums are so popular for a reason, if I knew Zelda fans personally, I wouldn't spent so much time talking about Zelda on the internet and writing this blog. None of my friends are interested in Zelda and I'm already happy, that I could get them to play Mario Kart and Wii Sports. But Zelda? Not a chance. And since the GameBoy Advance doesn't support online, there's no way to play it. The game was basically released a couple of years too early, on the Nintendo DS it wouldn't have been a problem thanks to online gaming. The only solution at this time would have been to make this game playable alone. The levels were generated randomly and they adapt themselves to the number of players, so they basically could have added one player versions, though many of the puzzles and enemies then couldn't be used anymore. Still better than nothing. But overall I don't know, what they were thinking, when they made this game. Zelda always has been a singleplayer game and the only reason, why this sold, was because it came bundled with A Link to the Past.

Overall Four Swords is a picture of a Zelda multiplayer game, but the requirement of a second player, who also wants to play this game, made it unplayable for most Zelda fans out there including myself. It's worthless.

Next part: Four Swords Adventures

Zelda and Multiplayer: Tingle Tuner

The history of Zelda's multiplayer is a history of failure. By now six games in the series already tried to implement a multiplayer mode, but still the Zelda series isn't known for its multiplayer experience. Let's take a closer look, how multiplayer was incorporated into Zelda and what went wrong.

I decided to split this article up into smaller parts, one part for each game.

First Part:
The Wind Waker

The first attempt for some multiplayer gameplay in the Zelda series was offered by The Wind Waker. The game doesn't have a real multiplayer mode, but a co-operative mode in form of the Tingle Tuner, which uses the GBA connection. The thought behind this was, that you often hear about people watching someone else playing Zelda. Nintendo wanted to give those the opportunity to step in the game and have some "fun" too. This idea has been later used for the "Co-Star Mode" in Super Mario Galaxy, where a second player can also use a Star Pointer. But overall the second player is taking the back seat, while the first player gets the real fun. In case of the Tingle Tuner it might even better, if the second person just keeps watching instead of using this thing. Because the only thing you can really do with it is annoying the person playing the game by constantly pressing A to call him or blowing him up with bombs, which even costs him rupees. But luckily you don't need a second player to operate the Tingle Tuner, you can easily use it by yourself. Also, the implementation of this feature was quite cheap. The graphics on the GameBoy Advance are mediocre and the Tingle Tuner deals with lots of invisible stuff in the environment, which you can't sea in the game. You only see the results, you need the Tuner to unlock Knuckle and the five Tingle Statues from the dungeons.



Well, you can definitely say that is not the way to include multiplayer into a Zelda game. The second player doesn't want to play the second fiddle, the execution of this feature was pretty cheap and more or less it's just a gimmick to advertise their great GameCube GameBoy Advance Cable. What we want, is a real multiplayer mode.

Next game: Four Swords.