By the time A Link to the Past & Four Swords was released on the Game Boy Advance, my schoolyard was already dominated by Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, and I was a bonafide link cable veteran. My crew of friends was the perfect audience for a multiplayer Zelda, and we played the heck out of this. Combined with the high from playing A Link to the Past for the first time, it's no wonder I have so many great memories of Four Swords.
Four Swords was developed by Capcom, who was then in the early stages of creating The Minish Cap, something that's easy to see from the similar visual styles. It was then ported to the DSiWare shop by Grezzo a decade later. This port was only available for two brief windows: first to celebrate the series' 25-year anniversary, and then a few years later to celebrate the release of A Link Between Worlds (Side note--this seems to be an original incarnation of the timed digital release nonsense that they would repeat with Super Mario 3D All-Stars and the localization of the original Fire Emblem game). The thing that's super important about this port is that it added a single-player option, making it playable again now that it's very unlikely to have friends with spare GBAs and link cables around.
This 2011 port was also the last time I played through Four Swords, and I remember how my rose-colored glasses got shattered by it. Playing Four Swords on your lonesome feels a bit like visiting a playground by yourself. Sure, you have the swings and slides all to yourself, but it all feels a bit lifeless and unexciting. Heck, you can't even play on the seesaw. Four Sword's rather basic levels just don't stand on their own without the fun of being with a friend. And even the multiplayer aspect of the game feels a bit obsolete thanks to the existence of the much more fleshed out Four Swords Adventures.
That said, it's admirable just how playable Four Sword's single player feels. You control two Links, and can switch between them or summon the other Link to your current location at the tap of a button. Back when Tri Force Heroes came out, I bemoaned that the single player didn't feel nearly as playable as it does in Four Swords Anniversary Edition. That makes revisiting the game pretty painless, even if it's a bit dull. There is no exploration in this game, and you simply play through four levels, each of which is split into two dungeon sections and one boss fight. Puzzles and fights are all pretty basic, as the main draw of this game was that players would compete to collect the most rupees. There are many hazards in each stage that can drain your rupees, such as Like Likes and Rupee Wraiths, and dying also drains from your rupee count. All of these mechanics lose their meaning when playing on your own.
The problem with Four Swords is that it was retroactively designated as a "mainline" "canon" Zelda title, when I don't think it was ever intended to be much more than a side mode and an experiment. In that sense, Four Swords is a nice curiosity, but not much more. I do hope that someday Nintendo adds it to its recently announced Game Boy Advance Switch app so that it can easily be played with friends once more. For the purposes of my marathon, though, this is a thankfully brief game, letting me move on to another important game featuring a cartoony Link.
