Tonight marked the first of three online multiplayer sessions for The Legend of Zelda: Triforce Heroes. Nintendo sent out demo codes earlier in the week allowing for three preliminary stages to be played online.
The demo does not include the single player option for the game but does feature local co-op multiplayer. The email which was sent out also included a pair of additional codes to allow for giving friends a copy of the demo as well. Unfortunately for us we don’t have a central office so we were limited to the online portion of the demo.
The demo lets you team up with two other players online, either from your friend’s list or random. Likewise you can choose between three different stages, with each player casting their vote before a roulette spins through the decide which course you will all be playing. While you can interact with your fellow players with the use of little icons on the screen, part of the challenge in the game is not only figuring out what you need to do to advance in the level, but also in communicating your intentions and needs to the other players.
You have several commands at your disposal, including throw and totem, which you can use to tell your fellow players if you need to stack up to complete a task. One of the most useful is the “over here” command which can help other players know where to go if they’re new and aren’t sure where to go.
One of the mechanics that I’m not sure if I like is that stacking. It’s an integral part of the game, but when you drop down from a higher level I accidentally ended up atop my fellow player far too often. Also at one point all three of us had to join in to push and pull a large stone. The only problem is that if they’re not facing quite the right way they would end up picking up another player. This ended up being more annoying than anything else.
I’m also not too sure if I’m sold on everyone sharing a heart supply. It makes complete sense in one respect because if one player were to run out of hearts and parish there would be no way to continue. And gathering hearts can be done by any player to heal the group. However it does put the more experienced player at a disadvantage if he or she is playing with a less experienced player.
I think that, like Splatoon previously, this was moreso a test for Nintendo to get their servers set up and functioning. With the many horror stories of server issues on day one with many PC games, this is a good idea. Especially since in the early going I had a lot of trouble. I’m not sure if it was my connection, other players or Nintendo but it took many tries to get out of the lobby and into my first battle.
If you didn’t get a chance to play the demo yet you have two more chances.
- Saturday October 17: 8 PM – 1 AM ET
- Sunday October 18: 10 AM – 3 PM ET
The Legend of Zelda: Triforce Heroes will be released for the Nintendo 3DS on October 23rd and is rated E. It retails for $49.99.
