Daily Debate: Which Zelda Game Did Multiplayer Best?

I guess it could be argued that, to some extent, Zelda has never truly been a solitary experience. I’ve read that ‘80s kids on playgrounds used to talk about their discoveries in the original The Legend of Zelda, swapping stories and hints about every secret they’d uncovered.

Nintendo home consoles had long been equipped with multiple controller ports for couch co-op, but it wasn’t until the Game Boy Advance remake of A Link to the Past came out that we got our first true Zelda multiplayer experience with Four Swords, a bonus game included on the cartridge. You could finally play Zelda with your siblings, friends, or anyone – provided you each had a Game Boy Advance, a copy of the game, and the necessary Game Boy Advance Game Link Cable(s), that is.

That was in late 2002 or early 2003, depending on where you were at the time. Multiplayer Zelda titles have popped up occasionally since, but they have never been a big focus for Nintendo. With such a small number of games, it should be easy to pick a definitive “Best Multiplayer Zelda,” right? Well, let’s try!

Here are our main contenders (with relevant links to the titles on the Zelda Dungeon Wiki for those who might need a refresher), in order of release:

• Four Swords, the game that came with that handheld Link to the Past cartridge. It could only be played in-person with one or three other players, each needing a copy of the game and a system for it. It was short – you could easily beat it in a single sitting – and dealt with Link and his duplicates finding Great Fairies and resealing the Wind Mage Vaati with the Four Sword, rescuing Zelda in the process.
• Four Swords Adventures was a more substantial game than its predecessor. It came out in 2004 in Japan and North America (2005 in Europe and Australia), and it featured two game modes (three in Japan!): Hyrulean Adventure (the main game, with stages, dungeons, and a showdown with Ganon) and Shadow Battle (a player vs. player mode where you fought to be the last Link standing). Multiplayer (any combination of two to four players) necessitated Game Boy Advances connected to a GameCube via Nintendo GameCube Game Boy Advance Link Cables. Overworld action took place on the TV, while interior gameplay followed each player to their own Game Boy Advance screen.
• Four Swords Anniversary Edition was a free DSiWare game available from September 2011 to February 2012 to celebrate Zelda’s 25th Anniversary (it had a four-day North American re-release on the 3DS in 2014). This was an upgraded version of the first game, featuring single-player, and two additional game modes: Realm of Memories (which let you visit the worlds of The Legend of Zelda, A Link to the Past, and Link’s Awakening) and Hero’s Trial (a more challenging version of the game’s campaign). Perhaps the biggest upgrade here was the ability to play the game over the DS’ Wireless Communication instead of Link Cables (there was no online play).
• Tri Force Heroes, released in 2015, did feature online play, but only with exactly three people total. Here, you used icons to communicate with your fellow adventurers instead of voice chat (officially – you could absolutely chat with your friends through non-Nintendo means). You could also play via local wireless with two people and offline by yourself. The game took place in Hytopia, where Link was charged with defeating Lady Maud of the Drablands. The game reused A Link Between Worlds’ assets, and it featured outfits that granted Link different abilities, as well as the Totem formation, where Links could stack on top of each other to defeat enemies and solve puzzles. It also had a battle mode via the Coliseum.

That does it for our main contenders, but let’s cruise through a handful (not all!) of the competition’s dark horses:

• In The Wind Waker, a second player could hop into the game via the Tingle Tuner (a Game Boy Advance connected by a Nintendo GameCube Game Boy Advance Link Cable) to help advise the first player on what to do and where to go (and waste all of Link’s Rupees by dropping bombs…. or was that just my experience with it?).
• Phantom Hourglass featured Battle Mode, where players took turns as Link as he attempted to grab Force Gems and as Guardians who try to stop the hero. This could be played via local wireless or Nintendo WiFi Connection (with strangers, even!).
• Hyrule Warriors (I’m only hitting the original one here) let one player control a character on the Wii U’s GamePad while a second could play on the TV. This definitely made a lot of the game’s time-based objectives easier to handle.
• Cadence of Hyrule: Crypt of the NecroDancer Featuring The Legend of Zelda is a top-down, rhythm-based game with an overworld, dungeons, and roguelike elements. You could turn off the rhythm-based movement if you preferred.

Now, let’s return of the question at hand: Which Zelda game did multiplayer best?

My answer’s Four Swords Adventures. I’ve had so much fun playing the co-op campaign and Shadow Battle with friends over the years. The barrier to entry was relatively low at the time – most of my friends through college had Game Boy Advances, and we were always able to scrounge up enough Nintendo GameCube Game Boy Advance Link Cables for our needs. The story was fun and fighting Ganon is a blast in any Zelda, not to mention that couch co-op adds a hefty dose of in-person chaos to the hectic pace of the game.

What do you think? Do you agree with me, or would you pick something else? Is your favorite multiplayer Zelda not mentioned above? Be sure to sound off in the comments below!

John Lortie

John’s been a Zelda fan since he was seven years old (which was a good few decades ago). He loves the last three months of the year, analog media, his family, and Tolkien. His favorite Zelda game is Breath of the Wild and his favorite game is Night in the Woods.