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The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures follows in the footsteps of the multiplayer game included on the Game Boy Advance release of A Link to the Past. Using GBAs as controllers, up to four players can work together to advance through a series of twenty-four dungeons spread across eight locations.

The quest begins on a dark night, when Zelda and six other maidens fear that the seal of the Four Sword which binds the wind sorcerer Vaati may be fading. They open a door to the shrine where the Four Sword is kept, and a dark shadow of Link leaps out and captures them. Seeing no other alternative, Link draws the Four Sword, splitting him in four and releasing the seal on Vaati. He must now venture throughout Hyrule to rescue the maidens, defeat Vaati, and learn the secret behind the endless number of Shadow Links wreaking havoc throughout the land.

Gameplay is a unique blend of competition and cooperation. You have to work together to solve puzzles, and defeat bosses. While you all may need to stand on a switch or push a block, you’ll also be pushing each other out of the way to get the spot closest to the door that’s about to open. You’re constantly fighting to get heart containers, special items, and force gems, which are scattered throughout each level by the thousands. (Force gems are similar to rupees, but when your group finds 2000 of them, the Four Sword powers-up and gives you the classic sword beam technique and Wind Waker’s dizzying new version of the spin attack.) At the end of each level, the game tallies up the enemies defeated, gems, hearts, number of deaths, and even votes from other players to declare one person the ultimate winner.

In what may be its last major role, the Game Boy Advance connection is integral to the sense of freedom and competition in the title. The action shifts between both the TV and GBA screens. You’ll advance together as a group on the GameCube, but whenever one of you enters a house or cave or falls down a hole, you’ll leave the GameCube screen and show up on the GBA. It starts out as simply jumping into a house to nab treasure before someone else, but by the end of the game you’ll be navigating complex mazes and entering separate rooms to open the way farther into the dungeon.

What’s brilliant about Four Swords is that the game seamlessly adapts to the number of players you have. You can play one level alone, the next level with two players, and the next level with a full four – all on the same save file. Not only that, but the dungeon designs actually change in spots based on the number of players you have. One room that requires players to enter from different sides and trade off the same special item is entirely replaced with a different puzzle in single player.

While the game does hold up well with fewer players, the excitement level still clearly drops when you don’t have a full group. In two-player mode, you each control two Links, but it has far less of a competitive spirit, and you may find yourself offering treasures to your partner rather than trying to nab them all for yourself.

Single-player puts you control of your own personal group of four Links, which you can put into various formations or select and move independently. It feels largely like any other Zelda game, but since you can only hold one item at a time, you’ll spend much of your time backtracking to switch items.

The game takes place throughout eight sections of Hyrule ranging from Lake Hylia, Death Mountain, The Lost Woods, and the desert, with three levels in each area. While fairly linear in nature, there is a huge amount of variety. Many stages will have you traversing a variety of dungeons. Some take place in villages where you’ll need to solve the villagers’ problems or round up gangs of thieves. There are towers featuring the side-scrolling perspective from Link’s Awakening, and even a stealth level – which isn’t easy with three of you trying to sneak past the searchlights, and the fourth getting the whole lot of you thrown in the dungeon because he just can’t resist breaking the pots.

In many of the stages you’ll also encounter groups of Shadow Links wreaking havoc in a variety of ways. Sometimes you simply have to defeat them. Sometimes one will disguise himself as one of you. Sometimes one will drop an enormous bomb that kills everyone on the screen unless they’ve found refuge in the GBA -- forcing you to find the next hole or cave quickly. And other times, they’ll just annoy you by bouncing around just out of sword’s reach.

All of the boss battles are top notch, despite the fact that many of the boss characters are reused from previous games. Coordinating with your teammates often makes things more difficult since you’ll need to link your attacks or bounce an energy ball from one person to the next. Some of the battles make use of the GBA connection, having you do one thing on the GameCube screen, while someone else is waiting to strike when the boss gets knocked into the GBA. The final few bosses are especially tough, creative, and satisfying.

In addition to the main quest, Four Swords Adventures also sports a healthy number of mini-games. From the start, you’ll have access to Shadow Battle, which basically amounts to a Zelda death-match wherein the last man standing wins. There are five Shadow Battle stages with their own specialty traps. Much of the hilarity and energy in Shadow Battle comes from some the unique attacks. You can throw a roulette ball that releases all sorts of items. There are Bombchu triplets that bounce across the stage. You can gain invincibility and run over your foes by hopping on Epona, and then there’s the Homing Chicken that steals a heart from your rival and brings it back to you.

Shadow Battle’s not all though. As you journey through each of the main areas, you’ll be invited to Tingle’s Towers, unlocking a total of eight more mini-games. You’ll race horses, play tag, whack “moles”, face dozens of enemies at a time, and play a game of tennis with a very large woman wanting to lose weight. There’s even a bonus dungeon filled to the brim with baddies. The mini-games aren’t that straightforward though. Even if you lose the main game, there’s a chance to make up for it by collecting more gems, and Tingle will reward or penalize players based on special criteria.

There are only a few low points in Four Swords; the main one being the amount of things reused. The SNES graphics mixed with the special GameCube effects is cool at first, but after a while, the contrast just starts to show how blurry most of the sprites really are. It would have been great if Nintendo could have created crisp new art assets, keeping the SNES game’s flavor, but showcasing the GameCube’s power with a gorgeous 2D Zelda game. In like manner, none of the music is really new, and some of the songs are painfully overused. These shortcomings may not seem all that significant, but they contribute to the nagging sense that the game is just a remix and not a true addition to the series.

On the control front, most things are clear and simple, but the R and A buttons having multiple functions mapped to them can create minor headaches. The R button is used to both make quick rolls and to pick up items. As a result, someone inevitably tries to scurry across the room and picks up someone else by mistake, causing shouts of “Put me down!” and “Sorry! Sorry!” The A button doubles as the item button and Action button, which works fine unless you have the fire rod and somehow manage to burn yourself trying to open a treasure chest. While you’re running around with your pants on fire, someone else will surely open the chest for you…

Another problem somewhat related to the controls involves the GC-GBA Link Cable. If the cable is disconnected or the GBA gets shut off by mistake, the game will automatically reset within a few seconds. If you’re quick, you can catch it. If you’re not, you’ll need to restart the level even if you had already defeated the boss and started talking to the princess (as happened once to me).

Despite these shortcomings, The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures shouldn’t be overlooked. Multiplayer adds an entirely different dimension to the Zelda series. It’s creative and challenging, and easy for players to jump into at any point without getting lost. If you’ve been waiting for a new 2D Zelda, a Zelda game with plenty of dungeons, or just a Zelda that you can play together with your girlfriend, pick up Four Swords without a second thought.