The Review Zone       by Tina Velgos

The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures

Buddy up with up to three of your pals to play this awesome Zelda adventure! Help the four Links unite to free Hyrule from evil darkness! Two gamer's thumbs up for this one from The Review Zone.com!
    
Nintendo of America
MSRP: $49.99
2004
Nintendo Game Boy Advance
ages 10 and up

by Tim Velgos,
Lead Games Tester,
The Review Zone.com

Are you tired of missing your favorite TV shows? Or, are you sick of your older sister taking your things when you’re not around, and saying that someone else did? I suggest that you play The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventure. It creates four of you, so YOU can be anywhere, at anytime!

Four Swords Adventures (FSA) is a anticipated expansion of the Four Swords half of Link To The Past.

This story has a new twist! There is a shadow version of Link! When Link removes the seal to The Four Sword in order to save Princess Zelda, he releases Vaati, the evil Wind Sorcerer. But in this game, Vaati isn’t the true enemy. Ganon has made another return, taking the place as "Evil Master", or "Big Bad Guy" Or whatever you want to call him. If you play FSA in One Player mode, you have a choice from playing it with a NinendoGame Cube controller, or a Nintendo Game Boy Advance (GBA) with a GBA-GCN connector link!

There are formations, if you control all links. There are the Line formation, the Side formation, and the Box formation (with two links in front, two in back). Finally, my own favorite, the Cross formation. I like the cross formation, because it is a diamond shape, and if you charge your swords with B, it hits everything near your circular area! If you want to play this game with friends, then you all need to have 1 GBA per person, and 1 GBA-GCN link.

Now, if your friends are the types who HATE the storyline (for whatever reason!) and just want to bash someone’s skull in, I suggest the Shadow Battle link mode. In Shadow Battle, you get to use items, pull traps and lay bombs all to defeat your friends. There are five stages, and if you do something, you can unlock five more stages as well! But youll find out what you have to do by yourself, as I don’t want to give away too much info You’ve gotta play the game yourself!

Questions are always being asked about "Can I have friends play if one of them use a controller", or "Do I need a GBA to play this game????" So after reading this, you don’t have to look like a fool if someone asks you a question like that. By the way, if you and all your friends use GBA's (which they have to) ,they can look onto the GameBoy’s screen whenever they enter buildings, caves, or the dark world. The Dark World is a mirror image of the regular world.You can access the Dark World by using a Moon Pearl on certain areas. The linked play system lets you use your GBA as both a controller and a private game screen. Awesome!

I love the sound in this game! It makes you think that someone actually did slash a sword, light a bomb, or light a fire! The graphics in this game are remarkable! It is in a cartoon'ish sort of scenario, but it is fun to view the intricate details woven in!. I truly enjoyed this game, and Nintendo deserves a big GAMER’S TWO THUMBS UP on this one!!

Editor’s Note: This game is rated E for Everyone, although it does contain mild fantasy violence. This rating is consistent with the ESRB Content Rating System. I would suggest this game for kids ages 10 and older.