3 gba's and connector cables
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3 gba's and connector cables
No - 4 GBA's and cables. I originally made this assumption, too. With 4 Swords Adventures, as soon as you are playing multilayer, -everyone- needs a GBA hooked into the Gamecube for it to work. To reiterate another way, the only way you can play with a Gamecube controller is in a 1 player game. This is the same rules for Crystal Chronicles, the only other American 4-player Gamecube+GBA game.
...fucking hell
that must have been one hell of a financial outlay back in 2003
Yeah, buying those 4 GBAs AND link cables AND a Gamecube AND the game was pretty excessive back then, but an awesome experience. These days it wouldn't cost much. Four Swords Adventures is probably the most expensive single item from the entire package.
Yeah but how cool is that? Immagine trying to play Riding Hero 2 player back in the Day or Doom on the Atari Jaguar back in the day. I never once, not never, saw two consoles hooked up until XBOX Lan Parties on Halo.Quote:
Originally Posted by Guntz
I'll break it down - second hand, I was able to get the cables for $8 a cable. For the original, non-SP GBA's, I was able to get them at $25 a piece. As far as the 4 Swords game, It's been a long time since I remember purchasing it, but it sells for about $20 on Ebay. These days you can get a Gamecube setup for around/less than $30. There are two other notable Gamecube games that have multilayer built around GBA link-ups, Pac Man VS. and Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles. I picked up the Pac Man World 2 / Pac Man VS. Double Disc pack for $12 and Crystal Chronicles for $8 at a local game shop. Unless someone can share otherwise, I'd say across these 3 games you have the 'complete' GBA->Gamecube link cable multiplayer experience. Starting from scratch this setup runs $170, not counting Gamecube controllers or batteries / worm lights for your shitty, almost-invisible GBA screens :P If you have a couple Gameboys and a Gamecube already it drops the price dramatically. No matter what, and I'd recommended you do some research and see if a highly as a unique, Nintendo pre-WiiU testing grounds multiplayer experience is up your alley.
I'll give some mini-reviews of the games as I know them so far...
'Zelda: 4 Sword Adventures' is arcadey and fast paced. It uses updated '2000's 2d Zelda' mechanics to let you quest with your friends in 20-30 minute episodic blocks, often encouraging the players to teeter between cooperative and competitive. Of course the main gimmick is the interplay between the main shared screen and the tangent caves, doors or pits that take your Link inside your Gameboy. In the first or second level, this interplay seems redundant, but as the game progresses this mechanic is brought to fruition, encouraging the players who are observing different parts of the world to verbally orchestrate path finding and puzzle solutions. All in all it's pretty awesome, and at the risk or sounding cliche, it's quite a unique multiplayer experience.
'Crystal Chronicles' is a bit different, more of a slow-paced Gauntlet. Players share a space inside a protective ring, and are damaged if they leave it. This means players must have constant orchestration of their movement to explore the map and attack foes. It's not as cumbersome as it sounds, and is a simple but effective way to encourage constant cooperation. Along the way, you pick up items, equipment, magic, etc. in the typical RPG fashion, with an emphasis on 'family' and 'race' differentiators to what items and spells work best for your particular character. The GBA is used a bit more simply in this one, where it acts as the window where you set your items, weapons and spells you use in-game, as well as acting as your only map. The dynamic here is that everything is in real time, as you take your eyes off the screen in battle, your friends must protect you as you figure out what spells to combine, what item to use on the boss, where to go, etc. I haven't put much time into this one yet, but so far it seems like a deep, well-made 'dungeon crawl' that utilizes oddly both the strengths and weaknesses of multiplayer interaction to build a tense, albeit slower-paced game. Oh, it also looks gorgeous.
'Pac-Man VS'. is basically Pac-Man, where one player plays as Pac-Man and the other players control the ghosts. It only uses one GBA link-up, which is given to players in rotation. The game's box proudly touts Miyamoto as the developer, and it indeed has that elegant, simplistic charm that he is praised for. The 'gimmick' to this one is the limitation of perspective - only the player controlling Pac-Man (on the GBA) can view the entire map, the others have limited lenses around their ghostly selves that make finding and killing the yellow bastard more of a chore. Aside from this basic premise, there are only a few modifiers that set this apart from a game of literal, old-school Pac-Man. First, when a ghost eats a piece of bonus fruit his viewing area temporarily broadens and his perspective pulls back, making him much more likely to find and kill his target. The second is that Pac-man leaves a streaking trail, giving the ghosts more likelihood to find him. It's a simple but very carefully balanced multiplayer experience, and isn't as disjointed as my review makes it sound. Most of the time players are in a state of 'oh shit oh shit oh shit', with an almost car-chase feeling to winning no matter what side you're on, with last second turns and tricky evades usually rewarded with victory.
Anyways, I've rambled quite a bit, but all in all, if you have the scratch and the willingness to dive into a Nintendo-sponsored oddity of multiplayer game-design, I highly recommend it.
Quasi-bump, but I also would like to know if anyone has any opinions on these games that support or disagree with my impressions.