I loved the idea of Four Swords on GBA, but I barely know anyone around me who owns a GBA, and I couldn’t have convinced them to buy a game just so we can play it together. Now there’s a Four Swords for GameCube (hopefully they’ll come up with a more distinctive name), and although it does require a GBA for each player, at least not everyone has to buy a copy of the game. So I see the console version as having a less restrictive barrier to entry, though it’s still pretty high.

At least this game actually makes the GBA requirement seem worth it. Having your own private screen is absolutely integral to the gameplay, and it adds a lot of strategy that you just couldn’t get otherwise. The idea of the game is to work together with the other players to advance through the level, which tends to be made up of several large areas inspired by Link to the Past. However, even while you must cooperate in order to keep going, you’re always in competition with the other players. You will be fighting over rupees, power-ups, even the chance to kill enemies. At the end of each level, the game tallies up a point total for each player to decide the winner. You get points for rupees collected, enemies slain, staying alive, and other factors.

And wow, there are a ton of rupees. In addition to the various colors (green, blue, red, gold, purple, etc.), there are giant versions of each color. The jumbo rupees give you ten times the normal amount, if memory serves me right. Rupees are often hidden in bushes, trees, pots, or treasure chests, but sometimes completing a certain task will incite a “Rupee Orgy” or whatever the game calls it. The rupees literally start raining all over the screen, and it becomes a mad dash to get the most valuable ones and then clean up with all the smaller denominations.

The graphics are nothing that will blow your head off, but there are some nifty special effects overlaid onto the very simple LttP characters and environments. It makes sense for the game to keep this simple graphic style though, because that way there’s no major shift in quality or style when the display moves to your GBA. Any time you enter an enclosed area, whether it be a house or a cave or anything else, your Link disappears from the television display and moves onto your GBA. The game still plays exactly the same on the small screen, but of course, the key is that the other players can no longer see what you’re doing. They have no idea if you find a secret rupee stash, and they won’t be able to react if you follow a tunnel that pops you out on the other side of the TV screen. As you might expect, the level design makes very good use of this feature, and it’s almost always to your advantage to find caves and houses before the other characters, so you can clean out the goodies before anyone else knows your location.

I’m not sure how often I’ll be able to play it with friends, and I have no idea how Nintendo plans to sell or market this game, but it has a place reserved in my collection. Even playing against strangers at E3, The Four Swords for GameCube was a blast, and it does a much better job of using the GBA as a controller than Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles or even Miyamoto’s Pac-Man. Who would have thought that multiplayer Zelda can work so well? At this point, I’m ready to see what Nintendo (and Capcom) can do with a 3D multiplayer Zelda.