Retro Replay Review

Gameplay

The strongest reason to care about this edition is the contrast between its two halves. A Link to the Past gives you a full solo Zelda adventure, while Four Swords breaks the formula into a multiplayer race to save Zelda. That pairing makes the cartridge feel more substantial than a simple reissue: you can settle in alone for the main quest, then bring friends in for a much louder kind of Zelda session.

Four Swords quickly makes its priorities clear. Two to four Links work through a training area, three main stages, and eventually Vaati’s palace, solving puzzles and fighting enemies while vacuuming up Rupees. Cooperation is necessary, but the Rupee tally turns every useful action into a tiny contest. You want the group to succeed, yet you also want to finish the level with the biggest pile of money and claim the prize. That tension is the mode’s best idea.

The downside is that the team economy can turn a rough run into a frustrating one. Every death costs Rupees, and repeated deaths steadily eat into the pool needed to revive fallen Links. Run out, and the game ends. It is an effective way to make careless play matter, though it can sting when one teammate repeatedly puts the whole group in danger. Go in with people willing to communicate and laugh at the blame game; with an impatient group, the competition can overpower the cooperation.

Its structure is also deliberately compact. There are only a handful of levels, with Vaati’s palace locked until the group has earned enough Rupees, so this is not a sprawling co-op campaign. The brevity works in its favor when you want a focused session with a clear target, but it also means the multiplayer component lands more as a sharp bonus than the package’s main event.

Graphics

The game uses a 2D, diagonal-down view that keeps the action centered on Link and the surrounding paths, rooms, enemies, and puzzle spaces. Four Swords gains a simple visual advantage from putting several colored versions of Link on screen: in a busy group, you can immediately see who is where and who is racing toward the next Rupee.

Story

Four Swords opens on a clean piece of Hyrule legend. Vaati was sealed inside the Four Sword by a past hero, a shrine was built to guard it, and Zelda fears the old threat has returned. It is familiar Zelda material, but it gets to the point quickly.

Vaati’s capture of Zelda gives Link an immediate rescue mission, and pulling the Four Sword from its pedestal creates the four Links needed for the multiplayer premise. That is a neat, direct bridge between the story and the game’s co-op structure rather than an excuse tacked on after the fact.

Don’t expect the plot to be the reason you gather a group. The story mainly supplies a villain, a destination in Vaati’s sky palace, and a reason for the adventure to keep moving. It does that job cleanly, while the real drama comes from whether your friends can stop competing long enough to finish the stage.

Overall Experience

This is an easy package to recommend if you want both a major single-player Zelda adventure and a distinct multiplayer extra in one place. The two games do not compete for the same mood. One is for a longer, personal journey; the other is for a table full of people talking over each other as Rupees vanish and somebody insists they were robbed of a level prize.

Four Swords is the part that determines whether this edition becomes a favorite or merely a solid port. Its combination of shared goals, personal Rupee totals, death penalties, and end-of-stage rewards creates exactly the kind of friendly hostility that makes local multiplayer memorable. A good group will find that push and pull hilarious. A group that dislikes score-chasing or resents being punished for another person’s mistakes may tire of it quickly.

Still, the multiplayer mode does not need to carry the whole release on its own. It adds a concise, replayable co-op counterpoint to A Link to the Past, and that makes the collection feel unusually complete. If you have friends ready for two-to-four-player Zelda, it is worth making time for; if you are playing alone, the main adventure remains the clear draw.

Retro Replay Score

8/10