The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes is Four Swords crossed with Final Fantasy X-2.
That means it’s a great Zelda game, but also one of the gayest games ever made. Gay in a good way, of course.
For those interested in the actual plot of a Zelda title, this one revolves around the stylish kingdom of Hytopia and one of its most loved royalty, Princess Styla. The fact that she’s stylish is rammed down your throat several times in the game’s opening minutes, so my inclusion of the word “stylish” was a intentional style choice in this review. Pun definitely intended.
At any rate, Styla gets a rather unstylish bodysuit glued to her, magically of course, and rather than just rocking it or putting clothes over the damn thing, she locks herself in her room. That causes all of the inhabitants of Hytopia to become horribly depressed, as they’ve all moved there from Los Angeles or something.
That out of the way, up walks Link, this time the chosen one because he’s, well, hot. Literally. He’s the eligible hero in this quest because he’s got pointy ears and sidepart. He starts off the game in garish robes, and Tri Force Heroes uses that fact to stylishly introduce one of the game’s core mechanics – costumes. The game has myriad outfits, each offering different buffs, essentially. Adopting the mantra of the game, I went for the prettiest outfits rather than ones that could help me whenever I possibly was able.
Hot cloak, don’t care. Hair too.
Now that we’ve firmly established that this world’s most heroic otter, Link, would rather save Mario than Styla, let’s move onto gameplay. Tri Force Heroes is full of clever puzzles and bosses that rely upon three Links to work together. The Links share Hearts, so if one is getting destroyed, the team gets destroyed. You can hurt your fellow Links… and even push them off cliffs. Although there’s not a suggested competitive portion to gameplay, it’s definitely implied.
As you might expect, Tri Force Heroes is at its best in in multiplayer, and that’s because the game’s been designed for three friends to tackle together. You can do so using one cartridge across three 3DSes in local play, or in in various capacities. Regional online multiplayer exists too, but I struggled to find a game. You can also tackle the game on your own, transferring control across the three in-game Links to solve puzzles.
The long and short of it is that I had the most fun with Tri Force Heroes at Nintendo’s booth at this year’s E3. That’s simply because three of us were in one place at one time, having a massive laugh. We worked together. We intentionally tried to kill one another. Most importantly, we could use our voices to communicate with one another to coordinate effectively. Nintendo-style (there’s that word again), you’re restricted to Link emotes to try to articulate your feelings when playing online. I guess you can talk to yourself in single-player, but you literally have to switch between Links before they’ll actually do anything – there’s no AI involved at all.
The result is a game that’s damn fun, but only when the planets align on the fourth Thursday of the seventh month of the year. It’s a damn shame too, because Tri Force Heroes is a great game, held back by too many shackles. If you’re a die-hard Zelda fan, this will hit all the right notes regardless, but honestly? This is best for those of you still living in a share house; use one copy between three of you and have at it.
The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes was reviewed using a promotional copy on 3DS, as provided by the publisher.
Review: The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes
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