Tri Force Heroes
This was a game I was never enthusiastic for. It seemed like little more than a filler title brought to us to fill in the gap of the increasingly-delayed Breath of the Wild. Quite honestly I was hoping they'd ditch the "Legend of Zelda" moniker and market it as a spinoff, otherwise it would be little more than the cheapest canon title since the original Four Swords. I was similarly also hoping its quality would be more akin to the sequel, Four Swords Adventures, instead, but I was regardless unimpressed by another multiplayer Zelda title, nor its rather wacky atmosphere and fashion-obsessed kingdom.
To my disappointment, it was announced as a canon main series title. I took only a little solace in the fact that it would be more similar to Four Swords Adventures than Four Swords.
I was debating how much I wanted to buy this game for a long while. I was completely uninterested in its stage-based setup, craving an actual adventure instead, and there were times I almost wondered if this would be the first ever Zelda title I would pass on. I thought about how fun it might be to play with friends, and I did know several people who would be picking it up... but I just came back to that thought, that multiplayer Zelda titles just don't appeal to me that much. Yes, there was a single-player mode, but it looked somewhat tedious, which was corroborated by friends and reviewers.
I actually managed to play the multiplayer demo before the game was released and ended up on a squad of competent teammates. It was fun, to be perfectly honest. Not great, but an enjoyable little experience. It still didn't sell me on the game though. In fact, I wouldn't pick this game up for almost a year after its release, when it saw a price cut and I had a gift card for GameStop I received on my birthday. That was when I decided to suck it up and pick up what was, to me, my least-anticipated Zelda game of all time.
Originally, I intended to play both single- and multiplayer modes, but I've been unable to arrange a multiplayer session as of writing, so I decided to go ahead and write this chronicle. Therefore, this post will be focused on the single-player aspect of this game.
Might as well start with the story of this game: The fashion-obsessed kingdom of Hytopia had a very pretty princess, who the jealous Lady Maud cursed to wear an unseemly skintight onesie and be completely unfashionable. Horrifying. King Tuft, unable to free her of this garment, called for the legendary "Tri Force Heroes" to return to Hytopia and save the princess of her terrible fate and defeat the Lady. As you can tell, these are the most dire of circumstances.
Who are these Tri Force Heroes? Well, two of them are either nameless Link lookalikes, or two soulless "doppels" the third hero can transfer his soul between to venture on his own. The third? It's Link. Not just any Link, but the same hero from A Link Between Worlds! ... wait, what? No, seriously, what? How did he turn into Toon Link, instead of that Oracles-style Link with orange hair? And if this is supposed to be a couple years later, why does he look no older? Was Link, like, five in A Link Between Worlds?
This game doesn't seem to care about continuity at all, which only reinforces my point that it shouldn't have been a canon title. There's other minor things as well, such as an unlockable Linebeck outfit, despite that character being on a different timeline entirely, and more than a few enemies only seen previously in the Dark World or Lorule. It has its own quirkiness, but it's not one fitting for the Zelda universe I feel, especially all the cheesy dialogue with forced meme references. I'll hopefully make this the last time I say this, but it really should have been a spinoff title, or even a brand new IP that could be expanded past just the Zelda theme, but also reference several other Mario properties. I mean, it already has the Mario fireball sound and a Hammer Bro outfit, they might as well have gone all the way.
Well, let's talk about the mechanics, starting with those outfits I mentioned. This is actually a neat mechanic that opens up several opportunities for different play styles, with outfits that give you boosts in various ways, such as powering up a specific item, making hearts more common, making you run slightly faster, or powering up your sword. They're unfortunately a pain to acquire, as they require both rupees and specific materials to unlock. The rupees won't be too big of a deal, but getting the right materials can require some tedious grinding. Each material is found in a chest at the end of each level, with two common materials and one uncommon material, but you can only pick one chest. You could easily find yourself replaying levels to find the ones you need, and if you're unlucky, that can take many replays. There is an outfit that shows you what materials are in the chests, but even that requires a decent chunk of change and late-game materials to even buy it.
That's to say nothing of Madame Couture herself, who has a very annoying voice clip you'll be hearing often if you continue to seek new outfits, and a very forced usage of "le" in much of her dialogue, coming off as a very fake French accent. I really don't like this character.
Well, let's get into the actual gameplay. To start, you're playing as Link and the aforementioned doppels, which are activated by an old man who speaks a charm and brings them to life. Then, you have to move both doppels as well as yourself into the Triforce panels so it can warp you into the wild "Drablands," where your adventure will take place. This is a tedious experience; you should be able to just walk in and go to the levels, having the doppels follow, instead of having to move them onto the panels each time, or even reactivating them entirely if you leave the activation room. It's already a minor pain in a series of minor pains to come.
So let's talk about the level system. There's eight areas in the game, plus a ninth arena area that I opted not to try out. Each area has four levels, which are themselves broken up into four stages. The fourth stage is usually either a boss or enemy gauntlet stage, but the fourth stage of the fourth level in any area will always be a boss. The other stages are predominantly puzzle stages, with a couple enemy gauntlets thrown in, causing you to make use of a limited item system similar to both Four Swords games. Unlike Four Swords, however, there are only three items in each level, and you can only pick one of those three to use throughout all four stages with each Link. It gives the levels somewhat of an advantage in that they're streamlined to accommodate these weapon setups, so it's not too much of a complaint. It does, for some reason, freeze gameplay to show a cutscene of the last item pedestal disappearing, which was completely unnecessary.
