Realm of Memories: Starting a new adventure together

The release of Four Swords Adventures for the GameCube was a pretty exciting event for me in 2004, but it wasn’t the most exciting thing to happen that year. The thought of playing a multiplayer Zelda was an intriguing new prospect since I missed out on the original Four Swords. Nintendo certainly didn’t make adventuring with a friend easy on fans. You not only needed a GameCube and a copy of the game, but you also needed multiple Game Boy Advances and link cables. Having upgraded from my plain, vanilla white Game Boy Advance to a silver Game Boy Advance SP, I was one of those lucky few who had the necessary amount of portable systems and link cables to quest with a friend.

Getting to play with anyone and share my love of Zelda with them would be amazing, but the fact that I got to play Four Swords Adventures with my newly engaged fiance is what made this experience truly unforgettable. 

Having made our way up the mountainous paths of Death Mountain, we had faced many obstacles and had many conversations. Questions about who those rock creatures were had led to telling my fiance about the Gorons and my own experiences playing Ocarina of Time as a child.

Moments that stumped me had been solved when she suggested jumping on top of the Thwomps (whom she remembered from Mario Kart). We’d grabbed the jars of water and split up to put out many fires, but we always came back together to continue the adventure. When obstacles blocked our path, we discussed (not always calmly as frustration occasionally crept in) our options and eventually settled on using the Fire Pot to light the fuses of the bombs to blow away our troubles. 

As we crested the summit of the mountain, Kaepora Gaebora warned us that the infamous Helmaroc King was ahead. As we stepped forward into the next screen, the way back was blocked as the familiar boss theme started to play. The challenges we’d faced going up the path had tested us and turned us into a formidable pair.

As the voracious bird swooped down on us, my fiance and I scattered to avoid damage. Having grabbed the hammer earlier in the level, she tried to smack the king’s mask off of his face, just as she’d watched me do to him earlier. It was a sound strategy that unfortunately didn’t work here. As she took damage and spun off from her attack, I prepared a different method. I grabbed a nearby Bomb and as the colossal bird dive-bombed me, I tossed the explosive and took my revenge. No overstuffed turkey hurts my fiance and gets away with it! 

The blast and the smoke did the trick and our enemy soon face planted right into the side of a hill. As I watched it struggle to free its head, my fiance darted into the cave entrance on the side of the hill. As I waited, she described what she was seeing on the tiny Game Boy Advance screen she held in her hands. The ferocious fowl’s head was in the cave, and she was pummeling it with the hammer. Soon the bird had taken flight again, but it had one less weapon to use against us now that we knew how to bring it down. We repeated the process, but this time I cuddled up to her and watched her screen as she battered the Helmaroc King’s mask past the breaking point because I wanted to see the very inventive way that Nintendo had used the second screen for myself. 

Without its mask, my fiance and I knew that the fiend was close to its final molting point, so we pressed our attack. I continued to bomb it out of the sky, and as it fell to the ground, she was waiting with a spin attack charged and ready to be unleashed. With an explosion of feathers, we had defeated the enemy in front of us. There was nothing we couldn’t do together. Over the weeks following the defeat of the Helmaroc King, we continued the quest, eventually laying both Vaati and Ganon to rest.

Throughout it all, we had talked. I had shared stories of playing previous games in the series with my mom and the lore of all the returning characters. After learning the basic concepts of the Zelda series’s puzzles, she more often than not knew the best way to proceed. Our battle plans were not always perfect, and they occasionally led to minor squabbles among our Hyrulian heroes as we debated the best course of action.

We always came through though and eventually we overcame the obstacle, and after any particularly spicy arguments, there were apologies and occasionally junk food. Looking back on it now, our time with Four Swords Adventures is actually a good representation of our marriage. As life throws obstacles at us, we’re occasionally surprised and saddened by our fates. We sometimes bicker and fight over what to do, but we always come back together and continue the journey. No Helmaroc King nor Ganon will ever stop us.

Ellie Applebee

Ellie Applebee has been playing Zelda games as long as they've been made but loves nothing more than sharing them with others. When not playing, reading, or writing about Zelda, Ellie teaches English and Yearbook, reads comics, and plays tabletop games with her wife and daughter.

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