What does the Destructoid UK Team think of Tri Force Heroes?

A lot of laughing and dying occurred

At the tail end of last week, UK editor Laura Dale and news team member Joe Parlock both whisked themselves away to the EGX games convention in Birmingham to play a bunch of unreleased video games. Looking for multiplayer games to try, they found themselves giving The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes a shot.

Laura went into the demo a dedicated Zelda series fan, having already played many of the easier demo levels of the game at E3. Laura was looking for a considerable Zelda challenge.

Joe went into the game a relative Zelda newbie, only recently playing his first entries in the series.

While Joe and Laura both had different takes on the game, they both had a good time repeatedly dying while trying to work together and accomplish heroic deeds.

Joe Parlock – Pleasently Surprised

Compared to a lot of people, I am an incredibly new Legend of Zelda fan. I didn’t play my first one in the series until earlier this year, starting with A Link Between Worlds. With the simple, responsive gameplay and fantastically designed puzzles, Between Worlds really made me fall in love with the series; I’m currently playing through Ocarina of Time on the 3DS for the very first time and am having a lot of fun with it.

When I heard that there was to be a new Zelda with three-player co-op on the 3DS in the same style as A Link Between Worlds, I was immediately excited. Fortunately, I got to try Tri Force Heroes out with Destructoid’s own Laura Dale and an unsuspecting member of the public at EGX 2015 in Birmingham.

Because Laura is apparently evil and cares little for the suffering of the less experienced of us, she guided our little team in to what was apparently the hardest level in the demo. There was lots of lava and lots of enemies, and considering the noise in the convention hall made communicating difficult, we died a lot. But god damn was it fun.

In a lot of ways it reminded me of Portal 2’s amazing co-op mode: Working with other people to solve puzzles (or, rather, frantically yelling “PICK ME UP DAMN IT” over the blaring noise of the Nintendo stage at EGX), making in-game gestures to help each other understand what was going on on the screen, and having far too much fun killing my own teammates were all incredibly fun.

Other than that, it felt just like the dungeons in A Link Between Worlds as their own expanded game. The boss fight saw us have to take the aggro of a big wormy thing, and then quickly pick each other up to do damage. It was just as well designed as anything from Between Worlds, and really made use of the co-op elements well.

I do have one minor concern about the game, though. Much like Portal 2’s co-op, I’m not convinced Tri Force Heroes will have the staying power that makes games like Ocarina of Time and A Link Between Worlds so popular. Playing with somebody who already knows the solutions to all of the puzzles could potentially be a frustrating experience that could only be exacerbated as time goes on. I can’t imagine playing this with random people on the Internet would be much fun six months after release as it could be on launch.

Overall though, I was blown away by my time with Tri Force Heroes. Not only did it prove to be a competent Zelda game to this newbie, it scratched that puzzle co-op itch I’ve had for four years now. I’m probably going to pick this up on day one, and I just need to convince Laura and Destructoid UK’s Vikki Blake to let me chuck them in lava come launch. I’m very excited.

Laura Dale – Cautiously Optimistic

As a long time dedicated fan of the Zelda series, I have been pretty excited for Tri Force Heroes since its announcement at E3. It may not be the sprawling single player epic I had initially hoped I would be playing at the end of this year, but the idea of dragging my friends into playing Zelda with me certainly has its own charms. 

At E3 a few months back I focused on playing some of the demo’s more entry level missions and exploring the grander scope of what the game is trying to do. You can have a read of those overview thoughts here.

With my time with the game at EGX, I was more interested in trying the hardest level on show and seeing how far I could push the game in ways it perhaps was not meant to be pushed. I came away pretty pleased with the level of challenge offered to core players, but a little concerned by some of the multiplayer dungeon design.

So, let’s start with the positives. The volcano dungeon we played through at EGX was tough. A strong mix of puzzles and combat, I was most surprised to see how many of the puzzles risked injury and death if not completed in a timely manner. In place of simply sliding block puzzles, we instead had sliding block puzzles in tight spaces with lava spewing from the floor below. The challenge was not just work out how to complete this puzzle, but execute your solution as a team, with a very minor margin for error, or face punishment. 

The added level of risk involved in executing puzzle gameplay really encouraged team discussion, forming solid plans of attack before moving and working together as a team very quickly. Team communication was vital, and that was a very pleasant surprise. I’m glad to see even seasoned Zelda veterans are going to have a hard time successfully navigating these dungeons.

The boss of the volcano dungeon we faced was a particular highlight, standing toe-to-toe with many of the series’ more memorable bosses in terms of mechanics. The boss would at any one time have eyes that glowed matching the tunic of one player. That player would be chased by the boss, but the other players wouldn’t. Those players not being chased would have to get behind the boss, form a tower and attack the bosses raised tail. If you successfully harm the boss or it successfully harms you, the player being chased will switch up, instantly requiring the team to scramble and reformulate their layout.

The boss was challenging, hectic, and just fast enough to pose an ever-present threat to the team as a unit.

One of the more concerning aspects that popped up during my time with this demo however is that it was possible to get the team into positions where they could not progress, and using up one of the team’s three continues was the only was to restart the section we were trapped in. From progressing from the starting platform before every player has picked an item from the pedestals provided to throwing a player onto a platform from which they could not get themselves back, there were a couple of places in the dungeon where careless play could result in an unwinnable situation. While this is currently just a demo, I would like to see a penalty-free way for the team to return to the beginning of the current room in the dungeon.

Still, the more of Tri Force Heroes I play the more convinced I am that mechanically, this Zelda game is going to be what I am after. Challenging temples, frantic gameplay necessitating minimal margins of error, and boss designs that feel fresh and unique. Yep, I’m pretty pleased with what I’m seeing of Tri Force Heroes.