You control the doppels by switching between the red and blue ones (as well as your original self) by tapping on their corresponding button on the touchscreen. There's a minor complaint here: I wish your main Link's button was the bottom button instead of the middle button, which often threw me off. Could just be me, though. Anyway, the main mechanic is the "totem" mechanic, used to throw your comrades up onto higher platforms, attack enemies higher up, or use weapons in a certain manner. Fortunately, if you're controlling the character on the bottom, you can still use the sword and item of the doppel on top while moving around, making this not too much of a pain. In fact, unless you need to break apart for certain enemies or puzzles, you can carry your doppels throughout the levels and only get rid of them for brief moments when you need to to move on. It's not as much of a pain as I thought it would be, though it does take a little getting used to at first.
So you're playing along, and it's pretty basic at first, but later on, they tend to throw some decently creative item usage at you, mainly involving combining the usage of two items. It might take a little practice pulling some of these off in single-player, but the concepts were generally neat enough that I didn't mind. There's even some outside-the-box thinking involved that I appreciated. Even enemy behaviors seem to be improved from A Link Between Worlds, so it isn't just a complete recycling of code. There are some enemies that are annoying, such as Stalfos and Like Likes, but the challenge in fighting enemies is certainly improved from the previous game. At the end of each stage, there are more Triforce panels. Being me, I tended to try to fill them in with the corresponding color locations: Red (Power) at the top, Blue (Wisdom) on the left, and Green (Courage) on the right. Each panel even makes a different toned chime; the notes were perfect enough that I was able to play the Goron's Lullaby from Majora's Mask on occasion.
Can we talk about bosses too? Because the bosses in this game are actually really good. Some require a bit of outside-the-box thinking for single-player, but this just makes them feel all the more rewarding. There are a bit too many eyeball bosses, but even these can be creative. I think this was honestly the game's strongest point, and I don't know if there's a single boss I disliked. Maybe the really basic large ChuChu boss, but otherwise, this game has some pretty good bosses. Stalchampion in particular. That was a very good boss that I highly enjoyed.
It's not all fun and games, though. There's a little bit of tedium, mainly involving the micromanagement of doppels on certain levels, which got on my nerves a time or two. They also brought back that horribly stupid mechanic from the Game Boy Advance games, where, if Link catches on fire, he will run around the room helplessly for a second or two and be unable to do anything. This mechanic is unfun, only serves to waste time, and shouldn't have returned. There's often text scrolling across the screen, announcing stuff like "Link took damage," "Link found 5 rupees," "Link got a heart," and "Danger!" and "Mayday!" messages when your hearts are low. This may be mildly helpful in multiplayer (though I'd argue it wouldn't), but it's 100% pointless in single-player.
After you've completed each level, you keep getting the same message: "Press X to take Miiverse photos while in the Drablands." Even if you do take a picture, it never goes away. This was another unnecessary time waster; in general, there were a couple other messages I wish I could just skip and move on. Speaking of skipping, you can apparently do just that: Skip stages, via the "Skip" button. It sacrifices one of your three revive fairies you get each level, but you won't really need those until the later stages, and it seems like an unnecessary system. You could say it's good for grinding materials, except skipping too many stages means you may not get any materials at all. Maybe it just means there's a chance for the chests to be empty, but I didn't bother trying to see for sure.
And can we talk about how there's a softlock in the game? In the fifth area, in the third stage of the third level, there's a chance to get permanently stuck, forcing you to have to die to restart the stage if you did it wrong or don't have the right costume. Exemplary work there. Did I mention development was aided by Grezzo, the ones behind not only the 3DS ports of the Nintendo 64 titles, but the port and expansion levels of the original Four Swords? Remember how bad those bonus stages were? That's a tangent.
Back to the areas, once you complete all levels in an area, you unlock challenge stages for each level, based on certain requirements such as beating it within a time limit, carrying an object to a goal, or other such challenges, with the promise of greater rewards. I only tried one of these. They're not worth it. And from what I understand? To achieve true 100% in this game, you have to play every stage and challenge twice: Once in multiplayer, and again in single-player. This... is stupid. You don't even get any true special rewards for it. Bad Nintendo. At least you get to visit some of the areas in any order you choose... ?
At least the music is good. No really, the music is pretty enjoyable. Maybe not quite as memorable as other tracks, but certainly well-done and fitting for each area. The tracks even change a bit if you're in a totem, adding an extra choir track which even differs depending on your position on the totem. It's quite neat, and I definitely give the soundtrack fairly high marks. It really is nice to listen to and overall well-done.
Wish I could say the same for the story and characters. The character designs are for the most part honestly quite charming. It's too bad they're squandered on the most shallow plot in the series, and given no character development at all other than personality traits. It's a major disappointment, and honestly, the game almost sends a bit of a warped message: All that matters is looking fashionable. At least, that's the takeaway I got from it. I know it's supposed to be a silly game, but it's just too silly for Zelda.
Overall... the game is just okay. There's honest-to-goddesses gems in here, genius moments, great bosses, and really good music. They're just buried in a sea of mild tedium, squandered characters, cheesy dialogue, and pitiful story. I lied, I'm saying it again: This shouldn't have been a main series title in the slightest. It's not the worst Zelda game out there, but it's certainly not the best. Or most average. It's just... okay. You could definitely do worse with your time, but you could certainly also do much better.
